T
Teresita
Guest
What irritates me is the way in which the proponents of priestesses falsify history by putting spin on any relevant document. I came across a doozy yesterday. I was skimming through a historical thriller set in 9th-century (I think - it was VERY skimming) Ireland, and in the introduction, the author (who was claimed by the blurb to be an authority on Irish history) told his readers that the Celtic church didn’t have any hang-ups about sex, had mixed monasteries and even women priests. He informed us that ‘Rome’ had written a letter to the Celtic church forbidding them to have women celebrating the Mass.
Well, this worried me. The first two items were obviously distorted: I already knew that the Celts were actually far more austere than most of the Western Church, and that the double monasteries (which existed in both Ireland and England) had the sexes carefully segregated, and never mixing. However, this letter from Rome worried me - I didn’t think the author would have invented it. So I did a Google search and found it. It was actually from three bishops of Gaul, not Rome as such, and was addressed to two priests with British names, not Irish, but hey! Anyway, the relevant part runs as follows:
We have been informed by the report of the good and venerable man, Sparatus the priest, that you have not ceased to carry certain tables around the huts of your fellow-countrymen[3]; and that you dare celebrate Masses in the same conditions with women committed to the Divine Sacrifice, whom you have named fellow-hosts, so that, while you deliver the Eucharist, they hold the Chalices, given by you, and administer the Blood of Christ to the people[4].
**
This, and the rest of the letter, shows clearly that these particular priests allowed women to act as deacons in that they administered the Precious Blood - just as female EMEs do today. To interpret it as meaning that there were women priests can only be done by someone who has such a heavy agenda that he’ll twist anything. The site I got it from -
geocities.com/vortigernstudies/fabio/book7.5.htm
is written by a guy who’s heavily in favour of women’s ordination, but even he agrees that women were never ordained as priests historically by any but heretics - the most that scholars claim (some scholars - others disagree) is that women could be ordained as deacons, rather than deaconesses. In fact, anyone who claims that women could be Catholic priests in ancient times is, as far as I can see, either ignorant, stupid or so biased that common sense goes out of the window.
Sue
Well, this worried me. The first two items were obviously distorted: I already knew that the Celts were actually far more austere than most of the Western Church, and that the double monasteries (which existed in both Ireland and England) had the sexes carefully segregated, and never mixing. However, this letter from Rome worried me - I didn’t think the author would have invented it. So I did a Google search and found it. It was actually from three bishops of Gaul, not Rome as such, and was addressed to two priests with British names, not Irish, but hey! Anyway, the relevant part runs as follows:
We have been informed by the report of the good and venerable man, Sparatus the priest, that you have not ceased to carry certain tables around the huts of your fellow-countrymen[3]; and that you dare celebrate Masses in the same conditions with women committed to the Divine Sacrifice, whom you have named fellow-hosts, so that, while you deliver the Eucharist, they hold the Chalices, given by you, and administer the Blood of Christ to the people[4].
**
This, and the rest of the letter, shows clearly that these particular priests allowed women to act as deacons in that they administered the Precious Blood - just as female EMEs do today. To interpret it as meaning that there were women priests can only be done by someone who has such a heavy agenda that he’ll twist anything. The site I got it from -
geocities.com/vortigernstudies/fabio/book7.5.htm
is written by a guy who’s heavily in favour of women’s ordination, but even he agrees that women were never ordained as priests historically by any but heretics - the most that scholars claim (some scholars - others disagree) is that women could be ordained as deacons, rather than deaconesses. In fact, anyone who claims that women could be Catholic priests in ancient times is, as far as I can see, either ignorant, stupid or so biased that common sense goes out of the window.
Sue
