Questions regarding "female ordination"

[Son_of_Jonah]

Didnt u read my post about the holy see? If God told them to change it they could, and i said that because nobody has quoted where in the bible it mentions birth control.

Your claim that the Holy See could so speak, acting as a mouthpiece of God, to change the relevant doctrine, rests on the assumption that God WOULD change it. The key here, though, is the notion of change. If you believe God to be perfect, His word and His will to be perfect, then that perfection implies no need to change. To assume that God would change His mind, at ANY point in history is to imply that He did not have the foresight to impart His word and will in such a way as to insure that He wouldn’t need to change it down the road.

Are you really going to claim that God is so shortsighted that the creator of the universe would have made such a mistake? And if God will not change His mind on these matters, the Holy See simply will not speak in such a way as to make the change. They have no authority to do so apart from God, and God does not change His mind. He doesn’t have any need to do so.

Finally, I’d like to reiterate a point that has been made several times to you already; nowhere in the Bible does it say that it MUST be in the Bible to be true. So the fact that you won’t find the phrase “birth control” in the Bible does not mean that God has no objective truth to give on the subject.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Didnt u read my post about the holy see? If God told them to change it they could, and i said that because nobody has quoted where in the bible it mentions birth control.

First, God does not change. (Didn’t you know that?) That means if something is true once, it is true for all time. Understanding can deepen over something that is not perfectly known. For example, the very first Christians did not understand that God is one Being in Three Divine Persons or exactly how those Persons reacted. Read the Early Church Fathers and you will see. We STILL do not completely understand the Trinity. But we know God is THREE persons in one, and God cannot and will not CHANGE that to say, “Oh by the way, chaps, now that you are 2000 years on start teaching that I’m the Fab Four”.

So in regard to something that is already dogmatically asserted-- such as the Eucharist and the other sacraments, God WILL NOT CHANGE what He has already taught as truth.

He will NOT change the accidents of the Eucharist from bread and wine to cookies and milk.

He will not change the spouses in marriage from man and woman to man-man or woman-woman.

He will not change the requirements of baptism from water and a Trinitarian formula to sprinkling with dust and chanting the Bohemian Rhapsody.

And he will not change the requirements for valid priesthood from men only to ‘men and women’.

The Church has no authority to make the change because God has already decided.

 

[Earl_Simpson]

Obviously you missed my post.

I’ll repeat:

the Church has NO AUTHORITY to ordain women.

In other words, your remarks above are a fantasy.

Youve missed my point exactly, God can change that ridiculous rule the church cant, wait a minute… God speaks via the church, God can, Church can and if u disagree ur claiming the holy spirit doesnt speak through the holy see.

 

[Son_of_Jonah]

Thank God, someone else who sees that the Catholic church is being sexist.

What you misunderstand as sexism is what we understand, rightly, as the inherent and created differences between men and women. We are equal in dignity and value to God, but nowhere close to equal in vocation or ability. Male and female, He created us, to serve His will in different manners and matters. What is the height of sexism is the feminist movement in modern times that seeks to devalue the great dignity of womanhood, claiming that women must be men in order to be equal and valued.

 

[Son_of_Jonah]

He will not change the requirements of baptism from water and a Trinitarian formula to sprinkling with dust and chanting the Bohemian Rhapsody.

I don’t know if this is blasphemous, so please forgive me if it is, but does anyone else think this would be kinda cool?

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Youve missed my point exactly, God can change that ridiculous rule the church cant, wait a minute… God speaks via the church, God can, Church can and if u disagree ur claiming the holy spirit doesnt speak through the holy see.

No sir, you are missing the point.

God is eternal and unchanging. Heck, ‘your lot’ across the pond wrote some of the most beautiful hymns with just such phrases. Why can’t you understand that the Holy Spirit leads to all truth, and that means God can’t do a 180, because if He did, the first teaching would be false, and God doesn’t do ‘false?’

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Oh Earl, BTW, I never disagreed about the Holy Spirit speaking through the Church. The Spirit certainly does. But since the Spirit cannot teach against itself and has already taught something as truth, any ‘spirit’ that would claim to teach something different wouldn’t be the holy spirit.

Anyway, have you ever checked out the Catechism of the Catholic Church? Google it, it’s on line and searchable. Read what it has to say about the Sacrament of Holy Orders. Perhaps if you hear it from the authority instead of just the little old lady layperson who reads and believes, you might listen.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

Where in the bible does Jesus himself say “women cant be priests” and also don’t you lot belive the holy spirit speaks through your cardinals, well if the holy see were to vote (or whatever they do) in favor of women priests God would have decided to have women priests and they could do the same for gays whilst they were at it.

1. Christs teachings are not found solely within the bible, but within the whole Tradition of the Church.
2. Truth cannot contradict truth, therefore the magisterium can never teach in a way contradictory to how it’s (infallibly) taught before.
3. The impossibility of ordination of women as priests and homosexual marriage has been made clear in an infallible way.

Therefore, your assertion that they can just change their minds and claim “God did it” falls on its face.

You see, we actually believe that the Holy Spirit guides the Church. This does not mean that we do whatever we want and blame it on God, but that we follow His guidance. There has been no and cannot be any guidance in the direction you are promoting. Not possible.

You are still, by the way, making the error that men and women are the same thing. This is not true. Male and female he created them.

In any case, this ground has been covered repeatedly. Typically we’re happy to discuss this sort of thing (though there is absolutely zero chance that we’ll change our minds, but going over the arguments is fine), but you have kind of hijacked a thread for your own argument. Perhaps you should start your own? This insistence that your vision of how things should be is correct on the basis of something I haven’t quiet figured out yet is a bit tangential to the original topic.

 

[Earl_Simpson]

First, God does not change. (Didn’t you know that?) That means if something is true once, it is true for all time. Understanding can deepen over something that is not perfectly known. For example, the very first Christians did not understand that God is one Being in Three Divine Persons or exactly how those Persons reacted. Read the Early Church Fathers and you will see. We STILL do not completely understand the Trinity. But we know God is THREE persons in one, and God cannot and will not CHANGE that to say, “Oh by the way, chaps, now that you are 2000 years on start teaching that I’m the Fab Four”.

So in regard to something that is already dogmatically asserted-- such as the Eucharist and the other sacraments, God WILL NOT CHANGE what He has already taught as truth.

He will NOT change the accidents of the Eucharist from bread and wine to cookies and milk.

He will not change the spouses in marriage from man and woman to man-man or woman-woman.

He will not change the requirements of baptism from water and a Trinitarian formula to sprinkling with dust and chanting the Bohemian Rhapsody.

And he will not change the requirements for valid priesthood from men only to ‘men and women’.

The Church has no authority to make the change because God has already decided.

You do realise not everything in the bible is 100% accurate dont u? Its been mistranslated, misinterpreted, and things have been missed out so many times and for so long not evrythin in it’s truly the word of God, that’s one of the reasons i’m so glad the reformation happened, it gave people a chance to shake of the shackles of papal tyranny and interpret the bible in their own way.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

Cheers Dean but those strict rules like no condoms and the whole no women priests thing is exactly whats putting people of the catholic church, my best friend for example he was Roman Catholic all his life though as soon as he started his catholic secondary school (middle and high school as 1 big school) and had his first R.E lesson he said he was disgusted at how old fashioned the church was on it’s views that he gave up on religion entirely. He was particularly appalled at the churches stance on homosexuality because he said he had a friend whos gay (me) and straight away his teacher said i’d go to hell if i didnt repent.

The Church doesn’t cut its cloth to fit the fashion of the times.

If we become smaller and more orthodox as a faith, so be it.

The Church isn’t all about celebrating the wonderfulness of You, it’s about helping you to act as God has ordered.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

You do realise not everything in the bible is 100% accurate dont u? Its been mistranslated, misinterpreted, and things have been missed out so many times and for so long not evrythin in it’s truly the word of God.

Such as?

 

[Earl_Simpson]

1. Christs teachings are not found solely within the bible, but within the whole Tradition of the Church.
2. Truth cannot contradict truth, therefore the magisterium can never teach in a way contradictory to how it’s (infallibly) taught before.
3. The impossibility of ordination of women as priests and homosexual marriage has been made clear in an infallible way.

Therefore, your assertion that they can just change their minds and claim “God did it” falls on its face.

You see, we actually believe that the Holy Spirit guides the Church. This does not mean that we do whatever we want and blame it on God, but that we follow His guidance. There has been no and cannot be any guidance in the direction you are promoting. Not possible.

You are still, by the way, making the error that men and women are the same thing. This is not true. Male and female he created them.

In any case, this ground has been covered repeatedly. Typically we’re happy to discuss this sort of thing (though there is absolutely zero chance that we’ll change our minds, but going over the arguments is fine), but you have kind of hijacked a thread for your own argument. Perhaps you should start your own? This insistence that your vision of how things should be is correct on the basis of something I haven’t quiet figured out yet is a bit tangential to the original topic.

My church did it and were doing alright to say we started out as the result of an unhappy marriage only to become the worlds 3rd biggest church.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

You do realise not everything in the bible is 100% accurate dont u? Its been mistranslated, misinterpreted, and things have been missed out so many times and for so long not evrythin in it’s truly the word of God, that’s one of the reasons i’m so glad the reformation happened, it gave people a chance to shake of the shackles of papal tyranny and interpret the bible in their own way.

Really? If that’s the case, where is the infallible authority you have which determined exactly what bits of the Bible were accurate and which weren’t, what is truly the word of God and what isn’t. Because surely you and say the lady down at the local pub, reading your bibles, would absolutely and totally agree on which bits were accurate and which weren’t, and exactly what was meant by every ‘accurate’ phrase. . .likewise you and she would also agree with the nice bobby in the next town over, and the student over at Kings College in Cambridge, and the gardener up in York, and all that. Right?

Aren’t you going to share your authority by which you know the absolute truth of every bit of the Bible with us poor Yanks?

 

[bknewto7]

Where in the bible does Jesus himself say “women cant be priests” and also don’t you lot belive the holy spirit speaks through your cardinals, well if the holy see were to vote (or whatever they do) in favor of women priests God would have decided to have women priests and they could do the same for gays whilst they were at it.

The Church does not teach that because you have homosexual inclinations that you are going to hell. It is when you act on those inclinations that it become a sin of grave matter, much in the same way that an unmarried man and woman commit a sin against chastity by having premarital sex. Since Homosexual union cannot produce children, which is the Godly and true purpose of marriage, Homosexual marriage cannot and never will be ok’d by the church. In light of this any act of homosexual union is an act of fornication, and is a grave sin.

The Church loves you as the creation of Human Dignity that God made you, but hate the sin which drives you away from God’s Grace.

As for ordination of women, i think it has already been explained quite nicely by the other posters.

Pax

B

 

[Iron_Donkey]

My church did it and were doing alright to say we started out as the result of an unhappy marriage only to become the worlds 3rd biggest church.

What do you mean by “doing all right”? Has lots of members? Continues to make money? Is generally popular?

None of that matters. Please address the point - the only interpretation of what you just said that follows the thread of thought is that your church is illogical and no one cares. But whether or not anyone cares doesn’t matter.

…that’s one of the reasons i’m so glad the reformation happened, it gave people a chance to shake of the shackles of papal tyranny and interpret the bible in their own way.

You like the fact that everyone is making up their own truth? That no one has any idea if they’re right or wrong beyond the trust they put in themselves? That people must necessarily be saying things that send people to Hell don’t, or that don’t send people to Hell do?

You do realize this is about Truth, right? It cannot be a good thing for people to not know what is true because all they have to rely on is their own subjective opinions.

 

[stanczyk]

A prerequisite, though, was a vow of celibacy as their husbands embarked on a second career in ministry.

This is false. Neither a priest nor deacon must necessarily be celibate.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

This is false. Neither a priest nor deacon must necessarily be celibate.

I think they were referring to that era in Church history.

 

[Bballer32]

But didn’t God make everyone in his own image and God made women as well so if women are in Gods image why cant he work through them?

Because women were made in God’s image out of human flesh. God took a part of Adam’s ribs and created a woman.

 

[vsedriver]

But didn’t God make everyone in his own image and God made women as well so if women are in Gods image why cant he work through them?

Yes God made us in his image but the priest is a representative of Christ and Christ was male.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

Yes, the teaching is already there. I think we are all acutely aware of that.
But the teaching is there because someone or a group of someones hundreds of years after he died interpreted it that way and then, after they made the rule, they made another rule that said, “we can’t change this!”

But there is a chance that…since Jesus never said why he had male-only apostles…that he may have not meant for that pattern to continue forever…and there’s a chance that there may even have been female apostles (like Mary M) that just were not included/written about in the final version of books allowed in the christian canon…and there’s a chance that the group/person who voted/decided that women cannot be ordained hundreds of years later misinterpreted Jesus’ actions completely…or that they decided this for reasons that have nothing to do with Jesus’ wishes…

There’s a chance that all the above may be true, since we don’t have Jesus’ words saying no women should be ordained.

This argument might have been possible before it was infallibly stated that the priesthood is male only. Now that this has been done, the above is simply known not to be the case.

You do have to admit though that the “why” isn’t completely hidden from us. It is just that when arguing about the “that,” the fact that Christ only ordained men is sufficient.