Will "Altar Girls" lead to Women Priests?

[ProVobis]

Is progressive thinking all bad? Progressive thinking for the sake of being progressive, yes. Progressive thinking to enhance our understanding of divine truth, no.

Okay, could you provide an example of where or how progressive thinking (of the good or bad kind) has enhanced our understanding of divine truth? What more do we know today of divine truth than we knew at the time of Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension?

 

[Emmit_Fitzhume]

I fully agree with St. Augustine. He is a Doctor of The Church. Why should we not believe what he says…if his beliefs and writings were wrong, he wouldn’t be a Doctor of The Church. The only misinterpretations of the role of men and women in the Church today came about in approximately the last 40 years. The problem is that women are trying to take a role outside what Christ intended for them. Progressivism and Modernism is always evil in any degree. We should resist it at all cost. God Bless

Well, admit is not a word I would use in this context. I would agree it is a part of progressive thinking. ‘Admit’ infers guilt of some shape, form or description. As far as the thinking of the clerics goes, I have absolutely no idea what percentage of clerics think girls can be altar servers and what percentage think they can’t.

Is progressive thinking all bad? Progressive thinking for the sake of being progressive, yes. Progressive thinking to enhance our understanding of divine truth, no. If it were not for progressive thinking, Catholic exegesis which has enhanced the relationship of science and religion would not have developed. Progressive thinking that restores the dignity of women that God intended them to have cannot be described as ‘bad.’ I would any reasonable, thinking person would agree that in the past, theological opinions existed that denied women the human dignity God gave them because of misinterpretations of the role of men and women in the Church. For example, St Augustine believed women did not equally share the imaging of God with men and were more sexual in nature than men. I quite like a lot of Augustinian theology, but I don’t think anyone who has a deep understanding of the Catholic faith would agree with him on this point now.

What I have a problem with, is not the fact that the Catholic Church does not ordain women, but notions that the Church does not ordain women for the wrong reasons. In another thread, the most bizzare reasons were offered as to why women cannot be ordained. The reason the Catholic Church ordains only men is not because men are more spiritual, more able to make decisions, because they are not as emotional as women, superior to women, or because God put them in charge and women should just do as they are told. Once this is understood, the fact that the Catholic Church does not ordain women is not an issue for those who have an honest desire to enhance their understanding of the divine and live by it.

I can’t speak for those who do not have this desire.

 

[Samantha79]

where did Lux go?

His mom caught him trolling and he is grounded until middle school resumes on Monday!

 

[pnewton]

I fully agree with St. Augustine. He is a Doctor of The Church. Why should we not believe what he says…if his beliefs and writings were wrong, he wouldn’t be a Doctor of The Church.

Doctors of the Church are not infallible, nor do they have knowledge that exceeded the time time in which they lived. Therefore it is possible for a Doctor of the Church to be wrong in some area. St. Augustine, for example did not believe the human soul began at conception.

 

[Emmit_Fitzhume]

From EWTN. I would be shocked if you have a problem with me citing this source (for the record, I know His Excellency…a blessing to The Church!!!) :

ewtn.com/library/BISHOPS/provostpelos.htm

Catholic Church Clear on When Human Life Begins
Most Rev. Glen John Provost, D.D.
Bishop of Lake Charles, Louisiana​

A serious responsibility of a bishop is to insure the purity of teaching in areas of faith and morals (cf. I Timothy 4:16). These teachings must be in conformity with the universal and historic teachings found in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition and defined by the teaching office of the Catholic Church. The beauty of Catholicism rests in part on its ability to be clear.

Recently there has been high-profile press given to arguments concerning when human life begins. I am concerned about clarity and any misrepresentation of consistent Catholic teaching. My remarks are made in response to numerous questions posed to me by good Catholics in our own Diocese of Lake Charles who are confused by glib citations of patristic authorities, such as St. Augustine, that life begins at some other time than conception.

In response, I would say:

1. St. Augustine, one of our most revered Fathers, lived and wrote almost 1,500 years ago; he did not see the world around him with a scientific perspective as we know it today; as with early writers of this and later periods, his concern was the nature of the immortal soul and the human being; he approached this question primarily from the perspective of theology and philosophy.
2. To answer a question such as when does life begin, science gives us a quite adequate answer; according to one prominent embryology text, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, by Keith L. Moore and T.V.N. Persuad (7th Edition; Publ. Saunders, p. 16), ‘‘Human development begins at fertilization when a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoon) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to produce a single cell, a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual’’; if he were alive today, St. Augustine would agree, because St. Augustine believed that there was no ‘‘disjunction’’ in what was known by faith and reason (cf. Catholic Encyclopedia, 1981 ed., vol. 5, p. 808, ‘‘St. Augustine’’ on ‘‘Faith and Reason’’); life begins at conception; no doubt St. Augustine would have marveled at a uterine ultrasound and what it reveals about a human in the womb;
3. The teaching that life in the womb is sacred has been consistently taught by the Church from the beginning and is reflected in the opposition of the Church for twenty centuries to abortion; please consult the oldest catechism instruction of the Church, outside the Sacred Scriptures, called the Didache or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles from the First Century A.D.; it reads as follows: ‘‘Do not kill a fetus by abortion, or commit infanticide’’ (Didache, 2:2); also, noted patristic scholars are in agreement that St. Augustine probably knew the Didache and may have used it as a source in writing his own First Catechetical Instruction.
4. To say in some way that the Fathers and Doctors of the Church in centuries past taught otherwise than the Church’s consistent teaching on the sacredness of life in the womb or that they were not sure when life began is misleading and erroneous; for this reason, the official Catechism of the Catholic Church states: ‘‘Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception… Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable’’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2270-2271).

THis is a modern day apostle. Do you care to refute what he is saying?

Doctors of the Church are not infallible, nor do they have knowledge that exceeded the time time in which they lived. Therefore it is possible for a Doctor of the Church to be wrong in some area. St. Augustine, for example did not believe the human soul began at conception.

 

[minkymurph]

Okay, could you provide an example of where or how progressive thinking (of the good or bad kind) has enhanced our understanding of divine truth? What more do we know today of divine truth than we knew at the time of Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension?

I am not inferring that divinely revealed truths change. However, as we can never know all there is to know about God, our understanding of divine truth deepens as we grow in faith.
The divine truth that Christ died and ascended to heaven has not changed, but I would like to think the Church has grown a little in understanding to the Resurrection and Ascension. If not, the faith of the Church has stood still.

To explain further, was it not once believed that those who committed suicide would certainly go to hell? I can recall a priest saying at a Mass for victims of suicide that the Church is older and wiser now. Do we not have a deeper understanding of the sacraments and the Incarnation than first century christians because theologians such as Aquinas adopted progressive philosophical thinking to the development of the theology of the sacraments and the Incarnation?

I believe I mentioned Catholic exegesis in my last post. Have not modern methods of exegesis not enhanced our understanding of scripture without changing what we believe to be true? Has not Catholic exegesis demonstrated that modern science and the Catholic faith are compatible? Atheism is not compatible with the Catholic faith but modern scientific methods of interpreting scripture have demonstrated modern science and religion are not contradictory to one another.

There may be women, AND MEN who see the ordination of women as the next logical step from female altar servers. I cannot speak for them. I will finish by saying that I believe we have, and should have, a deeper understanding of the Resurrection and Ascension today. If we do not grow in understanding, our faith stands still and as St Paul says, we remain babes in faith.

 

[pnewton]

THis is a modern day apostle. Do you care to refute what he is saying?

You notice he did not deny that St. Augustine taught that the human soul came after conception, only that “he approached this question primarily from the perspective of theology and philosophy.” He did teach that the soul inhabited the fetus after conception. This fact is not in dispute. How do you reconcile this with the bishop’s statement?

I totally agree with the last paragraph, and it was the point I was making. Using the Church Fathers in a way that defies the teaching of the Church can easily be misleading and erroneous. This is precisely why I think letting St. Augustine weigh in on altar girls in the twenty-first century must be done with care. He can not be prooftexted.

St. Augustine “he did not see the world around him with a scientific perspective as we know it today”. Therefore, I do not say it is completely off base to say he was could be in error, yet at the same time hold that he did not teach contrary to the teaching of the Church.

 

[Emmit_Fitzhume]

pnewton, my brother/sister in Christ (which are you ) he never denied or admitted it did he?

You notice he did not deny that St. Augustine taught that the human soul came after conception, only that “he approached this question primarily from the perspective of theology and philosophy.” He did teach that the soul inhabited the fetus after conception. This fact is not in dispute. How do you reconcile this with the bishop’s statement?

I totally agree with the last paragraph, and it was the point I was making. Using the Church Fathers in a way that defies the teaching of the Church can easily be misleading and erroneous. This is precisely why I think letting St. Augustine weigh in on altar girls in the twenty-first century must be done with care. He can not be prooftexted.

St. Augustine “he did not see the world around him with a scientific perspective as we know it today”. Therefore, I do not say it is completely off base to say he was could be in error, yet at the same time hold that he did not teach contrary to the teaching of the Church.

 

[minkymurph]

I fully agree with St. Augustine. He is a Doctor of The Church. Why should we not believe what he says…if his beliefs and writings were wrong, he wouldn’t be a Doctor of The Church. The only misinterpretations of the role of men and women in the Church today came about in approximately the last 40 years. The problem is that women are trying to take a role outside what Christ intended for them. Progressivism and Modernism is always evil in any degree. We should resist it at all cost. God Bless

I think it is unfair to say women are trying to take a role outside what Christ intended for them. I think I can make an educated guess in saying there are men who think women should be ordained.

Do you agree with Augustine that unbaptised children go to Limbo? I can understand why he said this, but the Church did not exactly endorse this teaching and as far as I know, remains undecided concerning the existence of Limbo. Do you agree with Augustine that women do not equally share the imaging of God with men, and are more sexual in nature than men? That is what Augustine believed. Was he right?

I am not saying this as an attack on Augustine. I love his teaching on the sacraments and several other areas of theology. However, it is not outside the realms of possibility he lacked understanding in certain areas. There may be individual women, or groups of women miffed about the fact they can’t become priests. I personally don’t know any. I can honestly say I don’t know one person, male or female, young or old, of the Catholic persuasion who thinks the Church should ordain women, and I don’t know anyone, young or old, male or female, who thinks the ordination of women is the next ‘logical’ step from female altar servers. There may well be people in may part of the world who think this. I just don’t know any.

I’ll finish by saying anyone who supports the ordination of women, go join a Protestant Church that ordains women, there are plently to choose from.

 

[sulkow82]

No. Females. In. The. Sancturary. Its really that simple folks.

Could you give us a Scripture study on Rom. 16: 1-2 which says:

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deaconess of the church that you may receive her in the Lord as befits the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a helper of many and of myself as well.[Emphasis mine]

I’m not saying I support female Priests. However, this at least on the surface would seem to be a contradiction to where St. Paul states:

the women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. (1 COR 14: 34-35)

The fact that the first passage is to the Romans and the second is to the Corinthians would suggest that one of them is cultural advice and not divine mandate. I, however, leave this to those with greater wisdom than myself.

 

[legendashmore]

Could you give us a Scripture study on Rom. 16: 1-2 which says:

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deaconess of the church that you may receive her in the Lord as befits the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a helper of many and of myself as well.

It is actually quite simple. Deaconesses had 1 duty and that was to baptize women.

At that time, baptisms were ordinarily performed by full immersion, which required that the person who is being baptized to be naked. Now, it would be scandalous and disrespectful to that women to have a male priest baptize a naked woman. It would put that priest in occasion of sin and it would be very uncomfortable for the woman.

Because of this, the church appointed women, who were given the title of deaconesses, to perform these women’s baptisms. Now we know that anyone can perform a baptism, if the situation requires it. (Although the Ordinary Ministers are priests and deacons)

Catechism Paragraph 1256:
The ordinary ministers of Baptism are the bishop and priest and, in the Latin Church, also the deacon.57 In case of necessity, anyone, even a nonbaptized person, with the required intention, can baptizeNT , by using the Trinitarian baptismal formula. The intention required is to will to do what the church does when she baptizes. The Church finds the reason for this possibility in the universal saving will of God and the necessity of Baptism for salvation.

Because anyone could baptize, ordination was not needed. And because women could not be ordained, they could appoint women to do baptisms.

Because of all of these facts, the church appointed these deaconesses. These deaconesses could only perform baptisms, and had no other duty or ability. Over time, as full immersion was not as common, the church stopped appointing deaconesses, since they were not required anymore.

Pretty Simple, Huh?

 

[ProVobis]

Could you give us a Scripture study on Rom. 16: 1-2

Romans 16:1
Phoebe may have been the person who personally delivered Paul’s epistle to the Romans. She received Paul’s hearty commendation. It’s interesting that of the first five believers mentioned by Paul (verses 1-6), three of them were women. When it comes to service for Christ and His assembly, women in no way take a second place to men. They are “heirs together of the grace of life” (1 Peter 3:7) and at Christ’s judgment seat their faithfulness will be rewarded. When it comes to laboring faithfully for the Master, there is neither male or female in Christ. We all serve the same Saviour as His love-slaves, though in different capacities. Biblical Christianity, in spite of what its critics say, has always dignified womanhood and allowed believing women to find the full satisfaction and joy of being the persons God would have them to be. It is in societies where Biblical principles are not honored that women are horribly mistreated and held in low esteem.

Phoebe was both a SISTER and a SERVANT (v.1). Paul recognized her as a sister in Christ (an endearing family term) and as a servant (diakonon) of the assembly. She was the servant of the local assembly that was at Cenchrea, a seaport city located right next to Corinth (compare Acts 18:18).

Phoebe was a “servant” or a “deaconess” of the church. Is this word used in a general sense to indicate that she was a humble servant of the assembly or is it used in the more technical sense that she held an office in the church? Did the early church have such an office as “deaconess” (female deacon)? There is no mention of “deaconesses” in the New Testament. There is, however, one passage that is of interest, found in 1 Timothy chapter 3, the chapter which gives the qualifications of elders (bishops) and deacons. In the middle of Paul’s list of qualifications for deacons, Paul adds this statement: “Even so must their wives be grave, no slanderers, sober, faithful in all things” (1 Tim. 3:11). The word “wives” may be also translated as “women.” It refers either to the wives of the deacons or to other women in the assembly (deaconesses?). If it refers to the wives of deacons, then why was nothing said by Paul in this chapter about qualifications for wives of the elders? Why are the wives of deacons told to measure up to a certain standard when there is silence concerning the wives of elders? Some would say that Paul was setting forth qualifications, not for deacons’ wives, but for deaconesses
…

More on middletownbiblechurch.org/romans/romans16.htm

Phoebe (Koine Greek Φοίβη) was a Christian woman mentioned by the Apostle Paul in Romans 16:1.

Some have interpreted the Greek “diakonos” to relate Phoebe as a deaconess, the most literal interpretation of the word is as a servant which is what all deacons or deaconesses should be. Hence why they are called “deacon” which comes directly from Diakonos.

The Greek of Romans 16:2 uses the term prostatis which may indicate that she was Paul’s patroness[1]

more on en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebe_(Christian_woman

 

[kozlosap]

Whew - it seems like things have calmed down somewhat since I was last online about 18 hours ago!

 

[ProVobis]

Whew - it seems like things have calmed down somewhat since I was last online about 18 hours ago!

Must be the slowing economy.

 

[ProVobis]

The fact that the first passage is to the Romans and the second is to the Corinthians would suggest that one of them is cultural advice and not divine mandate.

The second one baffles me too. Especially since they have now included it in the OF readings and many of the times this is even read by a woman reader. Does anyone (other than astute CA posters, of course ) actually listen to the readings?

 

[Bluegoat]

I assure you I do mean misogyny, a man must hate and reject what is feminine and separate himself from the feminine in order to achieve the differentiation necessary to become a man.

Once he has done that and developed his masculinity then he may learn again to love ONE woman and be joined together with ONE woman.

But he should not learn to love ALL women and nor would any woman in her right mind want her man to love all woman if she actually sat down and thought about it.

Such love in a man is destructive. From it the evils of fornication and adultery arise. Which again means everybody loses, especially women.

I think both girls and boys need to learn how to be men and women, and there are a number of things that are necessary or helpful toward that end.

But learning to hate the other is not one of them. I would go farther and say it will actually prevent one becoming a mature and integrated man or woman, and it is profoundly un-Christ-like, and theologically indefeasible.

But it would explain some of the posts in this thread.

 

[kozlosap]

Must be the slowing economy.

Or, maybe this site was “down” for several hours last night!

 

[minkymurph]

I think both girls and boys need to learn how to be men and women, and there are a number of things that are necessary or helpful toward that end.

But learning to hate the other is not one of them. I would go farther and say it will actually prevent one becoming a mature and integrated man or woman, and it is profoundly un-Christ-like, and theologically indefeasible.

But it would explain some of the posts in this thread.

I would agree. Hating a man, hating a woman, hating what is masculine, or hating what is feminine is hating what God created.

Men and women were created by God to be together. They are physically designed to produce children together. In saying that, I am not suggesting anyone who is not married is ‘incomplete.’

In learning to be men and women, boys and girls perhaps need an education in what constitutes being masculine and what constitutes being feminine, to develop positive, balanced views of masculinity and femininity and a healthy appreciation gender which God created.

 

[Layman]

An old MC I know said “When the girls get involved, the boys leave”. Coupled with the populism and false egalitarianism introduced into the N.O. rite, you get an occasion that men are less inclined to be involved in.

Remove the hierarchial elements, the technicalities of the old rite, the exclusiveness, the formality and add in the opposite, including folksy hymns, and you have something that men A) Aren’t attracted to and B) Don’t think they need to be.

The focus in the modern N.O., as in Protestantism, is on ‘niceness’.** Are there women involved, too? Yes. So it’s not a serious business and there will probably be a fair amount of fussing. Does the project seem to be going along OK? Yes? Good!

“No need for me here”, say the man. To the pub!**

 

[Emmit_Fitzhume]

Everything that is happening today is no shock to me. It was planned out and executed by the enemies of THe Church. Read this:

The “Prophecy” of Bella Dodd

    In light of the current confusion and moral scandal in the Church, it would be well to consider a neglected bit of recent Church history: the public testimony of Bella Dodd, who served as legal counsel to the Communist Party in the United States until her conversion to Catholicism, after which she spent the rest of her life atoning for her role in the communist infiltration of the Catholic Church.

An article in Christian Order magazine (November 2000) recounts how Dodd and her associate, Douglas Hyde, revealed the plan for communist subversion of the Church:
Ex-Communist and celebrated convert Douglas Hyde revealed long ago that in the 1930s the Communist leadership issued a worldwide directive about infiltrating the Catholic Church. While in the early 1950s, Mrs. Bella Dodd was also providing detailed explanations of the Communist subversion of the Church. Speaking as a former high ranking official of the American Communist Party, Mrs. Dodd said: “In the 1930s we put eleven hundred men into the priesthood in order to destroy the Church from within.” The idea was for these men to be ordained and progress to positions of influence and authority as Monsignors and Bishops. A dozen years before Vatican II she stated that: “Right now they are in the highest places in the Church” — where they were working to bring about change in order to weaken the Church’s effectiveness against Communism. She also said that these changes would be so drastic that “you will not recognise the Catholic Church.”
Dodd gave voluminous testimony on communist infiltration of Church and state before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee in the 1950s. In a lecture at Fordham University during that time, Dodd unveiled what would seem to be an uncanny prophecy of future chaos in the Church. The lecture was attended by a monk whose account of the talk is presented in Christian Order:

I listened to that woman for four hours and she had my hair standing on end. Everything she said has been fulfilled to the letter. You would think she was the world’s greatest prophet, but she was no prophet. She was merely exposing the step-by-step battle plan of Communist subversion of the Catholic Church. She explained that of all the world’s religions, the Catholic Church was the only one feared by the Communists, for it was its only effective opponent. The whole idea was to destroy, not the institution of the Church, but rather the Faith of the people, and even use the institution of the Church, if possible, to destroy the Faith through the promotion of a pseudo-religion: something that resembled Catholicism but was not the real thing. Once the Faith was destroyed, she explained that there would be a guilt complex introduced into the Church…. to label the ‘Church of the past’ as being oppressive, authoritarian, full of prejudices, arrogant in claiming to be the sole possessor of truth, and responsible for the divisions of religious bodies throughout the centuries. This would be necessary in order to shame Church leaders into an ‘openness to the world,’ and to a more flexible attitude toward all religions and philosophies. The Communists would then exploit this openness in order to undermine the Church.
Does any of this sound familiar? Unless you have been comatose since Vatican II, you would be aware that Bella Dodd was describing the state of the Catholic Church today. Today, post-conciliar churchmen wallow in guilt over the Church’s “intolerant” past, make public apologies for the sins of dead Catholics (but not their own sins against the living faithful, including the victims of the homo-priest cover-up), and extol the virtues of other religions, thereby de facto abandoning the defined dogma that there is no salvation outside the Church.
Bella Dodd was no prophet. She merely told us what the infiltrators of the Church were planning to do. And lo, they have done it