Is the Church a Patriarchy?

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My point was that Mary is nothing like the rest of us. If she truly was conceived without sin, she was not like us at all.
 
I deliberately said “rules” not “core doctrine”. I never meant to imply that the Pope could change any doctrine he wishes. I only meant that Popes have made changes in many important beliefs and practices, but not on the central beliefs on which most Christians agree.
 
I don’t understand why those who want priestesses are Catholic. If I understand correctly, the Catholic Church has infallibly stated that it is impossible for women to receive holy orders. So if the church changed its mind on that, it would amount to an admission of its fallibility. That one change would send Catholic ecclesiology crashing down and thereby destroy the claim to being the one true church.

So why don’t you just become Episcopalians or something?
 
My great aunt was the administrator in charge of a Catholic hospital back in the 50s. What other institutions gave women that level of authority on a routine basis before the 70s?
 
billsannie said:
abbesses
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Actually, you’re not quite right on this one. An abbess’ abbey is basically her Cathedral. A bishop must actually ask her for permission to celebrate Mass at the throne, even in his own diocese! Because she is the one who sits in the throne there.
 
Good point. But that was awhile back. Now the secular world has advanced further than the Church in this and other justice issues.
 
billsannie said:
Okay. But that’s more a matter of courtesy than real authority.
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That’s not courtesy. He can’t celebrate Mass at the throne if she says no, and that’s the end of it. Unlike Mother Superiors, an abbess is also consecrated as her office. She carries a staff (I’m not sure if it’s a croiser, but it’s definitely close to one) and wears a ring to symbolize her authority. Her office is quite serious.
 
Many have. Personally, I’ve known a lot more ex-Catholic than ex-Protestants. I suspect that some stay out of habit, others because the Eucharist is a sticking point, as it is for me.
 
It’s serious, but very much limited. She has no authority outside of the convent in which she resides. Hardly true of any bishop.
 
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If you believe the Church is fallible, why couldn’t it be wrong about Protestants’ not having the Eucharist? Rejecting its claims about this means rejecting its claim of infallibility, which means literally everything it has ever said is open to question.
 
billsannie said:
Now the secular world has advanced further than the Church in this and other justice issues.
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Let the Church be the measuring stick, not the secular culture.

The secular world ‘progresses’ largely due to ideologies that run contrary to the Faith.
 
Yes, she IS like us. She was conceived without sin (that is, no original sin). She could have chosen to sin --just as Adam and Eve did–but she did not.

If Mary and Jesus were 'nothing like us" then what is the point of their existence?

It is precisely the fact that they are like us in everything but sin that makes them human.

I wonder if people think that sin defines humanity, and thus that someone ‘sinless’ just cannot possibly be ‘human like us’.

Mary grew up in a small town. She cooked, cleaned, raised a child, did all the tasks any other woman in that time and place did. Do you think it was somehow a life ‘nothing like the rest of us’ lived?
 
I’m not talking about everything in the secular world, only about issues of justice, which in no way runs contrary to the faith.
 
Historically the monastery of a female order just like male order included a lot of land. The management of tenant farmers was all the responsibilities of the Abbess
She was a feudal lord.
 
And ordination or Holy Orders is core doctrine, just as much as the Eucharist, Matrimony, the Eucharist, etc. are.
 
That’s true. And historically priests could marry, but that’s no longer true either.
 
So you areaking the case the Church’s treatment of women is worse than in the past?
 
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