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deb1
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I don’t think that he is getting beaten up. Most of us are very polite with our answers.
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Mickey
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Mommyof02green
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Okay to ask a dumb question: I understand that it’s leaven bread for Eastern Rite Catholics. I understand that for Latin Rite Catholics it’s only wheat and water, therefore for Latin Rite Catholics it’s unleaven.I already quoted the book I used: So my question is it the Host made with Wheat, Water, and Yeast ONLY. (The book said it leaven, but no other ingredients are added, so I’m assuming that it’s yeast that is used to make the bread rise…Is this right??)
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amills
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Why can’t men have babies?
God gave men and women different bodies physically. Thus we physically have different roles.
I think God gave us different roles spiritually also.
God gave men and women different bodies physically. Thus we physically have different roles.
I think God gave us different roles spiritually also.
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Kendy
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Yes, my comment was probably unnecessary since most of these posts are very polite. Just a warning from past observation and experience.
Kendy
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LittleDeb
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I was just going to recommend this one. Thanks Kendy! I like his line at the beginning, “…or why only boys can be the daddies.” It makes me giggle. Yup, this is 4-year-old sex ed. Boys and girls are different. Completely equal in dignity, but not the same.
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mikew262
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No, your comment was valid. There are some posters that can be very aggressive and rude.
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Contarini
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So what role in the Church do women have that men cannot fill? (Don’t tell me “to be mothers.” That’s not a specifically church-related role–and of course it has a male counterpart.)
The male-only priesthood had a perfectly reasonable rationale for centuries. Women were thought to be biologically and psychologically less perfect, lacking the “ruling faculty” possessed by men. The modern rationale offered by most Catholics is made up out of whole cloth to cover up the collapse of this traditional view. The idea that the human race is bifurcated into two ontologically different and complementary halves, and that these two halves accordingly have different (but equally important) roles, is a modern idea. Just as modern as the idea that the difference between men and women (which no sane person denies) are irrelevant to the possibility that they can be called to the priesthood.
In fact, some versions of the Catholic view–such as Peter Kreeft’s weird suggestion that our souls are gendered–are far less traditional and orthodox than the pro-WO view. Proponents of women’s ordination agree with the Christian tradition that men and women share one nature and that the differences between them are at a relatively more superficial level.
Edwin
Edwin
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CARose
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Sorry Contarini (Edwin),
But the correct answer to what role is reserved to women is “being a mother”. Yes that has everything to do with the Church, as the family is the domestic Church. It is in the family that the church is delivered to our future generation. The mother plays a most significant role in passing on the faith to her children.
CARose
But the correct answer to what role is reserved to women is “being a mother”. Yes that has everything to do with the Church, as the family is the domestic Church. It is in the family that the church is delivered to our future generation. The mother plays a most significant role in passing on the faith to her children.
CARose
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Br.Rich_SFO
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Kendy
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I am afraid that does not answer his question since lay men can be fathers and that complements the male role in the family to the mother. There are no ecclesiatically equal roles for women.
Kendy
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LilyM
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Complementary roles, but not exactly the same. A father and mother DON’T do ‘equal’ things, physically or in any other way, for the child. Fathers do not do anything that ‘equals’ the mother’s roles of pregnancy, birthgiving or breastfeeding.
Of course women have a role in the church - as nuns or married or single laywomen. They can be missionaries and teachers, saints and Doctors of the Church just as men - what more should any man or woman want?
And what do you mean by ecclesiastically equal? They can’t perform some of the sacraments such as absolution - well neither can anyone who isn’t a priest! They can’t become or choose the Pope - well neither can anyone who isn’t a Cardinal! What aren’t you talking about lay MEN not having an ‘equal’ role in the church as well?
The simple fact is we have different tasks, as different parts of the body do too. Some aren’t as obvious or important as others - tought, each part does what it is meant to do. Not every part of the body can or should be the head, so not every person or group in the Church can or should fill every function.
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lrs
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I believe the question that is being asked is:
Theologically, (Study of God), why is it women can not be priests?
Biologically, Women have been annointed to give Birth and be nurturing mothers to Life’s Miracle of Creation… This to me, is a Holy and Sacred responsibility. I, for One, do not feel that women “should be priests” Let it be understood, however, that we have all been annointed with our own special gifts. Spiritually, we are all equal. There is no disputing that. Christ dwells in all of us equally and without favor. This is where faith enters the equation. Nurturing and giving Life. It all comes from God, Creation and Love, Love and Creation. When the Priest consecrates the Eucharist, we very much understand that this is eternal love and eternal creation. When we accept that we are made One through the Spirit by Holy Communion, we will be in gratitude of the gifts we have been given and will bow to others whose gifts weigh no different than ours.
It is very much not a matter of: women should not be priests because merely the virtue of their gender, but much more a thought of what are the gifts we have been given and how well do we beg for and obey the Will of God in our lives and use these gifts to serve others.
It must be Addressed though: Theologically, what is the primary reason Women are not allowed to be Priests?: Not biologically, not because the Catholic Church forbids it, not sociologically, not spiritually, but purely Theologically what is the answer.
peace,
Lisa
Theologically, (Study of God), why is it women can not be priests?
Biologically, Women have been annointed to give Birth and be nurturing mothers to Life’s Miracle of Creation… This to me, is a Holy and Sacred responsibility. I, for One, do not feel that women “should be priests” Let it be understood, however, that we have all been annointed with our own special gifts. Spiritually, we are all equal. There is no disputing that. Christ dwells in all of us equally and without favor. This is where faith enters the equation. Nurturing and giving Life. It all comes from God, Creation and Love, Love and Creation. When the Priest consecrates the Eucharist, we very much understand that this is eternal love and eternal creation. When we accept that we are made One through the Spirit by Holy Communion, we will be in gratitude of the gifts we have been given and will bow to others whose gifts weigh no different than ours.
It is very much not a matter of: women should not be priests because merely the virtue of their gender, but much more a thought of what are the gifts we have been given and how well do we beg for and obey the Will of God in our lives and use these gifts to serve others.
It must be Addressed though: Theologically, what is the primary reason Women are not allowed to be Priests?: Not biologically, not because the Catholic Church forbids it, not sociologically, not spiritually, but purely Theologically what is the answer.
peace,
Lisa
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Contarini
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The point is that the counterpart to physical motherhood is physical fatherhood. Motherhood is not a feminine counterpart to the priesthood.
Here’s a practical example–what liturgical role is reserved to mothers? In the liturgy–which is the heart of the Church’s life–women are undifferentiated laity, with no possibility to play any special role. Yet only men can be priests.
This makes sense if, as Christians believed for centuries, men embody the human nature they share with women more completely than women do. It makes no sense whatever if men and women are supposed to have complementary roles. That’s just a farce. The reality is that men can do everything liturgically that women can do (and if you push the “domestic church” idea, they have a complementary role there), and on top of that they can be priests. To claim that this is an example of equal complementarity is nonsense. It’s only justifiable if men share in the image of God more fully than women do. This is in fact what Aquinas believed.
Edwin
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Kendy
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The question is less complicated than that. Mothers are not the same as fathers, but they have an equal complementary role. Nuns are actually more like brothers than priests. So, what I mean is that there is no female counterpart to the male priesthood.
Kendy
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LilyM
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Theologically (study of God) the reason is firstly because God chose to be incarnated as a male - in the person of Jesus Christ - and secondly because God CHOSE and ORDAINED and COMMANDED ONLY males to fulfil the priestly functions.
He didn’t do these things without reason or in a random fashion.
He had plenty of very holy women around him whom he would surely have chosen if he had desired women priests, and the men are distinctly presented in all their gory and glorious humanity and weakness and not as being morally superior.
Men only can be priests because
a) GOD chose only men to be his priests, both in the Old and New Testaments
b) because only men are suitable to take his place in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and in offering the sacraments,
c) only men are suitable representatives in this regard of Jesus, who chose to be incarnated as a male.
How is this not a good enough answer theologically or in any other sense? Nothing to do with the Church saying so, everything to do with God saying so.
May as well ask why a parrakeet or a tree can’t be a priest, or why we can’t have Holy Communion with celery sticks instead of the bread and orange juice instead of the wine.
God, through Jesus, chose the signs, symbols and means by which his sacraments were to be administered. He made it clear enough that he wanted only men and not women as priests, and only bread and wine and not other food and drink for the Eucharist.
He also made it clear enough that this was not meant to imply that women or children are inferior in any way, any more than that celery and oranges are inferior to bread and wine because they weren’t chosen either.
So what if we don’t have a liturgically equal or complementary role in the public ritual of the Church - who says we’re supposed to? Not all of us are meant to be parents and serve him in that role either.
We’re meant to serve God in the roles that we do have open to us, and to take advantage of the sacraments and get to heaven. Women have just as full a chance of that as men.
I think you’re confusing the means with the end here.
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Contarini
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Bread and wine were chosen as symbolic of all food and drink. As a cultural symbol, bread *is *superior. Bread wasn’t chosen for some random reason.
Similarly, it made sense for men to be priests when men were believed to embody God’s image in humanity in a fuller way than women. This could be merely a symbolic superiority (though as a matter of fact it was thought to be far more than that), but it is a matter of superiority. It’s not a question of two equal and complementary expressions of humanity.
Male-only priesthood implies male superiority. This was the historic belief that lay behind the practice, and trying to maintain the practice without the belief lands you in an endless morass of special pleading and fanciful theories.
Edwin
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Charlie_Zeaiter
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To put it simply… The Church is the Bride of Christ, and a priest who acts in persona of Christ, shares in Christ’s nuptial relationship to the church. So, it would not be in God’s plan for a woman to “marry” the church which is also “female”. (Jesus and The Church gives us spiritual life, in the same way Adam and Eve gave us physical life.) This is why Jesus only chose men to be his apostles, and this is why women can’t become priests.
(Now, this may beg a question; Why is it that sometime in history and in some Eastern Catholic Churches now, a married man has been allowed to become a priest? It seems strange that a married man can become “married again”, if you know what I mean.)
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Kendy
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I would be inclined to agree with you on the cultural end, but it begs the question, why did Jesus choose male disciples?
Kendy
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kleary
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Yes. The REAL reason why women cannot be priests is because of what the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is and what the priest is and does in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
You have to understand what the Holy Mass is in order to understand why a woman can never ever be a priest.
You see the priest is “Alter Christus”, and acts “In Persona Christi” when he offers the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Note- when the priest changes the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ he does not say, “This is Jesus Body which is given up for you” he says, “THIS IS MY BODY”. The priest is in place of Jesus in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and Jesus Christ is a MALE PERSON.
A female cannot be “Alter Christus” because Christus is Male - with a male body.
“Popess Joan Chittister” has not been elected yet! She does not believe in the Mass- God have mercy on her and her followers.
Ken
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