Male-only Priesthood: Different reasonings in Early Church vs Today?

  • Thread starter Thread starter catholic1seeks
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Even in the ancient pagan world, there were very few female priesthoods, because the spirituality of women is usually not about slitting an animal’s throat or gut, burning fat and bones for the gods, and then holding a barbecue grill-out.

Priestess religions were usually about sex, love, fertility of crops, conception of kids, visions, divination, and offerings of grain and fruit.

Whenever women got into performing animal sacrifice, the ancient pagan world associated that with baneful witchcraft, poison, destroying crops, child sacrifice, castrating men or boys as a religious act, and ripping men apart with bare hands and teeth. There was something about offering animal sacrifice that was psychologically destructive for women, even though it was not destructive for men. And the same thing seems to happen in today’s pagan traditional societies, as well as among neopagans.

(And it wasn’t the killing, per se. Most ancient societies had no problem with women doing a lot of wringing necks of chicken, etc. So it must be something about the offering that goes against women’s grain.)

Catholic priests are essentially rebranded Jewish priests. The only reason our priests don’t do animal sacrifice is because Christ became our once-for-all sacrifice. Our priests re-present His sacrifice, and help us join our gifts of ourselves and our goods to His.

But that doesn’t mean you can pick people to be Catholic priests who wouldn’t theoretically be okay with slitting animal throats and doing all the rest. Acting as the priestly people, who offer things that are not destroyed in the giving, is fundamentally different from offering or presenting the totality of a life. As a woman, I am okay with assisting in Christ’s Mass, but I sure as heck don’t want to offer Him.

It would have been hard enough on Mary to stand at the Cross’ foot and consent and observe, not running away or blinding herself with tears. I’m pretty sure she didn’t want to break her Son’s Body in half and present Him to the Most High.

Why are we so anxious to make women into carbon copies of men? I’m a woman, and you couldn’t pay me to be a guy. I like guys, but a woman is what I am.
 
Last edited:
Well, I’ll speak first from my own experience.

Back in 1976 when the Charismatic Movement was full blown in my area, I attended three different prayer groups. First, they were led and attended by a balance of men and women. However, slowly but surely, the leaders became all women and once that happened, the attendance at the prayer meetings became mostly women. The leaders began to push things which were more ego and emotionally driven to the point that one group, the parish priest had to step in and correct the leader. She got upset and left. The prayer group soon ended.

OK, that was then,.

But then I watched the Episcopal Church which first ordained women to the priesthood. Once that happened, a woman was made Bishop. Not long after that, homosexuals were allowed into the priesthood, and of course same sex marriage was approved. In fact, a homosexual in a relationship with a man, was made Bishop. If you think there is no sexual abuse in the Episcopal Church, think again,

Did all this have to do with ordaining women ? I don’t know, but the emotional openness of women to immorality when it’s seen as good, has never ceased to exist since Adam and Eve, Legalization of abortion is a prime example.

OK, perhaps I’m just an old chauvinist, but I’ve seen the negative consequences of allowing women to lead men and of course, be ordained to the priesthood.

I could go into the consequences of women coming into the workplace in my career, but I’m already setting myself up to be a target.

Go ahead, have at it. 😃

Jim
 
No, I disagree. That passage makes it sound like the woman is a man’s property, and a tool for reproduction:
For the woman is the body of the man, taken from his side and subject to him, from whom she was separated for the procreation of children.
Click to expand...
It would be sad it we haven’t evolved our understanding of woman since AD 400.

Regardless, the Church doesn’t usually make these arguments for the male priesthood. More and more, I see more arguments along the lines of the sacramental understanding of the priest reflecting Christ, who is the Bridegroom (i.e., male).
 
Last edited:
Yes, Paul was probably revolutionary in his own day (“no longer man or woman, etc.”). But the first century Church, even inspired by the Holy Spirit to produce Scripture, was still a product of Culture as much as Christ. As we should expect, we have developed our understanding of woman, marriage, sex, etc. since the first century.

Catholics don’t regard Scripture as divine dictation. It’s not as simple as a straightforward reading.

For example, Paul was probably pretty much assuming a literal reading of the creation account of Eve from Adam’s side. However, the Catholic Church does not require we interpret Genesis in this way, as has been illustrated by multiple other threads regarding evolution, Genesis, etc.
 
Last edited:
Can We Ordain Women?

(FROM CATHOLIC ANSWERS)

The Church has in her tradition abbesses, theologians, doctors of the Church, and teachers aplenty in skirts and habits. The question revolves not around pastors and preachers but around the priestly office. Anybody can do pastoral, teaching, preaching, or administrative work. But that is not the essence of the priesthood. The essence of the priestly office is celebration of Christ’s sacrifice in the Mass.

And that is why all such arguments are not addressing the issue. The issue is the nature of the sacrament. What is a sacrament? It is a thing that not only does what it symbolizes but symbolizes what it does. In baptism the obvious symbol of cleansing, drowning, and new life is water, not wine. And so wine, for all its admirable qualities, is not the right “matter” for the sacrament of baptism.

Though its symbolism was determined by Jesus’ culture, the wine in the Holy Eucharist-the blood of the crushed fruit-is an obvious symbol to signify the blood of Christ, who was crushed for our iniquities. Like the blood of Christ, wine invigorates, inebriates, and reminds us of the tang of death and new life. Here again, water, despite being the right matter for baptism and not in the least inferior to wine, is the wrong matter for the sacrament of the Eucharist. In short, certain things are natural signifiers. It’s not a question of equality but of fittingness.

Now, Christ is, as he himself teaches, the Bridegroom to the Church’s Bride in the great eschatological marriage feast of the Kingdom (Matthew 25:1-13). Gender has, in Christ’s teaching, a real meaning and is not simply an accident of nature. And he ought to know, since he designed the human person and made it a participant in the mystery of male and femaleness. And so every Mass is a local marriage feast of the Lamb whereby we enter into the self-sacrificial love of that cosmic Bridegroom for his Bride.

And that brings us back to the question of symbols. For as with water in baptism and wine in Eucharist, it is not that a man is superior to a woman in being “matter” for the priesthood. It is that man is a fitting symbol of the Bridegroom and woman is not. The priest is an alter Christus -another Christ-to the Bride in the mystery of the Mass. He does not primarily “administrate” or preach or pastor. He signifies.

cont’d
 
Last edited:
Ordination, then, is not a right. It’s a gift. It’s a sacrament, like all sacraments, that does what it symbolizes and symbolizes what it does. Symbols therefore matter-particularly those that Christ himself has instituted-and the Church has no power to alter such symbols in their fundamentals. Christ and the apostles revealed what the “matter” of ordination should be just as they revealed what the matter of baptism and Eucharist should be. The Church merely obeys. That is why the Pope tells us “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.”

It’s out of the Church’s hands. The argument is with Christ, not the Pope.

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/ordination-is-not-a-right

So you see, changing the priesthood has some theological conundrums that are not easy to resolve. To change the priesthood would be like changing the understanding of the Holy Mass. We cannot change what we never had the authority to change, and so that is why the male only priesthood is necessary
 
Right @theCardinalbird, but you are using more or less what today’s understanding is. The early Church did not exclusively take this approach — if they did at all.
 
Last edited:
I agree that women are not inferior to men, even if they have different roles. However, a lot of the commentary provided by the church fathers indeed seem like they make women out to be inferior. According to the above passage, they can’t even be teachers. That’s not the kind of logic we in the Church use today.
 
But then I watched the Episcopal Church which first ordained women to the priesthood. Once that happened, a woman was made Bishop. Not long after that, homosexuals were allowed into the priesthood, and of course same sex marriage was approved. In fact, a homosexual in a relationship with a man, was made Bishop. If you think there is no sexual abuse in the Episcopal Church, think again,
Click to expand...
Well, naturally a Catholic will think all these things are wrong. It goes with the system: The same Church that teaches a male-only priesthood also teaches all these other things, primarily in faithfulness to Tradition.

But an Episcopal Church doesn’t necessarily understand Tradition in the same way. They aren’t as worried as being faithful to the past simply for the sake of being faithful to the past.
 
catholic1seeks said:
But then I watched the Episcopal Church which first ordained women to the priesthood. Once that happened, a woman was made Bishop. Not long after that, homosexuals were allowed into the priesthood, and of course same sex marriage was approved. In fact, a homosexual in a relationship with a man, was made Bishop. If you think there is no sexual abuse in the Episcopal Church, think again,
Click to expand...
Tradition is not for it’s own sake or it’s own authority. Tradition is part of God’s revelation of God himself.
Christ is the full and final revelation of God. Christ is incarnate as a male human. Priest are in that image.
Click to expand...
 
I again don’t see it your way. Of course women are not just a means if reporduction. But neither does the author say that’s their only role. However the church today would unquestionably declear that women in general are born to be mothers and wives. This is the traditional family the church has always stood for.
 
So can a woman be neither a wife, nor a mother, out of choice – and still remain a faithful Catholic?
 
True enough.

But again, an Episcopalian wouldn’t agree. The point is that the Episcopalian isn’t consciously TRYING to contradict Christ. Both the Catholic and the Episcopalian want to follow Christ, even if the latter thinks that female priests and homosexual marriage is OK. They may be in error, but the point is they have a different framework for understanding how the Church works.
 
Last edited:
Religious and single people come to mind. I guess they could have married before, but there are some that have never been married.
 
Last edited:
So in other words, the purpose of the woman is not merely determined by the man, which is what the Apostolic Constitutions quoted above imply.

I see no need why anyone today must agree with the AC.
 
catholic1seeks said:
So in other words, the purpose of the woman is not merely determined by the man, which is what the Apostolic Constitutions quoted above imply.
Click to expand...
Why don’t you just cut to the chase, and give us your reasons why you think there should be women priests. Then let the discussion proceed from there.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top