Should women be ordained?

  • Thread starter Thread starter dennisknapp
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
yeah women should be ordained. and while were at it why dont we just change every doctrine in the whole church too.
 
40.png
patg:
No he didn’t - he was a dedicated Jew following the Jewish religion up through the day he died. There is no pervasive evidence he tried to start a church.

You need to do some reading. He most definately started a church - the Catholic Church.
 
40.png
Mycroft:
yeah women should be ordained. and while were at it why dont we just change every doctrine in the whole church too.
Click to expand...
Why not join the episcopileans (sp?) and ordain openly practicing gay men? 🙂
 
Island Oak:
While there are clearly physical impediments to a man bearing children, there is nothing inherently inferior or any incapacity to prieshood merely by consideration of gender.
Click to expand...
There is the root of the problem – the assumption that the priesthood is a superior vocation, so that barring women from it implies their inferiority and oppresses them. God calls each of us to a particular vocation in life; what that vocation is, is up to Him, not us. How can some of His plans be called inferior to others? Everyone is called to something, and the greatest thing anyone can do is to follow what He has planned. There is nothing inferior about whole-heartedly answering God’s call to a state other than the priesthood, it it is truly His will.

Those agitating for women’s ordination are very vocal about their rights, their desires, their ambitions – and how the Church is opposing them and keeping them down – but strangely silent about God’s will. He seems to have made His will on this topic known about as clearly as possible – through Scripture, through sacred Tradition, and through explicit papal pronunciation – women cannot be priests!
 
40.png
debeater:
There is the root of the problem – the assumption that the priesthood is a superior vocation, so that barring women from it implies their inferiority and oppresses them. God calls each of us to a particular vocation in life; what that vocation is, is up to Him, not us. How can some of His plans be called inferior to others? Everyone is called to something, and the greatest thing anyone can do is to follow what He has planned. There is nothing inferior about whole-heartedly answering God’s call to a state other than the priesthood, it it is truly His will.

Those agitating for women’s ordination are very vocal about their rights, their desires, their ambitions – and how the Church is opposing them and keeping them down – but strangely silent about God’s will. He seems to have made His will on this topic known about as clearly as possible – through Scripture, through sacred Tradition, and through explicit papal pronunciation – women cannot be priests!
Click to expand...
uhhh gods not important here, we just have to focus on women being able to do everything men can do.
 
Feminists should stop worrying about becoming priests and start trying to become saints!
 
40.png
BlindSheep:
Feminists should stop worrying about becoming priests and start trying to become saints!
Click to expand...
Why shouldn’t they be both?

Believing in the radical idea that women are people is not a bar to ordination.
 
Feminism is not the belief that women are people. As I used it, I mean the belief that men and women are not different and should not have different roles.
People who hold that belief deny the teaching of the Church. It’s not a good idea to ordain dissenters, IMHO.
 
Island Oak:
Apparently I need to go back and complete my profile–you are not the only one to get wrapped around the ax handle because I failed in my initial registration to list myself as Catholic–always have been–Catholic grade school through Jesuit University.
Click to expand...
Yes I am not the only one becuase while you may call yourself Catholic, you failed to list that in your profile and you fail to hold to what the Church Teaches.

Just becuase you went to Catholic schools does not mean that you are a Catholic nor that you were taught what the Church teaches.

With your stand here you prove that.
There is plenty of evidence of evolution in the Catholic Church-one need not be a history scholar to know this. I am troubled by any human who claims to KNOW the mind/intent of God with perfect clarity. Do I believe scriptures and the prophets were the work of divine inspiration? Certainly. Do they completely answer all our human questions about God. Certainly not. Do the words and deeds of Christ give us guidance–absolutely.
Click to expand...
Again you show your lack of understanding of the Church and what it Teaches.

The Church does not nor has it ever evolved. Our understanding of Church Teachings may become more clear, but the Teaching does not change.

In the Sacraments, you must have the correct matter. As in the Eucharist, in the Latin Church, you must have bread (wheat and water only) and wine. If you add something to them, like flavor or use grape juice instead of wine, they can not become the Body of Christ. For Holy Orders, the matter has always been a male. So you can substitue the male with a female but the Holy Orders will not be confered as the matter is incorrect.

As for the rest of your comments, they go against what the Church has always taught, that it is guided by the Holy Spirit and the pope/Magisterium are infallible on cases of faith and morals, which this falls into.
As far as this issue goes I simply don’t see it as such a black and white declaration or prohibition by omission on the part of Jesus. While there are clearly physical impediments to a man bearing children, there is nothing inherently inferior or any incapacity to prieshood merely by consideration of gender. I don’t raise this issue in a public forum or out of rebellion with the church, but within the family of Catholics who participate in these forums. It is a topic which is worthy of discussion and education.
Click to expand...
There is a gender issue with the priesthood. The priest acts in persona christi. Christ was a male. The Church is the bride, the priest is the bridegroom. How can a priestess be a bridegroom? How can a priestess act in persona christi when Christ is a male and she is not?

I do not understand the second to last sentence, “I don’t raise this issue in a public forum or out of rebellion with the church, but within the family of Catholics who participate in these forums.” Yet these forums are public and you are doing so out of rebellion.

The last sentence, “It is a topic which is worthy of discussion and education” is in error and where your rebellion shows.

In ORDINATIO SACERDOTALIS (Apostolic Letter on Reserving Priestly Ordination to Men Alone) (thats a link if you need to read it) the Holy Father said in paragraph 4 (bold emphasis added)…
4.Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church’s judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...
Now the first bolded part shows that this has been held since the beginning, so it is infallible.

The second bolded part shows where you rebel.
 
40.png
Catholic2003:
Why shouldn’t they be both?

Believing in the radical idea that women are people is not a bar to ordination.
Click to expand...
So you’re not a person unless you’re an ordained priest or deacon?

Blessed Mother was never ordained and she is the only one of God’s creature who deserved to be ordained.

Men and women have different roles as John Paul II stated in his Apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis:
3. Furthermore, the fact that the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, received neither the mission proper to the Apostles nor the ministerial priesthood clearly shows that the non-admission of women to priestly ordination cannot mean that women are of lesser dignity, nor can it be construed as discrimination against them. Rather, it is to be seen as the faithful observance of a plan to be ascribed to the wisdom of the Lord of the universe.
vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_22051994_ordinatio-sacerdotalis_en.html

Feminism believes that the only differences between men and women are the obvious physical ones. Men’s and women’s roles are interchangable. Feminism takes communism as its model, as it believed there is no difference between the management and workers. What communism looked to destroy economically, feminism seeks to destroy sexually. This is why abortion is so important to feminists. They hate the idea that women actually want to have children, to be mothers and raise a family.

The Church has always taught men and women are different and there are roles that belong only to men and roles that belong only to women. In a society that doesn’t recognize intrinsic differences, this is bigotry and hate speech.

Feminism seeks to antagonize the relationship between men and women, not harmonize it, just as communism sought to antagonize the relationship between workers and management.

Feminists have the greatest model in the Blessed Virgin Mary. Unfortunately, they look upon Our Lady with total contempt.
 
Swiss Guard said:
So you’re not a person unless you’re an ordained priest or deacon?
Click to expand...

No, the point of my comment was that men can be feminists, and there is no basis in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis for denying priestly ordination to such men.

As for ordination to the diaconate, the Magisterium has yet to decide on whether this may one day be open to women.
 
40.png
Catholic2003:
No, the point of my comment was that men can be feminists, and there is no basis in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis for denying priestly ordination to such men.

As for ordination to the diaconate, the Magisterium has yet to decide on whether this may one day be open to women.
Click to expand...
I think you are wrong on this point.

The diaconate is part of Holy Orders and only men can be ordained into Holy Orders.

Now deaconesses are a different manner. It seems that some who want women to be ordained to the priesthood blur the line by calling deaconesses female deacons which is wrong.

There is no such thing as a female deacon and there never has been.

In the early Church, and at a later time in some of the Orthodox Churches (and the Greek Orthodox Church today) there are deaconesses.
 
Someone said that God chose to be male above female. Does that make men better? Maybe we should go back to fathers or brothers arranging girls’ marriages.
In Jesus’ day people wouldn’t have LISTENED to a female. Females weren’t even allowed in the main part of the temple. Should we go back to that? Sounds like a great idea. I’m sure everyone thinks telling all women they have to spend the mass in the narthex is a great idea.
Remember Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin? They wouldn’t even let her name her own kid. If people wouldn’t have even listened to what a woman said her own child’s name was, why would they listen to any orders she gave, and preaching she did, or anything else she had to say?
 
Just in case anyone was still confused by JPII’s statement posted nicely by ByzCath in post #109:

Joseph Card. Ratzinger, “Reply to the dubium Concerning the teaching contained in the Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis,”
"…that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women… This teaching requires definitive assent, since, founded on the written Word of God, and from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church., it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium…Thus, in the present circumstances, the Roman Pontiff, exercising his proper office of confirming the brethren (cf. Luke 22:32), has handed on this same teaching by a formal declaration, explicitly stating what is to be held always, everywhere, and by all, as belonging to the deposit of the faith."
Click to expand...
Here’s a great article to read for anyone who still thinks women should be ordained:

catholic.com/thisrock/2001/0105fea1.asp

Enjoy!
 
40.png
ByzCath:
The diaconate is part of Holy Orders
Click to expand...
Quite true.
40.png
ByzCath:
and only men can be ordained into Holy Orders.
Click to expand...
Ordinatio Sacerdotalis has unambiguously clarified that “the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women.” This means that it is a matter of doctrine that only men can be ordained to the priesthood.

It is very well possible that it is only a matter of discipline that women cannot be ordained to the diaconate. Faithful Catholics can currently believe either side of this proposition. See my post #35 for the Vatican’s 1977 statement on this issue.
 
40.png
Catholic2003:
It is very well possible that it is only a matter of discipline that women cannot be ordained to the diaconate. Faithful Catholics can currently believe either side of this proposition. See my post #35 for the Vatican’s 1977 statement on this issue.
Click to expand...
I do not see how that is possible when the diaconate is one of the Major Holy Orders. If one can be ordained to it then they can be ordained to the priesthood.

Here is what the catechism says in Part Two: The Celebration of the Christian Mystery, Section Two: The Seven Sacraments of the Church, Chapter Three: The Sacraments at the Service of Communion, Article 6: the Sacraments of Holy Orders, VI. Who Can Receive This Sacrament?

This is in paragraph 1577.

1577 “Only a baptized man (vir) validly receives sacred ordination.” The Lord Jesus chose men (viri) to form the college of the twelve apostles, and the apostles did the same when they chose collaborators to succeed them in their ministry. The college of bishops, with whom the priests are united in the priesthood, makes the college of the twelve an ever-present and ever-active reality until Christ’s return. The Church recognizes herself to be bound by this choice made by the Lord himself. For this reason the ordination of women is not possible.
 
40.png
ByzCath:
If one can be ordained to it then they can be ordained to the priesthood.
Click to expand...
I don’t see why this necessarily follows, especially now after the establishment of the permanent diaconate, where advancement in Holy Orders is not possible in ordinary circumstances. Historically, the main difference between the words said by the bishop when laying on hands to deacons and deaconesses was that in the case of deacons, further advancement in the Holy Orders was forseen, while in the case of deaconesses, this sentence was omitted. (See the New Advent article on deaconesses for the precise wording.)
40.png
ByzCath:
For this reason the ordination of women is not possible.
Click to expand...
The footnote for this sentence refers to Mulieris dignitatem and Inter insigniores, both of which explicitly restrict their discussion to priestly ordination. Apparently the wording of the Catechism isn’t particularly precise at this point. Cardinal Ratzinger has stated that the authority of any Catechism entry is exactly that of its sources.

Why would Ordinatio Sacerdotalis specifically refer to priestly ordination if it was the case that the Pope meant to include all ordination, including diaconal ordination?
 
I see what you are saying but I believe that the Holy Father has said that there will not be women deacons. I beleive he made this statement when many women were applying to diaconal programs.

That being said. It seems that you have not read the previous discussions here about deaconesses. A deaconess is not a female deacon. The role of a deaconess was very different.

I think you must show that the major Holy Order of deacon is different from that of priest in such a way that a woman could be ordained to it with out then begin able to be a priest.
 
40.png
gavin52:
You need to do some reading. He most definately started a church - the Catholic Church.
Click to expand...
I’ll agree that one of us needs to so some reading - but I already have. The Catholic Church is what the early followers created when they came to the realization that Jesus wasn’t returning for them as soon as they had been led to believe.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top