The Church teaches that women cannot be priests because of the example set by Jesus in selecting the apostles. So why are women allowed communion?

[simpleas]

In April 1976, the Pontifical Biblical Commission released a study examining the exclusion of women from the ministerial priesthood from a biblical perspective: “The masculine character of the hierarchical order which has structured the church since its beginning … seems attested to by scripture in an undeniable way.” “As a matter of fact, we see in the Acts of the Apostles and the epistles that the first [Christian] communities were always directed by men exercising the apostolic power.”[20]

However, in the conclusion of the document, they write:

It does not seem that the New Testament by itself alone will permit us to settle in a clear way and once and for all the problem of the possible accession of women to the presbyterate.

I have read some of this document, but can’t find a full copy.

 

[Elizabeth3]

Yes God is spirit, neither male nor female, yet we have to think about God in masculine terms mostly.

Masculine terms, yes as Father, Son and Holy Spirit because that’s what He is but the feminine comes forth from the masculine as the same but different in order for love to multiply.

 

[guanophore]

is this correct?

Yes, but Jesus priesthood is not of the Levitical character or line.

Why, in Jesus time, there were many claiming to be the Messiah

I am not sure what this has to do with the Levitical or any other kind of priesthood?

Why Matthew and Luke go through all the trouble to list Jesus blood line all the way back doing so for a reason, why?

It was not to prove that he was part of the Levitical priesthood.

No one could serve on His Holy Altar who did not come from the Bloodline of God’s Choosen Priest, could they?

No.

I will destroy this Temple in 3 days?

Jesus was talking about the temple of His own body. He meant he would be resurrected in 3 days.

Why was James the Brother of the Lord choosen and agreed by all the Apostles?

Not because he was part of the Levitical priesthood.

Zechariah (was a Priest) John Baptist father was a direct descended bloodline of whom?

Jesus’ priesthood was not related to the bloodline of John the Baptist.

Elizabeth was Blessed Mary’s Aunt and sister to Anna ,mother of our Blessed Mother Mary>>whom she was also from the decended bloodline of whom?

Elizabeth is identified as a “kinswoman” of Mary. There are no Hebrew words for “aunt”, “Uncle” or “cousin”.

And do not forget Jospeh?

Joseph was of the tribe of Judah.

 

[simpleas]

There is no feminine in the Holy Trinity though, so I’m not sure what you mean by the feminine comes forth from the masculine?
Father, son and holy spirit are all masculine, Jesus being the male human.

In the case of Adam and Eve as humans, Eve being taken from Adams side etc, I understand that can be seen as the female coming from the male, but we are humans made in Gods image and likeness, not God made into humans image and likeness.
So it would seem that God would be masculine and feminine for males and females to be made in the image of God.

God is referred to as mother in the scriptures.

 

[Elizabeth3]

There is no feminine in the Holy Trinity though, so I’m not sure what you mean by the feminine comes forth from the masculine?

Father, son and holy spirit are all masculine, Jesus being the male human.

What I mean is that the feminine comes forth from the masculine which we see in Eve from Adam and Church from Christ, so that the feminine must reflect something about the characteristics of God. We know God is love. We know that we learn about love when we see male and female join as one and then suddenly 1 + 1 = 3 distinct persons who share the same nature.

I guess the theologically correct thing to say is that both masculinity/fatherhood and femininity/motherhood tell us something about the characteristics of God regardless of the fact that God is masculine in relation to His creation and we refer to the Three Persons in masculine terms.

 

[dochawk]

There is a reason why by age seven children can receive their First Communion. This is the age that the Church has deemed children capable of making moral decisions.

No, that’s not the reason. That thinking was added centuries later.

Infant communion in the West, like the East, was by the Blood only for obvious practical reason.

The Cup was withheld from all, not just infants, about seven centuries ago to flush out adherents to a heresy. “First Communion” and explanations about Age of reason, etc., came later.

(along the same line, Chrismation/Confirmation was separated from Baptism in the West not about age/intellect/consent/affirmation, but to reassure the authority of the bishop by reserving it to him. This, too, is “relatively” modern.

And as for women receiving, the Epistles are pretty clear that this goes back to 33 AD.

hawk

 

[Elizabeth3]

So it would seem that God would be masculine and feminine for males and females to be made in the image of God.

I will have to do some digging but I thought I read somewhere that God doesn’t have characteristics of either masculine or feminine but it’s what we know as humans being male and female that tells us something of God’s characteristics that transcends both.

God is referred to as mother in the scriptures.

God is referred to as like a mother in the scriptures which shows that femininity/motherhood tells us something about God.

 

[simpleas]

I should have said like

God referred to like a Father and like a Mother for our limited minds to easily understand, this can be either a great metaphor for some (those who have a loving well structured family) and see God as so, or a dangerous one (those who experience harm and hurt from human parents) and conclude that God is like their mother/father.

God being neither is what I have read,but not in depth because I’m not sure of any authors who can write about it.
So we limited our experience of God to a Father, but there must be so much more.

Didn’t someone quote something like no one can know God fully?

Thanks again for your posts, never got this far in a discussion about this issue as most of the posters got angry and threads were taken down or closed.

 

[FiveLinden]

The women “deaconesses” we read about in Acts were virgins (not married women) or widows. They were assisting with baptising women as that was done in the nude and the whole body was anointed with holy oil. (Imagine the scandal if a man touch a woman who isn’t his wife or mother.) Visiting sick women and bringing them Holy communion and also teaching women. I don’t think this is the kind of deaconesses you are imagining and would want today some 2000 years later. Deaconesses as a word was gone after a few centuries as by that time everyone was baptised as an infant. They were never “ordained” as a male deacon would be. Stayed on a little longer in the East than in the Western part of Christianity

How do you know this?

 

[HeDa]

I was very surprised when media started to report that “pope Francis is opening the deaconate to women” in 2016 after a meeting with women religious (International Union of Superiors General). One sister asked when the Church would let women become ordained so pope Francis agreed after a discussion that there was to be a commission looking into the early church documents on the role of women deaconesses and the role of women in the early church.

You can read the documents from International Theological Commission 2001 which discussed the role of women.

Ordinatio sacerdotalis (1994) and Mulieris Dignitatem (1987) by pope John Paul II

Women Deacons? Essays with Answers. Edited by Phyllis Zagano. Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota. 2016.

There are a lot more books and articles if you search Women deacons, deaconesses, Catholic Church.

 

[FiveLinden]

Yes but how do you know the specific facts you claim about the status of deaconesses in the early church?

 

[Gorgias]

Yes but how do you know the specific facts you claim about the status of deaconesses in the early church?

Historical documents of the Church. The Bible isn’t the only written text that the Church has produced…

Sr Sara Butler has studied the matter at length, and comments here on First Things on the topic. Her book The Catholic Priesthood and Women also addresses the topic of ‘deaconnesses’ in the early Church, IIRC.

 

[Elizabeth3]

God referred to like a Father and like a Mother for our limited minds to easily understand, this can be either a great metaphor for some (those who have a loving well structured family) and see God as so, or a dangerous one (those who experience harm and hurt from human parents) and conclude that God is like their mother/father.

Scripture does speak of God’s fatherhood metaphorically in that human fatherhood is like the paternal care of the Father. However, we can also see analogously how God IS Father more than just metaphorically as the origin or source of His creation and how He transcends creation. …and Jesus referred to Him as Father and asked that we call Him the same.

We can’t make the analogy with the term mother because a mother is acted upon and acts in cooperation with a father in reproduction in a way that the Father is not acted upon. God creates out of nothing and not with any other though so His Fatherhood transcends human fatherhood which actually needs a mother in order to procreate.

This doesn’t mean that within the inner life of the Trinity there aren’t characteristics of God that are like a mother, however. I think that man and woman together as a unity, just like the JP II quote I referred to above, tell us something about God’s own inner life and without human motherhood, we would have a much more incomplete picture of how we can know, love and understand God. Just look at how often “giving birth” or “being reborn” is used in the Scriptures so without human motherhood to help us understand what that is, something would be seriously lacking in our understanding. But to call God, Mother, is not correct because it would imply that the One God is acted upon from an outside source in order to create and that is not so.

Anyway, yes. Fallen humanity can really mess up one’s ability to know, love and serve God if they have been hurt by bad parenting. That’s without a doubt and is why I think there is so much emphasis on the importance of a good and healthy family life.

So we limited our experience of God to a Father, but there must be so much more.

I think what we understand of human fatherhood causes us to put God in that limited box. If people go about their lives without ever pondering that God transcends human fatherhood or fails to recognize that human motherhood tells us something as well then, yes, we will stunt what we are able to perceive about Him.
But we will never really, truly be able to grasp the unfathomable depths of Him.

Thanks again for your posts, never got this far in a discussion about this issue as most of the posters got angry and threads were taken down or closed.

Your welcome and thank you. Like I said, I enjoy that discussion myself. I just recently joined CAF so I must have missed the more contentious posts about this subject. It can be a sore topic for many so I can see where it could go downhill very quickly.

 

[simpleas]

I have just come across this site. It is NOT Catholic teaching, but I do agree with what is being said -

In Genesis 1:27 it is said, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” The male and the female were created by God. The male and the female both bear the image of God. The male and the female are both included in the Hebrew word adam (man) - “So God created adam … He created them.” Notice what God says about them … "and let them rule.…” The male and the female were both designed to rule. Men and women are created by God in His image as co-regents of the world He created. Any system, any society, any organization that places one gender as an authority over the other, whether it be patriarchal or matriarchal in nature, is a direct violation of the command and design of the Creator God. Why can women rule in God’s creation? Why can women lead in God’s creation? Why can women be equal to men in God’s creation? Women are created in the image of God, just like men, and when the omnipotent, sovereign and invisible Creator God determined to create man in His image, He created a male and a female, reflecting the very nature of God Himself. This is why there is nothing wrong with considering God as both Father and Mother, as the invisible and all-powerful Ruler of the universe who reflects Himself in both males and females–God is Spirit and the perfections of each gender are seen in God.

https://www.wadeburleson.org/2011/12/god-has-chosen-to-liken-himself-to.html

 

[FiveLinden]

Historical documents of the Church. The Bible isn’t the only written text that the Church has produced…

Sr Sara Butler has studied the matter at length, and comments here on First Things on the topic. Her book The Catholic Priesthood and Women also addresses the topic of ‘deaconnesses’ in the early Church, IIRC.

Well I have not read the book but the link does not support the extraordinary detail you provided of the role of deaconesses. Reconstructing social practices from 2000 years ago is not easy. Is there an actual source for your specific claims? Segregated Baptism? Full body anointing?

 

[Elizabeth3]

In Genesis 1:27 it is said, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” The male and the female were created by God. The male and the female both bear the image of God. The male and the female are both included in the Hebrew word adam (man) - “So God created adam … He created them.” Notice what God says about them … "and let them rule.…” The male and the female were both designed to rule. Men and women are created by God in His image as co-regents of the world He created.

So far so good.

Any system, any society, any organization that places one gender as an authority over the other, whether it be patriarchal or matriarchal in nature, is a direct violation of the command and design of the Creator God.

It depends. Authority according to the world which is about power and domination or authority according to Christianity which is at the service of love for those under their care? The first type is for sure “a direct violation of the command and design of the Creator God.”

Why can women rule in God’s creation? Why can women lead in God’s creation? Why can women be equal to men in God’s creation? Women are created in the image of God, just like men, and when the omnipotent, sovereign and invisible Creator God determined to create man in His image, He created a male and a female, reflecting the very nature of God Himself.

Yep. All true. But how they are called to lead, at least in the Church, has a different expression.

This is why there is nothing wrong with considering God as both Father and Mother, as the invisible and all-powerful Ruler of the universe who reflects Himself in both males and females–God is Spirit and the perfections of each gender are seen in God.

Nope. Other than “God is Spirit and the perfections of each gender are seen in God” Because as I stated above, motherhood implies something untrue about God in relation to His creation, in that motherhood is acted upon (I guess better terminology is “welcomes into her being”) and cooperates with another, in creating life. God does not create with any other outside source. He is the creator who creates out of nothing and acts upon his creation. There is an authority with motherhood like Holy Mother Church has authority. Even the authority of men is not “all-powerful”, being they are under subjection to God as well. Anytime anyone speaks as the Church speaks, they speak with authority as well.

 

[Gorgias]

Well I have not read the book but the link does not support the extraordinary detail you provided of the role of deaconesses.

“Extraordinary detail”? I’m guessing you’re not familiar with the subject.

From the on-line (i.e., older) version of the Catholic Encyclopedia:

The subject of the precise status of the deaconess is confessedly obscure and confused, but two or three points at any rate seem worth insisting on. In the first place there were no doubt influences at work at one time or another which tended to exaggerate the position of these women-helpers. This tendency has found expression in certain documents which have come down to us and of which it is difficult to gauge the value. Still there is no more reason to attach importance to these pretensions than there is to regard seriously the spasmodic attempts of certain deacons to exceed their powers and to claim, for example, authority to consecrate. Both in the one and the other case the voice of the Church made itself heard in conciliar decrees and the abuse in the end was repressed without difficulty. Such restrictive measures seem to be found in the rather obscure 11th canon of Laodicea, and in the more explicit 19th canon of the Council of Nicaea, which last distinctly lays down that deaconesses are to be accounted as lay persons and that they receive no ordination properly so called (Hefele-LeClercq, Conciles, I, 618). In the West there seems always to have been considerable reluctance to accept the deaconesses, at any rate under that name, as a recognized institution of the Church. The Council of Nismes in 394 reproved in general the assumption of the levitical ministry by women, and other decrees, notably that of Orange in 411 (can. 26) forbid the ordaining of deaconesses altogether. It follows from what has been said that the Church as a whole repudiated the idea that women could in any proper sense be recipients of the Sacrament of Order. None the less in the East, and among the Syrians and Nestorians much more than among the Greeks (Hefele-LeClercq, Conciles, II, 448), the ecclesiastical status of deaconesses was greatly exaggerated.

 

[Gorgias]

Is there an actual source for your specific claims? Segregated Baptism? Full body anointing?

More from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

There can be no doubt that in their first institution the deaconesses were intended to discharge those same charitable offices, connected with the temporal well being of their poorer fellow Christians, which were performed for the men by the deacons. But in one particular, viz., the instruction and baptism of catechumens, their duties involved service of a more spiritual kind. The universal prevalence of baptism by immersion and the anointing of the whole body which preceded it, rendered it a matter of propriety that in this ceremony the functions of the deacons should be discharged by women. The Didascalia Apostolorum (III, 12; see Funk, Didascalia, etc., I, 208) explicitly direct that the deaconesses are to perform this function. It is probable that this was the starting point for the intervention of women in many other ritual observances even in the sanctuary. The Apostolic Constitutions expressly attribute to them the duty of guarding the doors and maintaining order amongst those of their own sex in the church, and they also (II, c. 26) assign to them the office of acting as intermediaries between the clergy and the women of the congregation; but on the other hand, it is laid down (Const. Apost., VIII, 27) that “the deaconess gives no blessing, she fulfills no function of priest or deacon”, and there can be no doubt that the extravagances permitted in some places, especially in the churches of Syria and Asia, were in contravention of the canons generally accepted. We hear of them presiding over assemblies of women, reading the Epistle and Gospel, distributing the Blessed Eucharist to nuns, lighting the candles, burning incense in the thuribles, adorning the sanctuary, and anointing the sick (see Hefele-LeClercq, II, 448). All these things must be regarded as abuses which ecclesiastical legislation was not long in repressing.

 

[simpleas]

It depends. Authority according to the world which is about power and domination or authority according to Christianity which is at the service of love for those under their care? The first type is for sure “a direct violation of the command and design of the Creator God.”

I think the writer was saying that if one gender is an authority over the other then that is power and domination even when one gender believes it to be right. Both genders can participate in service and love of each other.

Nope. Other than “God is Spirit and the perfections of each gender are seen in God” Because as I stated above, motherhood implies something untrue about God in relation to His creation, in that motherhood is acted upon (I guess better terminology is “welcomes into her being”) and cooperates with another, in creating life. God does not create with any other outside source. He is the creator who creates out of nothing and acts upon his creation. There is an authority with motherhood like Holy Mother Church has authority. Even the authority of men is not “all-powerful”, being they are under subjection to God as well. Anytime anyone speaks as the Church speaks, they speak with authority as well.

I’m totally not with you here, the writer when speaking of all powerful is referring to God, who is the all powerful ruler, not man.
I don’t think God needs another outside force, God has everything all in one. If motherhood implies something untrue about God in his relation to creation, then so would fatherhood, because one can’t be a father without a mother, unless we are restricting these terms to humans only.
That is why God although one being, created humans male and female.

 

[Aulef]

Apples and oranges indeed.

Now, the official reason why there are no priestesses in the Church, I don’t know…

What I do know is that, since Adam, the first priest, only men has been allowed to perform offerings and sacrifices (to be a priest). This is tradition that can be seen throughout the Sacred Scriptures and the Holy Church preserved it.