Why doesn't God want Female Priests?

[simpleas]

Don’t they answer to a bishop though?

I’m not dismissing that women do much within the church, I’m questioning the teaching that woman are not ‘able’ to take on the role of priest in the spiritual sense, not in a ‘it’s only a job’ sense.

 

[stpurl]

editing earlier post just to put in the characters

 

[stpurl]

A priest is not ‘a role’.
I said before, either you accept that the Church has no authority to ordain women–and that ‘no authority’ has nothing to do with a person’s ‘worth’ or the ‘job title’-- or else you’re just talking for the sake of hearing yourself talk, because apparently you don’t believe that the Church is either listening to God or representing what He said accurately. And if that’s the case, then nothing that we can offer on His behalf is apparently ‘good enough’ for you.

Myself, I don’t care to look the Almighty in the eye and say, “You know, God, either You’re a sexist bigot for not letting women have what idjit humans in AD 2017 have determined is a ‘power prize priesthood’ and as a sexist bigot we don’t believe in You, or else You either don’t CARE that 'Your Church” has led people away from ‘fairness’ for 2000 years so You’re not really the ‘good God’ we were told, and we don’t believe in You, or You’re pretty dang careless about the people You let into power, and we expect any moment now for You to perform some incredible miracle whereby You instantly raise up the nuns on the bus to be Your new Popess and Cardinalettes, with written apologies and TV appearances to the entire world apologizing on behalf of the ‘men’ who have screwed up Your teachings all these years in which case we might believe in Your ‘good intentions’ but You’d have to do an awful lot of cleanup before we believed in You as God’. . .

Any old way, you’re pretty much saying that God isn’t God, the Church isn’t the Church, priests aren’t really priests until they’re women, otherwise the universe is not FAIR.

 

[exnihilo]

I’m not dismissing that women do much within the church, I’m questioning the teaching that woman are not ‘able’ to take on the role of priest in the spiritual sense, not in a ‘it’s only a job’ sense.

What reasons does the Church offer as to why women are spiritually not able to be priests?

 

[Gorgias]

And neither were the Apostles. No where in the Bible are the Apostles called Priests.

Until you learned to speak English, you didn’t call your dad “Father” or your mom “Mother”. Were they not ‘father’ and ‘mother’ until you called them by that name? Of course they were. Therefore, this argument of yours doesn’t hold water. Unless, of course, you’re making the claim that all true statements in the universe are found in the Bible. (In which case I challenge you to find, in the Bible, the statement “@JoshuaIsLord is a Christian”. )

Calling the successors to the Apostles Priests is a latter adaption of the Church.

You realize that this undermines your entire argument… don’t you? After all, if the apostles and their successors weren’t priests… then neither were Mary Magdalene or other female leaders in early Christianity. (Whoops! That’s kinda inconvenient for ya! )

Saying Priest is derived from presbuteros is a nice attempt, but on a scholarly level, it does not hold water. The Greek is what it is. It does not lie.

Neither does etymology. The word ‘priest’ comes to us from the Latin ‘presbyter’… which itself is derived from the Greek ‘presbyteros’. So… yeah: ‘priest’ is derived from the Greek ‘presbyteros’, however inconvenient that might be for you.

The word the Greek uses for Priest is never used to describe the Apostles

So, here’s the thing: in the time of the writing of the Gospels, the word for ‘priest’ designated a Jewish priest of temple worship. That is not what Catholic priests are. Once the split between Jews and Christians was complete – after Christians were thrown out of synagogue following the razing of the Temple of Jerusalem – the ability to call apostles and bishops ‘priests’ was possible. But hey – if you want to hold to the notion that a thing isn’t what it is until it’s called it by that name by others… have at it. (That would imply that there was no such thing as a ‘Christian’ until the Antiochians came up with that moniker (cf Acts 11). That just doesn’t hold water…)

 

[AlNg]

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?”

Because a distinguished Catholic theologian has said that the first statement is not infallible and therefore can change.

 

[AlNg]

you’re pretty much saying that God isn’t God

What prominent theologian has ever said that God is not God? Can you supply a reference to such?

 

[Lea101]

That’s not a logical response at all. Citing over exaggerated differences, that is.

 

[stpurl]

Oh so wait.
The Magisterium has said the Church has no authority to ordain women.
One Pope stated it specifically in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis.
A second Pope confirmed that statement.
Our current Pope has confirmed that statement.

And somehow A Prominent Catholic Theologian whose name is not even given has the authority to state that the above ‘is not infallible and can change’?

Is that the same kind of Prominent Catholic Theologian who claims that the Church will also one day celebrate “gay marriage” and confect the Eucharist with gluten-free hosts and grape juice?

 

[AlNg]

A Prominent Catholic Theologian whose name is not even given has the authority to state that the above ‘is not infallible and can change’?

Father Francis A. Sullivan.

 

[Gorgias]

Because a distinguished Catholic theologian has said that the first statement is not infallible and therefore can change.

Throughout history, a plethora of ‘distinguished Catholic theologians’ have come up with real whoppers. In fact, if you look at Church history, heresies are pretty much the province of ‘distinguished Catholic theologians’. That’s why it’s important to remember that doctrinal truth comes from the Magisterium, not individual theologians…

Edited to add: Oh! @AlNg, now that you’ve IDed that it’s Sullivan’s statement that you’re clinging to, let’s examine what he wrote. Sullivan’s claim is that the CDF’s affirmation of the doctrinal nature of Pope John Paul II’s statement doesn’t hold up, since it doesn’t fit his definition of the “ordinary and universal magisterium.” He says this because – ignoring the CDF’s assertion that it has been taught since the beginning of the Church and well-established throughout the Church’s history – there may be bishops right now who do not agree. He makes this claim by stretching canon 749, asserting that “clearly established” doesn’t work unless the Pope can detail how, in his mind, it’s been clearly established.

In addition, Sullivan points out that, all that aside, the CDF’s declaration isn’t infallible. (Umm… duh?)

So… he’s kinda grasping at straws here…

 

[simpleas]

I don’t think it does that’s my point?

The only explanation I’ve come across is that men are icons of Christ in a way woman can not be, because women are not men.
And the church has no authority to pass on the tradition to include women.

Saying the church has no authority, wouldn’t that be like saying God has no authority?

Woman were always with Jesus, they were at the last supper, they were deacons up until a point in history. They begun with the church, through time they were limited, eg, there was no real need for women to be deacons due to changes in how females were baptised I assume.

 

[stpurl]

They were not deacons.
They were never deacons.

Women were called by a feminine form of the name (obviously not the English ‘deacon’) just as the wife of a merchant was called by a feminized form of ‘merchant’ even though she never actually worked as one.

People didn’t have ‘last names’ as we do now, and so they were known by some kind of physical feature, such as “John with the Red Beard” or 'Margaret Longnose"; or they were known by a place, such as Michael of Gloucester or Jeanne d’Arc, or they might have a patrynomic like Leif Erikson, or Sven Svenson, or Kristen Lavransdatter. So Marcella the wife of Tertius the deacon would be Marcella 'deaconess" and while Tertius went and baptized the MEN, Marcella would baptize the women (any person, male or female, may baptize). But Tertius had an ordination, a laying on of hands by the apostles or their successors. Marcella may have had a ceremony like a blessing, but NOT a laying on of hands, not an ordination.

 

[FrDavid96]

They were not deacons.
They were never deacons.

Women were called by a feminine form of the name (obviously not the English ‘deacon’) just as the wife of a merchant was called by a feminized form of ‘merchant’ even though she never actually worked as one.

People didn’t have ‘last names’ as we do now, and so they were known by some kind of physical feature, such as “John with the Red Beard” or 'Margaret Longnose"; or they were known by a place, such as Michael of Gloucester or Jeanne d’Arc, or they might have a patrynomic like Leif Erikson, or Sven Svenson, or Kristen Lavransdatter. So Marcella the wife of Tertius the deacon would be Marcella 'deaconess" and while Tertius went and baptized the MEN, Marcella would baptize the women (any person, male or female, may baptize). But Tertius had an ordination, a laying on of hands by the apostles or their successors. Marcella may have had a ceremony like a blessing, but NOT a laying on of hands, not an ordination.

What you’re saying is right in the end, but a few details are a bit off.

Sometimes, the word “deaconess” might refer to the wife of a deacon. Sometimes.

There was an actual office of deaconess, though. Which had nothing to do with deacons and deaconesses being married to each other.

A deaconess did have a ceremony of installation (in Greek chirotony). Not “might have” but did. No one disputes this.

That ceremony was definitely not one of making a female-deacon. The history is clear and indisputable.

Some ceremonies for installing deaconesses had laying on of hands, most did not. Still, the laying of hands was not the same as that of an ordination properly speaking. Just as Confirmation has a laying of hands but it’s not Ordination.

 

[simpleas]

Your right, they were not deacons, they were deaconess.

They had ministry in the church as it says in the council of chalcedon.

No person shall be ordained deaconess except she be forty years of age. If she shall dishonour her ministry by contracting a marriage, let her be anathema.

I was pointing out the evidence that woman were with Jesus and worked within the early church, I didn’t say they were ordained.

 

[stpurl]

Thank you, Fr David, for helping me out. I knew you’d have the correct details. I meant to get back to edit as I saw I’d been off on those points but my son had to head out early and I had to get the munchkins (the kid kind).

 

[stpurl]

Women were with Jesus. So were men.
Were all the men who were with Jesus priests?
No.

I keep saying that it’s not about whether women can ‘do’ things in a ‘job’. We see plenty of Protestant female pastors who run their churches, offer services, etc. etc. That’s not the point though. None of those Protestant female pastors, nor do the Protestant male pastors for that matter, consecrate bread and wine into the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It seems that it rests on that particular service which God --not men but God–has requested to be done by men only, just as He requested of His chosen People, the Jews, priestly service to be done by men only.

Like I said, if you want to call God sexist, unfair, or bigoted because He has determined how He is to be worshipped by His creations, go ahead.

But don’t blame the messenger (The Catholic Church).

If you honestly think this is unfair, then the person you must take it up with is God.

Because the Catholic Church isn’t about to tell Her Lord and Savior off for ‘sexism’.

 

[simpleas]

Where did I call God any of those words?

You have assumed much about what I think, some I’ve ignored, but I must ask you now politely to stop assuming what I think.

When I read the text where it is written that God requested that the male human be the only sex to worship him in a priestly ‘role’ then the light bulb may start to flicker…But I think I’ll have a long wait…

Pope Francis commissioned a study into women deacons in the early church, though I’m unsure what the outcome was yet.

 

[JoshuaIsLord]

Pope Francis commissioned a study into women deacons in the early church, though I’m unsure what the outcome was yet.

But there is hope because there is historical evidence for it as FrDavid pointed out. And the fact that the commission is composed of 6 women and 6 men. A stroke of genius by the Pope. And there is watch site for this commission:

Commission Watch

The ultra-conservative nay-sayers are being silent from what I can tell.

 

[simpleas]

Thank you for the link, I will have a good read of it later