Why doesn't God want Female Priests?

  • Thread starter Thread starter BornInMarch
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
I’m not supporting female priesthood though…in that quote, I was talking about women serving in Mass (eg altar servers, lay readers etc). I don’t think women should be priests unless God comes down and says so…lol.

You think the Church as a whole (including Asia and Africa) are as good to women as they are to men?
 
Well a disabled man is just as valuable as an abled man as far as I’m concerned, so I don’t see it as insulting. It’s just a matter of what you can or can’t do, and I don’t think people are judged by what they can or can’t do.

The biological reality that the average fifteen year-old boy can beat the average woman at any contest of strength. The biological reality that men have different brain structures that give them better spatial reasoning and a greater single-focus. The whatever-causes-it reality that men are generally better at dealing with things rationally, and the whatever-causes-it reality that men are also less emotional and less likely to take things personally. It ain’t PC but it is the majority opinion and consensus truth.

Anyway, if you want to be a leader, even if you don’t believe any of what I just wrote, the majority of your followers will (though only some will admit it) and it’s not really fair to expect them to change for your sake. The leader should make the sacrifices, not the followers. The leader can’t expect fairness for himself, only fairness for the people he is leading. If he’s giving thought to himself and how he’s perceived and whether everyone is treating him fairly and without prejudice than he ain’t thinking about the needs of his followers and he’s a bad leader. Leading isn’t getting to wear the crown and be bossy. Respect? If they aren’t giving it then that person is a bad leader, by definition. Whether it’s through a fault or just prejudice, makes no difference. Can’t lead people who don’t respect you and shouldn’t even try. A good leader would step down and let someone else take over if they can’t get respect.

Equality is a pretty story we tell kids who can’t handle the truth. No one on this Earth is ever equal and no amount of hand-wringing is gonna change it. Equality my left foot. Go find some drooling, mentally disabled quadrapalegic with an IQ of 10 and talk to him about “equality.” Go find some starving kid in Africa with a bloated-belly and talk to him about equality. Only equality we get is death and whatever comes after. Kicking against the tide.
 
Last edited:
You are over exaggerating the differences here and ignoring the effect of a multitude of other factors at play that account for the differences, which is a rookie mistake when one attempts to come across as someone who knows psychology.

Who said being a leader=bossy? You’re arguing against points nobody’s really making here.

A true leader seeks change, not for himself/herself, but for the better good. They speak, they rally, they do what they can to earn respect and then they lead. Notice how you brought this up, when it has nothing to do with this thread.

Why are you deflecting by bringing up disabled people when we are talking about gender equality?
 
The point of the thread was why God doesn’t want female priests. I say it’s because most women can’t lead and priests need to be leaders. It has everything to do with the thread. I think God doesn’t want female priests because He didn’t make woman to lead.

Psychology? I don’t know a bleeding thing about it. Don’t much care for the whole field anyway.

Good leadership isn’t always a thing we choose or not choose. Most people can’t do it, period. Can’t learn it, can’t change who they are to become one. They just weren’t born with the right stuff. More men can do it than women, by a large enough margin that it’s been universally accepted throughout the vast majority of human history that men should be the near exclusive ones to do it.

Some women can do it. St. Joan of Arc was a leader, I’m told. Then again, she was chosen by God, so that probably helps. And I wonder what she’d have to say about feminism and “gender equality.” My guess is she probably never gave it a single thought. Was probably too busy leading.

Everyone has their physical limitations. Sex is a physical limitation. Anyway, the point is that we all have our places, and some pots are normal pots. Nothing wrong with that, as long as they get filled with the same wine.
 
So you think women were not chosen to be priests…because women are not capable enough to lead. Wow. Have you even read any of the intelligent replies here? Are you just trying to get a reaction here by being sexist on purpose or…? That’s not what the church teaches at all.

I know you don’t care about psychology because if you did, you would have bothered to back up your claims properly. You should also brush up on theology, unless you don’t care about that too?
 
Leaders don’t dialogue, speak or entertain thoughts like many of these posts.

Leaders don’t micro manage. Leaders value the skills of each and everyone of their charges. Leaders educate and upskill their people. Leaders don’t discriminate or exclude .
 
I’ve heard Dr. Peter Kreeft address this isssue and I think his take on it makes a lot of sense. The question could be answered simply enough that Jesus is a man therefore priests must be men. But then we have the question of why God became a man and not a woman.

I think that God became a man because God is more like the masculine. God is the one who leads, protects, but most importantly approaches us. Man (and woman) are all receptive to God. We respond to God. Both sexes are therefore feminine in relation to God. So God is more like the man than the woman. This doesn’t mean God is male or female. He is in Jesus, but the divinity is neither. However in relation to man God is more like the man.
 
Exactly, it’s a lot deeper than some of the answers we are seeing.

A proper answer would properly require some time dedicated to reading the TOB, but that makes me want to eat my own brains lol
 
In 1994 Pope St. John Paul II wrote on this very topic. While preparing this document, he contacted the Leadership of the Anglican Communion. He asked the question, “What is the theoligical reason for your ordination of women?” The Anglican Communion responded with a socialogical answer.
Here is a link to the Holy Father had to say.
https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/1994/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_19940522_ordinatio-sacerdotalis.html
 
It’s interesting how nuns can lead their community and do great things, but women leading in the hierarchy of the church is a no no…:roll_eyes:

The argument that men can lead but woman can not is purely sexist, but I suppose this is what the hierarchy believe to this day.

Spiritually speaking what does a man have that a woman does not, both made in God’s image, both equal in God’s eyes, yet a church that is lead by one side of God’s image.

It baffles me sometimes, but this is the world we live in…
 
What part of “The Church has no authority to ordain women” has somehow morphed into “the hierarchy has decided leadership of women is a naughty-no-no?”

Or are you claiming that the question and answer of "can a woman be ordained’ “No, the Church has no authority to do so” have an answer given by ‘men’ and not by God?

IOW, do you trust that the Catholic Church is not ‘making up stuff’ but is conveying what God has actually said, or not?

If you do not trust that the Church has not made this answer up (and thus think that the Church can 'change it), then really there is no way we can possibly communicate. You’d be determined that it’s all ‘man made’ (I presume you could not be telling God that He needed to change to suit YOU, right?). If you have the entire idea wrong from the start, then all the Church telling you, “Hey, this is what God told US” would just go in one of your ears and out the other, because you KNOW that “God never said it, it’s a man-made thing”.

If you DO trust that the Church is simply telling us what God stated, even if it makes us annoyed, upset, wail about ‘fair’ etc (I seem to recall that both Ezechial and Isaiah in the Old Testament remarked about similar ‘wailings of unfairness’ from the Jewish people, as did Christ Himself in His parables, and yet maintained God’s ways ARE fair), then you’d say, “Well, it really goes against my democratically conditioned and egalitarian social principles, but I suppose God’s reasons are better than mine, so I accept His decision”.
 
simpleas said:
It’s interesting how nuns can lead their community and do great things, but women leading in the hierarchy of the church is a no no…:roll_eyes:

The argument that men can lead but woman can not is purely sexist, but I suppose this is what the hierarchy believe to this day.

Spiritually speaking what does a man have that a woman does not, both made in God’s image, both equal in God’s eyes, yet a church that is lead by one side of God’s image.
Click to expand...
A lot of women are good leaders. A lot of men are terrible leaders. A lot of men are great leaders who do awful things with their leadership. Nonetheless it seems to me that for leading mixed groups men are the natural leaders.

Spiritually speaking there are differences in males and females the same as there is bodily. Equality in God’s eyes would be in his love for us and not in our natures. If there was no difference in male and female then there wouldn’t be male and female.
 
What are the spiritual differences?

We are all used to men being the leaders in most all our daily lives, except for a few Queens and PM’s, so its something we ‘see’ as normal.
 
God couldn’t work against “normal?” (and remember, ‘priestesses’ among the Gentiles especially were QUITE normal.)

Again I ask you, how do you get from “The Church has no authority to ordain women” somehow being, “The Church can decide to ordain women?”

Either you think that the statement, “The Church has no authority to ordain women” is something that some random guy made up, or you think the statement is something stated by God.

If it’s ‘some random guy’, then you don’t believe this statement is from God.

If that statement isn’t from God, then what statements do you trust as being really from God, and where do you get any assurance? Put 2 people in a room and ask them which of the commandments and the teachings of the Catholic faith --I’m speaking dogma and doctrine here–are 'from God and not man" and unless you have that rara avis, a practicing Catholic in complete communion with the church (raises hand here)–you’ll get a couple of hundred instances where the two ‘differ’ on what they think is, or is not, “really from God.”

IOW, by deviating from the authority given by God to the Church to bind and loose what GOD has determined may be bound and loosed, you admit no authority whatsoever other than what any given person ‘thinks’ the Spirit is saying. Complete chaos.

It all comes down to two things. Trust and obedience. A lot of people only ‘trust’ what resonates with THEM. And most people are obedient only to their own judgment. That’s why ‘the way is narrow’. Not impossible, but narrow. We can’t carry our own private god-in-our-image on such a narrow path, otherwise we’ll tumble off.
 
BornInMarch said:
Whenever the topic of Ordained Women comes up, a common response is that the church can’t have female priests because God doesn’t want it that way. The people who say this often cite the fact that God gave almost all of the important religious roles to Men (Prophets, Priests, Savior Of Humanity, Apostles, First Pope, etc) and that if we believe in God’s will we should continue the patterns he laid out when choosing church leaders.

But this leads to another question. Why did God choose only men for these roles? In the Gospels there are examples of women who would be very competent as Priests (The Virgin Mary being an obvious choice), and yet when Jesus chooses his disciples he chooses twelve painfully incompetent men (Judas betrays Jesus, Peter cuts a man’s ear off and then renounces Jesus, James and John ask Jesus for worldly power, etc). Why is this?

This is a genuine theological question. Please actually read this post before replying; if you just skip it and jump right to replies then I’ll be able to tell and will not take you seriously.

As a clarifier (because apparently it’s necessary), this question has nothing to do with my own beliefs on the topic. I am not saying that the church should ordain women, nor am I saying that it should not. I am simply asking the follow-up question of “why then?” to people who argue that the current policy is God’s will.
Click to expand...
The Church is Our Lord’s bride. Jesus is the groom.
That dynamic bride and groom is to continue. The priest is alter Christus. Ergo the priest is a man.
 
Last edited:
I think it is a very fitting analogy.

OP, I spent mny years in the woman’s ordination movement. I still know women whom I love and respect that still are.
I left the movement for precisely the reason Ora states here.
A priest friend, who knew of my involvement, but still ministered to me, asked me a very pointed question, to which I came to terms with the reality.

The nature of the ministerial priesthood is that the priest, at certain times, actually becomes the “person of Christ”. Well, as much as I can be “Christ-like” and try to live as He did, I cannot, ever be Christ, as I am not a man.
This was not an easy realization. It was panful. I wanted to say I was being too literal, and that was not the “spirit” of the law.
I so wanted to convince myself that I was wrong, but the harder I tried, the more I realized I could not. Men and women are different. That is how God designed us. And if God had to become human for us, he could have come as a woman, and we might be having the same conversation in reverse. 😉
But He didn’t . He came as a man, so to be “in persona Christi”, there is a minimum requirement of being the male of the species.

Like I said, it was not an easy time for me, but I look back now and think, WOW! There but for the grace of God…
I learned to do His will and not my own.
 
I mean there is no particular bias against women evident in the institution that is the Church, or in Her teaching.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top