female priests

[Mr.Ex_Nihilo]

So why is that part of the OT not disregarded, like other unsavoury parts have been?
So set another precedent then, it happens all the time.
No, I simply asked if it was written to expressly forbid women. You said “no it wasn’t”.
Now I want to know why the church expressly forbids it, when it is not written so.
It would if he was the one disallowing females.

Do you really desire answers to these questions-- and would you be interested in becoming a Catholic if they were answered to your satisfaction?

 

[R_McGeddon]

Does it say anywhere that any of the Apostles were female?

I never said that it did.

Just because He set up a male priesthood doesn’t make Him a misogynist.

If he did it to the exclusion of females it would.

 

[fix]

Does it actually say anywhere that he disallowed female apostles???

Is that the standard? There is a whole lot not recorded in the bible does that mean if you do not have proof in written form it is ok to do?

If it did, that would make Jesus a misogynist and, as a consequence, imperfect.

Misogynist? You mean we get to apply our trendy political notions to God when we refuse to be obedient to him.

The pope is only a person.

Who has the charism of infallibility in these matters.

 

[buffalo]

So why is that part of the OT not disregarded, like other unsavoury parts have been?
So set another precedent then, it happens all the time.
No, I simply asked if it was written to expressly forbid women. You said “no it wasn’t”.
Now I want to know why the church expressly forbids it, when it is not written so.
It would if he was the one disallowing females.

The Church has no authority to ordain women. We cannot change Jesus’ teachings, commands to suit the culture. Rather the culture is to conform to Him.

 

[buffalo]

The new covenant is fundamentally different than the last. The continuity between the two preisthoods is symbollic. The Law saw women as less than worthy or at least more apt to defilement than males. Evident in the way that purity laws were more harsh with females.

I am always perplexed as to how Catholics never seem to acknowledge that the gospels were written in a patriarchial context and that it is only logical that they would reflect this society to a significant degree. The gospels have no Christian priesthood and make no specifications for one.

Because Jesus had no female apostles is not a legitimate point against females as priests. He had many female disciples. When the Old Testament makes a moral proclaimation such as “do not covet your neighbours wife” we say this applies to both male and female? Why? If we’re going to be gender speicific and completely ignore the fact that the scriptures were written in a male dominated period…then we need to ignore that on all accounts.

If Jesus could represent a woman on the cross, why can’t she represent him on the altar? On the cross Jesus transcended gender boundaries. There is nothing demonstratably different about a woman than makes her illegitimate for the priesthood or representing Christ. It paints a picture of atonement to which the penis is somehow fundamental in the salvation act.

Jesus certainly was a radical in His time. He did many things that were counter cultural. He was not confined to a patriarchal bias. If He wished He could have ordained a woman as an example. He did not.

 

[East_Anglican]

If females can’t be priests how can people like Saint Teresa of Avilla be recognised as Docters of The Church?

 

[R_McGeddon]

Do you really desire answers to these questions-- and would you be interested in becoming a Catholic if they were answered to your satisfaction?

I wondered what the reasoning behind it was, and if I’m honest the arguments don’t hold water for me. 2000 years ago women were nothing more than the property of men and thus were very unlikely to even be considered for the church.

I doubt that I could become a Catholic, I’m too sceptical by nature and rarely accept things just because I’m told to

 

[buffalo]

If females can’t be priests how can people like Saint Teresa of Avilla be recognised as Docters of The Church?

All members of the Church are priests. The difference here is ordained and being able to confer Sacramanents and say Mass.

 

[R_McGeddon]

Is that the standard? There is a whole lot not recorded in the bible does that mean if you do not have proof in written form it is ok to do?

If it was as important as you think, it would have been recorded.

Misogynist? You mean we get to apply our trendy political notions to God when we refuse to be obedient to him.

Misogynist is a Greek word in origin and considerably pre-dates christianity. It hardly qualifies as a trendy political notion

Who has the charism of infallibility in these matters.

Why does he parade around in outfits that would put Liberace to shame???

Did Jesus spread the word dressed in such a manner??

 

[R_McGeddon]

The Church has no authority to ordain women.

The church does have the authority, I read it quite alot, in this forum, that Jesus gave that authority.

We cannot change Jesus’ teachings, commands to suit the culture. Rather the culture is to conform to Him.

So now we’re saying that Jesus expressly excluded women??

 

[IanS]

One reason for the male-only priesthood is very straightforward and (should be, anyway) uncontroversial. Jesus Christ was a Man. Given the fact that every validly-ordained priest functions in Persona Christi at Mass (since it is Christ Himself who transforms the elements and performs the supernatural consecration, not the priest, who “stands in” for Him), it is altogether appropriate that men only are ordained. Of course we also have clear instructions and examples of Scripture which ought to be sufficient in and of themselves to settle this question. None of the twelve disciples were women. Jesus must have had a good reason for that, whether or not we understand it. I myself would much rather trust Him and apostolic, Christian Tradition, rather than the fads and fancies of our post-modern, sexually-libertine age.

Furthermore, the highest of God’s created beings, and the only sinless creature who ever lived - according to Catholicism - is a woman (the Blessed Virgin Mary), and a woman first saw the risen Jesus (Mary Magdalene: John 20:11-18). No man - by virtue of “unfair” biology - ever had the immense, unfathomable honor of “bearing God” and thus entering into that kind of incomprehensible biological intimacy with Jesus Christ. Protestants give us misery for allegedly venerating Mary as next to God, while feminists excoriate us for lowering the status of women vis-a-vis men! Ironies never cease!

Even though Jesus was a celibate male he does have a bride (and NO it’s not Mary Magdalene) it is the Holy Catholic Church He founded. That is why the Catholic Church is called the “Bride of Christ” with Jesus Christ as her bridegroom. That is why the Catholic Church is always referred to as “her” or “she”, because the Church is feminine and Jesus is masculine.

When a man is ordained as a priest he becomes alter Christus. Therefore, he does the same as Christ and makes the Church his bride. So if a woman became ordained wouldn’t she become a bride of the “Bride of Christ”, and thus make it a lesbian relationship?

The Catholic Church makes it very clear that Jesus is male and the Church is female. That’s why men wanting to answer a religious vocation become married to the “Bride of Christ” and women answer a religious vocation become married to Jesus Christ, the bridegroom. What’s so wrong with being married to Him?

 

[fix]

If it was as important as you think, it would have been recorded.

Really? So, the standard is whatever we think is important to us at any point in time?

And He founded a book, not a Church, and the book contains information on every single moral and faith issue in explicit terms we each can discern?

Misogynist is a Greek word in origin and considerably pre-dates christianity. It hardly qualifies as a trendy political notion

The definition of the term is not the issue. Falsely applying it to every trendy complaint is the issue.

Why does he parade around in outfits that would put Liberace to shame???

Notice, again, we see trendy sources as the criteria to determine what is right and what is wrong.

Did Jesus spread the word dressed in such a manner??

So, by your logic, the pope must wear the same type of gament as Jesus wore so that his words would be true?

 

[buffalo]

The church does have the authority, I read it quite alot, in this forum, that Jesus gave that authority.

So now we’re saying that Jesus expressly excluded women??

From the ordained Priesthood yes.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

All Christians are baptized into Christ’s priesthood, including women. Thus, Catholics have had women priests for ~2000 years.

I pray that both men and women use their priesthood wisely and refrain from dissent with the Holy Catholic Church.

That Christ became an incarnate MAN and not an incarnate woman was His choice. That He ordained only men to represent him on earth in the ministerial priesthood, and did not ordain women was also His choice. That he established the Church on earth affirming “He who hears you, hears me,” was His choice. That the Church he established does indeed find theological reasons why only males can be admitted to the ministerial priesthood is in accord with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. That the Church declared that this should be held definitively and irreformably by all the faithful was also in accord with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

See here:

Paul VI, Inter Insigniores (1976)
John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, (1994)
John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem (1988)

See also:
Priestesses in the Church? by C.S. Lewis
Women, Ordination, and Angels by Michael Novak

 

[Gnosis]

The question that remains unanswered is why does Christ’s gender play a role in the act of salvation? So as to render women incapable of acting in the person of Christ on the altar? Do other physcial and pyschological traits not factor in to representing Jesus? Why or why not? If the priest acts in the person of Christ, surely, by some vast merit of grace, other non-Jesus traits are not taken into consideration?

 

[Jennifer123]

I think the problem for many people here on this thread is that they aren’t acknowledging that Jesus was fully human as well as fully divine. Some people only want to focus on His divinity, meaning therefore His gender, in their eyes, should be irrevelant because Jesus as God certainly is without gender. But God refers to himself as the Father. He certainly isn’t Jesus’s mother, as Mary is the Mother of God. The only other thing God can be is Father. If God wants to refer to Himself as Father, which He does, then we need to respect that. Otherwise you fall dangerously close to idolatry, fashioning God to whom you want Him to be.

Christianity isn’t some philospohical debate - it is something that has been revealed to us. We have no right to change what has been revealed for the sake of “progress” or “political correctness”.

 

[Mr.Ex_Nihilo]

I wondered what the reasoning behind it was, and if I’m honest the arguments don’t hold water for me.

At least you’re being honest.
R McGeddon:

2000 years ago women were nothing more than the property of men and thus were very unlikely to even be considered for the church.

And yet there were the positions of the deaconess within the Scriptures.
R McGeddon:

I doubt that I could become a Catholic, I’m too sceptical by nature and rarely accept things just because I’m told to

Just checking.

 

[fix]

See also:
Priestesses in the Church? by C.S. Lewis

Thanks for the links.

I read this:

…The point is that unless ‘equal’ means ‘interchangeable’, equality makes nothing for the priesthood of women. And the kind of equality which implies that the equals are interchangeable (like counters or identical machines) is, among humans, a legal fiction. It may be a useful legal fiction. But in church we turn our back on fictions. One of the ends for which sex was created was to symbolize to us the hidden things of God. One of the functions of human marriage is to express the nature of the union between Christ and the Church. We have no authority to take the living and sensitive figures which God has painted on the canvas of our nature and shift them about as if they were mere geometrical figures…

That seems to be it. Equality is not sameness. It does not mean the sexes are interchangeable.

 

[Jennifer123]

I2000 years ago women were nothing more than the property of men and thus were very unlikely to even be considered for the church.

This is true but you have to delve more fully into the context of the time to begin to try to understand the meaning of Jesus’s salvation message.

God, as Jews knew Him, was very distant and domineering. In focusing so much on the “law” they missed God’s plan for salvation, which ultimately about love and compassion.

To say Jesus was Himself patriarchical or His ideas were formed through historical conditioning is ignoring the many times Jesus affirmed the equal dignity of women, among other counter-cultural notions of the time.

Just because He asserts these things while upholding the notion of the divine Fatherhood doesn’t make Him a hater of women.

 

[estesbob]

I wondered what the reasoning behind it was, and if I’m honest the arguments don’t hold water for me. 2000 years ago women were nothing more than the property of men and thus were very unlikely to even be considered for the church.

I doubt that I could become a Catholic, I’m too sceptical by nature and rarely accept things just because I’m told to

You are missing the fact that God chose this time in History to send his son. Surely he was aware of the cultures of the time. Are you suggesting that we would have women Priests if Jesus had come to San Fransisco in the mid 1970s insetad of palestine 2,000 years ago? What kind of God is influneced by the cultural mores of the day?