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jtavington
Guest
I’ve got to say I’m a bit boggled by the hostility to “give me the arguments of the opposing side.” If we want to do apologetics, it has to be against what people actually believe, not the strawman.
How do pro-women's ordination deal with the 12 male Apostles?
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Dovekin
Guest
Yes, but Paul and Barnabas were called to be apostles.
Why don’t we discuss the 14 apostles? Why are the 12 the standard you push?
Why don’t we discuss the 14 apostles? Why are the 12 the standard you push?
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catholic1seeks
Guest
Apostle is a general term. That’s why Paul was adamant he was an Apostle of Jesus Christ himself. There are still other “apostles” we read about, like the ones mentioned by the Didache, which are “Apostles” probably of churches, i.e., “sent out” and commissioned by the church.
We have to remember that when we talk about bishops and priests as successors to the Apostles, we are not talking about the criterion of witnessing Jesus’ resurrection. That’s the strict description of the original 12, and later Paul. See the replacement of Judas by Matthias, for example.
Rather, bishops/priests are successors to the Apostles precisely as the office of overseer – the office of bishop.
We have to remember that when we talk about bishops and priests as successors to the Apostles, we are not talking about the criterion of witnessing Jesus’ resurrection. That’s the strict description of the original 12, and later Paul. See the replacement of Judas by Matthias, for example.
Rather, bishops/priests are successors to the Apostles precisely as the office of overseer – the office of bishop.
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Thom18
Guest
In my experience, they suggest that Jesus was constrained by the fact that the Jews were patriarchal, and His ministry would have failed if He publicly supported female leadership.
What this reasoning ignores is that the Jews weren’t strangers to “priestesses”, which most (if not every) pagan religion around them had, and the fact that the Jews often longed to be like other nations (think when they begged for a king).
More importantly (and most mistakenly), they rely on Jesus’ “silence” on the issue of female ordination to make their case for them, either ignoring Jewish example (and the examples Jesus Himself provided), or otherwise inadequately “getting around them”.
What this reasoning ignores is that the Jews weren’t strangers to “priestesses”, which most (if not every) pagan religion around them had, and the fact that the Jews often longed to be like other nations (think when they begged for a king).
More importantly (and most mistakenly), they rely on Jesus’ “silence” on the issue of female ordination to make their case for them, either ignoring Jewish example (and the examples Jesus Himself provided), or otherwise inadequately “getting around them”.
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catholic1seeks
Guest
I hear this objection a lot, but I’m not sure it holds up. It places too much into the modern connotations of “priest,” (e.g., sacrifice), when in reality our English “priest” comes from the biblical “presbyter,” meaning “elder.”
While bishops/presbyters are priests, the earliest Christians didn’t tend towards that language at first. So remember that the office of priest was bound to that of leadership and preaching as well as sacrifice. Were these pagan women priestesses involved in leadership and preaching, like pastors? We have to take that into account.
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GKMotley
Guest
The first post I ever made on line, anywhere, maybe 20+ years ago, addressed a very similar question/misconception. The Archbishop of Canterbury is simultaneously a couple of things: Primate of the Church of England, Archbishop of the Province of Canterbury, Diocesan of the Diocese of same name, and, pertinent here, Head of the Anglican Communion. Which, as I mentioned somewhere up there, is a group of Anglican Churches, worldwide, independent and self-governing, which descended from the CoE, over the course of time. History involved, there. Such Churches, belonging to the Anglican Communion, are said to be (in some varying senses) in communion with each other and with Canterbury, as symbolic head (do not think an analog of the Pope here. Folks often go wrong on that. As symbolic head, the AB of C has only some minor administrative powers, and no formal jurisdiction over the Communion member Churches. Who are independent, remember).
Churches in the Communion take a varying position of the subject at hand. Being self-governing, they get to do things like that. Some, primarily amongst the developed, first world, think males or females are nifty for the laying on of hands. Some other Churches do so, to the diaconate. Some don’t do anything so creatively innovative, and stick with the historic practice.
Thus the Communion and Cantuar. But, as I’m also sure I said recently, that doesn’t exhaust the wide wide world of Anglicans. There is the Continuum, separated from the Anglican Communion (when that group started to go off the tracks), in a number of independent jurisdictions, who stick to the tried and true: men. The Continuum has naught to do with the Communion or with Canterbury. And there is the Anglican Church in North America, which looks both ways on this particular subject, simultaneously. Some bishops lay hands on males only, some take a wider view. Complicated.
As is Anglicanism, generally. Motley, I call it.
Churches in the Communion take a varying position of the subject at hand. Being self-governing, they get to do things like that. Some, primarily amongst the developed, first world, think males or females are nifty for the laying on of hands. Some other Churches do so, to the diaconate. Some don’t do anything so creatively innovative, and stick with the historic practice.
Thus the Communion and Cantuar. But, as I’m also sure I said recently, that doesn’t exhaust the wide wide world of Anglicans. There is the Continuum, separated from the Anglican Communion (when that group started to go off the tracks), in a number of independent jurisdictions, who stick to the tried and true: men. The Continuum has naught to do with the Communion or with Canterbury. And there is the Anglican Church in North America, which looks both ways on this particular subject, simultaneously. Some bishops lay hands on males only, some take a wider view. Complicated.
As is Anglicanism, generally. Motley, I call it.
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Brendan_64
Guest
If Mary Magdalene was a Apostle (in the same sense as the Twelve were) then why wasn’t she present at the Last Supper? Mark 14:17-20 specifically refers to the Twelve being with Jesus at the Last Supper. No mention of Mary Magdalene or the others.
In the visions of Blessed Anne Emmerich, Christ and the Twelve are sat together at the Last Supper, with the others eating seperately in another room.
If Mary, the mother of God, was present at the Last Supper, would her presence there not have been mentioned in the Gospel accounts? If Our Lady wasn’t present then why would Mary Magdalene have been given a place of honour above her?
Arguing that Mary Magdalene was present at the Last Supper, where Christ instituted the ministerial priesthood, doesn’t seem to stack up and seems to be based on wishful thinking and modern notions of female emancipation.
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MagdalenaRita
Guest
Among the apostles there are two groups. The first are the twelve that witnessed the whole of Jesus’ ministry. The second group included Paul and Paul was called to be an apostle in a very extraordinary way. He was an apostle but he was not a disciple of Christ during Christ’s ministry. It doesn’t take anything away from his apostolate but he was not of the original twelve.
We have to be careful when we speak of the apostles because there is some incorrect non-Catholic theology that takes away from the truth of apostolic succession by instructing us to call ourselves apostles, but Christ did not continue to call people to be apostles but the apostles themselves called others into certain ministries.
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Dovekin
Guest
The beginning of Vatican 2’s Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, just to underline your point about some non-Catholic theology out there.
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phil19034
Guest
The “Tweleve Apostles” simply refers to the 12 Jesus selected when He was alive. That’s usually what everyone is referring too - the time before the Crucifixion when they were all together.
But the Apostles were the first Bishops. When reading the KJV, you see clearly that the 11 Apostles vote to elect someone to Judas’ “bishopric.”
Over time, the they start adding a couple more Apostles, and eventually just start referring to the office as “Bishop”
The apostles were the 1st bishops. The bishops were all men, originally selected by Jesus - and always have been according to the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriential Orthodox Church, & Church of the East.
And after Jesus died and rose, He selected Paul - not Paula.
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JLP1
Guest
There is also the practical issue that the women of that time were generally uneducated and ill-equipped to fill leadership positions.
And if men represent Christ and women represent the church, doesn’t that make women ontologically inferior to men?
And if men represent Christ and women represent the church, doesn’t that make women ontologically inferior to men?
blackforest
Well-known member
I provided some. I’m sure they got buried in the heat of the thread, though - Posts 47 and 50.
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Questioner13
Guest
Yes indeed. I think where the line of reasoning for the exclusion of women from the priesthood ends up is:
(1) Men have a sphere of activity and authority from which women are excluded solely by virtue of being women. Women have no equivalent. Pregnancy and child-bearing is claimed as an exclusively female role, but as pointed out above:
(2) Men can be both “male” (in persona Christi) in the priesthood, and “female” (the Church as the Bride of Christ) in the congregation. Women however can only be “female”.
Otherwise we leave the door open for this little gem: “Hey - there’s a bloke in that pew over there. I thought Catholics didn’t do gay marriage?!”
Summary: The problem I find with the rationalisations I have heard for an all-male priesthood is that they can then be used to blow rather large holes in other aspects of Church teaching.
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Medawlinno
Guest
As a practicing Jew living in the first century, he was bound by the cultural/religious norms of his time. That said, he often broke some of these.
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Medawlinno
Guest
Not sure I agree 100% - this seems to be predominantly a RC teaching (though the Orthodox churches also observe this to some degree).
This entire argument seems to be based on one particular passage: 2 Cor. 2:10, which is commonly translated (via the Latin) as “in the person of Christ”, from the Greek “in the presence of Christ”, or “before the face of Christ”.
If one argues that the reference here is to Christ as God, i.e. specifically the second person of the Trinity, and not a reference to the personage, the incarnate (male), Jesus, then what does it matter if the person acting “in persona Christi” is male or female? The use of masculine pronouns in the Bible referencing the Trinity is simply a linguistic convention.
To paraphrase from an article written by Dr. Sarah Hinlicky Wilson (a Lutheran Pastor) “One thing that we know of Jesus, beyond any shadow of a doubt, is that he was born a man and not a woman. This incarnational fact might lead one to conclude that God is thus male, because His image is a human male. On trinitarian grounds such a conclusion must be rejected.
A man is not an intrinsically more accurate sign of the Trinity than a woman. Gender is not a feature of God.
The common argument is that Jesus called only men to serve in the Twelve and that we must follow his example. Once again, our attention is called to the women who were with him and later led the early Church; more to the point, however, ordination as such does not exist in the Gospel narratives. It developed over the next several generations, so that while the women of the New Testament were not called to liturgical priesthood, one may accurately remark that neither were any of the men."
To me , it should not matter whether the person acting “as/in the second person in the Trinity” (perhaps a better translation/understanding of the Latin “in persona Christi”) is male or female.
This entire argument seems to be based on one particular passage: 2 Cor. 2:10, which is commonly translated (via the Latin) as “in the person of Christ”, from the Greek “in the presence of Christ”, or “before the face of Christ”.
If one argues that the reference here is to Christ as God, i.e. specifically the second person of the Trinity, and not a reference to the personage, the incarnate (male), Jesus, then what does it matter if the person acting “in persona Christi” is male or female? The use of masculine pronouns in the Bible referencing the Trinity is simply a linguistic convention.
To paraphrase from an article written by Dr. Sarah Hinlicky Wilson (a Lutheran Pastor) “One thing that we know of Jesus, beyond any shadow of a doubt, is that he was born a man and not a woman. This incarnational fact might lead one to conclude that God is thus male, because His image is a human male. On trinitarian grounds such a conclusion must be rejected.
A man is not an intrinsically more accurate sign of the Trinity than a woman. Gender is not a feature of God.
The common argument is that Jesus called only men to serve in the Twelve and that we must follow his example. Once again, our attention is called to the women who were with him and later led the early Church; more to the point, however, ordination as such does not exist in the Gospel narratives. It developed over the next several generations, so that while the women of the New Testament were not called to liturgical priesthood, one may accurately remark that neither were any of the men."
To me , it should not matter whether the person acting “as/in the second person in the Trinity” (perhaps a better translation/understanding of the Latin “in persona Christi”) is male or female.
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Agathon
Guest
And this means there were women—how? There are some who make out the 72 to be the Twelve plus 60 others. So this makes it less likely that there were women.
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catholic1seeks
Guest
No Catholic teaching is based off a single scriptural passage. Besides, the male-only priesthood would have been established before the writing of 2 Corinthians. Or, alternatively, so would the male & female priesthood. Point being, the Tradition of the Church is prior to Scripture, and forms Scripture. This is why it takes the Church as a living body to interpret in every age what the Tradition indeed says.
The language of “persona Christi” refers to the person of Christ, who is God and Man. But he is fully both. The argument would be that no symbol fulfills its symbolic nature perfectly, or else it wouldn’t be a symbol. Bread and wine do not perfectly symbolize body and blood, and yet Christ chose them anyways. So it depends on what is intending to be the sacramental sign. If Christ wanted only male priests, then it seems important to him that the maleness be a sacramental sign of something.
The pomp and circumstance of ordination developed later, but the sacrament itself was there from the beginning: All you need is the laying on of hands done by the proper minister. And that’s what you have in the New Testament period.
So the essential question is: How does Christ want his followers to discern the Faith? If the ordained ministry is an essential component of the Church, then surely he’d want us to have a clear answer, no? Various Christians give various answers to how we discern such questions: Scripture, Spirit’s guidance in individual community, attention to Tradition, etc.
The Catholic claim is that Christ wanted us to have a more certain access to parts of the Faith — not the least of which includes the “constitution” of the Church (e.g., the ministerial function).
Hence, the role of Peter gathered with his colleagues is the model, per Scripture itself. Acts 15 shows that when there is debate on an issue within the Church, the leaders gather — not merely in individual community, but as a universal witness to the universal* Church. And indeed, Peter with his associates finalizes the matter.
The same has happened for the male priesthood.
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AlNg
Guest
Will bodily functions be important in heaven, or will it be the soul of the person that is important?
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Dovekin
Guest
That is part of the question, along with “is the soul of the person differentiated by sex?”
In any event, the priesthood is for this world, not the next.
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gcshapero
Guest
I go to St. Matthews in DC (the cathedral of Cardinal Wuerl). With the sex abuse scandals taking place and Weurl being in the hot seat, there have been many protesters outside – some Catholics, some non-Catholic. Some traditional, some modernist.
As I was going into Mass, I came across a woman (around 60) among the protesters. She was a Catholics and she and I had a nice friendly talk before I went in. She proposed that more women in authority of the Church would reduce the sex abuses.
“Surely you’re not proposing women’s ordination.”
“Yes, I am!” she said.
We went into the discussion of Church teaching on the priesthood and why it is only men. I went into the theological aspect of why it’s men, how they are in persona Christi and how God made men and women differently for both a natural and spiritual purpose. I said that this is why the original 12 were only men.
I also asked her why Mother Mary was not just to hear her thoughts.
“Well,” she said. “It was the times then and Jesus didn’t want to offend anyone since people woudln’t handle it.”
I told her that offending people was not Jesus’ concern – that speaking the truth and having them conform to holiness was and that he offended many which is why he was crucified.
After that, she said “Well, there were women bishops.”
“When?” I asked.
“In the early Church,” she said.
I asked her to name them for me. She said we don’t know their names, but that they existed. When I asked if she was referring to the deaconesses, she clarified she was not, that she was talking about the bishops.
I asked her why we have no record of any female bishop and why not one, if they existed, were ever recognized as saints. She said she didn’t know, but she believes in her heart there were.
That was pretty much the end of the conversation. I asked her to pray for me and that I’d do the same for her and we went on our way.
In short, not a good answer was given. Only bad information.
As I was going into Mass, I came across a woman (around 60) among the protesters. She was a Catholics and she and I had a nice friendly talk before I went in. She proposed that more women in authority of the Church would reduce the sex abuses.
“Surely you’re not proposing women’s ordination.”
“Yes, I am!” she said.
We went into the discussion of Church teaching on the priesthood and why it is only men. I went into the theological aspect of why it’s men, how they are in persona Christi and how God made men and women differently for both a natural and spiritual purpose. I said that this is why the original 12 were only men.
I also asked her why Mother Mary was not just to hear her thoughts.
“Well,” she said. “It was the times then and Jesus didn’t want to offend anyone since people woudln’t handle it.”
I told her that offending people was not Jesus’ concern – that speaking the truth and having them conform to holiness was and that he offended many which is why he was crucified.
After that, she said “Well, there were women bishops.”
“When?” I asked.
“In the early Church,” she said.
I asked her to name them for me. She said we don’t know their names, but that they existed. When I asked if she was referring to the deaconesses, she clarified she was not, that she was talking about the bishops.
I asked her why we have no record of any female bishop and why not one, if they existed, were ever recognized as saints. She said she didn’t know, but she believes in her heart there were.
That was pretty much the end of the conversation. I asked her to pray for me and that I’d do the same for her and we went on our way.
In short, not a good answer was given. Only bad information.
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