Maybe this would be easier if you just told us what your ultimate point is – are you in favor of women’s ordination, and presenting an argument to support it; or are you against it, and just using this as a backhanded argument to bash Vatican II by saying that the same principles the Council applied to the Mass could be applied to arrive at ridiculous results like women’s ordination? My guess is the latter, but why don’t you fill us in?
Excellent points all.
I’m an Episcopalian now (having come back to the fold recently), but I was a Catholic for a short span of seven years. Female clergy doesn’t particularly bother me (actually, one of the first-ordained female ministers in the U.S. was assigned to my childhood parish, so to my lights it’s always seemed pretty commonplace to begin with).
OK, now I get what the jig is. I knew there was an ulterior motive to this thread.
Seems to me the argument above is like throwing stones in a glass house. Priestesses aside, there certainly are plenty of Anglican/Episcopalian pseudo-liturgies out there. The Anglican communion is certainly no stranger to its own variety of the Novus Ordo.
You think priestesses make a difference? Think again. What you speak of is an “ever-ballooning crisis” in the media, spurred on by the usual combination of sensationalism and outright greed.
I’ve not been a fan of the Novus Ordo from the day it appeared, nor have I voluntarily attended it nearly that long, but at least it’s valid. One cannot say the same for a service conducted by a priestess.
mazel tov.As it stands for me personally, I currently have a very nice scene: I attend an Episcopal parish with estimable Anglo-Catholic worship, and don’t mind the female vicar being there at all.
And one of the greatest dilemnas I have is that the Catholic Church when meeting in Council can either define doctrine, or it can not. If it can not, then we have not Tradition. If it can the we must not dismiss The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church when it is produced by the Catholic Church meeting in council.
Ah. I see. You are talking about a wildly speculative future, like if suddenly a Pope announced that Jesus was not divine or something. I see why you are no longer Catholic. My faith is in the promise of Jesus. Yes, it would be possible if a future Pope defined that a female is not female in the sense of gender. But I see that too as absurd as the first example. If you are ever proven right, I will consider that you might have a point, but I will not hold my breath and think I will see alligators with wings first.
Well, presumably there is an honest imperative behind every thread created, and I hope that you will extend to me the benefit of the doubt. Just to make clear: my “motives” here are wholly contained in the OP, in which I wonder whether female ordination is no more radical than other changes made at Vatican II. I don’t think the fact that I’m Episcopalian can be said to be “ulterior,” since I’ve been honest about it when asked. It shouldn’t be any more of an issue if we stick to the original premise. In the interest of responding to your comments, though, I’ll address the following:
Six and a half dozen. At least the Anglican prayer book retains the phrase “for many.” Does the gender of the celebrant render a Mass any less valid than the corruption of the sacramental form?
I do wonder if priestesses would make a difference. It is, after all, the Catholic Church which insists on the intrinsic difference in the nature of the sexes. Some motherly compassion would’ve gone a long way in the abuse crisis, and been a lot more beneficial than twisted fraternal loyalty. True, not all women in positions of power tend to display the matronly virtues, but most of the women who pursue a vocation in the ministry (at least in the Episcopal Church) are Social Gospelers. Kind ladies, in my experience.
That does appear to be the party line, and it will doubtless assuage the devout. Many of the accusations brought forth thus far, however, have yet to be adequately answered. If you live in the U.S., you’ll perhaps remember the pronounced difference in perspective (along racial lines) following the O.J. Simpson trial. Catholics are quite welcome to offer a condemnation of media motives in the defense of their hierarchy, but in the court of public opinion this is apt to sound an awful lot like “the Juice was framed!”
Naturally, I have to disagree. The very words of consecration in the Mass are a serious business. They can hardly be said to fall under “small t” tradition, especially since they are universally attested to in all of the Christian rites from the earliest extant documents—notwithstanding the Quo Primum, the formal decree on Eucharistic validity depending on the integrity of the words. Surely the consecration is an essential, not an external. As I indicated earlier, this couldn’t be any more subject to change than the all-male priesthood.
You keep saying this, however, you’re mistaken on two points. The words of institution are “This is my body” and “This is . . . my blood.” The remainder, while very important to the form of the Mass, is not strictly speaking necessary for the consecration to take place. Second, as you may or may not be aware, there are legitimate forms of the Mass which do not use the words at all, yet are “attested” in very, very early Christian rites. Specifically, the Chaldean and Assyrian Churches use a prayer called the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, which dates to the earliest days. In 2001 these Churches were received into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church (you can read about it here), and although if you were a sacramental scholar I suppose you could make an argument that these churches don’t have valid sacraments, you certainly can’t argue that “all of the Christian rites from the earliest extant documents” use the sacramental language you seem to prefer.
I’m convinced, and I’m joining Call To Action. What the heck, it’s all good
Exactly - indeed we can, as Ygg puts it, happily dismiss Pius V in favour of John Paul II, or Trent in favour of Vatican II since if any Pope or Council is lacking in authority then none of them have that authority.
This was a point of contention between sacramental theologians prior to Trent, but St. Thomas Aquinas appears to have endorsed the long form-only position. And in any case, De Defectibus clearly affirms it. St. Pius V says that the words of consecration are everything from Hic est enim calix sanguinis mei to remissionem peccatorum.
The fact that they were united with the Church in 2001 takes the wind out of that example’s sails. All that indicates to me is that a post-conciliar Roman hierarchy which continues not to care about the sacramental form has decided also not to lecture incoming Eastern Churches on their own deficiencies. That is not a surprise. Thank you very much for the correction on historical matters, though. I am happy to retract my assertion that “all the extant documents” attest to “for many,” and I concede that an infinitesimally small number of Christian rites employ the extreme short form. But their existence can prove neither their own validity nor the Novus Ordo’s. De Defectibus still stands as the Church’s stated standard for the integrity of the form (at least until the implicit reversal in the 1960s). And if the official sacramental theology can be contradicted, then we’re back to why can’t the all-male clergy?
Well put, and that sums up the difference in our approaches quite nicely.
I’m sure many would dispute the contention that “incredibly little to do with the form of the Mass or Liturgy has dogmatic significance,” especially since Trent issued a series of anathemas based on holding unorthodox opinions about the Mass. At any rate, St. Thomas offers an interesting nugget regarding the insertion of mysterium fidei and non-Scriptural wordings:
You are correct, not all are saved. This shows the ignorance of many (not all) in Theology and what the prayer is actually saying. It also shows you either did not understand what I said or ignored what I said.
That is false. It won’t happen.
The dreaded spirit of Vatican II does not exist. I was there before and after. Vatican II has become the scapegoat. It’s wrong to look at it that way.
More Vatican II bashing. No Female Priests Ever. Not because there is a priest shortage, or “ever-ballooning” abuse crisis. No Female Priests for any excuse. Pope John Paul II was quite clear, the Catholic Church has no authority.I’m an Episcopalian now (having come back to the fold recently), but I was a Catholic for a short span of seven years. Female clergy doesn’t particularly bother me (actually, one of the first-ordained female ministers in the U.S. was assigned to my childhood parish, so to my lights it’s always seemed pretty commonplace to begin with).
My intentions here were provoked by the criticism I’ve recently received from Catholics who are quick to criticize the allowance for female clergy in the Anglican Communion. I’m rather conservative in my outlook, but my opinion is basically that if the Roman Church is going to jettison its own great traditions of solemn antiquity, I’d rather it not have made the post-Vatican II liturgical changes, and instead allowed for female priests. At any rate, in the spirit of playing Devil’s advocate and trying to raise some consciousness about the problems inherent in Vatican II (which is why I left Rome), I aver that the window for female clergy has now been opened—and that it might be considered as a partial solution to the ever-ballooning abuse crisis.
I don’t suppose most Catholics would agree with me, but I’d much prefer the paradigm of having the “Tridentine” (for lack of a better term) Mass and female clergy, as opposed to a boy’s club celebrating the Novus Ordo (which I’m hesitant to even call a Mass). As it stands for me personally, I currently have a very nice scene: I attend an Episcopal parish with estimable Anglo-Catholic worship, and don’t mind the female vicar being there at all.
I beg your pardon. I answered Mr. Thompson in post no. 23, indicating that I support female ordination—firstly, by virtue of being an Episcopalian (otherwise I’d be something else). Now as far as the Roman Church is concerned, I’m merely on the outside looking in—but I offered to Mr. Thompson that were I a Roman Catholic, I would also favor it (at least a lot more than I favor the changes of Vatican II).
Read the OP. Or read the title of the thread. I am interested in female ordination in light of Vatican II. I think it’s a worthwhile intellectual exercise. Vatican II set a huge precedent: serious matters of tradition and Church teaching were turned virtually on their heads. Now if you think I have “no direct evidence whatsoever” for this hypothesis, then kindly present a historical instance which would affirm the implementation of the Novus Ordo. Since the development of the liturgy was always of a slow and organic nature, why are the sweep and scope of the Novus Ordo changes (in a very short period of time) not considered a rupture in continuity? And why does the design of the new Mass so closely mirror the Protestant model, since many of the Protestant changes were solemnly condemned at the Council of Trent? If something can be heterodox one day and orthodox the next, then I don’t know what. All I can do is suggest that female ordination is at least negotiable under these circumstances.
The victimology has nothing to with it. Statistically speaking, women are far less likely to rape or molest than men are. But that wasn’t even my point. I spoke of women possibly having more concern for the victims than certain men in the Church have apparently had. That, admittedly, is mere speculation, since we can’t go back in time and replace Bernard Law with a lady Cardinal.
The texts themselves are blameworthy, as Onegin has already indicated. To give another example: Sacrosanctum Concilium not only allows for “radical change” (§40), but it explicitly permits the diocesan bishop to decide on the extent of vernacular usage: “it is for the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority to decide whether, and to what extent, the vernacular language is to be used” (§36.3). A vast majority of the bishops (and they were the Council, after all, so their interpretation should reflect the Council’s intent) went home and established all-vernacular services in every parish in their diocese, in contradiction of the Council of Trent: “If any one says that the mass ought to be celebrated in the vulgar tongue only; let him be anathema.” On a practical level, what Trent forbade was almost universally implemented, and Vatican II expressly allowed for it. In the document. No distortion required.