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FuzzyBunny116
Guest
Has the Pope, or any past pope, said infallibly that a woman cannot be a priest?
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jbuck919
Guest
No, though one hedged his bets to seem to. It is not an area where an infallible pronouncement can be made in the first place. A matter of church discipline, no matter how strong, long living or well motivated, or even important to maintain, cannot be a matter of faith or morals. I believe in God, and that women cannot be priests. I believe that I may not murder, and that a woman may not be a priest. Exactly how ridiculous does that sound?
The pope is authoritative and has the final say in matters of church discipline, but no women priests is along the same lines as no married priests, and that should be common sense.
The pope is authoritative and has the final say in matters of church discipline, but no women priests is along the same lines as no married priests, and that should be common sense.
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Penitant
Guest
I am sorry, but you are wrong. A priest can not marry in the Latin Rite due to discipline, that is true. However, a woman can not become a priest because the Church has no authority to make her one. This can not and will not change.
This has been a constant teaching of the ordinary magisterium, and as such is an infallible teaching.
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Atreyu
Guest
This is incorrect, it is a matter of faith.
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.
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.
Source = ORDINATIO SACERDOTALIS
John Paul II says here that it is not merely a matter of discipline. I think that means therefore that it must be a matter of faith!
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kleary
Guest
The problem is this, those who think that the all male priesthood thing is only a discipline and can be changed.
Well maybe the description of the Mass as described all along is simply a discipline also that can be changed.
Is it a disciplinary matter or a theological matter concerning the priesthood?
Is it a disciplinary matter or a theological matter concerning what the Mass is?
If these things were just disciplinary matters then no problem.
However since the Mass is a Sacrifice, and the priest is “Alter Christus”- then it is impossible for a women to be “in persona Christi” when Christi is a male person.
You would have to change Catholic Theology on what exactly the Mass is in order to have women priests.
The proponents of female ordination also know this very well, that the Mass as described all along must be changed from offering Jesus Christ to the Trinity to the Protestant Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper meal - Jesus is not offered to the Trinity in Sacrifice. That is why they hate the Tridentine Mass- because it is unmistakably “stinking with oblation” (Martin Luther).
Ken
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CRW
Guest
vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_22051994_ordinatio-sacerdotalis_en.html
Quoting from John Paul II document linked above: YES
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.
For a better understanding please read the document. God Bless
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jbuck919
Guest
The only Catholic in history who ever said that was Pope John Paul II . I absolutely defy you to find me another example. And he did not make it an infallible pronouncement. I mean Lord save us from these Gianpauloduolators who think he was the only pope there ever was. And at some point someone is going to come here and support me for the technical reason that I happen to be right about this. As I said on another thread, I couldn’t care less if the church never ordains a woman until the crack of doom, but it is not for a reason of dogma, it is for a reason of church disipline.
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jbuck919
Guest
The only Catholic in history who ever said that in a inown context was Pope John Paul II . I absolutely defy you to find me another example. And he did not make it an infallible pronouncement. I mean Lord save us from these Gianpauloduolators who think he was the only pope there ever was, and from popular press coverage of the same. And at some point someone is going to come here and support me for the technical reason that I happen to be right about this. As I said on another thread, I couldn’t care less if the church never ordains a woman until the crack of doom, but it is not for a reason of dogma, it is for a reason of church disipline.
Sorry, I didn’t intend that to be duplicative. Sometimes these buttons can be very confusing. So let the moderators make a deletion if they wish to.
Sorry, I didn’t intend that to be duplicative. Sometimes these buttons can be very confusing. So let the moderators make a deletion if they wish to.
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CRW
Guest
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. From my reading on EWTN Questions and Answers, this is an infallible teaching.
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Atreyu
Guest
Paul VI:
She holds that it is not admissible to ordain women to the priesthood, for very fundamental reasons. These reasons include: the example recorded in the Sacred Scriptures of Christ choosing his Apostles only from among men; the constant practice of the Church, which has imitated Christ in choosing only men; and her living teaching authority which has consistently held that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is in accordance with God’s plan for his Church.
Paul VI, Response to the Letter of His Grace the Most Reverend Dr. F.D. Coggan, Archbishop of Canterbury, concerning the Ordination of Women to the Priesthood (November 30, 1975); AAS 68 (1976), 599.
But it does seem a bit strange to claim that this is a matter of faith and not of discipline. I mean, it seems a bit arbitrary to be a matter of faith. However, I do think that it is a matter of faith, and it has everything to do with the role of gender. I certainly am not suggesting that the genders are unequal in any way, so let’s not go there. But I am suggesting that the genders are different. These genders each have their own role to play, and they complement one another. The teaching on this I believe, is a matter of faith (well, more likely a moral teaching), and so it can comprise a part of the deposit of faith delivered once and for all to the saints (Jude).
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Sir_Knight
Guest
And the fact that he was Pope when he said it, is all that is needed – another example is not NEEDED.
Yes he did … “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.”
Yes it is because no future pope can contradict the infallible teaching of a previous pope.
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kleary
Guest
Doesn’t the infallible teaching that declares that the priest is Alter Christus enough to show that no female can be a priest? Or is that a disciplinary matter?
Change the Church’s Teaching of what the Mass is and what the priest does at Mass and then you can change the priesthood. You cannot change what the Church has taught what the Mass is, period.
Ken
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JOE_OBERR
Guest
It is irrelevant whether Pope John Paul II was the first or the 100th pope to make a statement on ordaining women. He exercised his charism of infallibility in Ordinatio Sacerdotolis. He was trying to make it as clear as day that OS met the criteria of Vatican II for the exercise of the charism of infallibility. No previous pope disagreed with this position as none had ever ordained a woman, nor did any bishop.
As a previous post noted, OS stated that all the Church’s faithful must believe that the Church has no authority to ordain women and that this matter pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself. This means it is a matter of belief, not discipline.
Whether are not girls can serve at the altar is a matter of discipline. It is not a matter of the Church’s divine constitution.
What the pope did was to clarify an issue that was being brought to the fore by the Anglican church which had just decided to ordain a woman bishop. Pope John Paul decided that clarification was needed IN SPITE OF almost 2,000 years Apostolic Tradition which said only men could be ordained.
It had never been a serious enough issue before for a pope to issue a statement of this. That’s why Jesus founded his Church and instituted the Petrine Office with the power of the keys (Is 22:22). This is one way Jesus tests our humility, to see if we will listen and believe “a frail old man in Rome”.
Joe
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neophyte
Guest
“The Roman Pontiff, head of the college of bishops, enjoys this infallibility in virtue of his office, when, as supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful—who confirms his brethren in the faith—he proclaims by a definitive act a doctrine pertaining to faith or morals”
In Ordinatio Sacerdotalius, the Holy Father specifically said that this matter “pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself”, that he was making the statement “in virtue of (his) ministry of confirming the brethren”, and that the judgment that women cannot be priests “is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”
This statement fulfills all of the requirements for infallibility. It doesn’t matter a bit how many or how few times anyone said it before, it was infallibly stated so it’s true. Period.
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Atreyu
Guest
Yes I think this makes more sense than my own reasoning.
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WanderAimlessly
Guest
He we go again on the Female Ordination topic
:banghead:
Ordinatio Sacerdotalis explicitly prohibits the ordination of females into the priesthood. And, despite what others will say, it has been infallibly defined. Here is a section from Women and the Priesthood (This Rock: November 2003) on the subject:
:banghead:Ordinatio Sacerdotalis explicitly prohibits the ordination of females into the priesthood. And, despite what others will say, it has been infallibly defined. Here is a section from Women and the Priesthood (This Rock: November 2003) on the subject:
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Coder
Guest
certainly agree that the Pope’s teaching appears to possibly have the ex cathedra form. I also am pursuing the line of reasoning that it is ex Cathedra. However, how are we to understand these statements by Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, S.D.B. ?:
“It must be stressed then that in the Encyclicals and and in the Apostolic Letter , the Roman Pontiff intended, though not in a solemn way, to confirm and reaffirm doctrines which belong to the ordinary, universal teaching of the Magisterium, and which therefore are to be held in a definitive and irrevocable way.”
(Notice how he says “not in a solemn way”.)
“…when the of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the doctrine taught in the Apostolic Letter mentions the infallible character of this doctrine…it simply meant to recall that the doctrine is not infallibly proposed only on the basis of this pontifical document, but that it confirms what has been held everywhere, …”
ewtn.com/library/CURIA/MDPD.HTM
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MilesXpisti
Guest
As to the first, this is perhaps the opinion of Cardinal Bertone. It’s difficult to really speculate on what he meant. But it’s not difficult to understand what HH John Paul II meant or the degree to which he meant it.
Insofar as the second, the CDF was stating that it was not only this document which asserted the infallibility of this doctrine, as it is applied through the ordinary magisterium of the Church, but it was nonetheless stating that OS was in fact an infallible proclamation.
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Br.Rich_SFO
Guest
No, because the Magisterium of the Church has taught this infallibly, so there would be no need for a pope to do so.
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Br.Rich_SFO
Guest
That is incorrect. It is not a matter of Church Discipline, but in fact a matter of Church Doctrinal teaching on the Sacraments.
Married priests is a totally different issue it’s more like comparing apples and watermelons.
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