Something that confuddles me about the nature of the priesthood

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LS,

There is no doubt what so ever that God created women as co-equals of men.

But there is also little doubt that God created them differently. Different does NOT be ‘not equal’.

It is definitive Church teaching that a human person is a unity of two distinct entities body and soul, “Corprae et Anima unise”

The human person is the union, or junction of those two ‘parts’

We are not dualists, neither ‘part’ is complete without the other and neither is superior to the other.

The same is true for the human race itself, composed of two sexes. Male and Female.

Together the complete the human race, and together as sexes with the participation of God, do they engage in the God-like act of bringing forth new Life.

Note that in the Biological processes, each sex is required, but they perform different roles. God ordained that it is the woman who brings forth Biological Life, and only the woman.

If the Pope sent out an Encyclical stating that men may now bear children, we would laugh our butts off. The Church does not have that kind of Authority to change God’s Plan.

The Body of a Man is designed by God to specifically NOT perform this function

But, as we discussed above, humans are not just Biological creatures (body), but are Ontological Creatures as well (Soul)

What about Ontological Life?

We know that Christ Instituted the Eucharist in the presence of Males and charged them with “Doing this in memory of me”

He charged the Apostles to bind or loose sin ( John 20),

There is the Source of Ontological Life, the Eucharist, the Sacrifice that establishes the New Convenant, and Reconcillation, with gives Ontloglogical Life to a soul which has lost it.

Both commands were only given to men and men alone. We have no record that a woman ever recieved the ability to generate Ontological Life in this way.

So does the Church have any more Authority to declare that women may bring forth Ontological Life than it would to say that a man can bring forth Biological Life. We would laugh if the Church claimed it had one Authority, so how could one demand it had the other?

When one looks at the distinct, seperate, but equal roles that men and women have, each complementing each other by bringing forth the two equal ‘halfs’ of a human person, it is amazing.

Can you not see the equality of God’s plan, how each part of humanity contributes equally, but with the co-operation of the other on the creation of that which God most earnestly desires, a new Saint? Perfected Biological Life and Perfected Ontological Life, all in union as a sactified human person.

So yes, God has a great interest in equality. He made us equal. Different, each with different gifts, different bodies, different soul. But equal.
 
While all the apostles were men, Jesus did have females disciples. This is a historically based fact, gender bias aside. That being said, I do not see how that it itself would preclude women from being priests.

As far as the assertion that if Jesus wanted female priests… that is akin to saying if God wanted man to fly He’d have given him wings. There are many things Jesus was not explicit about. If He had been (which isn’t part of His plan) we would not need tradition would we? The argument that God does not change is not really germane to this. It is like the people raging about Mass in the vernacular. The Earliest Christians did NOT say Mass in Latin, it was in the vernacular. We changed the Mass to strictly Latin. God does not change, but human interpretations and traditions do.

With all that being said, as far as Christ’s plan that is up to Holy Mother Church to decide and we should all be obedient to whatever decision she makes.
 
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Liberalsaved:
Apostles seems to me to be a word. All I see are followers of Jesus.
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A review of Scripture should clear this up for you. Many are followers; few are Apostles.
 
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Liberalsaved:
Apostles seems to me to be a word. All I see are followers of Jesus…
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The Greek word ‘apostolos’ means ‘to be sent with Authority’. An Apostle is therefore someone who speaks with the same authority as the person who sent them.

This differes from ‘Disciple’, the common translation of manthano, which means ‘learner’ or ‘apprentice’

Two very distinct words used to describe two distinct classes of followers.

The Apostles could speak with the Authority of Christ (“as I am sent, so I send you”)

Disciples do not.
 
Liberalsaved,

I do not know where you are geographically, but I recommend you take time to read and/or listen to the words of a beloved Detroit-area priest, Father John Riccardo. Even if you are not in southeast Michigan, you may listen to his radio show over the internet through Ave Maria Radio. His parish website also has an archive of his homilies, writings, and talks.

He is perhaps the best resource I can offer when it comes to understanding Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body and the equality of men and women. I could not even begin to explain things as clearly as he does. That is my two cents…
 
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Liberalsaved:
and especially the modern Church, which ought to know better, with women being in the clergy.
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Ah yes, the modern church ought to know better. “come on get in line with the times you old stuffy Roman Catholics.” I guess we should start allowing the things of the modern world… artificial birth control, the right to kill the unborn, women priests, homosexual sacremental marriages, actively homesexual priests and nuns, married preists in service to their famililes and God, no fault divorce for any of our members how are no “happy”, etc., etc.,

NO THANKS! This is the reason I joined the church. The true church does not let the modern secular world influence it, rather, it’s mission is to influence the world. As I see it, most protestant churchs have caved into so called “modern” secular practices. What a shame. God forbid Christ’s bady here on earth succumbs to the modern Me-ology.
 
“He who hears you , hears me”( cant remember exact verse but Jesus said it) there are certain laws that are left to His Holy Church to be determined. By her interpertation and understanding of the scriptures this is what she has come to conclude. Therefor in denying its truth you are denying Christ himself for He is His Church. It is not saying that women are not capable priest if they were to become priest, it is just saying men are to be Christ’s apostles.
 
Greetings Liberalsaved,
Code: 
Well, you're definitely liberal, and I hope you do get saved.  :)   

The Gospels are full of instances of Jesus going against the grain of the culture he was in, so I don't think you can argue that he was under the sway of the culture of the time.  If he had wanted female apostles, he would have chosen some.  


As to the gospel writers being hopelessly biased in their reporting, I don't think that flies either.  There are alot of embarassing things recorded about the apostles, without much varnish.  If the writers were biased and putting their spin on things, wouldn't Peter's denials, Thomas' doubts, and the genaral thickheadedness of the apostles have been covered up?  My sense in reading the scriptures is that the writers were trying to get it as correct as possible because every memory of Jesus and his followers was important to the writers and their communities.
 
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Brendan:
LS,
If the Pope sent out an Encyclical stating that men may now bear children, we would laugh our butts off. The Church does not have that kind of Authority to change God’s Plan.

The Body of a Man is designed by God to specifically NOT perform this function

.
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Great comparison.
Some believe that, for people to be called to a vocation based on some accident of birth such as gender, is wrong. Always wrong–God would never do that.

Hence, the Church’s position on male clergy must be of men not God.

Oh really, though?
Well. There is something very noble in bearing a child.
But I’ll never be able to do it. I’m male. This came from God, agreed?

Is God discriminating against me unfairly? Should I feel disenfranchised?

I accept this as being outside of my calling. Clearly it’s not automatically a decree of men, when a vocation is limited to a particular sex.

So, the Church’s position isn’t automatically to be questioned because of that either.
Nor is it to be questioned because the Fathers may have been biased, for motive alone doesn’t prove that a crime has occurred.
Lastly, no one can state confidently that a wrong has occurred, any more than a wrong was committed when God denied me the right to bear children (LS: if the Church “doggedly contradicts Jesus’s acceptance of women as equals,” then God has done the same in reverse).

Peace.
John
 
Let us not forget that as Christians we beleive the writers of the gospels and the bible as a whole were divinely inspired to write what they wrote. It was the Holy Spirit working through the writers. In essence, it wasn’t the “biased men” who wrote the books in the bible, it was truly the Holy Spirit and as such, there is no bias in the Bible.
 
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Jennifer123:
It’s my understanding that you need to start at the beginning, namely why God wishes to reveal Himself and be referred to as “Father”. He instituted the Eucharist with his priests acting “in persona Christi” - in the person of Christ Himself. That is in no way possible if women are priests, hence why women will not now or ever be women. THe Church doesn’t have the authority to ordain women. See information about the “Marriage Feast of the Lamb”, which is the Mass. I hoped I helped but maybe you should search the Apologetics forum! 😃

For an interesting article about God as Father, see:
catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Faith/Jul-Aug99/God2.html

It’s not a patriarchical conspiracy, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28).

So why aren’t there women priests? Because Jesus said so in His actions and teachings, plain as that.
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hmm, good thing God didn’t send a daughter…
 
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FrCorey:
hmm, good thing God didn’t send a daughter…
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Thank does get to the main issue. The second person of the Trinity became incarnate as a man. As a human male, he offered himself up for his people. That sacrifice is continued, made present, in every Mass, with the priest acting in the person of Christ. In Persona Christi. A strange phrase. Christ in effect makes use of the very person of the priest to continue the sacrifice. Asking a woman to act in this very specific function, in the person of Christ, would seem to force a change of gender upon Jesus. It’s just not going to happen, any more than we are going to use rice cakes for the Eucharist.
 
forgot to say I love your choice of words in the title, I think it perfectly describes our state of mind regarding many things that go on in the Church.
 
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FrCorey:
hmm, good thing God didn’t send a daughter…
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Christ is the giver of the gift as is God the Father, therefore He could not be the reciever of the gift.
 
I’m going to wrestle with your response here; while it seems “nice and cut and dry,” when I think about it, it really doesn’t come close to explaining an all-male priesthood. (Forgive me for re-arranging the order of your words to address them.)
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Brendan:
LS,

It is definitive Church teaching that a human person is a unity of two distinct entities body and soul, “Corprae et Anima unise.”
The human person is the union, or junction of those two ‘parts.’
We are not dualists, neither ‘part’ is complete without the other and neither is superior to the other.

The same is true for the human race itself, composed of two sexes. Male and Female. Together they complete the human race, and together as sexes with the participation of God, do they engage in the God-like act of bringing forth new Life.

Note that in the Biological processes, each sex is required, but they perform different roles. God ordained that it is the woman who brings forth Biological Life, and only the woman. The Body of a Man is designed by God to specifically NOT perform this function.

But, as we discussed above, humans are not just Biological creatures (body), but are Ontological Creatures as well (Soul)
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It seems that here you are insinuating that, to be “equal” under God’s Plan, God ordained that it is the man, and only the man, who brings forth Ontological Life, and that the Soul of a Woman is designed to NOT perform this function.

But earlier you said, that although we define these two distinct entities of the human person, they are united “because we are not dualists.” We denounce abortafacient contraceptives because we believe that from its earliest beginnings (ie: a zygote), human life has both body and soul. We also cite this in denouncing abortions because of the tremendous pain they inflict on women who have them; abortion discards life that originated in their bodies AND their souls.

So, I would say you are incorrect to state that the “Soul of a Woman” does not/cannot bring forth ontological life in the same way that the “Body of a Woman” brings forth biological life. It all happens at the same place and at the same time.
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Brendan:
We know that Christ Instituted the Eucharist in the presence of Males and charged them with “Doing this in memory of me.”
He charged the Apostles to bind or loose sin ( John 20)

There is the Source of Ontological Life, the Eucharist, the Sacrifice that establishes the New Convenant, and Reconcillation, with gives Ontloglogical Life to a soul which has lost it.

Both commands were only given to men and men alone. We have no record that a woman ever recieved the ability to generate Ontological Life in this way.
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I’m not sure that any man ever received the ability to generate Ontological life in that way, either.

The gospels (as far as I can tell) say specifically that the Twelve were with Christ during his ‘last supper’, although that doesn’t exlude the presence of other followers. Realistically, the Institution would have been in the presence of Females as well. I don’t know about the custom of women’s celebration of the pasach, but surely some were there to prepare and serve the meal in their own homes.

In John 20, it would seem that Christ charged his DISCIPLES in the upper room to recieve the holy Spirit, to forgive and retain sins. More likely than not, there were some women in that group of disciples if they were really all locked up for fear of the “Jews.”

Now, I’m no theologian, but I don’t think you can just “lose” your ontological life - I thought that was the immortal part of the human person. So these rites, which became sacraments, don’t actually GENERATE ontological life (that’s already been done), but they do NOURISH and HEAL it, much like food and medicine sustains and heals the biological entity of life.

So I think, if we keep using the lines of your argument to defend a male-only priesthood, we’d have to show how God does not call women to nourish and heal the soul. It’s pretty obvious that they do this anyway from life’s beginnings (as in bearing and raising children). I also know some excellent women dieticians and physicians who, although not physical mothers, fulfill a call to be a “mother” in this way.
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Brendan:
So does the Church have any more Authority to declare that women may bring forth Ontological Life than it would to say that a man can bring forth Biological Life. We would laugh if the Church claimed it had one Authority, so how could one demand it had the other?
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Indeed, it is laughable that the Church claims that it cannot call women to do what God has already ordered them to do. That’s putting limits on God or putting ourselves in the place of God. Most people would call that SINFUL.
 
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ChemicalBean:
Indeed, it is laughable that the Church claims that it cannot call women to do what God has already ordered them to do.
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Did I miss something? Where did God make such a command to women? If the rest of your post was an attempt to prove this final point, I did not see any real supporting evidence.

I know I have contributed nil to this thread thus far but I am sure I am not alone.
 
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msproule:
Did I miss something? Where did God make such a command to women? If the rest of your post was an attempt to prove this final point, I did not see any real supporting evidence.

I know I have contributed nil to this thread thus far but I am sure I am not alone.
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Yeah - no, I see what you’re saying. I was just intrigued by Brendan’s post, but the more I thought about it, I just needed to respond to things he said (that’s why I asked apologies for the order - I think I jumbled up his post somehow without realizing it). I didn’t explicitly say that God has commanded women to be priests. Don’t read that as a “final point.” It was just made to “wrap up” something stated earlier, I guess, that women cannot be called to bring forth ontological life, when it’s quite clear that by nature they have to. It is that argument, I think, that was presented as reason for an all-male priesthood, which doesn’t hold water.

Although, I’d love to start another thread about how an all-male, celibate priesthood is partially inconsistent with the Gospel of Life. Maybe later. I’m tired 🙂
 
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