Why doesn't the Church have the power to ordain women to the priesthood?

[StrawberryJam]

Well, that was a bit ambiguous I see now. I mean that on the USCCB website, the organization for Chaplains is a lay apostolate recognized by the USCCB.

I see it more clearly now.

Thank you!

 

[melbanglican]

This is no news to me. It is already widely known today that many women were used as ministers similar to a deacon, but not with the same ordination. They were not ordained. The were commissioned you might say. I dug deep into this several years ago as I was interested to see where it led. What I discovered in the ancient church writings of the early Christians, bishops were warned not to lay hands on them as if they were being ordained, because it would give people the wrong impression.

The women were entitle deaconess in the sense that they were servants. In those days, it was scandalous for men to touch a woman, particularly if she was being dunked in water or anointed with oil, part of the initiation rites. I’ll try to find the links of the writers in which I’m referring. I believe that the links point to Catholic Answers library. However, those same documents should be found in other than Catholic websites.

If it is discovered without contradicting Church teaching, then i would have no problem with it. However, I really believe that this issues has been settled in the Catholic Church. I believe that those women acted more like sisters in the Church. They may have taken vows.

Many thanks for that. Henry Chadwick, in ‘The Early Church’, wrote that the passage was slightly unclear, and that women may have only been excluded from the ranks of the ordained clergy in the ‘mainstream’ Church in the 4th century because they had been quite prominent in some of the (let’s face it, flaky!:whacky Gnostic sects that had flourished in competition with the Church over the preceding 200+ years. That certainly seems more plausible than trying to second-guess St Paul.

On the other hand, if you can find me a couple of authors (theologians or historians) who have written in a non-polemical manner on the subject, I would be most grateful. The only one who springs to mind offhand is Ben Witherington III.

 

[Jack_Bauer]

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=499625&page=2

Read through this thread and pay attentiong to the clergy and religious on the thread.

There aer 2 deacons and a brother/friar. The brother is studying for the priesthood. His name is ByzCath. ByzCath really seems to know his stuff. I did not gather that from a simple read on this one thread. I’ve been following him for years now. Brother JR is also a good resource. Brother JR is a Franciscan Friar and has a PhD in Theology. He used to teach seminarians. I’m not sure exactly what he does now. But he has a website/blog or something like that. I’ve checked it out.

One of the things brought up on the thread I provided is the ranking of the diaconesses in light of subdeacons, readers, etc. is that they fall on the lower ranks, among the lay ranks. I strongly suggest reading through all of the thread. There are several sources cited in the form of books by author.

I’m convinced more than ever now, becuase of recalling other reading I’ve done on the subject. Women ware diaconess, not deacons. It may seem like a subtle difference, but the point is that it appears clear that they were not even close to the ordained. The use of the word ordained is questionable at best. One would have to know the original language to be able to decipher / translate. If you’ve ever had any hand in translating from Greek or else, you’d understand what I’m saying here. I used to study Greek and cam to understand the problems without being an expert. An expert is not someone who’s learned the language, but rather someone that has advanced knowledge in the ancient art of translation. It’s not like math, there are, for example, nuances that must be taken into consideration.

Example: By first, “real bible,” was a “Good News” bible. The early translations of it were very poor. I still have the book on my shelf after 35 years. My aunt, a very confused Catholic, gave it too me. About a year later I bought an authentic Catholic bible with Old Testament. That’s when I began my real study of the bible at length. I was 16 at this time and read my bible every night, no less than a chapter at a time. If I only read a chapter, I made sure to read several more the next times. I was studying the bible and following all of the references, which was very time consuming. I was trying to understand more. I was also insistent on reading the entire bible within a year. However, it ended up taking me two years by the way I read and looked up references.

Keep in mind that I was also praying the rosary every single night using the scripture rosary. I also fasted more than I should have. I went from 160 lbs. to 124 lbs. Needless to say my stepmother was very worried. I had moved to the country, away from Catholic territory to an isolated area far from any Catholic church. I had no catechesis during this time for two consecutive years as a sophomore and a junior in high school. I had only started receiving first communion 6 months prior.

I studied scripture very intently my Junior year. That meant I would read a line of scripture, say a Hail Mary. I was very scrupulous about how I prayed the Rosary out of fear of placing Mary above God, as some Catholics seemed to do. Not that I was convinced that the bible would not contradict anything I learned as a Catholic. However, I took that a little too far and thought that the bible ought to be good enough to know God and to be saved. I did not understand Sacred Tradition and the Majesterium (I can never spell this correctly - oh bother) at the time. I always suspected fowl play somewhere in our history. You see, I was raised by a very anti-Catholic mother and my father, when I moved to live with him, was not always practicing his faith, nor bothered to teach us, until it was too late for my older brother. Dad failed miserably and knew it.

 

[Spirithound]

This is a classic argument but I believe a weak one in the sense that bearing children is something physical, and ordination is something spiritual. For a non-believer or someone who has a different point of view of the faith, it is difficult to reconcile the facts.

We should just explain that every Sacrament has an intended physical sign that reveals the inward reality. Nothing but wheat bread and grape wine can become the Eucharist. Nothing can baptize but water. Nothing can confirm/chrismate but Holy Myron. Nothing can receive Holy Orders and manifes it but a man.

I would use the physical differences only to establish the fact that men and women are different. We cannot establish any logical correlation between the differences between the physical and the spiritual for the simple reason that the spiritual is undetectable by the same means as the physical. However, once we establish that differences do exist, then we can appeal to the authority of the Church to elaborate the spiritual differences.

 

[Spirithound]

This contradicts what the Catholic Encyclopedia says. Do you have a source for your version?

Thank you for that source. I have not found one for my version. I will try to understand the CE’s article, but it does not make sense to me right now. If you click the link to “matter” within the article, “matter” is only referred to in a way that just cannot refer to a laying on of hands; “laying hands on” is an action, not a “thing”.

 

[Spirithound]

But let’s say that later on the man ordained to the temporal diaconate is married, has children, and discerns the permanent diacoante. Would he have to be ordained all over again? Now, that’s an interesting question to dig into.

Ordinarily, a man in any grade of Holy Orders cannot marry after being ordained.
But, accepting your scenario, no, the man would not be re-ordained. The ordination to the transitional diaconate is the same as the ordination to the permanent diaconate. The extra adjectives are used… in case somebody feels it’s important to know who’s studying for priesthood?