Women in the Priesthood

[ryecroft]

CharlemagneII<<, imagine what the world would be like if it was mostly ruled by women (think Nancy Pelosi>>

Good Lord! Do you really think the majority of women are like Nancy Pelosi??? (I think I’ll take that Cyanide pill now then!)

 

[ryecroft]

Tee Ef em<<Originally Posted by Mary Gail 36
Also something I was pondering, periodically various women attempt ordination,
Inevitably they are almost instantly excommunicated by Rome.

More correctly: Those involved in the attempted ordination of women are notified in advance that by such an attempt, they will separate themselves from the Church.

If they persist in following through with their intentions, the competent authority will officially recognize that state of separation.

The Church does not excommunicate anyone – People excommunicate themselves from the Church.
One thing I really do not understand is why the Bishops that helped to ordain these women as priests have had their excommunication lifted without admitting they were completely wrong to ordain the women or to say that would never do it again. It seems if they were going to have their ordinations lifted without saying they were wrong or that they wouldn’t ordain women again than why didn’t the women have their excommunication lifted. Are we playing favourites here? Then again I don’t understand why the Pope lifted the excommunication on the Arch Bishop who would not accept that the Jewish Holocaust actually occured without refuting what he said. I guess Bishops don’t have much to worry about when they’re excommunicated because in short order it will be lifted.

 

[bobzills]

When the Church was begun and for several hundred year later, there are examples of women priests and even an example of one being an apostle(St. John Chrysostom even backs this one up ).

I was not aware of there ever having been women priests in the Roman Catholic Church or in the Orthodox Church. Can you give some examples of this with their names and the place and time of their ordination to the Catholic priesthood?

It is true that there were women deacons (or deaconesses), which I have heard about, but I have never heard that there were women who were licilty and validly ordained to the Catholic priesthood. I am interested to learn about this.

 

[Bennie_P]

If women were ordained, I would not attend a Catholic church.

You wouldn’t be able to for there would no longer be a Catholic Church.

 

[Bible_Reader]

You may be interested in the following recent lecture Gary Macy (a professor of theology at a Jesuit university, Santa Clara University) gave at Vanderbilt. The link is to the podcast.

Here is the abstract of the lecture:

Listen to historian Gary Macy speaking on the role of women in the Catholic Church.

The very idea of the ordination of women in the Roman Catholic Church is dismissed by many as contrary to basic church doctrine. Gary Macy, the John Nobili, S.J. Professor of Theology at Santa Clara University, says historical evidence is overwhelming that for much of the church’s history, the ordination of women was a fact. Hear his lecture from May 11, 2009, in Benton Chapel on the campus of Vanderbilt University. Macy is the author of The Hidden History of Women’s Ordination.

I do not wish to endorse his ideas, which seem different than what I understand of Catholic history; but he does hold a named chair in Theology at a Jesuit University and presumably his arguments cannot simply be ignored.

 

[infomercialscam]

Hi,

Can women be ordained to the priesthood? This is a question which provokes much debate in our modern world, but it is one to which the Church has always answered “No.” The basis for the Church’s teaching on ordination is found in the New Testament as well as in the writings of the Church Fathers.

 

[Th0t]

peterkreeft.com/audio/09_priestesses.htm

“Why only boys can be the daddies.”

Great stuff!!!

 

[tonyrey]

I guess that you don’t understand what an infallible teaching is.

1. Pope makes it clear that he is acting as Pope.
2. He removes it from theological debate.
3. Makes it binding or definitive on the Church.

Lets see what he says yet again.
Basically the problem is one of three things.

1. You don’t understand what an infallible statement is.
2. You don’t care that it is infallible.
3. Some other problem preventing you from understanding when you otherwise would.
   Paul

“guess” is the operative word. Your guess is wrong. I understand what “infallible” means and have carefully studied the necessary conditions for infallibility in the Roman Catholic Church. Not only that. I am not giving my opinion but the opinion of eminent Catholic professors of theology who specialize in the subject of the magisterium.

Let us leave aside your three argumenta ad hominem and restrict ourselves to the facts.

1. If the Pope makes it clear that he is acting as Pope his statements do not thereby become infallible.
2. The Pope cannot remove a teaching from theological debate unless he is speaking ex cathedra.
3. The Pope cannot arbitrarily make a teaching binding or definitive.

“Since the solemn declaration of Papal Infallibility by Vatican I on July 18, 1870, this power has been used only once ex cathedra: in 1950 when Pope Pius XII defined the Assumption of Mary as being an article of faith for Roman Catholics. Prior to the solemn definition of 1870, Pope Pius IX, with the support of the overwhelming majority of Roman Catholic bishops, had proclaimed Immaculate Conception an ex cathedra dogma in December 1854.” (wikipedia)

 

[foundthelight]

I was not aware of there ever having been women priests in the Roman Catholic Church or in the Orthodox Church. Can you give some examples of this with their names and the place and time of their ordination to the Catholic priesthood?

It is true that there were women deacons (or deaconesses), which I have heard about, but I have never heard that there were women who were licilty and validly ordained to the Catholic priesthood. I am interested to learn about this.

I would like to see some proof to these accusations also.

 

[tee_eff_em]

One thing I really do not understand is why the Bishops that helped to ordain these women as priests have had their excommunication lifted without admitting they were completely wrong to ordain the women or to say that would never do it again.

I am unaware that any such thing has been done?

tee

 

[Spirithound]

Women were deprived of their rights by men who were intent on making the Church conform to the norms of patriarchal culture. They lost their power to participate in decision-making in the Church because decision-making is tied to the sacrament of ordination. By Church law women are supposed to be equal members of the Church. In practice men are the leaders solely because they are men.The male priesthood reflects the cult of male domination.

Roman paganism had priestesses. The concept was not alien to their culture.

 

[PaulAndrew83]

“guess” is the operative word. Your guess is wrong. I understand what “infallible” means and have carefully studied the necessary conditions for infallibility in the Roman Catholic Church. Not only that. I am not giving my opinion but the opinion of eminent Catholic professors of theology who specialize in the subject of the magisterium.

Let us leave aside your three argumenta ad hominem and restrict ourselves to the facts.

1. If the Pope makes it clear that he is acting as Pope his statements do not thereby become infallible.
2. The Pope cannot remove a teaching from theological debate unless he is speaking ex cathedra.
3. The Pope cannot arbitrarily make a teaching binding or definitive.

Now I know that you do not understand infallibility.

My original three conditions are what is required to make it clear that such and such a teaching in infallible. Not that any one of them on their own can make a teaching definitive.

That means that the conditions in my post above are all required together.

Continuing to disagree means you need to read something about papal infallibility.

Paul

 

[Roy5]

Thanks, Tonyrey

 It was both informative and exciting to read the posts by Tonyrey. Thanks.

 Within the next 50 years I predict that the Church will follow the example of Eastern Orthodoxy and ordain married men. During that same time frame the Church will extend the office of Deacon (Deaconess) to women, as found in scripture and the early Church. Women will have the same right to 'hatch, match and dispatch' (baptize, perform weddings, and officiate at funerals) as Deacons do now.

  I hope and pray so, anyway. The present generation of the hierarchy must leave for heaven first. It is too imprisoned by the narrowness of the past. These changes could have a very positive effect on ecumenism and abolish a key barrier that stands in the way of Christian unity.

 

[GodIsGracious]

Thanks, Tonyrey

 It was both informative and exciting to read the posts by Tonyrey. Thanks.

 Within the next 50 years I predict that the Church will follow the example of Eastern Orthodoxy and ordain married men. During that same time frame the Church will extend the office of Deacon (Deaconess) to women, as found in scripture and the early Church. Women will have the same right to 'hatch, match and dispatch' (baptize, perform weddings, and officiate at funerals) as Deacons do now.

  I hope and pray so, anyway. The present generation of the hierarchy must leave for heaven first. It is too imprisoned by the narrowness of the past. These changes could have a very positive effect on ecumenism and abolish a key barrier that stands in the way of Christian unity.

Oh I hope not. “Suggestions” from someone who is already protesting the Catholic church. Not surprising.

 

[tonyrey]

Thanks, Tonyrey

 It was both informative and exciting to read the posts by Tonyrey. Thanks.

 Within the next 50 years I predict that the Church will follow the example of Eastern Orthodoxy and ordain married men. During that same time frame the Church will extend the office of Deacon (Deaconess) to women, as found in scripture and the early Church. Women will have the same right to '(baptize, perform weddings, and officiate at funerals) as Deacons do now.

  I hope and pray so, anyway. The present generation of the hierarchy must leave for heaven first. It is too imprisoned by the narrowness of the past. These changes could have a very positive effect on ecumenism and abolish a key barrier that stands in the way of Christian unity.

Thanks for your thanks, Roy. I did a lot of research and still have an open mind on the subject of women priests (unlike some of my critics!). Infallibility is a very complex issue but the present inequality in the Church is indefensible in view of the role of women at its inception.
I love the expression ‘hatch, match and dispatch’.

You’ve made my day.

 

[tonyrey]

Roman paganism had priestesses. The concept was not alien to their culture.

The concept of priestesses was alien to the Jewish cu;lture in which Christianity originated…

 

[tonyrey]

Now I know that you do not understand infallibility.

My original three conditions are what is required to make it clear that such and such a teaching in infallible. Not that any one of them on their own can make a teaching definitive.

That means that the conditions in my post above are all required together.

Continuing to disagree means you need to read something about papal infallibility.

Paul

You repeat your conditions without justifying them by reference to authoritative sources. Is it because you have none?

 

[tonyrey]

Hi,

Can women be ordained to the priesthood? This is a question which provokes much debate in our modern world, but it is one to which the Church has always answered “No.” The basis for the Church’s teaching on ordination is found in the New Testament as well as in the writings of the Church Fathers.

Please provide specific references to those writings.

 

[tonyrey]

You may be interested in the following recent lecture Gary Macy (a professor of theology at a Jesuit university, Santa Clara University) gave at Vanderbilt. The link is to the podcast.

Here is the abstract of the lecture:

I do not wish to endorse his ideas, which seem different than what I understand of Catholic history; but he does hold a named chair in Theology at a Jesuit University and presumably his arguments cannot simply be ignored.

Thanks for the information. Extracts from his book can be read online:
books.google.co.uk/books?id=OouI3LRAI1cC&dq=
The+Hidden+History+of+Women%E2%80%99s+Ordination.&printsec=frontcover
&source=bl&ots=rZQ8O6BYqK&sig=i7bt3kP9kEFnhn7Hva1V2N8xlUo&hl=en&ei=
2DEYSsTeFNLMjAfmpP2CDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=
5#PPP13,M1

 

[PaulAndrew83]

tonyrey:

You repeat your conditions without justifying them by reference to authoritative sources. Is it because you have none?

I do not know whether to laugh or to cry. I tell you what, I will produce for you the the actual definition of papal infallibility from the council that defined it.

For your information this is the fourth session of the first vatican council. I was going to quote the catholic encyclopedia as well but really the council is eneogh.
Definition of Papal Infallibility:

1. Therefore,
   * faithfully adhering to the tradition received from the beginning of the christian faith,
   * to the glory of God our saviour,
   * for the exaltation of the catholic religion and
   * for the salvation of the christian people,
   * with the approval of the sacred council,
   * we teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that
   

         o **when the Roman pontiff speaks EX CATHEDRA,
               + that is, when,**
                    1. in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians,
                    2. in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority,
                    3. he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole church, 
         o he possesses,
               + by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, 
         o that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals.
         o Therefore, such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the church, irreformable.

   So then, should anyone, which God forbid, have the temerity to reject this definition of ours: let him be anathema.

Now you could do yourself a favor by admitting you are wrong.

Paul