Is the Ordination of Women even possible?

[ryecroft]

Just checked out this link:

patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2012/03/cdl-dolan-and-fr-benedict-groeschel-affirm-me-in-my-okayness.html

heard it for myself about Cardinal Dolan saying this - something about you can be a Cardinal without having Holy Orders -hmmmm…interesting…
God Bless
Rye

 

[Quarles47]

Better, when MSNBC announces the Parousia a week after the fact.

 

[Cristiano]

What I don’t understand about this is that as far as my scholarly research goes (and I did study for a Masters in Ecclesiastical History) - women were ordained as deacons up until the 9th century. Mostly this was in the Eastern Church (the one’s we know of for sure) - but the church wasn’t seperated until after the ‘schism’ -and that wasn’t until 1054 I believe. So why were women able to be Deacons but not Priests - I thought the whole laying on of hands and everything was the same for the men as the women.
And I have a very hard time believing that only men were present at the last supper - someone had to be creating and serving the meal - likely women. I’m not going against the Church with this - it does encourage us to question -(nor am I saying I want to be a Priest or anything - I just find it interesting)- just that it seems like there were some pretty good arguments that at one time at least there were at the very LEAST female Deacons.

God Bless
Rye

Are you sure that women were ordained deacons with the imposition of the hands by a Bishop? Would you be so kind to provide a reference about it? I understand that women were consecrated as deaconesses but that is a different story. The only person that I know that is trying to imply that that kind of consecration was an ordination is Phyllis Zagano from NCR and that says a lot.

 

[Cominghome89]

Just checked out this link:

patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2012/03/cdl-dolan-and-fr-benedict-groeschel-affirm-me-in-my-okayness.html

heard it for myself about Cardinal Dolan saying this - something about you can be a Cardinal without having Holy Orders -hmmmm…interesting…
God Bless
Rye

Thank you for the link! This is absolutely true: that you can be made a cardinal without having Holy Orders. So yes, as they said, theoretically the law could be changed to allow female cardinals, if the code of canon law was change to make such an allowance. Although, why anyone would want the responsibility of being a Cardinal is beyond me…

In Christ through Mary,
Frank

 

[TheRealJuliane]

It is my understanding that the primary argument against Ordaining women is that Jesus did not pick any women as His disciples. That is a weak argument as the culture that Jesus lived in looked at women as second class citizens. The church has for a long time been a “man’s club” and has only in recent times showed much respect for ordinary women. People will say, “what about Mary”…well Mary was anything but ordinary.

Back in the 50’s - early 60’s, I remember that women were not allowed to walk up the steps to the altar (Unless it was to clean and change linens). Their role as Eucharistic Ministers is recent as is the role of female altar servers. The Church could have used the reasoning that “Jesus did not have any women at the Last Supper” to disallow women Eucharistic Ministers as well. But I believe that need becomes the creator of invention - and the shortage of priests and men to deliver the Eucharist to shut-ins, etc. probably influenced that change. I also think that will be the reason for eventually ordaining married priests. I’m convinced that the reason we don’t have them now is based solely on finance. It is just cheaper to support a single man than a family. The whole financial system of the church would have to change.

I don’t think women priests would ever happen under this Pope but I do feel that somewhere down the line the Church will have to ordain women. It won’t be in my life time but it will happen and when it does, I believe the laity will benefit greatly.

:dts:

This will NEVER happen, or we will know that the gates of Hell have prevailed, and Jesus said they would not. The Church will NEVER have to ordain women. It can’t, it won’t, so get your mind off of it and find some other thing to think about.

 

[ryecroft]

Are you sure that women were ordained deacons with the imposition of the hands by a Bishop? Would you be so kind to provide a reference about it? I understand that women were consecrated as deaconesses but that is a different story. The only person that I know that is trying to imply that that kind of consecration was an ordination is Phyllis Zagano from NCR and that says a lot.

Actually, I’ll probably be adding more - I need to go through some of my old papers from school as I did some research on this. The Barbarini Codex (this was a liturgical guide/manual) and it specifically contains an Ordination Rite for Deaconesses. Some will argue that the word for deaconess is the same word as the word used to say a deacons wife - this is true - but there are cases where it is obvious the deaconess has no husband (is a nun and is being made a deaconess - which sounds weird now but wasn’t back then - you had places that were really remote and you needed someone there able to complete certain liturgical functions - including baptism) - but there are multiple examples (One being Irene in the 4th century where a completely different word is used).

In Romans Paul mentions Phoebe as a Deaconess - but it is never mentioned if she was made one by laying on of hands with ordination or was just conferred - but for this, then all of those deacons/deaconesses would have to come into question using that criteria.

If you want I may go into this later. Some scholars will swear up and down that none of this was ever possible others will swear it has to be. But one thing isn’t up for debate and that is that at the very least until the 12th or 13th century there were deaconesses - some who baptized, some who carried out multiple other liturgical functions. I honestly believe they were necessary back then - especially before infant Baptism was the norm.

God Bless
Rye

 

[Brofessor]

Also, if we take a look at a woman we know that woman are full of mercy, love, compassion and tend to lead with our hearts.

I’m a guy, and that’s exactly what I want to do. I’m empathetic, romantic and emotionally-driven. Does that make me a defective man?

 

[John_Russell_Jr]

I dont care if its Biblical or not, I just want to know if its possible.

If the Pope ordained a woman, could that woman be ordained validly?

I understand completely that Woman Ordinations are out of the question in the Catholic Church because Jesus never ordained woman.

All I am asking is if it is even possible to ordain women?

Thank you.

… my dear friend ,

… my own current possible theories related to this none have explored i believe , and the science and medicine is not up to speed yet on this , it follows –

… what are homosexuals ??? …

… 3 types i think : …

… 1 ) , ssa is caused by poor upbringing and various factors which can lead to gender confusion , eg , a boy must be told and shown and this message must be repeatedly and continually reinforced : a boy does this , a man does that , same for girls and women , otherwise one can question ones sexuallity and gender and sexual preference – confusion is the heart of this potential type of homosexual …

… 2 ) , some people are just perverts and like to experiment sexually , some homosexuals are like this, people oft like to twist and pervert what is normal and make it dirty and evil to get more pleasure and enjoyment out of it , sex is big on this list for many and so is lust and hedonism as we know i’m sure , the 2 d type are just perverts …

… 3 ) , then there are what i believe are genuine homosexuals , these have a wrong body for the soul due to a mix up caused by original sin , what happens is all babies at the earliest stages in the womb start out with female genitalia , but if it is to be a boy then chemicals like testosterone are pumped into the body and change the genitalia to male genitalia , the mix up comes when the chemicals should be released but are’t due to the mothers body being fallen and defevtive , this problem goes both ways though , regardless of the body god creates the correct soul , so we end up with a female soul with male anatomy , as a result of original sin as said , god can also create a male soul but the chemicals are not released leaving the baby female anatomically , it’s all a mess due to original sin mixing things up …

… conclusion : –

… the 3 rd type constitues what has existed in the church since the beginning i’m sure and is very common today , the point is we have always had women clergy but the science is not up to speed to prove this yet , you are a soul in a body – they are one but the soul determines the sex , and if this is right as i think at this point , we have pretty much always had women clergy who have male anatomy due to a type of deformity giving them the wrong anatomy , we may have even had femake pope / s under this theory …

… as to all other reasons we don’t have women clergy i can offer my answers on these too if any ask , there are reasons for all and everything …

… hope this helps with the q …

… may god bless and love you all and embrace you into his blissful heavenly peace eternally ,

… john …
:

 

[domandcarols]

No, if ten cardinals, the Pope, and half a dozen metropolitan bishops laid their hands on a woman at once, in the middle of St Peter’s Basilica, with the use of Chrism that had touched Christ himself, Holy Orders would not and could not be conferred. (That is, the woman would not be able to confect the Eucharist nor perform any priestly functions: no indelible mark of orders would be upon her soul.)

Even if the Pope (in that case, an anti-pope) approved it, and said it was licit - it would still be invalid. Women are ontologically incapable of being ordained: no matter what authority would demand it, it would be impossible, unless the world is Occasionalist in its being, and God itself rewrote creation to make women male. That is, no matter who attempts to ordain a women - no matter if they are a bishop of the Catholic or Orthodox Churches - no ordination actually occurs, but a mere “simulation of the sacrament” (which is, incidentally, blasphemous), in a way analogous to a man who is not ordained attempting to confect the Eucharist - even if he stands behind a dedicated altar in St Peter’s Basilica with a valid host, and performs the rite perfectly, saying the words perfectly - the Eucharist never comes to be; it is still just bread and wine, that has not undergone transubstantiation. The same is unto women, who are ordained in what would otherwise be a valid ceremony: they are still just human beings, not priests, after the ceremony is finished, just as the bread and wine remain bread and wine if a non-ordained man would perform the rites over it.

The Deaconess is not an exception, as the Deaconess was not a complete parallel to the Deacon, and was not ordained - there’s a good article on this somewhere…

There’s a lot of verbiage up there, but the key phrase, the entire matter, is women are ontologically incapable of being ordained.

:clapping:

 

[Rence]

And the Holy Spirit (God) has already declared through the Catholic Church (through Bl. John Paul II) that “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.”

Not no authority now, but no authority whatsoever. Ever. And this is to be held by all the faithful. The CDF has analyzed this letter, and declared this teaching to be infallible. It will not change, and people should stop assuming that it will change in the future.

Only time will tell. It’s only a matter of time, and time changes the availability of information.

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

:clapping:

I do not think they are onthological incapable.
Simply, God wanted it other way.

 

[Khalid]

What I don’t understand about this is that as far as my scholarly research goes (and I did study for a Masters in Ecclesiastical History) - women were ordained as deacons up until the 9th century. Mostly this was in the Eastern Church (the one’s we know of for sure) - but the church wasn’t seperated until after the ‘schism’ -and that wasn’t until 1054 I believe. So why were women able to be Deacons but not Priests - I thought the whole laying on of hands and everything was the same for the men as the women.
And I have a very hard time believing that only men were present at the last supper - someone had to be creating and serving the meal - likely women. I’m not going against the Church with this - it does encourage us to question -(nor am I saying I want to be a Priest or anything - I just find it interesting)- just that it seems like there were some pretty good arguments that at one time at least there were at the very LEAST female Deacons.

God Bless
Rye

There were deaconesses, but, as I mentioned in my first post, they were not ordained or given Holy Orders - they were not an exact female equivalent to the male deacon. More information on this is available if you would like. (There are some parties of the Orthodox Church pushing for the re-introduction of Deaconesses, some pushing for actual ordination; much the same as don’t denounce homosexuality, divorce, birth control, all abortion, and a married episcopate: this is obvious from the notes in the Orthodox Study Bible - produced by Protestant converts to Antiochene Orthodoxy - on First Timothy.)

Any person, priest or not, Christian or not, can baptize another, granted that he has the intent to baptize. And, it seems your history is a bit shaky - infant baptism always was the norm, from the Apostolic age and the first second generation Christians, although in some ages and in some classes of people (nobility), there are legends (apocryphal or not) that men were not baptized until their marriage, so that their fornications and other pre-matrimonial sins would be erased. Examples like Constantine, baptized on his deathbed, are rare, and never the norm.

Hoffen: that women are ontologically incapable of ordination implies ontological inferiority, and is the most hard-line or traditionalist philosophical position advanced against the ordination of women. It is also the most secure and logical, being as it is based in first principles. However, there are an entire array of arguments on both sides, many of which, on the no-priestesses side, have nothing to do with ontology. However, they tend to be less secure, because they’re either culturally conditioned (CBMW, egalitarians), based solely in Scripture (complementarians, Patriarchalists), or are “scientific”, being supposedly empirical, physicalist, and fact-based instead of grounded in God, first principles, and logic, and, as everyone has a different opinion but must share the same facts, the same facts are merely interpreted differently by each side, lacking decisiveness.

 

[curlycool89]

Only time will tell. It’s only a matter of time, and time changes the availability of information.

Ok, let’s just be clear here because you keep giving statements that seem to imply something.

Do you actually think that there will be women “priests” in the future? Because you keep implying that you do.

And it doesn’t matter how many faces you put or how gentle you phrase it, it’s never going to happen. Never ever. You mine as well accept that now.

 

[ryecroft]

There were deaconesses, but, as I mentioned in my first post, they were not ordained or given Holy Orders - they were not an exact female equivalent to the male deacon. More information on this is available if you would like. (There are some parties of the Orthodox Church pushing for the re-introduction of Deaconesses, some pushing for actual ordination; much the same as don’t denounce homosexuality, divorce, birth control, all abortion, and a married episcopate: this is obvious from the notes in the Orthodox Study Bible - produced by Protestant converts to Antiochene Orthodoxy - on First Timothy.)

Any person, priest or not, Christian or not, can baptize another, granted that he has the intent to baptize. And, it seems your history is a bit shaky - infant baptism always was the norm, from the Apostolic age and the first second generation Christians, although in some ages and in some classes of people (nobility), there are legends (apocryphal or not) that men were not baptized until their marriage, so that their fornications and other pre-matrimonial sins would be erased. Examples like Constantine, baptized on his deathbed, are rare, and never the norm.

Hoffen: that women are ontologically incapable of ordination implies ontological inferiority, and is the most hard-line or traditionalist philosophical position advanced against the ordination of women. It is also the most secure and logical, being as it is based in first principles. However, there are an entire array of arguments on both sides, many of which, on the no-priestesses side, have nothing to do with ontology. However, they tend to be less secure, because they’re either culturally conditioned (CBMW, egalitarians), based solely in Scripture (complementarians, Patriarchalists), or are “scientific”, being supposedly empirical, physicalist, and fact-based instead of grounded in God, first principles, and logic, and, as everyone has a different opinion but must share the same facts, the same facts are merely interpreted differently by each side, lacking decisiveness.

O.K. Actually, I’m going to pull out some of my translations we did from Ecclesiastical Latin and Greek -
I don’t just want to go on what “might” be the translation - but I have read over and over where it is actually mentioned where they no longer wanted to have female Deconess ordination - this would follow that if you want to ban something that it would actually have to have existed. But I’ll get into my papers and also some research. Sometimes I wonder if Paul wasn’t a little Misogynistic as far as women went but even he referrs to Deaconesses - if you question if these were truly ordained then you also must question whether the Deacons were truly ordained. And actually, this did exist prior to there being Nuns and after - I can come up with some examples if need be.
Will post again later tonight after I’ve had some time to look.
God Bless
Rye

 

[FCEGM]

Ok, let’s just be clear here because you keep giving statements that seem to imply something.

Do you actually think that there will be women “priests” in the future? Because you keep implying that you do.

And it doesn’t matter how many faces you put or how gentle you phrase it, it’s never going to happen. Never ever. You mine as well accept that now.

:yup: Anticipating information that Jesus wasn’t male is a huge waste of energy.

 

[Melchior_1]

Then perhaps you can tell us why these womenpriests are not really priests? If a Bishop laid hands on and used the chrism and said the prayers with the intention, what’s missing?

I would say what is missing is the matter. You could have the proper form and/or intent, but a part of the proper matter for Holy Orders is a male body receiving the Sacrament. Without a male body, the Sacrament is invalid and simply doesn’t happen.

Bl. John Paul II infallibly disagrees with you.

Line of the day, this is!

 

[Cinette]

I dont care if its Biblical or not, I just want to know if its possible.

If the Pope ordained a woman, could that woman be ordained validly?

I understand completely that Woman Ordinations are out of the question in the Catholic Church because Jesus never ordained woman.

All I am asking is if it is even possible to ordain women?

Thank you.

*I love being a woman - I know my role and I believe in roles. Vive la difference! The priesthood is definitely the role of men not women. Perhaps I appear to be too conservative but I feel strongly that women were not destined for the priesthood. I have known a feminist nun - brilliant, had a Phd in theology, tried to get all in the Parish to adopt inclusive language (which I instinctively felt was out of gear) This nun eventually went off to Spain and was ordained a “priest” by a bunch of rebels (I think they were Austrian) - later she became a “bishop”! I always felt extremely sad about this.

I believe we should be obedient to God and to the Church and His representative on earth.

Her influence at the Parish led to the Holy Spirit eventually becoming a “she” and the Parish priest who had at one time been an enormous influence in our lives became a hindrance - we left the Parish. It is a sad state of affairs. I believe that the main influence behind all this is gay! In fact I know this to be a fact.

Cinette
*

 

[Balian]

I dont care if its Biblical or not, I just want to know if its possible.

If the Pope ordained a woman, could that woman be ordained validly?

I understand completely that Woman Ordinations are out of the question in the Catholic Church because Jesus never ordained woman.

All I am asking is if it is even possible to ordain women?

Thank you.

No it isn’t possible.

 

[Elizium23]

I would say what is missing is the matter. You could have the proper form and/or intent, but a part of the proper matter for Holy Orders is a male body receiving the Sacrament. Without a male body, the Sacrament is invalid and simply doesn’t happen.
Line of the day, this is!

Not true. The matter is the laying on of hands or the instruments of the order (chalice etc.) The male ordinand is the subject of valid ordination.

 

[Khalid]

O.K. Actually, I’m going to pull out some of my translations we did from Ecclesiastical Latin and Greek -
I don’t just want to go on what “might” be the translation - but I have read over and over where it is actually mentioned where they no longer wanted to have female Deconess ordination - this would follow that if you want to ban something that it would actually have to have existed. But I’ll get into my papers and also some research. Sometimes I wonder if Paul wasn’t a little Misogynistic as far as women went but even he referrs to Deaconesses - if you question if these were truly ordained then you also must question whether the Deacons were truly ordained. And actually, this did exist prior to there being Nuns and after - I can come up with some examples if need be.
Will post again later tonight after I’ve had some time to look.
God Bless
Rye

Please do. It has always been my impression from the standard historical texts, that they were consecrated to the office of Deaconess, not ordained. (However, the standard texts - Pelikan, Harnack, etc. - don’t deal with feminism except as a foot-note.) It’s often hard to tell exactly what is implied, let alone clearly stated, in the Church Fathers - whether in the original languages or translation, due to shifting vocabulary and general idiosyncrasy of each author, etc. - although I do have a (nearly) complete set of JP Migne if you can tell me where to look it up (and a complete set of the abridged JP Migne in the “Early Church Fathers” 38 vol. set, Eng. translation, which I have read - I’ve not read more than 10-15% of Migne in the original Greek and Latin). Note that I don’t acknowledge Elaine Pagels as a reliable source (and, from what I’ve read, she’s been the most outspoken on the issue of any, albeit on the popular level).

That reminds me, Origen’s commentary on Romans is awesome (if you can get it: the first volume was very hard to find, and it’s not in Migne in its entirety). I’ve never read a commentary from before the Augustine-Pelagius debates before, and, Origen, writing in the early-to-mid third century, clearly shows that the “bondage of the will” as characterizes Calvinism and Lutheranism, and other Protestant denominations, was not the teaching of the early Church, and indeed was roundly rejected by it, when Origen demonstrates (using arguments still used today, but before there was any major political baggage attached to them) that all rational creatures have freedom of the will.
St Ignatius Loyola:

“That we may be altogether of the same mind and in conformity with the Church herself, if she shall have defined anything to be black which to our eyes appears to be white, we ought in like manner to pronounce it to be black. For we must undoubtedly believe, that the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of the Orthodox * Church His Spouse, by which Spirit we are governed and directed to Salvation, is the same…”*