If priests have to be men like the Apostles, why don't they have to be Jewish fishermen like the apostles?

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frankielogue

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I came across this argument recently, and I’ve struggled to refute it.
If anyone could help with this, then I’d apprecaite it.
 
Because they have to be like the Apostles in heart, not in external things.
 
This is what we call insane troll logic. Honestly, I’m trying to wrap my head around how they came up with this.
 
Matthew was a tax collector. So now we have a group of “fishermen + working for our tyrannic overlords”.
 
Isn’t your sex external?

(i’m not trying to argue, merely playing out questions that would be said in response)
 
You have your sex from the moment of conception because it’s programmed into your chromosomes. You start off either having either XX or XY chromosomes (for 99.9999% of people) and the X chromosome is the only one that expresses for the first several months of gestation. Then, if you’re a male, the Y chromosome starts expressing, and that leads to what we call sexual differentiation. But you have that genetic code in place from the moment of conception, even if, say, because you haven’t reached that stage of development, you’re not expressing “male” or “female” characteristics yet. So at that point, your sex is very much internal— because the developing baby hasn’t gotten far enough along with development to have external sex characteristics.
 
Because being a fisherman isn’t a prerequisite for acting in Persona Christi. Since Christ was a man, being a man is necessary for acting in Persona Christi.

As for the question of having to be Jewish, Christ came to bring salvation to the whole world, not to only the Jews. His covenant is with everyone, not just the Jewish people, so you don’t have to be Jewish to be a priest.
 
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0Scarlett_nidiyilii said:
St Matthew wasn’t a fisherman.
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Right, and there are several other Apostles whose professions we simply don’t know from the information available, so maybe they weren’t fishermen either.

Certainly when you get into the other early Church disciples, you start seeing a lot of different professions. Paul was a tent-maker and Luke was supposedly a physician.
 
Gender is an ontological quality, i.e. it pertains to a the mode of being for a human being (and most animals, for that matter). Ethnicity and occupation, however important they may be as far as social relations go, do not relate to a person’s mode of being.
 
Well, of those we know to have been Jewish fishermen, they became Christian fishers-of-men. So, it would stand to reason that as long as a man were willing to be a Christian fisher-of-men, then he has begun to be eligible for the Priesthood. 😉
 
1ke said:
Were all 12 apostles Jewish fishermen? No.
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Not only that, but we can see who they chose as bishops, and that included Greek physicians like Luke or Romans like Clement. And Paul was a Jew, but a tent maker, not a fisherman.

So men of different nationalities and professions were chosen to be bishops, but only men were chosen.
 
frankielogue said:
I came across this argument recently, and I’ve struggled to refute
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Priests act in the person of Christ, who was not a fisherman. The Gospel is for all people of all nations. God has grafted the Gentiles (non-Jews) into His tree of life.
 
The apostles gave up their former lives and followed him.

After you affirm Jesus to be the Christ, you’re not a Jew.
 
Because then there would be no priests in areas with no fishermen like Kansas.
 
That Jesus chose 12 Apostles who were men help to illustrate that Jesus intended a male-only priesthood, but the reason isn’t primarily because the Apostles were men. So I think the reasoning is somewhat flawed off the get-go.

Rather, the ministerial priesthood of Christ in general – whether Apostles or bishop or presbyter or Pope, etc. – are men because Christian pastors represent Christ in a sacramental way. Symbolic would be enough: Christ is male. But it’s not only symbolic; Christ chooses to act through his minister in real, concrete ways that essentially make the priest a conduit of Christ’s healing grace. Think of the Eucharist and confession, for example.

And Christian practice, PROPERLY understood, is not a slight again the dignity and authority of women (Catholics have no problem with women in leadership, even Christian leadership). Whereas some Christian denominations may choose male leadership because they think it is wrong for women to lead or preach or teach, the Catholic concept is not like this. For indeed, Catholic women and do lead and preach and teach.
 
I don’t think this is strictly correct. Men and women have a common essence, IOW they’re the same type of creature. The difference is ontological, pertaining to the mode of being human.
 
job occupations and nationality isn’t an intrinsic part of a human being.
 
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