Is the Church a Patriarchy?

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billsannie said:
God does do the calling. The question is, does He call only men? Or does He call women, but the patriarchy won’t allow them to answer in the Catholic Church?
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If a question is going to be posed, it helps to ask what evidence is sufficient for a positive conclusion and what evidence is sufficient for a negative conclusion.
Well, if He had meant to call women, one piece of evidence would be that He had actually done it.
Is there evidence that this was impossible for Him to have done at the time? Why or why not?
There could be other evidence, sure, but here is another question: What evidence would be required to conclude He really does only call men to that particular role? What evidence would be satisfactory to conclude that a male-only priesthood is God’s will?
The Church, considering the evidence, has deemed that the conclusion is clearly in the negative.
I’m asking you if you know what evidence you consider evidence for the positive and also what evidence you’d consider to be necessary for a negative conclusion. Are you open to reaching that conclusion?
billsannie said:
Men are usually better at things like reaching the top shelf at the grocery store or lifting heavy weights over their heads. But as for the duties of the priesthood, I’ve seen women priests who were much better at it than almost any man. And please note, I’m not talking about the chrism supposed to be conferred by ordination, which is humanly imperceptible, but the visible attributes.
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Duties? The priesthood isn’t a job.
Moses wouldn’t be anybody’s first choice as a candidate for his role in salvation history, nor would David or Ruth or…good heavens, who on earth would pluck fishermen off of boats to be fishers of men? How on earth would the Church have thought to draft Saul?
No, this isn’t a “look at the resume!” kind of discussion.
 
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Men are also better at one other thing than women. So much better, in fact, that the worst man imaginable can do it but the Blessed Virgin Mary herself could never do it.

Being a father.

I’m not talking about just male parenthood either. I’m talking about the very nature of being a father, such that God decided He wished to be called Father because of that nature.

Joseph was less holy than Mary, he almost certainly had less wisdom, and in all likelihood he was less intelligent. Yet when the tine came to tell the Holy Family to flee into Egypt, it was Joseph who was told. God could have told Mary. It is not as if Joseph would have complained. Or He could have sent ten legions of angels to carry the Holy Infant away to safety. In that case, the Holy Infant himself could have simply willed himself into Egypt and it would have been done.

But God chose to teach us a very important lesson about how He views the father and how He wishes us to view our fathers and our fathers to view themselves. Priests are our spiritual fathers. They preside over our spiritual life the same way a father presides over the physical lives of his children. A woman, even a woman like the Blessed Virgin, cannot fulfill this role.

God decided that His priesthood would be a spiritual fatherhood, and He ordained before all time that only men could be fathers. A woman can be every good thing in the world, but she can’t be a father.

Is the Church patriarchal? Yes. That is uncomfortable to our modern ideals, but it is how God wishes it to be. We have no right, authority, or even ability to change it. And honestly, if we are being faithful, we should have no desire to change it either.
 
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A physical father, if he is worthy of the name, at least knows the names of his children and something about them. A priest barely knows the names of some of his flock and nothing of the lives of nearly all of them. He is not a father in any meaningful way. This is particularly true now, but I doubt if things were ever much different. As far as general spiritual oversight goes, a woman is quite as capable as a man.

In the Bible, an apostle is referred to as a spiritual father only in the sense of being the one who brings the community into being, and so has responsibility for it. The reference would be the same if a woman had done it, only she would be called a mother.

As for our right to change it, the Church has modified and changed many things over the years, many of great importance. Why is this so different?
 
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I never meant to reduce the priesthood to a job. The person I was replying to had written of activities, so I was trying to answer in the same vein.
 
Beyond_Reason said:
Is it possible that Jesus was just acting within the social framework of his time, recognizing that women in the 1st century had very little freedom or authority and so those 12 men would be best suited to that purpose?
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No, that is specifically addressed in CDF document I linked above. Jesus acted contrary to the social framework on how women should be treated and treated them far better than society deemed they should be, hence that can’t be s reason he didn’t pick them. From defending the prostitute from being stoned to Mary Magdelan who approaches Jesus when he’s with Pharisees and they say “You know what kind of a woman this is???” And Jesus says to them “Please, let her approach” and then “she has washed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. Your sins are forgiven” and Pharisees rebuke Jesus “What?? Only God can forgive sins!!”

So let’s take “Jesus was acting within social norms of women “ off the list of why he didn’t choose women

Also the likelihood that he randomly chose 12 men and all 12 just coincidentally happened to be men is 1 in 4300 (just take 1/2 to the 12 power)
 
prayerrider said:
No, I think it’s cultural Marxism and radical feminism.
Actually I’m quite sure that’s what it is.
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I recommend reading Rerum Novarum… maybe the most important papal encyclical of the past 150 years
 
@glencor63

There’s plenty of room for dissent.

I mentioned a Chestertonian paradox above. But the paradox of A) a clergy that is more than 50% homosexual and B) also militantly misogynistic

is just ridiculous.

I doubt anyone is offended here. In another paradox, a person doesn’t have to be offended to think a post is a bit goofy.

Why not back your post up with facts? The claims you made are pretty serious. If you want to be taken seriously, you should at least cite a couple sources.
 
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billsannie said:
I never meant to reduce the priesthood to a job. The person I was replying to had written of activities, so I was trying to answer in the same vein.
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You just posted
billsannie said:
A physical father, if he is worthy of the name, at least knows the names of his children and something about them. A priest barely knows the names of some of his flock and nothing of the lives of nearly all of them. He is not a father in any meaningful way. This is particularly true now, but I doubt if things were ever much different. As far as general spiritual oversight goes, a woman is quite as capable as a man.
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What was that, except to say that a priest is not in fact a father but only someone who provides “general spiritual oversight,” which (again) is a duty, not a role rooted in the identity of the priest as a person?
billsannie said:
As for our right to change it, the Church has modified and changed many things over the years, many of great importance. Why is this so different?
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Read
http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-p...p-ii_apl_19940522_ordinatio-sacerdotalis.html

“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.” --Pope Paul VI

“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.” --Pope John Paul II

Again: What evidence would satisfy you that Christ did indeed intend to ordain men and only men to the apostolic and presbyterial office?
 
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Women are absolutely allowed to have hysterectomies for medical reasons. If you’ve come across a priest who has said otherwise, they are wrong. This is not Church teaching.
 
0331 said:
There’s plenty of room for dissent.
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No, there isn’t. There is plenty of room for discussion in terms of gaining an understanding of the situation, but pretending that this is an open question when it is not is contrary to the facts. Why should this forum pretend that the unchanging nature of the situation is in question when it is not?

“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.”

Pope St. John Paul II, APOSTOLIC LETTER ORDINATIO SACERDOTALIS,
Solemnity of Pentecost, May 22, 1994

That is not to say that the male-only priesthood bars women from meaningful (name removed by moderator)ut into the decision-making or discernment within the Church. As Our Lord said, " “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and the great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matt. 20:25-28) This means that the implication of having men in positions of authority in the Church should not be just the same as when that is the case in the secular world.
 
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LumineDiei said:
I’m one of the resident feminists on CAF and I’m calling BS on this one! The decision to have a hysterectomy is made between the woman and her gynecologist (at sometimes an insurance company), but NOT a priest!

Would you please provide written proof of where it states on any official Catholic document that a woman needs permission to get a hysterectomy from a priest?
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Personally, I don’t think a woman should ever get a hysterectomy from a priest, permission or no.
 
Thanks. But I wasn’t referring to dissenting the ordination of women. I was addressing Glen’s comment that there is no room for dissent on CAF, which was in response to a couple of us calling him out for his previous post. But perhaps ‘diversity of opinion’ is a better term than dissent.
 
0331 said:
Thanks. But I wasn’t referring to dissenting the ordination of women. I was addressing Glen’s comment that there is no room for dissent on CAF, which was in response to a couple of us calling him out for his previous post. But perhaps ‘diversity of opinion’ is a better term than dissent.
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Sorry. Since the thread is about the “patriarchy,” I took you to be talking about the ordination of women.
Having said that, I do not see any problem with it if CAF doesn’t tolerate posts which imply that the firm teachings of the Magesterium are up for debate. That is probably a fair assessment, and if it is that is in keeping with the mission of Catholic Answers. They aren’t here to give people a place to debate whether what the Church teaches is correct or not, but to give people a place to learn the truth about the Catholic faith and to distinguish truth from rumor and opinion.
 
The 12 male Apostles and the ones they ordained were the “institutional church” in the first century. Is that also a sad fact?
 
godisgood77 said:
The Church is the people… and the people are not a patriarchy.

The institutional church is definitely a patriarchy and that fact is pretty sad
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“See that you all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is administered either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude of the people also be; even as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”
—St. Ignatius of Antioch, Doctor of the Church, Letter to the Smyrnaeans , Ch 8

This saint was early enough to have been a child when Our Lord was in his public ministry. That’s how far back this goes. To imply that the people can be separated from their bishop is simply wrong, incorrect in both fact and in sentiment.

( Ignatius of Antioch, Saint, also called Theophorus ( o Theophoros ); b. in Syria, c. the year 50; d. at Rome between 98 and 117. More than one of the earliest ecclesiastical writers have given credence, though apparently without good reason, to the legend that Ignatius was the child whom the Savior took up in His arms, as described in Mark, 9:35. It is also believed, and with great probability, that, with his friend Polycarp, he was among the auditors of the Apostle St. John. If we include St. Peter, Ignatius was the third Bishop of Antioch and the immediate successor of Evodius (Eusebius, “Hist. Eccl.”, II, iii, 22, Migne, P.G., L). Theodoret (“Dial. Immutab.”, I, iv, 33a, Paris, 1642) is the authority for the statement that St. Peter appointed Ignatius to the See of Antioch. St. John Chrysostom lays special emphasis on the honor conferred upon the martyr in receiving his episcopal consecration at the hands of the Apostles themselves (“Hom. in St. Ig.”, IV, 587, Migne, P.G.). Natalis Alexander quotes Theodoret to the same effect (III, xii, art. xvi, p. 53).
–Ignatius of Antioch, Saint | Catholic Answers)
 
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