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?

[Elizabeth3]

I don’t think it’s a bad thing that men are priests, I’m not saying only women could receive something that men can’t.

Considering men and women have psychological difference, I’d take a stab at suggesting that some of the not so christian things that the church let happen may have be reduced or would not have happened at all, if a woman had had a say in those decisions.

Perhaps that may be true or perhaps not due to psychological difference. There is always the fallen human element that can scandalize the office. Adding women to the priesthood may have made some sins not get to the level they did but then also there may have been new elements of sin introduced that are just as egregious as those we’ve seen. Psychological difference still doesn’t overcome the ontological difference in which men can by the nature of their being male, stand in the person of Christ as Head/Bridegroom in a way that women cannot. This doesn’t mean women can’t be or aren’t Christlike, we are. We just image Christ as Body/Bride ontologically and are the supreme sign of what this means to the rest of the Body who aren’t ontologically Bride but who haven’t also been marked with the indelible mark of ordination.

 

[MonteRCMS]

Somehow, I think Jesus figured out all that.

 

[Elizabeth3]

The fact is also that God is a pure spirit, Masculine AND Feminine, or else we would all be males able to reproduce without another opposite to us.

God is a pure spirit, therefore He is not masculine and feminine, male and female, He is neither. However, God is masculine by analogy. That doesn’t make Him masculine as in being male. Masculinity is the picture that gives us a clearer understanding of God’s relation to us but He is also more complex than “being masculine.”

What was the point of God making a female in his own image and likeness, but the say, I’m purely Masculine?

God is masculine in relation to his creation which is feminine in relation to Him. It is proper IN THAT CONTEXT. However, IN THE CONTEXT of God’s inner life, the Church is of the mind that the duality in human nature of male and female (1 +1=3) shows us the eternal exchange of love between Father and Son and from that love spirates the Holy Spirit which is yet another distinct Person of the Trinity who is equal and one with the Father and Son. So we can see the purpose of being made male and female who are one yet distinct from one another and from which comes a third person, is to reveal that there is a relationship of love among the members.

The CCC says

"255 The divine persons are relative to one another. Because it does not divide the divine unity, the real distinction of the persons from one another resides solely in the relationships which relate them to one another: “In the relational names of the persons the Father is related to the Son, the Son to the Father, and the Holy Spirit to both. While they are called three persons in view of their relations, we believe in one nature or substance.”

God created woman to bring the possibility of relationship into being for Adam so he would not be alone. Being alone was not good. But not just any relationship would do because Adam could relate, in a way, with the other living creatures but there was none like him, flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. But not just another male who would mirror him but instead he needed one who was the same but also different in that they could be fruitful together and create another who was like them but also different and so on.

God IS a family. Male-female-child are LIKE a family in that they are a shadow that faintly reveal the inner life of God.

 

[Elizabeth3]

We can believe God is masculine and Feminine but at the same time ONE.

We can believe God’s perfections, which transcend masculinity and femininity, are revealed to us in the masculine and feminine. That doesn’t mean God is both and also at the same time One. It means He is neither and One but Three.

 

[Elizabeth3]

As human beings created as creatures, but with a soul, different in gender and able to participate in procreation with the one God, we still as individuals become One with God when we eat and drink the body and blood of Christ.

First, our souls are the form of our bodies so that the different genders tell us something distinct that is soul-deep in male and female. [See the beginning of our conversation on here.]

Second, we do become one with God when we eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ but that oneness doesn’t erase that we are male and female.

God is One but that doesn’t erase the distinctions of the Three Persons nor their different actions proper to them as part of the Trinity.

See CCC 254.

Something needs to be fully understood here and it is this-

These distinctions are particularly important in our worship in the liturgy because they convey spiritual realities.

The first is that God is masculine by analogy in relation to creation. This is important because we must be humble enough to not assume our oneness with Him in any way erases that He is transcendent over us and our origin. Men cannot assume that because God is masculine by analogy that they are not feminine in their relation to God. The sanctuary represents a holy place set apart where God’s presence resides and our duty is to worship God and have our attention fixed on Him, not on ourselves. That is why we sit apart from the sanctuary. That distinction is an important reminder of that particular spiritual reality.

Second, the priest shows us that Christ, who is God, Son of the Father, shares our flesh in our humanity but He is ontologically male. That distinction is an important reminder of that particular spiritual reality.

Third, our oneness despite our distinctions is most fully expressed in the partaking of the Body and Blood in Holy Communion. That distinction is an important reminder of that particular spiritual reality.

In worship each spiritual reality that is being conveyed has it’s due but we can’t accomplish that if one spiritual reality loses it’s distinction by applying another spiritual reality to it.

Tell me where the spiritual reality in our worship would be conveyed, that we can see with our own two eyes that, Christ who is God, came to us as a male to show us He is Son of the Father, if there was a woman priest.

You keep bringing up our oneness as the reason women can be priests. Our oneness already makes us priest, prophet and king. But that IS NOT the spiritual reality that the priest represents in our worship. We have Holy Communion to show that. Why should we wipe out of our worship the spiritual reality that the male priest reveals to us in that Christ is the Son of the Father who is also our Father, and was born a man? Is Christ not owed worship for exactly who He is and for the male body He has which walked the earth with us, taught us, died for us and feeds us? Is that distinction not owed some prominence of sovereignty and adoration in our worship that is untouched by other realities that are already revealed in other parts of our worship?

 

[Elizabeth3]

There’s lots of stories of Gods and goddess, some good some bad.

You keep bringing up these pagan beliefs? Why? What point are you trying to make from them?

 

[Elizabeth3]

In April 1976 the Pontifical Biblical Commission concluded unanimously: “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.” In further deliberation, the commission voted 12-5 in favor of the view that Scripture alone does not exclude the ordination of women, and 12-5 in favor of the view that the church could ordain women to the priesthood without going against Christ’s original intentions.

All this says is that the New Testament alone doesn’t permit them to settle the question. It’s because the New Testament didn’t give a clear word that women could or could not be priests. We already knew this. It’s not news.

The article then points out

"In October 1995, the doctrinal congregation acted further, releasing a responsum ad propositum dubium concerning the nature of the teaching in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis: “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.” The ban on women’s ordination belongs “to the deposit of the faith,”

The article disingenuously says “Many have pointed out that to say that the teaching is “founded on the written Word of God” completely ignored the 1976 findings of the Pontifical Biblical Commission.”

The second statement is saying that based on the founded Word of God [meaning evidence FOR an all male priesthood in all of Scripture] and COMBINED WITH the Tradition of the Church, the ban still stands.

The second statement isn’t ignoring the first.

Again…

The first is saying that the New Testament ALONE doesn’t settle the matter one way or the other.

The second statement is saying that the Word of God [in it’s entirety] does show evidence [of an all male priesthood in the O.T. and Christ called men as Apostles in the New] along with Tradition, that the ban should still stand.

 

[simpleas]

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.

I agree that God has everything all in One -characteristics of motherhood and fatherhood, but that’s the point. It’s all in One, whereas with humans it takes two. So do we call that One, Father or Mother? It can’t be both or that would be to project the duality of human parenthood onto God who is One.

Didn’t we just say the same thing here?

I can’t reply to the other posts tonight, maybe tomorrow.

Thanks.

 

[MCH1]

Spot on post.

 

[Elizabeth3]

Didn’t we just say the same thing here?

No.

The article you referenced asserts that because the Bible talks about how God is LIKE a mother in certain respects that that then means we can consider God AS both father and mother.

You wrote

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.

What it seems you are trying to say is that because human motherhood and fatherhood reflect something of the perfections of God that if what is untrue about human motherhood also means that the same thing is untrue about human fatherhood and while that may be correct in that human fathers and mothers need each other in order to become parents, human fatherhood has other characteristics that reflect certain characteristics of God that human motherhood does not.

I wrote and perhaps didn’t make myself entirely clear,

I agree that God has everything all in One -characteristics of motherhood and fatherhood, but that’s the point. It’s all in One, whereas with humans it takes two. So do we call that One, Father or Mother? It can’t be both or that would be to project the duality of human parenthood onto God who is One.

So if we have to choose whether to call God Father or Mother because He is One and not two, we can see that Father is correct in relation to His creation. He transcends humanity, is distinct from humanity, and is the origin of humanity.

The CCC states "239 By calling God “Father”, the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. "

Adam as the male sex reflects God as the first origin in that woman came from his side. Women cannot reflect this particular aspect of who God is as first origin. We reflect Him in other ways but not in this way. A mother doesn’t reflect this either because she becomes mother by being entered by another. God the Father is not acted upon from an outside source and just because his perfections are reflected by human motherhood as well as fatherhood, that in no way indicates that He is Mother to us or both mother and father. His Fatherhood is based on Him being first origin, transcendent authority and loving care. Human motherhood doesn’t reflect these particular three characteristics the way that human fatherhood does.

The CCC also gives another reason we call God Father,

240 Jesus revealed that God is Father in an unheard-of sense: he is Father not only in being Creator; he is eternally Father by his relationship to his only Son who, reciprocally, is Son only in relation to his Father"

 

[simpleas]

Adam as the male sex reflects God as the first origin in that woman came from his side. Women cannot reflect this particular aspect of who God is as first origin. We reflect Him in other ways but not in this way. A mother doesn’t reflect this either because she becomes mother by being entered by another. God the Father is not acted upon from an outside source and just because his perfections are reflected by human motherhood as well as fatherhood, that in no way indicates that He is Mother to us or both mother and father. His Fatherhood is based on Him being first origin, transcendent authority and loving care. Human motherhood doesn’t reflect these particular three characteristics the way that human fatherhood does.

Well I suppose that would be true if you take the second account of creation as literal.

I can’t properly understand how God can be referred to as masculine and the explain that God has no gender like humans do.

I can just understand that God made humans in ‘his’ image and likeness which are male and female.

God the Father is not acted upon from an outside source

Never said ‘he’ was…

A mother doesn’t reflect this either because she becomes mother by being entered by another.

Yes, she is a human being, not a God.

Insisting God has no gender (which I agree with) but then also insisting only a male can be a priest because only a male can truly reflect the no gender God is confusing for my tiny brain.

But like I said, believing the creator made a male human first, then decided to make a female because no other creature (the animals) was suitable for the first human male, would answer the question along with all the deep theology that comes with it.

 

[PetraG]

The Church didn’t dig this interpretation up out of the ground or piece it together from a lost stone tablet. It has been so from the first: that is, the Apostles themselves, who were at the Last Supper and who spent time with Our Lord after the Resurrection, learned this interpretation from Our Lord directly and have passed it down. We have no reason whatsoever to question it.

Instead, we were taught by the Apostles to reject those without their authority who presumed to teach things they did not teach. We have examples of the Apostles treating questions that came up–do Christians have to keep kosher? Must Christians be circumcized?–after Pentecost.

This question arose very early in Church history was decided correctly a long time ago. It is settled. All that is left is commentary; there is no need for debate.

 

[Elizabeth3]

I can’t properly understand how God can be referred to as masculine and the explain that God has no gender like humans do.

He is not referred to AS masculine instead it is said He is "masculine in relationship" to His creation. It’s an analogy. What we know of particular aspects (not all aspects) of human fatherhood gives us a picture of what His relationship or position is to His creation. [creator, first origin, transcendent authority, goodness and loving care] What we know of particular aspects [not all aspects] of human motherhood gives us a picture of how we respond and relate to God.

This does not mean that men are more Godlike than women.
This does not mean that women are more creature-ly sinners than men.

It is a statement that tells us who God is to us and who we are in relation to Him.

Here’s a well written piece that explains it further

https://testeverythingblog.com/masculine-god-feminine-church-ca56865c1704

 

[Elizabeth3]

Insisting God has no gender (which I agree with) but then also insisting only a male can be a priest because only a male can truly reflect the no gender God is confusing for my tiny brain.

But Christ has a gender and He was male. The priest is standing in the person of Christ the Head making an offering of Himself to the Father. He doesn’t represent the whole Trinity. The faithful as Christ’s Body, by the gifts they’ve given to be taken up to the altar and by their prayers participate as well. “Not only,” says Innocent III of immortal memory, “do the priests offer the sacrifice, but also all the faithful: for what the priest does personally by virtue of his ministry, the faithful do collectively by virtue of their intention.”

“88. Nor is it to be wondered at, that the faithful should be raised to this dignity. By the waters of baptism, as by common right, Christians are made members of the Mystical Body of Christ the Priest, and by the “character” which is imprinted on their souls, they are appointed to give worship to God. Thus they participate, according to their condition, in the priesthood of Christ.”

http://www.catholicliturgy.com/inde...ontents/Index/2/SubIndex/37/DocumentIndex/219

 

[simpleas]

God is a pure spirit, therefore He is not masculine and feminine, male and female, He is neither. However, God is masculine by analogy. That doesn’t make Him masculine as in being male. Masculinity is the picture that gives us a clearer understanding of God’s relation to us but He is also more complex than “being masculine.”

But Christ has a gender and He was male

“88. Nor is it to be wondered at, that the faithful should be raised to this dignity. By the waters of baptism, as by common right, Christians are made members of the Mystical Body of Christ the Priest, and by the “character” which is imprinted on their souls, they are appointed to give worship to God. Thus they participate, according to their condition, in the priesthood of Christ.”

And to which there is neither male nor female in Christ for you all are one in Christ jesus.

I just see this differently, my bad I suppose.

Thanks for your posts.

 

[Elizabeth3]

I just see this differently, my bad I suppose.

You see contradictions among the above statements where there are none. You wouldn’t see it that way if you understood them correctly.

Thank you too for the discussion.

 

[Agathon]

There is no reason to believe that the women who were present were not included in the Eucharist.

Um, the fact the Gospel doesn’t mention them?

 

[guanophore]

Um, the fact the Gospel doesn’t mention them?

Matthew 14:21 “And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.”

Now, if it was the custom to only count the men, why would you expect the mention of any women?

And the twelve were with him, 2 and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Mag′dalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 3 and Jo-an′na, the wife of Chu′za, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them[a] out of their means. Luke 8.

Where does the scripture say that these women were not allowed into the upper room?

Do you seriously believe that the Passover was prepared by a passel of fishermen, tax collectors, etc? I bet they don’t even know how to make unleavened bread!

 

[Agathon]

Where does the scripture say that these women were not allowed into the upper room?

Where does the Scripture say that these women were allowed? Two can play at this game.

All indications point to ONLY the Twelve. Luke 22:14 says as much. biblehub.com/luke/22-14.htm

 

[guanophore]

All indications point to ONLY the Twelve. Luke 22:14 says as much. biblehub.com/luke/22-14.htm

So where were the women who accompanied them to celebrate Passover? Are you saying they were not welcome?