How do pro-women's ordination deal with the 12 male Apostles?

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Dovekin said:
The effort is to deepen our understanding of ordination, something everyone should support.
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To that end, to deepen our understanding of ordination, there is a question. Why is ordination not necessary for the administration of Baptism, but it is necessary for the administration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
 
You can seek to understand Church teaching and you can ask questions and learn but there are things that the Church has spoken on and are to be believed and this is one of those things. Seek to understand why or the reasons fine, that is no problem. Argue with the Church’s reason as taught by God, disobey or push against it, is a problem. That is not seeking understanding. That is rebelling or maybe protesting.
 
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There are also signs of a resurgence of fideism , which fails to recognize the importance of rational knowledge and philosophical discourse for the understanding of faith, indeed for the very possibility of belief in God. One currently widespread symptom of this fideistic tendency is a “biblicism” which tends to make the reading and exegesis of Sacred Scripture the sole criterion of truth. In consequence, the word of God is identified with Sacred Scripture alone, thus eliminating the doctrine of the Church which the Second Vatican Council stressed quite specifically. Having recalled that the word of God is present in both Scripture and Tradition, the Constitution Dei Verbum continues emphatically: “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture comprise a single sacred deposit of the word of God entrusted to the Church. Embracing this deposit and united with their pastors, the People of God remain always faithful to the teaching of the Apostles”. Scripture, therefore, is not the Church’s sole point of reference. The “supreme rule of her faith” derives from the unity which the Spirit has created between Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church in a reciprocity which means that none of the three can survive without the others. John Paul II Fides et Ratio
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In a similar manner, relying solely on the Magisterium, without recourse to “rational knowledge and philosophical discourse,” can be fideist. Closing down discussion by chanting “It cannot change” is not the best way to show it will not change. That only happens when it is shown to be rational and can be related to Tradition and Scripture.
 
The doctrine the Church holds is based on Tradition and Scripture and defined by the Magisterium, so it is not a reliance on the magisterium only

As I said dialogue is fine, seeking knowledge is fine, asking questions is fine but when you believe and speak as though your understanding of a doctrine is more accurate than how the Holy Spirit led the Church that is not fine and there are times when the Church says this is it and we must accept it and this is one of those times.

There is deepening your understanding of something and there is rebelling or arguing against something. The two are not the same.
 
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“In the case of emergency” is the reason as it is more important for the unbaptised to be baptised before death so anyone can baptise who has the intent to do what the church teaches. In the early church women baptised women as baptism was done in the nude and the whole body anointed with oil.
 
I’m not pro-women’s ordination (and I realize I’m way late to the thread) but I suspect they could argue that the apostles gender was just an accident of time and place and has no significance beyond that. For example, the twelve apostles were also all from the the same geographic area, too, but we see no issue ordaining a man of Chinese ancestry, even though none of the twelve apostles were presumably even aware East Asians existed.
 
HeDa said:
“In the case of emergency” is the reason as it is more important for the unbaptised to be baptised before death so anyone can baptise who has the intent to do what the church teaches
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For someone in mortal sin getting to Confession before death is urgent.
 
BoomBoomMancini said:
I suspect they could argue that the apostles gender was just an accident of time and place
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Wouldn’t that be presuming that there was no providence from God involved?, that Jesus just happened upon those 12?

Rather I think it would be better to realize that God had chosen just the right time and place to send His Son and choose just the people He wanted to choose to be apostles.

Galatians 4:4 says -But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent his Son, made of a woman,…

Plus since God knows us in our mothers womb as Jeremiah 1:5 says, He would have know His plan for the apostles before they were born.
 
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Again, I’m just playing devils advocate here. I’m not arguing women should be ordained. But I don’t think you’d have to argue that God didn’t pick the twelve specifically, just that He didn’t choose them for anything having to do with gender.

Someone who reads too far into the characteristics of the disciples might have to argue that a man with blonde hair and blue eyes should never be ordained, since the disciples all presumably had dark hair and dark eyes.
 
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Jesus Christ chose his Apostles over 2,000 years ago.
Back then, it was much more of a man’s world than it is today.
Jesus received support and comfort from women as He carried His cross to Calvary on the way to His crucifixion.
 
JackMcCoy said:
Jesus Christ chose his Apostles over 2,000 years ago.
Back then, it was much more of a man’s world than it is today.
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As we look at the world today we might think that Jesus chose His disciples based on the cultural norms at that time but that is not so.

For one reason God does not care about culture or cultural norms. There were many times in the OT when women were the victors over Israel’s enemies rather than strong kings, such women were; Esther, Debbora, Jael. These victorious women were chosen by God so that alone shows God doesn’t follow cultural norms.

That makes the second reason important. Throughout OT history God chose males alone, not women, for the ministry of worship.

After the Israelites left Egypt they were to consecrate every first born male to God, this would be a sanctification for each one to be set aside for the ministry of worship.

When the Israeliltes sinned with the golden calf Moses asked all who were on God’s side to stand with Moses. All the sons of Levi obeyed God, so God took the sons of Levi to his own and instituted the Levitical priesthood. At that time he was choosing sons, males.

When Christ came as God’s only begotten Son, Jesus, God, again chose 12 men, the apostles, for the New Testament priesthood.

Just as God chose only males throughout the OT for the priesthood and Christ, as God, chose only males for the NT priesthood when He chose the apostles, the Church continues in obedience to God and chooses only men for the priesthood and this priesthood is a calling from God, so God Himself is still choosing men.
JackMcCoy said:
Jesus received support and comfort from women as He carried His cross to Calvary on the way to His crucifixion.
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This is true. Women have always had special roles also.
 
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on_the_hill said:
Whenever I imagine woman priests, I think of my Catholic school principal. I wouldn’t want her as a priest. She was not nice.
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There’s no such thing as women priests. The correct term for a woman would be “priestess.” And the Catholic Church doesn’t have those. So your principal wouldn’t qualify.
 
So the Church is positing both that in the eyes of God men and women are of equal spiritual value and that its entire sacramental life depends solely on men?

How does that even work?
 
Good question!

But if same apostles are the reason for same sex priests then does this mean that there should be only twelve priests? Should there be no gentile priests? Should priests be called apostles instead? St Faustina is called ‘the apostle of Divine Mercy’, but should she called an apostle? There is a possibility that Jesus did ask women to be apostles but they refused? Y’d think that women would good at organising the church, teaching the faith, & hearing confessions. In fact, what most priests do is quite motherly, & mothers are very priestly when they sacrifice their lives in childbirth.
 
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