Women Cardinals?

[Aramis]

Aramis, presanctified Liturgy is the same as a Communion Service in the West, right? DL without consecration? If it can be done with a lay person in the West, it might point to why it can be done by a female deaconess in the East. You don’t need an ordained person because there is no Consecration.

Actually, there is great theological debate, because wine is added to the presanctified gifts, and communion distributed (aside from some crunchiness) normally, including only the wine to infants and those unable to take solids. That wine is considered by many theologians to have been consecrated by contact with the dried blood and the body.

Presanctified is restricted by rubric and ancient tradition to ONLY ordained ministers in major orders. And it is used by priests and bishops during some of the fasts, as well.

It’s not just liturgy of the word plus distribution from the tabernacle; it involves prayers over the wine, and the people. It’s a special faculty for even a deacon to perform it.

The Roman communion service is a different beast, since all that is distributed is that which was consecrated before, with nothing done to/with it other than the distribution.

Even so, prior to V II, only a subdeacon or deacon could licitly do so, for Roman laity were forbidden to handle the precious body (except when by accident it fell). Even when I started as a server in the mid 70’s, it was forbidden for the servers to touch the precious body; we could, if the priest sent us, open the tabernacle, remove the ciborium lid, and make a guess, but not even take the ciborium out of the the tabernacle. (Dominicans in charge… very strict.)

Pope JP II was clear about the priesthood: men only. He was clear that he lacked clarity on the deaconesses. And later Roman deaconesses were not, in fact, ordained, but installed and without liturgical ministry. But the Byzantine deaconesses performed some tasks reserved to clerics; receiving as did major clerics, standing between subdeacons and deacons. And minor orders do not receive the species separately, while deaconesses did.

 

[SimonDodd]

Priests are well educated. Having a debate with them about a fact that believe to be right would be difficult. Its better to have someone who not only is better educated, but authoritative over them to give them the correction is ideal. Priests don’t abuse believing they are doing the wrong thing. They believe they can if there is a right reason for it. If it was something I can point to a document to easily correct him, I would do it that way.

Your assumption appears to be that the purpose of the exchange is to talk them out of it. As I see it, the purpose of the exchange is to clarify whether the priest actually said what it appeared they were saying, and whether they actually believe something at variance with the Church’s teaching. If they did and do, then of course your request that they stop doing so is fundamentally pro forma—I agree that you’re probably not going to talk them out of it. But that isn’t the point. It’s about courtesy, clarity (determining that the whole business wasn’t just a misunderstanding), and following the fundamentals of Christ’s model of dispute resolution. I have nothing against people going to the bishop (or the pastor if applicable); my beef is with their doing so as a first resort.

ConstantineTG:

Pope John Paul II already stated that the Church is powerless to ordain women [to the priesthood]. And yet the insistence persists

Yep. And there’s actually a serious argument that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis satisfies the criteria for having been given ex cathedra, although one must obviously start with a presumption against that.

Aramis:

JP II … was clear that he lacked clarity on the deaconesses

Where did he say that? OS doesn’t breath a word about it. Rolltide has it right: the Church has said, definitively, that it lacks authority to ordain women to the priesthood. That ends the debate over ordaining women to the priesthood. It has not, however, said anything conclusive about ordaining women to the permanent diaconate, and to suggest that OS’ holding as to female priests settles the issue of female deacons is to contradict Vatican II’s observation (reiterated in the catechism) that deacons are not ordained to the priesthood.

* You seem not to have understood that tonsure makes one a cleric, rather than Holy Orders.* And you seem not to have understood that Holy Orders is the sticking point in elevating women to the cardinalate, which is the subject under debate. So your point is a red herring. Since women can’t receive Holy Orders, the issue is whether one can be a cardinal without receiving Holy Orders. We know that there’s no theological or doctrinal barrier, and we know that historically there have been Cardinals who weren’t ordained. You can dispute the application of the term “lay cardinal” to them, but doing so probably adds more heat than light to the debate.

 

[Andreas_Hofer]

And you seem not to have understood that Holy Orders is the sticking point in elevating women to the cardinalate, which is the subject under debate. So your point is a red herring. Since women can’t receive Holy Orders, the issue is whether one can be a cardinal without receiving Holy Orders. We know that there’s no theological or doctrinal barrier, and we know that historically there have been Cardinals who weren’t ordained. You can dispute the application of the term “lay cardinal” to them, but doing so probably adds more heat than light to the debate.

You have a very odd mind. You claim that Holy Orders is the sticking point of the discussion, and then go on to claim that there are no theological or even historical barriers to a non-ordained cardinalate. So we are stuck on . . . what, precisely? The distinction of cleric and lay is certainly relevant if the argument begins to circle around the historical precedent of so-called lay cardinals, since truly lay cardinals did not exist. Once all have agreed that the cardinalate, being a human institution, is not bound by theological necessity to one particular form, the “sticking point” becomes not Holy Orders but prudence - the pope can turn the college of cardinals into anything he wants, but what is a/the wise thing to do? Knowing the past accurately gives one better odds of dealing with the present prudently.

 

[SimonDodd]

You have a very odd mind. You claim that Holy Orders is the sticking point of the discussion, and then go on to claim that there are no theological or even historical barriers to a non-ordained cardinalate.

How is that odd? I’ll walk you through this step-by-step:

(1) The original question was whether women can be cardinals.
(2) Women can’t receive Holy Orders, therefore:

• *]if ordination is a prerequisite for the cardinalate, women can’t be cardinals
  *]if ordination is not a prerequisite for the cardinalate, ceteris paribus, women could be cardinals
  
  (3) As a matter of ecclesiastical law, ordination is currently a prerequisite for the cardinalate. But that requirement is simply a disciplinary rule, not a component of the deposit of faith, and so it can be changed or dispensed from. Therefore the issue becomes:
  (4) Should it be changed or dispensed from? And relevant to that question is:
  (5) Have there been non-ordained cardinals in the past?
  
  This really isn’t all that difficult to follow, Andreas. We know that the Church has the authority to give a red hat to someone who isn’t ordained; we know that in part because there have been non-ordained (i.e. lay) cardinals in the past, and partly from reflecting on the nature of the office. There are therefore no historical or theological barriers (only a legal barrier) to giving a red hat to a layman today, and perforce, to a laywoman.
  

  since truly lay cardinals did not exist.

  Lay cardinals by your definition, which might in a precise technical sense be correct, may not have existed. But lay cardinals in the sense of cardinals who weren’t ordained, which is the only relevant point here, have existed. How can I explain why your comment misses the mark? Let me try it like this: it’s like having a discussion about the mechanics of classic Fender tremolo arms with a guy who keeps insisting that a true tremolo arm has never existed, and that Fender’s designation “tremolo arm” is a misnomer for what should actually be called a vibrato arm. You’d be right, but it’s not relevant or helpful—“gee, thanks, clever cloggs. Now can we get back to the point?” We all know what is meant, and so it just becomes a distraction to the extent it’s in good faith and pettifoggery to the extent it isn’t.
  

  Knowing the past accurately gives one better odds of dealing with the present prudently.

  Amen! As then-Cardinal Ratzinger told a recent documentary on the Vatican, “when making our decisions, we have to keep the whole of history in mind, so to speak, and … for us, the past is not simply the past.” Nevertheless, one must also correctly identify the level of generality at which to take the lessons of the past. You are hyperfocussing on an extremely and abstrusely technical point of definition that presents the question of lay cardinals at too small a level of generality. The relevant and apt point, and the correct level of generality to read the historical record in this instance (I hate to have to keep repeating this) is that holy orders were not always a prerequisite to a red hat.

 

[ConstantineTG]

Your assumption appears to be that the purpose of the exchange is to talk them out of it. As I see it, the purpose of the exchange is to clarify whether the priest actually said what it appeared they were saying, and whether they actually believe something at variance with the Church’s teaching. If they did and do, then of course your request that they stop doing so is fundamentally pro forma—I agree that you’re probably not going to talk them out of it. But that isn’t the point. It’s about courtesy, clarity (determining that the whole business wasn’t just a misunderstanding), and following the fundamentals of Christ’s model of dispute resolution. I have nothing against people going to the bishop (or the pastor if applicable); my beef is with their doing so as a first resort.

Of course! If they are teaching heresy, they should be talked out of it. Its dangerous if a priest from the pulpit preaching things like women ordinations and same-sex marriage. Given how much of a hot-button topic it is today, I don’t believe there is a priest out there who is blissfully ignorant of the Church’s true position on this matter.

I honestly believe there are things that you can fix amongst yourselves, and there are things that needs the immediate attention of the Bishops or other higher authority. Every Mass that goes that this is not correct, many more souls are led down the wrong path. If a priest is letting a lay person talk or preach during Homily and of the subject is good, then its not as dangerous as telling people things contrary to Church teaching even though it is an abuse of the Liturgy. Things like that can be discussed amongst yourselves.

Yep. And there’s actually a serious argument that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis satisfies the criteria for having been given ex cathedra, although one must obviously start with a presumption against that.

I guess Pope JP2 didn’t want to outright make it Ex Cathedra because it might give the impression that the policy was only made today and it was never there in the past. The way he made the pronouncement is that its always been that way in the past and there’s nothing we can do about it. Thats how I see it anyways.

 

[SimonDodd]

More examples of the supposedly non-existent lay cardinals: Giuseppe Cardinal Sala (elevated 1831); Benedetto Cardinal Cappelletti (elevated 1831); Alessandro Cardinal Lante (elevated 1816); Enea Cardinal Piccolomini (elevated 1766); Alessandro Cardinal Albani (elevated 1721); Lazzaro Cardinal Pallavicino (elevated 1669); Alderano Cardinal Cibo (elevated 1645); Giovanni Cardinal Spinola (elevated 1626); Scipione Cardinal Caffarelli-Borghese (elevated 1605); Agostino Cardinal Cusani (elevated 1588); Alfonso Cardinal Carafa (elevated 1557); Sisto Cardinal Gara della Rovere (elevated 1507); Federico Cardinal Sanseverino (elevated 1489); Pietro Cardinal Barbo (elevated 1440 and elected as Pope Paul II in 1464). Apparently I could go on, but I think the point has been made.