Women in the Priesthood

[Worthy5]

Do you deny that the Church has been dominated by men at every level from the Pope to the parish priest contrary to the practice of the early Church in which women were leaders of communities? Surely that is explicit evidence that, apart from a limited role in convents, women have been excluded from all positions of power, authority and jurisdiction within the Church.

Regardless of whether women were leaders of communities (which is a vague statement, in what sense, exactly, were they leaders?), they were never ordained to the presbyterate.

 

[Worthy5]

tonyrey;5287515:

Do you deny that the Church has been dominated by men at every level from the Pope to the parish priest contrary to the practice of the early Church in which women were leaders of communities? Surely that is explicit evidence that, apart from a limited role in convents, women have been excluded from all positions of power, authority and jurisdiction within the Church.

Thanks TonyRey for the information. You are not just taking the good professor from Harvard’s conclusions without reading the actual texts yourself in the orginal languages that they were written in are you? Why would you rely just on her conclusions. I can only hope, at the least, the prof has read the original texts. (some of which I believe the Church does not recognize as authentic, (hey there another question how do we know what the good prof has read is actually what it says it is-a text dating from that time with connection to the events and people it describes-that would be one reason why the Church would not recognize some of those sources)) For as we all know something always gets lost in translations. But moreover, all written text have multiple meanings and contexts. So the seminal question remains, who has the authority, what authority does the good professor have?! The Church has the authority to interpret what scripture means-at least that is what a Catholic believes. And of course we have that sacred tradition again that keeps coming up-called Apostolic succession as the other source of divine revelation. So again, why are you not an Anglican or anything else? For if you believe, after your own investigation of what the Prof has studied-that the Church is simply wrong. Then you are free to leave the Church or join the Church of Prof Karen King or any other Church. I will not think any less of you as a person, really, would not be Christian to do so.

And since you question the Church’s motives, then I guess we can also question the professor’s motives. Does she have a secular-feminist view point. Would that effect her conclusions?

Finally, the statement by the other post " Don’t you think its too much of a postmodern move to simply accuse the Church of a power play" You characterized that as an Adhominem argument. Where is the personal attack on you? That is not him making a personal attack on you (which is an adhominem) but rather him characterizing that your argument claiming the Church is just making a power play with the male priesthood, is in line with other contemporary assertions that when those in authority do not agree with their critics thrn the critics simply claim that those in authority are just bullies and are not responding to the merits of the criticisms-just making a power play. As we know, the Church has explained why, in the Church’s view, there is only a male priesthood. You can still claim its a power play but the prior post is just saying that perhaps your characterization of that is too much this time around.

Tonyrey I just went ahead and pick a section (random) of that link talking about what the good prof believes regarding Mathew 15:21-28. Prof King states the meaning of those passages is " According to one story, an unnamed Gentile woman taught Jesus that the ministry of God is not limited to particular groups and persons, but belongs to all who have faith."

Now I re-read Mathew 15:21-28, and yes I did read it in English. I do have to admit I cannot read Greek (but I am going to one day) and it states this way:

22
And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out, “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon.”
23
But he did not say a word in answer to her. His disciples came and asked him, “Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us.”
24
10 He said in reply, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
25
But the woman came and did him homage, saying, “Lord, help me.”
26
He said in reply, “It is not right to take the food of the children 11 and throw it to the dogs.”
27
She said, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.”
28
Then Jesus said to her in reply, “O woman, great is your faith! 12 Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that hour.

Now the Prof argues that passage means this women taught Jesus something and that this passage can be used to suppor the notion that women should be priest.Are you serious! Could I not interpret that Jesus in his first few statements was simply playing the advocate voice of the Jewish understanding at the time that the messiah was only coming for the Jews. When the women gave her response that she believes Jesus speaks to all then Jesus says " O woman, great is your faith! " I interpret that to mean Jesus affirms and recognizes her faith and she is understanding His message. How does the good Prof come away from that as Jesus is being taught by the women and that it supports the notion of a women priesthood. I mean come on. But let us say both interpretations are reasonable-who decides which one is or is not correct or neither of them is correct-the Church because Christ gave the Church the authority-and that is being Catholic

 

[Dameedna]

Yet in spite of all this, Jesus never ordained a woman. You may think that He was simply patriarchal – but what evidence do you have? That everyone else was? Please.

He didn’t? Remember the Gospel writers were appealing to a particular culture, which was patriachal in it’s extreme. The authors of said books…were human. They would never have appealed to those they were trying to reach, by invoking the shocking view that Jesus may have actually had female disciples and may have chosen those females to spread his word.

And yet, that is what quite a few modern theologians believe. And this is not due to some new-age liberal feminist bent, but because of what the gospels themselves reveal.

I really wonder, how many people actually read books written by theologians. And yes, I include in that Catholic theologians that have had the courage to speak out, despite being threatened by their church.

The male priesthood is nonsense. It is a result of a very old and very real predjudice that had no place in Jesus ministry. Read an alternative view, based not on a formally held belief, but based on a historical analysis of the scriptures. You might be surprised.

Cheers
Dame

 

[Just_Lurking]

Are they shaken, or are they merely giving an appropriate penalty for something which can often be done in secret?

I see the battle between the Vatican and those who support women priests as escalating. If you disagree, and see the new penalty of excommunication as merely “appropriate”, does that mean you find the previous practice of the Catholic Church as two thousand years of applying an inappropriately lenient penalty?

 

[tonyrey]

Worthy5;5287854:

Tonyrey I just went ahead and pick a section (random) of that link talking about what the good prof believes regarding Mathew 15:21-28.

You are basing your objection on **one **section of the book!

 

[budgie2]

Worthy5;5287854:

Tonyrey I just went ahead and pick a section (random) of that link talking about what the good prof believes regarding Mathew 15:21-28. Prof King states the meaning of those passages is " According to one story, an unnamed Gentile woman taught Jesus that the ministry of God is not limited to particular groups and persons, but belongs to all who have faith."

Now I re-read Mathew 15:21-28, and yes I did read it in English. I do have to admit I cannot read Greek (but I am going to one day) and it states this way:

22
And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out, “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon.”
23
But he did not say a word in answer to her. His disciples came and asked him, “Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us.”
24
10 He said in reply, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
25
But the woman came and did him homage, saying, “Lord, help me.”
26
He said in reply, “It is not right to take the food of the children 11 and throw it to the dogs.”
27
She said, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.”
28
Then Jesus said to her in reply, “O woman, great is your faith! 12 Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that hour.

I think this is referring to this woman’s salvation rather than ordination although she was a woman of great faith. I do not think her sex is relevant and Christ is not speaking derogatively to women although it is derogative to non-Jews. A modern interpretation would be that the bread of the children of Israel represents the Eucharist and the dogs represent people of other Christian denominations that do not share faith in the Transubstantiation and cannot share Communion with us aswell as non-Christians. However, we can all be saved if we have faith but we will not be given Communion without it.

 

[tonyrey]

He didn’t? Remember the Gospel writers were appealing to a particular culture, which was patriarchal in its extreme. The authors of said books…were human. They would never have appealed to those they were trying to reach, by invoking the shocking view that Jesus may have actually had female disciples and may have chosen those females to spread his word.

Not to mention the subsequent suppression of the evidence. Examples of mysogyny in the medieval Church are abundant. According to some medieval canonists, women are inferior from the very moment of creation.
“A male and not a female is said to be the glory of God for three reasons. First, because God appeared more powerful and more glorious in the creation of males than of females, for the glory of God was manifested principally through man since God made him per se and from the slime of the earth against nature, but the female was made from the man. Second because man was made by God with nothing mediating, which is not the case for the female. Third, because a man principally glorifies God, that is with nothing mediating, but a female glorifies God through the mediation of a male since a male teaches and instructs the female for the glorification of God.” (Huguccio, 12th-century).

"But why are women removed from civil and public offices? The reason is because they are fragile and usually less discerning… The reason for the difference between the roles of men and women is on account of the fragility, imbecility and less natural constancy and discernment of women. (Aegidius de Bellamera, 14th-century)

These obviously do not represent the doctrines of the Church but the subordination of women needed some justification by scolars because there is no a priori reason why women should be excluded from all positions of authority and decision-making - quite apart from the question of ordination.They were, and still are in many parishes, expected to listen in silence and not voice their opinion. The choir mistress in our parish, a professional soprano with a beautiful voice, resigned in disgust after attending a meeting at which she was not consulted even once by the parish priest or the director of music.

 

[Just_Lurking]

Since it is not papal infallibility the Vatican cannot, of course, by virtue of its own power make it infallible. But it seems rather that the Pope and the Bishops can have the role of confirming or verifying that something has indeed been taught infallibly by the ordinary magisterium. Confirming or verifying it-- making it manifest-- does lie within the Pope’s power, I would suppose, even if making it infallible by means of the ordinary magisterium is not. This distinction surely holds.

Verifying and confirming are two very different activities. Canon law 749 §3 states, “No doctrine is understood as defined infallibly unless this is manifestly evident”, not “… until it has been verified by the Pope.” So any papal role in verifying infallibility by the ordinary magisterium is a novel role that has developed since 1983, without an adequate explanation by the Vatican or the appropriate change to the canon law, the sudden development of which has thrown the Catholic theological community into a tizzy. Not to mention that you can’t “verify” something that isn’t true.

Confirming the brethren is what happened in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, where the Pope took his place alongside his fellow bishops and acted as one of them. Lumen Gentium 25 gives the precise criteria for the ordinary magisterium:
Although the individual bishops do not enjoy the prerogative of infallibility, they nevertheless proclaim Christ’s doctrine infallibly whenever, even though dispersed through the world, but still maintaining the bond of communion among themselves and with the successor of Peter, and authentically teaching matters of faith and morals, they are in agreement on one position as definitively to be held.
This lines up precisely with what John Paul taught in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis:
I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.
The “in agreement” part of the Lumen Gentium condition has been interpreted by the magisterium (see here) as follows:
The ordinary, universal Magisterium consists in the unanimous proclamation of the Bishops in union with the Pope. It is expressed in the fact that all the Bishops (including the Bishop of Rome, who is the Head of the College) give a common witness.
Thus, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was just one bishop teaching precisely in the manner that every bishop needs to be teaching, and that every past bishop needed to have taught, in order to meet the conditions of infallibility by the ordinary magisterium. So how many similarly-worded statements are there available from other bishops, past and present, for verification?

I think you are right that it need be by divine law and not merely Church law, but you are wrong if you claim that it need be explicitly intended by each bishop. It could merely be implicitly intended, and this would be completely coherent with the development of doctrine.

The condition in Lumen Gentium refers to the “authentic teaching” of the bishops, not about what they merely implicitly believed. Binding magisterial teaching is just one example of a juridic act, the requirements of which are covered in canon laws 124-128 (see here). It is hard to see how a bishop merely implicitly believing something can rise to level of a binding juridic act, much less the level (“to be definitively held”) required by Lumen Gentium.

As an off-topic example, John Paul clearly believed “implicitly” that the war against Iraq was morally unjustified. Because he chose to make his views know through the world media outlets instead by promulgating an official teaching, his views were (correctly) deemed as the “mere private opinion” of a Pope, not binding in the least on those who wanted to bomb Iraq back into the stone age. So if implicit teaching doesn’t bind at all, how can it bind infallibly?

Still working on responding to the rest…

 

[Worthy5]

Worthy5;5288463:

You are basing your objection on **one **

section of the book!

What objection? I am not the one unwilling to give deference to Church authority. I am not basing anything on one passage because I am not trying to make any conclusion other than that any text is subject to multiple interpretations and context-and this is one example of that and no doubt the other text have similiar interpretation and context issues.That is simply the nature of language.

But if I were to draw a conclusion about women in the priesthood then I certainly would spend alot of time reading the text in the original Greek and studing the idoims of the language, historical backgrounds etc… But even then my opinion would be just that-my opinion. What you cannot get around is the Church’s (as Catholics believe it) special providence to say what scripture means. Now it is not that other scholars cannot contribute to the discussion and I would like to think that the Vatican listens-I mean the Vatican has its fair share of historian/theologians looking at these issues- as oppose to the Vatican not listening and ignoring just to hold onto power-well that seems to be your view of this issue-that it is just an issue of power amoung men and women.

But it is unlikely that any conclusive proof is going to be found that Christ said=" there shall be women priest". The fact that women played some role in the early Church- well, so what. The fact that women were “active” in the early Church I am not certain means anything. There seems to be this notion that the current Church has to be exactly like the early Church-where does that come from. Christ appeared, he preach, suffered, died and rose again then revealed himself to the 12 apostles and charged the apostles to go forth-and no one else it appears. He then left the earth. He did not write a book or instruction manual, but he did give an authority to the apostles. (or at least that is what a Catholic believes) The Church developed as it developed through time. Who are you or I to question that-well we can question but then again we were not charged by Christ with an authority.

Here is an analogy (now of course no analogy is perfect as we know) but if I were President of the US and I have a person who is my assistant and he does all kinds of things for me, gathers info, sits in all key meetings and gives his opinions that were very helpful at times. Does that then make him a member of the Cabinet? No, because he was not officially charged with such a position by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

Where is the prof saying that there is strong evidence Christ gave the charge to a women? I do not know, is it in there. I do not have time to go through everything she provided. (Hey this is just a hobby for me). The Church has said that Christ only gave the charge to go forth to the original 12 apostles.

But given the stretch of an interpretation that she provided on the passage I identified, the good Prof’s credibility is a tad lacking right now. I could go on about the imortance of the iconographic image of the priest as the bridegroom-but I discussed that. I am not certain why people seem to ignore that as well but images and symbols mean something-they communicate something about the nature of reality.

 

[RobNY]

Do you deny that the Church has been dominated by men at every level from the Pope to the parish priest contrary to the practice of the early Church in which women were leaders of communities? Surely that is explicit evidence that, apart from a limited role in convents, women have been excluded from all positions of power, authority and jurisdiction within the Church.

Even supposing that women have been unjustly excluded from positions of power in the Church (in general) it in nowise follows that they have been unjustly excluded from priestly orders. Your point is too broad, because one could fill the problem with other non-ordained ministries, for instance.

If you think specifically that the exclusion of women from the ordained priestly ministry is unjust, then please give an argument. Keep your focus laser sharp.

Ordained Women in the Early Church: A Documentary History: Kevin Madigan
Later texts support these early portraits of women, both in exemplifying their prominence and confirming their leadership roles (Acts 17:4, 12). Certainly the most prominent among these in the ancient church was Mary Magdalene. A series of spectacular 19th and 20th century discoveries of Christian texts in Egypt dating to the second and third century have yielded a treasury of new information… Her role as “apostle to the apostles” is frequently explored, especially in considering her faith in contrast to that of the male disciples who refuse to believe her testimony.
pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/first/women.html

None of this evidence supports women in a priestly role.

The evidence is Paul is really the only evidence I think is worth arguing against them. The best evidence is that Junia is called an apostle. But let’s be honest, there’s no evidence that Junia is an apostle in the same sense that we tend to use the word “apostle.” In Greek, an apostle is one “sent.” And if we are using merely the bare etymological meaning of “apostle” then it is no problem for Paul to call a woman an apostle. This is why the Greek fathers called Mary Magdalene an “apostle to the apostles.” It’s a play on words, taking advantage of the word “apostle” which means sent, and “the apostles” which had become a term on its own by then. Meaning that she was “one sent to those sent.” It’s a delightful rhetorical device, but it hardly implies that any of these women shared in the ordained priesthood.

Much of the rest of the link (which I browsed… please present any specific points you want to argue, it really is your obligation to argue your own position, even if all it is doing is setting arguments from information you derived at that site, here in this topic) seems to have a very subversive view of the canon. The idea that many late and apocryphal documents give us the real historical scoop on the place of women in the Jesus movement is, quite frankly, fantasy. Most hardly even have grounds for being credible historical sources.

It gives many arguments which are simply besides the point. Let us suppose that St. Mary Magdalene was holier than all of the apostles. Fine. It doesn’t follow that because someone is holy that they therefore deserve to be a priest. It’s simply a non sequitur.

Besides, as Catholic Christians we are bound at least by the orthodoxy of the Church, which definitely includes the limits of the New Testament canon. Your website denigrates the traditional and infallibly defined canon. Let’s at least argue as Catholics about this doctrine. If we’re going to transgress the grounds of Catholic orthodoxy then there’s no point in this discussion anyway.

An argumentum ad hominem.

Not at all. I think it explains the reason why contemporary, leftist feminists reduce everything to power, domination and authority-- it’s all they think there is. Unfortunately, that’s simply not a Christian view. The priesthood does not simply reduce to authority. If that’s all it were, then maybe you’d have a point. But it’s not just about authority. Such accusations (and it’s really just accusations, not arguments) just don’t ring true to me.

God bless,
Rob

 

[RobNY]

He didn’t? Remember the Gospel writers were appealing to a particular culture, which was patriachal in it’s extreme. The authors of said books…were human. They would never have appealed to those they were trying to reach, by invoking the shocking view that Jesus may have actually had female disciples and may have chosen those females to spread his word.

And yet, that is what quite a few modern theologians believe. And this is not due to some new-age liberal feminist bent, but because of what the gospels themselves reveal.

I really wonder, how many people actually read books written by theologians. And yes, I include in that Catholic theologians that have had the courage to speak out, despite being threatened by their church.

The male priesthood is nonsense. It is a result of a very old and very real predjudice that had no place in Jesus ministry. Read an alternative view, based not on a formally held belief, but based on a historical analysis of the scriptures. You might be surprised.

Cheers
Dame

Catholics, in a debate about Catholic doctrine, are bound by the doctrines of the Church.

The gospels state that Jesus choose the twelve as He willed. We also know that Jesus was sinless.

To claim that the exclusion of women from the ordained priestly ministry is a “prejudice” is to lay a moral fault on Jesus Christ Himself.

As Catholics we need to steer away from these sorts of arguments. There may be other good arguments, but this one is certainly off-limits.

God bless,
Rob

 

[liquidpele]

Catholics, in a debate about Catholic doctrine, are bound by the doctrines of the Church.

The gospels state that Jesus choose the twelve as He willed. We also know that Jesus was sinless.

To claim that the exclusion of women from the ordained priestly ministry is a “prejudice” is to lay a moral fault on Jesus Christ Himself.

As Catholics we need to steer away from these sorts of arguments. There may be other good arguments, but this one is certainly off-limits.

God bless,
Rob

Did Jesus ever say that women could not be though? Just choosing 12 men doesn’t necessarily mean that women could not be an option at all, although it does seem imply something along those lines. However, I’m not convinced that his choices in that regard are a strict rule or were meant to be an example for the church even though the church does take it as an example that they should and do follow. I realize I’m not Catholic, but I wanted to point out what I saw was a minor issue with your post, you’re welcome to correct me if I misinterpreted or didn’t understand.

 

[RobNY]

Did Jesus ever say that women could not be though? Just choosing 12 men doesn’t necessarily mean that women could not be an option at all, although it does seem imply something along those lines. However, I’m not convinced that his choices in that regard are a strict rule or were meant to be an example for the church even though the church does take it as an example that they should and do follow. I realize I’m not Catholic, but I wanted to point out what I saw was a minor issue with your post, you’re welcome to correct me if I misinterpreted or didn’t understand.

Thanks, I think you make a good point.

I think the right argument for someone who supports women’s ordination is to say Jesus in fact did not choose women, but did not exclude them in principle. This is what you are saying.

The argument I’m opposing is one which implies that Jesus was sexist or prejudiced in not choosing women. Sometimes these arguments seem like bright stars to proponents of women’s ordination, but when they hit up against implying moral failure in Jesus, they become out of the question, because Christ’s sinlessness is a far more fundamental doctrine than women’s ordination. So another tactic needs to be taken.

That’s what I meant when I said “there are other good arguments…” that is, arguments which don’t obviously run up against things we all agree are true doctrine.

God bless,
Rob

 

[Brendan]

He didn’t? Remember the Gospel writers were appealing to a particular culture, which was patriachal in it’s extreme. The authors of said books…were human. They would never have appealed to those they were trying to reach, by invoking the shocking view that Jesus may have actually had female disciples and may have chosen those females to spread his word.

Really?

Luke’s Gospel was directed at Greeks, who had no issues with priestess? So why didn’t he advocate for, or even mention priestess in either his Gospel or in Acts? He would not have had any issues, since priestesses were a part of his culture already and he would have considered their use to be normal, as would his Greek readers.

Also, the Gosple writers had no problems what-so-ever of mentioning when Jesus went outside the cultural pale.

Look at the story of his conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. Why didn’t they exclude that particular story out of the Gospels? It would have been a very appaling story to any Judaic converts?

 

[Just_Lurking]

Why does it have to be stronger language? This strikes me as being, perhaps, a capricious criterion. The question about whether something can be reformed is about the nature of the object of the prohibition, not the strength with which it is prohibited.

The nature of the object of the prohibition is my point (2); this is the church law/divine law distinction, or the discipline/doctrine distinction, whichever nomenclature you prefer.

The strength of the language in my point (3) is my way of talking about the level of acceptance to the particular teaching that is imposed on the Catholic faithful by the magisterium. There are three levels: “religious submission of mind and will”, “to be held definitively”, and “to be believed with Catholic faith”. The first level is non-infallible, and the last two are infallible. By the same logic as canon 749 §3, the non-infallible level is assumed unless the contrary is made manifestly evident, e.g. by explicitly stating “to be held definitively” as John Paul did in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis.

The theological debate about the ordinary magisterium has focused quite a bit on the issue of contraception for some reason. In that debate the argument is made that even if every single bishop throughout time had signed Humanae Vitae, it still wouldn’t be infallible by the ordinary magisterium because the level of acceptance is just that of “religious submission of mind and will”. Another way of saying that is the language of Humanae Vitae isn’t anywhere near as strong as that of Ordinario Sacerdotalis, so Humanae Vitae doesn’t even rise to the level of confirming the brethren required for a single bishop’s contribution to the ordinary magisterium.

A less controversial example, at least from the point of view of Catholic theologians, is the non-infallibility of the novel teachings of Vatican II on faith and morals. The missing requirement for infallibility is the level of acceptance required of the Catholic faithful, which the theological note attached to Lumen Gentium places at the “religious submission” level.

Besides, it is not the mind of the Church that we would literally need positive evidence from every single bishop there ever was in order to establish the infallibility of the ordinary magisterium

The problem is that the mind of the Church did a 180 degree about-face in the 1990’s that has left Catholic theologians in the lurch, who are still trying to figure out what was wrong with the mind of the Church as expressed from the 1800’s up through the 1990’s.

Still more to come…

 

[Jean_Anthony]

This discussion has veered off topic from discussing the philosophical reasons for a male only priesthood to the intricacies of how the Church decides doctrine, therefore it is no longer on topic for this forum. If anyone wishes to take any side discussions to new or existing threads they can, but this thread in this forum is now closed.