Is it ok to advocate or agitate for women's ordination?

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Yeah classic modernist ideology. “We know better now than those mere peasants of the early church”

Really sad.
 
The word change is much too broad. It does not apply here. Once the Church says no it means no.
 
Since the issue of ordaining women as deacons isn’t settled yet then there isn’t anything wrong with pushing, in good faith, for their ordination as deacons.
 
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I was going to post a link, but let’s just read it right here. Let there be no doubt - the case is closed and is a disordered desire from the beginning.
APOSTOLIC LETTER
ORDINATIO SACERDOTALIS
OF JOHN PAUL II
TO THE BISHOPS
OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
ON RESERVING PRIESTLY ORDINATION
TO MEN ALONE

Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate,
  1. Priestly ordination, which hands on the office entrusted by Christ to his Apostles of teaching, sanctifying and governing the faithful, has in the Catholic Church from the beginning always been reserved to men alone. This tradition has also been faithfully maintained by the Oriental Churches.
When the question of the ordination of women arose in the Anglican Communion, Pope Paul VI, out of fidelity to his office of safeguarding the Apostolic Tradition, and also with a view to removing a new obstacle placed in the way of Christian unity, reminded Anglicans of the position of the Catholic Church: “She holds that it is not admissible to ordain women to the priesthood, for very fundamental reasons. These reasons include: the example recorded in the Sacred Scriptures of Christ choosing his Apostles only from among men; the constant practice of the Church, which has imitated Christ in choosing only men; and her living teaching authority which has consistently held that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is in accordance with God’s plan for his Church.”(1)

But since the question had also become the subject of debate among theologians and in certain Catholic circles, Paul VI directed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to set forth and expound the teaching of the Church on this matter. This was done through the Declaration Inter Insigniores, which the Supreme Pontiff approved and ordered to be published.(2)
  1. The Declaration recalls and explains the fundamental reasons for this teaching, reasons expounded by Paul VI, and concludes that the Church “does not consider herself authorized to admit women to priestly ordination.”(3) To these fundamental reasons the document adds other theological reasons which illustrate the appropriateness of the divine provision, and it also shows clearly that Christ’s way of acting did not proceed from sociological or cultural motives peculiar to his time. As Paul VI later explained: “The real reason is that, in giving the Church her fundamental constitution, her theological anthropology-thereafter always followed by the Church’s Tradition- Christ established things in this way.”(4)
In the Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem, I myself wrote in this regard: “In calling only men as his Apostles, Christ acted in a completely free and sovereign manner. In doing so, he exercised the same freedom with which, in all his behavior, he emphasized the dignity and the vocation of women, without conforming to the prevailing customs and to the traditions sanctioned by the legislation of the time.”(5)
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In fact the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles attest that this call was made in accordance with God’s eternal plan; Christ chose those whom he willed (cf. Mk 3:13-14; Jn 6:70), and he did so in union with the Father, “through the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:2), after having spent the night in prayer (cf. Lk 6:12). Therefore, in granting admission to the ministerial priesthood,(6) the Church has always acknowledged as a perennial norm her Lord’s way of acting in choosing the twelve men whom he made the foundation of his Church (cf. Rv 21:14). These men did not in fact receive only a function which could thereafter be exercised by any member of the Church; rather they were specifically and intimately associated in the mission of the Incarnate Word himself (cf. Mt 10:1, 7-8; 28:16-20; Mk 3:13-16; 16:14-15). The Apostles did the same when they chose fellow workers(7) who would succeed them in their ministry.(8) Also included in this choice were those who, throughout the time of the Church, would carry on the Apostles’ mission of representing Christ the Lord and Redeemer.(9)
  1. Furthermore, the fact that the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, received neither the mission proper to the Apostles nor the ministerial priesthood clearly shows that the non-admission of women to priestly ordination cannot mean that women are of lesser dignity, nor can it be construed as discrimination against them. Rather, it is to be seen as the faithful observance of a plan to be ascribed to the wisdom of the Lord of the universe.
The presence and the role of women in the life and mission of the Church, although not linked to the ministerial priesthood, remain absolutely necessary and irreplaceable. As the Declaration Inter Insigniores points out, “the Church desires that Christian women should become fully aware of the greatness of their mission: today their role is of capital importance both for the renewal and humanization of society and for the rediscovery by believers of the true face of the Church.”(10)

The New Testament and the whole history of the Church give ample evidence of the presence in the Church of women, true disciples, witnesses to Christ in the family and in society, as well as in total consecration to the service of God and of the Gospel. “By defending the dignity of women and their vocation, the Church has shown honor and gratitude for those women who-faithful to the Gospel-have shared in every age in the apostolic mission of the whole People of God. They are the holy martyrs, virgins and mothers of families, who bravely bore witness to their faith and passed on the Church’s faith and tradition by bringing up their children in the spirit of the Gospel.”(11)
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Moreover, it is to the holiness of the faithful that the hierarchical structure of the Church is totally ordered. For this reason, the Declaration Inter Insigniores recalls: “the only better gift, which can and must be desired, is love (cf. 1 Cor 12 and 13). The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven are not the ministers but the saints.”(12)
  1. Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church’s judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.
Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.

Invoking an abundance of divine assistance upon you, venerable brothers, and upon all the faithful, I impart my apostolic blessing.

From the Vatican, on May 22, the Solemnity of Pentecost, in the year 1994, the sixteenth of my Pontificate.
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NOTES
  1. Paul VI, Response to the Letter of His Grace the Most Reverend Dr. F.D. Coggan, Archbishop of Canterbury, concerning the Ordination of Women to the Priesthood (November 30, 1975); AAS 68 (1976), 599.
  2. Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Inter Insigniores on the question of the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood (October 15, 1976): AAS 69 (1977), 98-116.
  3. Ibid., 100.
  4. Paul VI, Address on the Role of Women in the Plan of Salvation (January 30, 1977): Insegnamenti, XV (1977), 111. Cf. Also John Paul II Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles laici (December 30, 1988), n. 51: AAS 81 (1989), 393-521; Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1577.
  5. Apsotolic Letter Mulieris Dignnitatem (August 15, 1988), n. 26: AAS 80 (1988), 1715.
  6. Cf. Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, n. 28 Decree Presbyterorum Ordinis, n. 2b.
  7. Cf. 1 Tm 3:1-13; 2 Tm 1:6; Ti 1:5-9.
  8. Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1577.
  9. Cf. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, nn. 20,21.
  10. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Inter Insigniores, n. 6: AAS 69 (1977), 115-116.
  11. Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem, n. 27: AAS 80 (1988), 1719.
  12. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Inter Insigniores n. 6: AAS 69 (1977), 115.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
These teachings did not change.

Why did you think they changed?
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I don’t want to transform this into yet another thread on whether the Church ever “changes,” as they always devolve into semantic arguments. Certainly those teachings have evolved or developed or been clarified, or whatever term suits your fancy.
 
For the record, they haven’t changed one bit.

The death penalty teaching observes that most society now has ways to keep those who are very dangerous to society securely confined, therefore the justification for killing them is absent.

The EENS teaching is still firmly in place. The Church has expressed in more detail ways in which those who are not Catholic, or perhaps aren’t even Christian, might be “in communion with the Church”. This doesn’t change EENS which is still part of the catechism.

I’m not going to derail the thread either, but in case someone reading this is not familiar with Church teaching, we can’t just dismiss it when people post on here going “Oh the Church changed this and that” because it didn’t. I will now leave the thread.
 
Development of something to a deeper understanding does not change the fundamentals.

That’s why it is called DEVELOPMENT and not CHANGE.

If people use sloppy speech, then correcting them is an act of charity, lest they be led astray or lead others astray.

So people who use the word ‘change’ to mean ‘oh so 800 years ago when all people were pretty much illiterate the Church, since Bibles took years to be written out by hand, had to in some cases chain them lest they be stolen from the parish in which they served the people, but now the Church lets everybody have access to Bibles, —look how they have CHANGED from forbidding people to read the Bible to letting them do so”. . .are being both sloppy and sneaky in attempting to portray a development of literacy via the printing press, thus making the average person able to read and to afford an easily available Bible, as a ‘change’ in the teaching of the Church to ‘allow’ people to ‘read’ the Bible whereas they claim before it was ‘forbidden.;

Quite a few of the so-called “The Church changed” are of this ilk.
 
stpurl said:
That’s why it is called DEVELOPMENT and not CHANGE.
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OK, I don’t care what words are used. We can say that its OK for people to advocate for developments in doctrine, and to discuss developments in doctrine. I am not married to the word “change.”
 
It was settled 25 years ago when PJPII issued Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, which @po18guy and others have posted on this and other related threads.

Seriously, no means NO, as in ne, nein, non, numquam… 😫
 
C.Ray said:
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C.Ray:
$10 says it’s a communist front.
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You’d lose.
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Why would C.Ray lose?
 
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Even groups or organizations bearing the name “Catholic” must be vetted, must be discerned. It is a doubled edged sword which has been used against the Church, i.e. Nation Catholic Tattler (“reporter”). Like the cleanliness of the Apostles, they are clean, but not all.
 
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