Why women cant be Catholic Priests

[simpleas]

I find it on a lot of websites as one of the reason, also here on CAF

While women could publicly pray and prophesy in church (1 Cor. 11:1–16), they could not teach or have authority over a man (1 Tim. 2:11–14), since these were two essential functions of the clergy. Nor could women publicly question or challenge the teaching of the clergy (1 Cor. 14:34–38).

The following quotations from the Church Fathers indicate that women do play an active role in the Church and that in the age of the Fathers there were orders of virgins, widows, and deaconesses, but that these women were not ordained.

The Fathers rejected women’s ordination, not because it was incompatible with Christian culture, but because it was incompatible with Christian faith. Thus, together with biblical declarations, the teaching of the Fathers on this issue formed the tradition of the Church that taught that priestly ordination was reserved to men. Throughout medieval times and even up until the present day, this teaching has not changed.

What the Early Church Believed: Women and the Priesthood

Jesus instituted an all-male priesthood. These quotations from the Fathers constitute a part of the tradition on which this infallible teaching rests.

www.catholic.com

 

[AlNg]

Come on, man.

In what respect? I don’t see any reason why God would come to earth as a potato as you suggested in your post.

 

[AlNg]

The Fathers rejected women’s ordination, not because it was incompatible with Christian culture, but because it was incompatible with Christian faith.

Episcopalians today and other Christians don’t think women ministers are incompatible with Christian faith. In the past it was thought that women were inferior to men at least in some respects. This is not taught today.

 

[simpleas]

Again: you are only focusing on the pastoral aspect of the priesthood and not focusing in any way on the theological aspect of the priest acting in persona Christi at the Sacrifice of the Mass. God, whether anyone likes it or not, chose to be incarnated as a man. Why do you insist on telling God that He was wrong?

I’m not insisting God is wrong, I asked you how can males be married to bridegroom.

 

[BlackFriar]

BlackFriar:

Sugabee43:
If God wanted both male and female priests how should Jesus have been incarnated?

You can’t ask someone to prove an absurd proposition.
If toads had two heads why aren’t they horses?

Well the above is only half of the OPs original proposition isn’t it…
So lets look at the complete argument before we prematurely identify where the absurdity is.

So the original proposition is:
(a) There can only be priests who are the same sex as Jesus.
(b) Jesus was male
(c1) Therefore we can conclude there can only be male priests.

So using the same logic we can further conclude:
(c2) If God wanted female priests then Jesus would have been a female.
(c3) So there are only two ways that God could signal to us that priests of both sex are acceptable:
(i) Jesus was a hermaphrodite
(ii) Jesus was reincarnated female

Now c3(I) above doesn’t work - because that would mean only hermaphrodites can be priests which are pretty rare.
And c3(ii) smacks of Eastern religion which also is not acceptable.

Therefore there is something about the original propositions which intrinsically denies even the theoretic possibility there could ever be both male and female priests.

But that would place a restriction on the power of God. And the Church has never taught that female priests are intrinsically impossible - but only that Jesus never commanded this and so it is not within the authority of the Church to do so.

Therefore the original propositions contain an error. Where is the absurdity in that proposition exactly?

it can only be in proposition a or proposition b.
It is undeniable that Jesus was a male (proposition b).

Therefore the absurdity is in proposition (a):
Namely, "There can only be priests who are the same sex as Jesus."

But this amusing philosophical discursion was hardly necessary as common sense points to this conclusion anyways doesn’t it.

For why stop at sex? Why does ethnicity not also apply.
Shouldn’t priests also be Jews?

 

[simpleas]

I hope when CAFers read these exchanges, they realize people like me aren’t just trying to be obstinant, or anti-authority, or ultra-feminist. I am none of those things. I just don’t see the world the same way you do. It means I don’t see God the same way either.

Same here.

 

[simpleas]

Yes and so men are then married to the male, and no one has a problem with this, only when it is reversed.

I think I’m done.

Thanks all.

 

[simpleas]

The church consists of males as well as females, both are considered female in relation to the priest/Christ is how I conclude it.

 

[simpleas]

Your still leaving out that as a male the priest marries, as the bridegroom, the female bride/church which consists of males also.

I need to read up more on this bridegroom/bride teaching, I always understood the church to be the body of Christ in a clearer way.

Thanks.

 

[AlNg]

The argument is silly and doesn’t make sense for a married priest. because if a priest is married to a human woman then since he is also married to the female Church, would that be bigamy?

This is not the Sacrament of Matrimony. It is only an analogy to Matrimony and is not Matrimony itself. If it was an actual marriage, there would be a question of bigamy in the case of a married priest.

 

[steve-b]

Your still leaving out that as a male the priest marries, as the bridegroom, the female bride/church which consists of males also.

I need to read up more on this bridegroom/bride teaching, I always understood the church to be the body of Christ in a clearer way.

Thanks.

From the CCC (all emphasis mine)

1548 In the ecclesial service of the ordained minister, it is Christ himself who is present to his Church as Head of his Body, Shepherd of his flock, high priest of the redemptive sacrifice, Teacher of Truth. This is what the Church means by saying that the priest, by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, acts in persona Christi Capitis:23

It is the same priest, Christ Jesus, whose sacred person his minister truly represents. Now the minister, by reason of the sacerdotal consecration which he has received, is truly made like to the high priest and possesses the authority to act in the power and place of the person of Christ himself (virtute ac persona ipsius Christi).24

Christ is the source of all priesthood: the priest of the old law was a figure of Christ, and the priest of the new law acts in the person of Christ.25

1558 "Episcopal consecration confers, together with the office of sanctifying, also the offices of teaching and ruling. . . . In fact . . . by the imposition of hands and through the words of the consecration, the grace of the Holy Spirit is given, and a sacred character is impressed in such wise that bishops, in an eminent and visible manner, take the place of Christ himself, teacher, shepherd, and priest, and act as his representative (in Eius persona agant)."37 "By virtue, therefore, of the Holy Spirit who has been given to them, bishops have been constituted true and authentic teachers of the faith and have been made pontiffs and pastors."38

 

[Zaccheus]

Can any of you explain these two verses? I am confused about why only a men can stand in persona Christi and not women.

" 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. "

Doesn’t this verse suggest that all who are baptized “clothe themselves with Christ” and can stand in persona Christi?

“28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Or in latin- all are one “in persona Christi”

Doesn’t this verse mean that when it comes to standing in the person of Christ as priests do, race, class, and gender do not matter.

Short answer: no.

Longer answer: neither of these passages has anything to do with the priesthood. They have to do with being accepted into the Church which is the body of Christ.
Baptism does not make us priests. It makes us sons and daughters of God, brothers and sisters of Christ.

The second passage means we’re all equals in Christ. Man or woman, Gentile or Jew, slave or free, God loves us all and Christ is in us all. The woman is not less than the man in God’s eyes. The slave is not less than the free person.

 

[JimG]

I think that the question of ordaining women arises so often in our current era because we live in a culture that refuses to recognize that we are created male and female, a fact of nature which cannot be changed.

Instead our current culture works ceaselessly to erase any distinction between men and women. It proposes that biology is myth and feelings and imagination are reality. But we are created male and female. That is reality. Denying reality is the definition of insanity. Until the culture comes back to reality this question will keep arising. A woman cannot be a man. A man cannot be a woman.

Suppose that the impossible did in fact happen, and women were ordained priests. First, they would not be priests because they are not valid matter for ordination. Second, all the sacraments that they administered would be invalid. Third, it would inevitably give rise to a schism in the Church.

 

[AlNg]

Didn’t Jesus choose a married man as the first Pope? Should the example of Jesus be followed in choosing a Pope?

 

[simpleas]

The priest marries the church which is the people of God, made up of males and females.

Holy Mother church is considered the female to the male, so Christ gives himself as male to both males and females, but only males can act in persona Christi even though Christ gives himself to females equally to males. There is no distinction between male and female for Christ, but there is for us humans when it comes to holy orders.
Most people recognise the difference between males and females, but we believe in the same Love of Christ for both.

 

[simpleas]

Christ is the source of all priesthood: the priest of the old law was a figure of Christ, and the priest of the new law acts in the person of Christ.25

In which everyone is included in the priesthood of Christ male and female.

Only when it comes to ministerial priesthood which is a very important role to be included in, women are excluded from partaking.

 

[simpleas]

I don’t see how a woman being able to administer the sacraments as God himself gave to us erases the difference between a man and a woman.
This is where I see things differently.
Saying women are invalid matter makes me think woman must be part of another race, they are part of the human race, capable of giving life by birthing children or spiritually as mothers too.
Men can in some cases do the same, they can be married men and enjoy married life and act in persona Christi, yet many do not see anything wrong with that, but plenty wrong with a woman considered to be in persona Christ.

 

[Sugabee43]

@simpleas, again: Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testament in every way; including (but not limited to) the High Priest in the order of Melchizedek…which was an all-male priesthood.

There is a difference between our calling, as baptized Christians, of priest, prophet and king, and the Order of the Priesthood. Answering God’s call to a vocation to the Priesthood is no different than answering God’s call to a vocation as a Ordered nun; or a wife and mother, or a lay celibate. They are ALL calls- but not everyone is suited for every vocation.

Here’s another thought: Did Mother Teresa, St. Thomas More, St. Francis of Assisi, and the Virgin Mary not “fully participate” in the Church simply because they were not ordained priests?

Please READ:

Women Priests: No Chance

But everyone agrees that the Catholic Church will one day ordain women. Surely it’s just this pope who is holding things back? The next one is bound to change t...

www.catholic.com

 

[goout]

steve-b:

Christ is the source of all priesthood: the priest of the old law was a figure of Christ, and the priest of the new law acts in the person of Christ.25

In which everyone is included in the priesthood of Christ male and female.

Only when it comes to ministerial priesthood which is a very important role to be included in, women are excluded from partaking.

Am I as a male excluded from being a mother?
Point being: exclusion is something people do to one another. It has the ring of arbitrariness to it, rather than an ontological tone.

 

[Sugabee43]

@simpleas, this came up in my daily emails. This, even though it’s not the intention of the article, speaks very clearly to your questions. Please read it!!

http://corproject.com/205-discover-last-supper-provides-cure-todays-sexual-chaos-gender-confusion/

I cannot begin to tell you how St. John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body”, and the ministry of Christopher West in bringing TOB to the world, has impacted my life positively!!