Why women cant be Catholic Priests

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Sugabee43 said:
@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!!

205. Discover How the Last Supper Provides the Cure for Today’s Sexual Chaos and Gender Confusion - The Cor Project

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!!
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That’s great for you 😃

I’m sort of on board with the explanation that men are the inseminators and woman the receivers, it doesn’t take much to work that out through biology. But then I read this :

The more we press in to this divine love story, the more we realize why only a man can be an ordained priest: It’s the bridegroom who gives the seed or inseminates; it’s the bride who receives the seed within and conceives new life. This is why a man trains to be a priest in the seminary and, once ordained, is called Father. A woman cannot be ordained a priest because she is not ordained by God to be a father; she is ordained by God to be a mother. This is where the sexual difference matters––in the call to holy communion and generation.

If a woman were to attempt to confer the Eucharist, the relationship would be bride to bride. There would be no possibility of Holy Communion and no possibility of generating the new life the Eucharist gives.

Not all men are priests, not all are fathers, yet there is no difference for a male to receive from a male priest/ God.

Sounds all too sexual to be honest.

But thanks for sharing it.
 
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It’s not about sex, it’s about union. Very different. The martial relationship is an ICON of the relationship God desires with us. The word “Eros” has been bastardized by society to mean only sexuality. That’s not the original meaning of the word. Our human eros is made to be in union with God, and the marriage relationship (and within that context, the martial “embrace”) is a teeny, tiny foreshadowing of what we can expect to have in Heaven with God.
All of our longings, aches, desires, feelings of awe and majesty in His creation, are our hearts yearning for what we are truly created for- ultimate, infinite union with Him. Anything taking the place of that - whether it’s sex, alcohol, power, money, etc.- is missing the mark. We settle for the “fast food” of earthly pleasures instead of the heavenly banquet God has in store for us (as West puts it).
 
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Sugabee43 said:
This, even though it’s not the intention of the article, speaks very clearly to your questions. Please read it!!

205. Discover How the Last Supper Provides the Cure for Today’s Sexual Chaos and Gender Confusion - The Cor Project

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!!
Click to expand...
What an interesting article. Thanks for posting the link. It’s the first place I have seen the phrase “There is such a strong temptation to disincarnate and, thus, neuter our faith."
 
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I highly recommend reading West’s “Theology of the Body for Beginners”, which is kind of the TOB for Dummies. lol.

I went to his introductory course, TOB I, which is a week-long study/retreat. It was AMAZING!! So much to learn! It was a very healing experience for me; having just been divorced by my husband who has a porn addiction, and other traumatic things in my life.
 
So male monks are married to Christ also?

Then we also have Mary as representing the Church.
So that suggests:
  • Priests are wedded to Mary (that’s sort of acceptable)
  • Jesus, the high Priest, has his mother for his Bride (that’s weird).
Which just goes to show this Bride/Bridegroom symbolism has speed wobbles when we take it beyond a sentimental personal piety that works in certain quarters and then try and make some sort of consistent doctrine out of it.
 
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They are “married” to the CHURCH which is of course female.

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Sounds inconsistent to me.

Religious, whether male or female, make the same vows to the same person.
If the Bride/Bridegroom thing was more than a pious sentimentality it would make that “person” bisexual.

In fact this pious sentiment doesn’t work as any sort of spiritual marital doctrine as religious vows are really made to God which puts them at the service of Christ and his Church.
 
From simplepeas: "If a woman were to attempt to confer the Eucharist, the relationship would be bride to bride. There would be no possibility of Holy Communion and no possibility of generating the new life the Eucharist gives.

Not all men are priests, not all are fathers, yet there is no difference for a male to receive from a male priest/ God."

Just to piggyback…

This is an inconsistency that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis doesn’t address satisfactorily. If male priests, acting in persona Christi, are imaging the union of the divine bridegroom (Christ) to the bride (the Church), male parishioners are necessarily taking on the garb of the feminine to achieve that role. This is not prevented by the Church, nor should it be. However, the converse is not permitted, in which female priests image Christ (the masculine element of the divine marriage of Christ to Church) to a mixed gender congregation.

In the first part of Article 1 of the Catechism (CCC 1701-1715), which deals with man being made in the image of God, discussion is silent on biological gender in relation to humans being formed from a divine template.

CCC 355 further declares that, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.” Man occupies a unique place in creation: (I) he is “in the image of God”; (II) in his own nature he unites the spiritual and material worlds; (III) he is created “male and female”; (IV) God established him in his friendship." This is revelatory, because it indicates that two genders were required to properly image the creativity of God. From this, “man” is clearly understood here to encapsulate “males and females” jointly.

The wedding analogy in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is, thus, internally inconsistent with existing Catholic doctrine in suggesting that women cannot appropriately image God as priests.
 
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Sugabee, I don’t dispute what the Church has proclaimed on the matter, and I thank you for your resources. Where we differ is in our willingness to accept a position which is based entirely on appeal to Tradition, with no apparent support in Scripture. (Not my interpretation; again, the conclusion of the 1974 Pontifical Biblical Council.)

I could provide some commentary on the slight of hand Pope JPII exercised in making the declaration “definitively held” in lieu of issuing a separate ex cathedra proclamation, himself, but I think that might be outside the scope of the thread. 🙂
 
Actually it is, you aren’t “born” genetically ambiguous. When you are born you are either male or female. However if you mean conceived, it is still wrong. Your genetic code is already set at the moment of conception, it doesn’t change over time or genetically choose one or the other. It unfolds as a child grows, you are conceived as male or female from the moment of conception. Unless biology has somehow changed. 😉

Peace and God Bless
Nicene
 
alphawoman said:
Sugabee, I don’t dispute what the Church has proclaimed on the matter, and I thank you for your resources. Where we differ is in our willingness to accept a position which is based entirely on appeal to Tradition, with no apparent support in Scripture. (Not my interpretation; again, the conclusion of the 1974 Pontifical Biblical Council.)
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Fair enough. I find it quite interesting that in the entire 2000-odd year history of the Catholic Church, it has only been since the advent of widely available contraceptive, “guilt-free” sex, the legalization of the killing of unborn humans, and the insistence upon the ‘equality’ of women that the demand for the admission of women to the order of the priesthood has occurred.

Something to ponder…
 
And just to follow on in response to Nicene, there are also older born children who can maintain an endocrine profile and physical presentation that corresponds to neither gender, or neither gender exclusively. These intersex biological presentations are extremely rare, but still medically possible.

But yes, for the vast majority of humanity, there is a clear biological basis for the existence of a definitive sex.
 
It’s rather difficult to say what the sensus fidelium has been since Christ’s time, as women have not been accorded equal civil rights with which to express themselves or self-sustain (including freedom to own property, receive an education, vote, or speak freely in various forums). 1 Corinthians 14:34-15 provides some cultural approximation of the context of free speech among women from the time of the early Church. “Women should keep silent in the churches, for they are not allowed to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. But if they want to learn anything, they should ask their husbands at home. For it is improper for a woman to speak in the church.”

I also think we shouldn’t in any way link a desire to fully explore the possibility of female ordination with a desire to promote the killing of innocent pre-born lives or encourage a cultural attitude of promiscuity and sexual immorality. Simply because the two sets of factors co-exist doesn’t imply they have any casual relationship; or even a correlational one.

That being said, the increasing respect for women’s equality in the basic rights I outlined above (the ability to work, be educated, own property, participate in civil society by voting) does correlate with a cultural and institutional platform which gives women the voice to consider their proper role as individuals without sacrificing survival for the mere act of questioning the status quo.
 
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The sexes are not equal. They are complimentary. One is not better than the other. This is the basic flaw with the modern feminist movement.

Becoming a priest will not mean you are “equal”.

If there are those in the Church who believe women priests are the epitome of being equal to men in the Church, I suggest they join the Episcopal Church/Anglican Church. They have all the sacraments and can relish in their chosen vocation as much as they like. Why does everyone feel the need to change the Catholic Church, when ECUSA is ready and waiting to receive them?
I have seen firsthand the devastation this change in orders has done to ECUSA; I do not recommend it or advocate it.

It is the oldest sin in the Book- the created attempting to tell the Creator what to do, and Who He Is.
 
Well, that depends on what you mean by “equal”, and in what context. I don’t think any faithful Catholic would argue that women and men are in any way unequal in innate dignity or humanity. Appreciating the same humanity across the genders in this instance doesn’t require sameness in other regards. Otherwise, we’d all be one gender.

This isn’t a referendum on the “modern feminist movement” or other social developments you may be conflating with our discussion, and which is properly outside this exchange. Women who love the Catholic faith and respect the notion of “One Church” do not see abandonment of the faith as an acceptable alternative to intellectual inquiry on the subject. So no, we can’t just jump ship and accept a different rite. And I don’t think we should adopt an approach of encouraging flight to other rites as the first response to dialogue on contentious matters.

The strength of our Faith shouldn’t rely solely on untested adherence to dogma. We should be able to rigorously challenge the doctrines of the Church, both to form our consciences and to ensure that the Church is appropriately transmitting the vision that Christ enacted during his Earthly ministry.

I say this in all respect, and I thank you for your discussion. 🙂
 
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Right. It also makes the argument of “men are somehow seen as more worthy than women to be priests” fall flat. If it was based on worthiness, there was no one more worthy than Mary.

Rather it is simply more fitting in that Holy Orders as a sacrament has specific natural signs. As representatives of Christ in relation to the Church, it is more fitting that males are priests due to the natural resemblance they have to Him.
 
simpleas said:
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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
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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.
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The ministerial priesthood is what is being addressed
 
Here again, is another excellent article by Christopher West regarding Easter, the sacrament of Baptism, and why the ministerial priesthood is exclusively male. Please pray the prayer before delving into it, so your hearts will be clean. This arrived in my email inbox this morning.

 
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