Ooohhh, yes! We all know the other reason women can’t be priests: it’s 'cause women can’t keep secrets. How could a woman priest keep the confessional sacrosanct? She’d want to go blab the latest gossip to the other priestesses! (This is actually an explanation my mother has given before. )
)Actually, some men are quite vain - I know plenty of males who spend a lot of time in front of the mirror perfecting their hair.No, but funny; and you have a point. A guy wouldn’t care what he looked like.
Now that you mention it, I do recall hearing recently that men are spending as much in grooming products as women. Perhaps it would be difficult to get a priest at 3am irrespective of gender.Actually, some men are quite vain - I know plenty of males who spend a lot of time in front of the mirror perfecting their hair.
Well, perhaps your mother didn’t know many male taxi drivers and security guards; they are the biggest gossips I know! I think it has to with boredom.Ooohhh, yes! We all know the other reason women can’t be priests: it’s 'cause women can’t keep secrets. How could a woman priest keep the confessional sacrosanct? She’d want to go blab the latest gossip to the other priestesses! (This is actually an explanation my mother has given before. )
(Note: I am speaking with tongue firmly planted in cheek!
Actually, some men are quite vain - I know plenty of males who spend a lot of time in front of the mirror perfecting **their hair.
What hair?
Arch Bishop Fulton Sheen in his book The Priest Is Not** His **Own( notice the male gender) writes "
"For the sake of the Church,Our Lord came into the world and ( as He said) santified Himself.But what precisely does this expression mean? How can one consecrate oneself? Could Aaron consecrate himself?Could I consecrate myself? But Christ could consecrate Himself because He is a “high priest,now,eternally with the priesthood of Melchizedek”(Heb 6;20) He could sanctify Himself because He was both Priest and Victim; he gives these quotations in support of his teaching-- Ephesians 5:2 & 5:25-26 Deut15:19Numbers 18:17–then he writes—
"From the foregoing it is clear that Our Lord made Himself “holy” or “priestly” or “saintly"for our sakes.To reproduce this holiness in us priests,the help of heaven is needed.The night of the Last Supper,Christ spoke to the Heavenly Father on our behalf,saying His own “Pater Noster” Previousley,He had said to the Apostles,when they asked how they were to pray;
And He told them,When you pray,you are to say,Father.Luke 11:12”
“Our Lord never said “Our Father” of Himself and us together,but” My Father" and “Your Father” because He is the Narural Son;we the adopted sons.His sacerdotal prayer of Holy Thursday night,like the prayer He had given the apostles on the earlier occasion,contained seven petitions.The first Our Father was for everyone,but this Our Father is for priests alone.It sums up the virtues and other qualities that distinguish the priest"—
So we can see that Sheen supports tradition notion of the ministerial priesthood being male as they, in praying the Mass,do it through,with and in Christ the Priest/Victim.
But as Church History shows,women have been at the forfront of offering themselves as Victims in union with the Christ Victim that they received at Mass in Holy Eucharist.This follows the example of Our Lady,the Mother of The Eternal Priest and Victim.They have shared in nurturing piety in their sons and in turn supporting them in the priesthood.Others have been spiritual mothers to pray for priestly vocations;even by offering their very selves as victims for the santification of the priesthood.
So while God has not Willed that women can be ordained priests,they are the very means that God uses to give give birth to future male priests and the spiritual strength to sustain it.
Whether or not it was taught infallibly is a matter of speculation; which according to Canon Law would seem to suggest that it has not been taught, definitively, infallibly.Fair enough; only the teaching itself is infallible, not necessarily the reasons which form its basis. I think that the two carry equal weight, but it seems like that is a topic for another thread, so I’ll let sleeping dogs lie on this one.
Men had to be warriors in the Old Testament? What about Deborah?Jewish tradition -
Abraham offered his *son * Issac.
Animals offered under the Mosiac Law, had to be male.
Priests who offered the sacrifice *had to be male. *
Men were warriors, not women.
Christian tradition - Jesus was male, he offered his life so others could live.
The Mass is a sacrifice, the person who offers the Mass is male.
During the Mass the priest says 'this is
my body.
I think we can say there’s a connection between the male gender and sacrifice which is what in world I’m referring to.
I believe another poster made a very good point in that, if Eve sinned and Adam resisted, he would have been able to offer sacrifice for her, so I am not alone in my belief.
The point I was opening up for discussion was that down through the ages and throughout different cultures, it is considered more acceptable for men to give their lives so others can live. I made reference to the film Titanic because the men left on the sinking ship were going to drown. Their wives knew this and accepted their men were going to die so others could live. Society has always been able to live with the idea of a man giving his life so women and children more readilty than than a woman giving her life so men can live. The lives of women and children are often given priority. There was no question of, for example, drawing lots on the Titanic for a place in the lifeboat. Their was no question of older women giving their places to young men. It was expected of the men to die so the women and children could live.
Of course in modern times, this may no longer be the case if a ship was sinking. Equality has it’s drawbacks!
The other point I was making was, it has always been considered more acceptable for men to be warriors, or soldiers, than women. It is somehow considered more acceptable for men to be sacrificed on the battlefield. Society finds it considerably more distasteful when a woman is killed in battle.
If a sacrifice is to be made, the one to be offered in sacrifice, the one who dies so others can live, is by tradition male
I hope I’ve explained were I would see an association of sacrifice and masculinity.
Of course we could debate forever why.
You may or may not be politically correct. I don’t care either way. What your post does suggest though, that I find offensive, is a very sexist attitude regarding the ability for men and women to live out their Christian priestly role (conferred by baptism, according to the Catholic Church).All the posts have great merit but no one has given the REAL REASON!
I mean let us say that if a “woman” priest got called out of bed at 3am in the morning–by the time she chose what to wear,put on her make up and done her hair ,talked to the cat,wrote down instructions on the kitchen table --just in case she would be late—it would be 6 o’clock by the time she attended to the scene!
sorry,girls–not politically correct am I?
Sorry, that doesn’t make it infallibly taught. Have you read canon law about infallible teaching? How does this teaching meet the canon law requirements?
Ok.
OK. I don’t think I said men had to be warriors in the Old Testament, and I don’t think I said no woman in the nation of Israel was was a warrior. However, I think we can say it’s highly likely the majority were men. If anyone can provide evidence that suggests otherwise, I’ll be more than happy to stand corrected.
It’s not relevent to being a disciple of Christ. I wasn’t attempting to connect notions of Old Testament warriors to being a disciple of Chirst. I was attempting to explore the concept of sacrifice; the notion that society finds it marginally more palatable when a man gives his life so others can live, than if woman gives her life so others can live. That’s why I mentioned warriors. They die protecting others so in a sense, they die so others can live.
Sorry for my offending you–I was trying to be funny,at a woman’s expense:sad_bye:Trusting that my comments will not stop you from living your common priesthood of Christs’ Faithful.
)Thanks for the further explanation.
Yes, I can understand why you would say the last sentence is problematic.
If you are are saying that the teaching which states that women cannot be ordained to the priesthood has not been infallibly taught, then you are incorrect. Then cardinal Ratzinger, acting as Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, noted that this is an infallible teaching:
Emphasis is mine.
:thankyou:If the priesthood were a job or a career or even just another ministry, then I could see how a woman ought to be able to be ordained. For, truly, a woman can “do” all the jobs that a priest does–she can counsel, she can manage a parish, she can preach and provide insightful observations about Scripture and theology. In fact, she can even do and say the very words of consecration–perhaps even with more feeling and emotion.
HOWEVER, as well have all understood, the priesthood is not a job, or even a ministry. Ordination is not the “deputizing” of someone to perform an assignment; it is not the admission of someone to a profession such medicine or law, as someone so trenchantly pointed out on a thread here once.
At his sacred ordination, a profound ontological change occurs and what existed 30 seconds prior exists no more. Ontologically, he has changed and become a priest.
And no amount of ontological change can transform a woman into a priest–at her essence she always remains a woman.
And a woman can never be a father.
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