Female priests

[promethius]

But they wouldn’t be being “the same”.
One would be a male priest and one would be a female priest.
Equal, but different!

No. One would be a male priest, the other would be a female. Equal, but different. The bottom line is that women cannot be priests.

That’s the most illogical, offensive sentence I’ve ever read.

And only a very, very, very, very insecure and threatened man would think and say such a thing.

Oh no, it’s quite true. If you look at the way that the “feminist” movement disparages women who choose traditional female roles, such as staying home to raise children, you rapidly see that unless a woman behaves like a traditional man, she is regarded poorly by the so-called “feminists”.

If “feminists” actually cared about equality of women, they would be saying it’s okay for women to enter traditionally male roles, and EQUALLY okay for men to enter traditionally female roles… while not disparaging anyone who chooses to do so. The reality is the feminist movement isn’t about female equality at all, but getting women to act like men through disparaging those who don’t pull the norm.

If a man wanted to do something that, traditionally, was only a woman’s job…like, for example-- become a nurse…women would not accuse him of “wanting to be a woman”. We’d think he wants to help people when they are sick.

If that were true, we would see gender parity in the fields you’re talking about. Instead, the areas of nursing, teaching, and administrative assistance are majority filled with women… why? Because men who go into these roles are stigmatized. Again, this is because the feminist movement has never been interested in uplifting respect for women and the roles they’ve played…

Women want to be priests for the same reasons men want to be priests-- to help people spiritually.

If you think that’s all a priest does, then you need to study the Catholic faith a lot more. If that were all that a priest does, then there would be no need for a priesthood at all.

Just because a woman wants to be a doctor or lawyer or bricklayer or scientist -]or priest/-]…it does not mean we want to be men. It means we have smarts and abilities

I’ve crossed out the erroneous part. Women do not have the abilities required to be a priest any more than men have the abilities to be mothers. All the others, certainly.

Could it not be possible that someone over 1500 years ago mis-translated or mis-perceived a few sentences in the bible when the rulebook was being decided upon…thereby throwing out an entire gender from Mass?

If I didn’t believe the church to be magisterially infallible, I wouldn’t even be catholic, or even Christian for that matter. So no, I don’t think it could be possible.

Do we listen to this one?:

“Women should be silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but should be submissive, as the law also says.” (1 Corinthians 14:34)

Yes, it’s one of the scriptural backings for no women giving homilies (aka, being priests)

Funny how, when all the male bishops or whoever were putting together the rulebook…they decided on this.

Actually, they didn’t decide on it. The levitical priesthood is the basis and precursor to the new covenant priesthood and was handed down to the people by God. At the time of Christianity’s formation, there were actually many pagan priestesses and such… so the COUNTER cultural of the time was maintaining the Jewish tradition of a male only priesthood… something Christ Himself chose to maintain.

As a favor, please stop spamming the board with so many responses, especially since this is a violation of the rules… and at least if you are going to multi-post, put some substance into them…

She only “thinks” or “feels” she’s got a calling, but she is mistaken? For decades?

Correct. A calling is not necessarily a desire or a feeling.

I guess that happens to men, too. They think they have callings to be priests, but they are mistaken, and they have to leave the priesthood.

Correct, however, this has nothing to do with allowing women to become priests. And certainly, some priests who turn away may really HAVE been called, but later turn their back on that calling.

But if women are so perfect and high in title and doctors of the church…it stands to reason that…we’d be great priests!

No it doesn’t, any more than the ability of men to be great doctors of the church would make us great mothers.

And who, specifically, interpreted this to mean women should not be priests and made it the rule?

The magisterium has spoken, and the rule continues validly from the levitical priesthood. If you don’t believe in the authority of the Magisterium, why are you catholic?

 

[Elizabeth502]

Don’t you see the injunction or ‘end of all argument’ is a chimera. The argument and questions and desire for women’s ordination will always exist as long as the inequality and injustice represented by the prohibition of the ordination of women to the priesthood exists. To say that the church has no authority to change this is absurd, as Jesus clearly gave the church the authority to do so. “Your name is Peter, and on you my rock, I will build my church.?”

So was John Paul II “absurd” when he said this?

Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church’s judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.

Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.

Invoking an abundance of divine assistance upon you, venerable brothers, and upon all the faithful, I impart my apostolic blessing.

From the Vatican, on May 22, the Solemnity of Pentecost, in the year 1994, the sixteenth of my Pontificate.

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_22051994_ordinatio-sacerdotalis_en.html

 

[promethius]

There was only one Jewish temple.

Pardon me, Reform Jews call all synagogues temples now. I’ll refrain from using their terminology in the future if it confuses people.

 

[promethius]

I am sad, it’s true…I’m sad about this situation.
But I’m not suspicious. I just haven’t read anything yet that makes logical sense to me…and I’m worried a mistake has been made because of misinterpretation or mistranslation or wrong context or missing gospels/books, etc, etc…and I’m worried that thousands of women whom God may have meant and wanted to be priests and have been called to God for the last 2,000 years have been denied because of a human error :crying:

As I said before, if you don’t believe in the magisterium of the church, why do you care? If there is no magisterial authority of the church, then we must recognize the church as a false and lying institution to make such a claim… at which point we must look at the entire bible as a fallible document with no assurance of veracity.

At that point we choose something other than Christian as the only option.

Mary Magdalene…we consider her a disciple of Jesus, right?

Along with thousands of others.

I keep seeing her referred to a as “the apostle of the apostles” in articles I am reading ad that she preached. And she stayed with Jeshua at the cross when all the other male “apostles” fled. After Jesus died, she continued preaching in Italy and Rome.

Well, we know the claim that all the male apostles fled is false, since John was there at the foot of the Cross.

I’d like to know where the claim that Mary Magdalene was called “the apostle of the apostles” came from, or where anyone holds that she preached anywhere, much less in Italy or Rome.

And after she was so loyal and faithful to Jeshua…what happens?

Who is Jeshua? I think you mean YESHUA.

A pope 600 hundred years later declares her a prostitute with no facts to back this up. So this most loyal servant of Jesus was called a prostitute since around 600 AD until the Vatican *corrected *this unfortunate error in in 1969.

What Pope Gregory said was not that she absolutely WAS a prostitute, but rather tht he personally believed her to be the same Mary mentioned by John, and by Luke as the even more ambiguous “sinful woman”. Yes, there is ambiguity here, and treating Pope Gregory’s personal interpretation as dogmatic is erroneous. The church has not “corrected” an error here, but rather removed this personal interpretation from a compendium of NON-magisterial teachings.

Furthermore, while the church no longer promotes this non magisterial teaching, based on the scriptures alone it IS a valid interpretation… just one that we have no actual evidence to corroborate. So it is not WRONG, it simply isn’t verifiably RIGHT either.

However, what I would like to know is on what grounds you call Mary Magdalene the “most loyal servant of Jesus”?

So what I’m saying is…there is such a thing as human error and misunderstanding and misinterpretation. Even by a pope.

In the realm of personal opinion, yes. In the realm of magisterial teaching: no.

But, I think…if people are getting all uppity and upset about female alter servers today…it’s gonna be a looooooooong haul.

Actually, here I agree. Pheobe was an altar server recorded in the scriptures, so there should be no problem with women playing the same role.

Since Mary M is the only disciple who stayed with him at the end when he died on the cross (right?)

Incorrect. The disciple John was there. This is the one to about whom Jesus told His mother “behold your son”.

witnessed his rising, both firsthand…two important moments that involved his sacrifice that none of the other Apostles witnessed…

Actually, nobody witnessed the resurrection. When the women approached the tomb the resurrection had already happened and the stone was rolled away.

And she did preach after he died, right?

No. There’s no valid source for that claim.

However, I must also point out the reason the apostles had to flee and the women did not: the apostles were regarded as potential people who would spread God’s word, while the women were no threat to the Jewish rulers of the day. Namely, the Apostles were in danger because they were the preachers.

 

[JD27076]

I dont think Women should be priest.

 

[Mudgely]

Anyone have any idea what this sentence means from the article?the government would uphold the right of the Catholic Church to preserve an all-male priesthood, but only “because the balance of relative public and private interests is different in each case.”

I interpreted that as the Government has the opinion that the public interest of equal employment rights for women would be furthered by opposing the private interest of Catholics and the Church to their interpretation of scripture. I thought that was an odd argument, because there is also a public interest in preserving religious liberty and freedom of speech.

 

[onmyknees]

Is that your opinion, or do you have a source for that?

No offence intended, but I have difficulty imagining the Church working with that type of analogy. It sounds to me more like the type of theology that you can hear in a pub or read on the internet rather than learn in a church.

thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/first-mass.html

Sunday, 31 July 2011
First Mass Print E-mail
By David G. Bonagura, Jr.
1

“The sacraments,” said Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, “are a kind of contact with God himself. They show that this faith is not a purely spiritual thing, but one that involves community and creates community.” Of the seven sacraments, priestly ordination – and the subsequent first Mass – involves and creates community like no other. Faithful from far and wide across a diocese, some of whom never even having met the ordinandi, come together as contact with God is made: by God’s power individual men are made priests of Jesus Christ forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

Here is a source.

I experienced this moving spiritual dynamic recently when four men in my own diocese celebrated their “marriage” to their bride, the Church. Priestly ordination is the ultimate challenge to secularism’s myopic worldliness: the complete gift of self to an invisible reality that lies beyond the verification of empirical science. The hundreds of faithful who gather at the ordination liturgy and the first Mass come to support the new priests’ commitment to the Transcendent. In the celebration of this sacrament we see firsthand that the Church – contrary to media reports, condemnations by pundits, and even her own self-inflicted wounds – is still alive and committed to the Lord with authentic faith, hope, and love.

And here is a source from the Bible. Rev. 21: 1-4 my favorite verse.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a great voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them, he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.”

 

[dingodile]

As I said before, if you don’t believe in the magisterium of the church, why do you care? If there is no magisterial authority of the church, then we must recognize the church as a false and lying institution to make such a claim… at which point we must look at the entire bible as a fallible document with no assurance of veracity.

At that point we choose something other than Christian as the only option.

For what it’s worth, I think one can reasonably doubt the Magisterium, accept the fallibility of the Bible and all Biblical teaching, and still choose to be Christian (though not, perhaps, as the “only option”). And of course some who fit this description still see themselves as loyal Catholic dissenters. I recognize that this will strike the orthodox as an oxymoron, but as (part of) an answer to “Why do you care?” I think it’s relevant.

There are Catholics, including priests, who doubt the Magisterium but who stick around because they care. I think at least some who argue for the ordination of women fall into this category.

 

[onmyknees]

Originally Posted by DaddyGirl View Post
I am sad, it’s true…I’m sad about this situation.
But I’m not suspicious. I just haven’t read anything yet that makes logical sense to me…and I’m worried a mistake has been made because of misinterpretation or mistranslation or wrong context or missing gospels/books, etc, etc…and I’m worried that thousands of women whom God may have meant and wanted to be priests and have been called to God for the last 2,000 years have been denied because of a human error

Hi DaddyGirl,
You don’t have to worry that their has been a human error in the teachings of the Church, whether it is the putting together of the bible or all the doctrines or dogmas because the Holy Spirit is the one that guides the Church and it’s successors in all teachings. God cannot make mistakes.

John 14:25 Jesus is speaking to his 12 apostles when He said this to them, ** “These things I have spoken to you, while I am still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring you to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”**

And of course Matt:16 18-19 When Jesus was speaking to the apostles. "And I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock’ I will build my church and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

 

[Odell]

I think the government should look into the NFL. I don’t recall any professional female football players there are cheerleaders this is outright sexist. And men can be cheerleaders but woman cant play football.:tsktsk:

 

[gkrohm]

"What Pope Gregory said was not that she absolutely WAS a prostitute, but rather tht he personally believed her to be the same Mary mentioned by John, and by Luke as the even more ambiguous “sinful woman”. Yes, there is ambiguity here, and treating Pope Gregory’s personal interpretation as dogmatic is erroneous. The church has not “corrected” an error here, but rather removed this personal interpretation from a compendium of NON-magisterial teachings.

Furthermore, while the church no longer promotes this non magisterial teaching, based on the scriptures alone it IS a valid interpretation… just one that we have no actual evidence to corroborate. So it is not WRONG, it simply isn’t verifiably RIGHT either."

---

The above opinion about Pope Gregory the Great is misleading. The Pope both preached and recorded his erroneous belief. I quote from his homily on Luke’s gospel dated 14 September 591: “She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary, we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark. And what did these seven devils signify, if not all the vices? … It is clear, brothers, that the woman previously used the unguent to perfume her flesh in forbidden acts.”(homily XXXIII) This is but one of hundreds of illustrations of poor or erroneous judgments made publicly by popes. Yes, it is true that he did not formally state this as a doctrine, but it should give a thinking Catholic some reason to consider in the light of history statements made by popes.

 

[gkrohm]

For what it’s worth, I think one can reasonably doubt the Magisterium, accept the fallibility of the Bible and all Biblical teaching, and still choose to be Christian (though not, perhaps, as the “only option”). And of course some who fit this description still see themselves as loyal Catholic dissenters. I recognize that this will strike the orthodox as an oxymoron, but as (part of) an answer to “Why do you care?” I think it’s relevant.

There are Catholics, including priests, who doubt the Magisterium but who stick around because they care. I think at least some who argue for the ordination of women fall into this category.

I share the sentiment of the above quote with the following additions. Surely the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit, but the human institutions have clearly gone wrong more times than we can count. You have to be intellectually blind to not see the history of the papacy studded with spectacular examples of poor declarations on many issues of Church practice and morality. Just to cite a few:
o confused and ambiguous papal positions on slavery until well into the 19th century
o claiming that all salvation strictly speaking comes from membership in the Catholic Church
o Benedict VIII adopting the very controversial “filioque” clause of the Nicene Creed due to political pressure from emperor Henry II
o Pope Zosimos flip flopping for a time on Innocent I’s condemnation of Pelagism until St. Augustine lead the N. African bishops and imperial pressure to get him to change his mind
o powerful popes such as Alexander III, Innocent III , and Gregory IX (r. 1227 – asserted that all earthly rulers are subject to the authority of the papacy and can be deposed by the pope. The famous battle between Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV and Gregory VII (1075) is a prime example papal assertion of temporal power that would strike modern people as out of place.

Given these and many other examples of papal positions that we would no longer hold as valid today, why should we not think that the Church could change its mind about the ordination of women. After all, the Church changed its mind on celibacy of priests in the 10th century and denounced in the 4th century the well established custom of female deacons.

I regard myself as a loyal Catholic that draws strength from the sacramental power and teachings of the Catholic Church, but in duty to my conscience must ponder the Church’s position on women as priests.

 

[WMM]

Please remember that, whenever you answer the question “How do I refute such-and-such an argument?” with the response “Because the Church said so, so shut up!” (or words to that effect), you empower the people who say “You only believe that because the Church tells you what to think.”

It actively pushes inquiring minds away from the Church.

I am not telling anyone to “shut up”.

Rather, I am reminding all that, to be a Catholic, there are some teachings we must accept.

All of the Magisterial teachings which are definatively taught must be believed if we are to remain in the Church.

If we cannot accept all that the Church teaches, we separate ourselves from the Body of Christ.

 

[wisdomseeker]

I am not telling anyone to “shut up”.

Rather, I am reminding all that, to be a Catholic, there are some teachings we must accept.

All of the Magisterial teachings which are definatively taught must be believed if we are to remain in the Church.

If we cannot accept all that the Church teaches, we separate ourselves from the Body of Christ.

I agree with you. but not some teachings but all the Church teaches we must accept and obey. We have no luxury to pick and choose. Jesus said, His brothers are those who hear and do what the Father commands.

 

[dingodile]

I am not telling anyone to “shut up”.

Rather, I am reminding all that, to be a Catholic, there are some teachings we must accept.

Which Magisterial teaching says that dissenting from a Magisterial teaching causes one to cease to be Catholic?

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

Which Magisterial teaching says that dissenting from a Magisterial teaching causes one to cease to be Catholic?

It doesn’t, it just makes you a heretical Catholic

The priesthood needs to be retained as all male for affirmative action purposes, women are already running pretty much everything else

 

[onmyknees]

I regard myself as a loyal Catholic that draws strength from the sacramental power and teachings of the Catholic Church, but in duty to my conscience must ponder the Church’s position on women as priests.

---

The Churches’ teachings are the TRUTH and from them we form our conscience because the Holy Spirit, who is GOD, guides the pope in the teachings of the Church.

The liturgical act in the mass is an act of marriage. Jesus is the Bridegroom and the Church is His bride. The priest is representing Christ so he is and always will be a man.

Jesus chose only men to be His apostles.

“Catholics say women already have equality because of their intrinsic dignity as human persons. A human person is not any less dignified or equal to another person based on what they can or cannot do!”

“Christians do not attach dignity and equality with function or utility.”

“For some feminists dignity and equality depends on women doing the same things as men or at least having the capability to do so. Some feminist believe that they don’t have equality in the Church because they are denied a function, to be a priest.”

 

[gkrohm]

I find the position of the those who take the position that 100% acceptance of doctrines is the standard for membership in the Church, or Body of Christ troubling. I would ask those who believe this to consider:

1. in many other areas Catholics who attend mass and regard themselves as members of the Church hold beliefs that are different from the total deposit of orthodox teaching, e.g. according to surveys, 80% or so of married Catholics have at one time or another used birth control. Are all these people not Catholics?
2. the official and orthodox teaching of the Catholic Church is that a persons own “well formed” conscience should be their final and absolute moral compass. Granted one could question how well a person formed their conscience on a particular moral teaching, yet few bishops would deny the Holy Eucharist to any Catholic that approached the alter. If the bishops act this way, should individual members of this discussion be so quick to excise people from full communion in the Catholic Church for disagreeing with their position on female priests, or any other moral issue?

 

[Tantum_ergo]

I find the position of the those who take the position that 100% acceptance of doctrines is the standard for membership in the Church, or Body of Christ troubling. I would ask those who believe this to consider:

1. in many other areas Catholics who attend mass and regard themselves as members of the Church hold beliefs that are different from the total deposit of orthodox teaching, e.g. according to surveys, 80% or so of married Catholics have at one time or another used birth control. Are all these people not Catholics? yes, they are Catholics. . .but Catholicism does not depend on whether a person assents to the teachings 100% or even 0%. Once baptized Catholic, one is Catholic.

However, if people dissent, disobey, etc., at the TIME they dissent they are disobedient Catholics. Not a good thing. hopefully most if not all of those who disobeyed the Church in some way, maybe even for YEARS of contraception, will repent and become obedient Catholics.

100% obedience is not ‘the standard’; it is the REQUIREMENT for obedience to God’s teachings. God is merciful and gives us the Church to help teach what we SHOULD be doing. When we aren’t doing it, God also gives us the Church to keep on telling us the Truth, AND the priests to offer the sacrament of penance in order for us to repent and have our sins forgiven.

But to assume that because X number of Catholics are disobedient at a given time that this somehow means that Catholic teachings are optional, or that a person can be a ‘good enough’ Catholic at 80% obedience, is horrendously misunderstanding the nature of Catholicism and Christ.

1. the official and orthodox teaching of the Catholic Church is that a persons own “well formed” conscience should be their final and absolute moral compass. Granted one could question how well a person formed their conscience on a particular moral teaching, yet few bishops would deny the Holy Eucharist to any Catholic that approached the alter. If the bishops act this way, should individual members of this discussion be so quick to excise people from full communion in the Catholic Church for disagreeing with their position on female priests, or any other moral issue?

again, you are taking the whole approach from a wrong angle. First, no lay person can ‘excise’ people from full communion.

BUT we are called upon to determine, to preach, and to encourage obedience, fidelity, and truth, to ALL. because of that, as Scripture tells us, if we see one of our brothers and sisters sinning, we are to try to help, first by talking to them, and finally by ‘taking them to the church.’

Now, how could we even talk to a person if we are ‘forbidden’ to disagree? How are we supposed to teach people the truth if we are supposed to accept it when they disagree?

If I, as a lay person, saw another person ‘take’ the eucharist and walk away from the church without consuming it, should I just ‘assume’ everything is fine? That he just wants to ‘commune’ with nature while consuming the host after church? That it’s not 'my business?"

I think not. We have a responsibility to Christ, then to approach the person and if necessary to even call over the priest if, in fact, the person is bound and determined, “Hey, I ‘own’ this host now and I’ll do anything I want with it and you can’t stop me because you’re JUDGING me and it isn’t YOUR right.”

Now, that being said, there are certainly ways of conveying the truth with more accuracy than saying, “You’re a Catholic and use contraception? You aren’t a real Catholic then.”

Because that isn’t true. Now saying something like, “You’re a Catholic using contraception and you don’t see anything wrong with that --with respect, that is not the way that I understand Catholic teaching. I think that in your best interest you might want to speak with the priest, because again, as I understand it, these ACTIONS could be sinful, even gravely sinful, and as a fellow Catholic I am concerned for you. Because as Catholics, we are called to be true, faithful 100% followers of Christ, and to help others to be the same.”

It’s a little ‘longer’ to say but it’s more accurate and more reflective of what MOST of those who gave the other response really mean. . .not that the person has somehow ripped up the catholic membership card, but rather that it is necessary to follow all the teachings in order to be a GOOD Catholic.

 

[WMM]

It doesn’t, it just makes you a heretical Catholic

The priesthood needs to be retained as all male for affirmative action purposes, women are already running pretty much everything else

According to the Church, there are but three ways to be separated from the Church: heresy, schism and apostasy.

So, a heretical Catholic is no longer a Catholic.