WOMEN ONLY: Your "opinions" on Women Ordination

[Anglican77]

The roles of women and men are clear.

Women give life and nurture.

Men lead and manage.

This is one of the many reasons I’m considering leaving the Episcopal Church. Right now, my church has a female minister. I have a huge problem with this and don’t feel she is capable of leading the church.

 

[RyanL]

I’m going to say the same thing here that I said on another thread:

Regarding female ordination, it would be helpful to read the following excerpt from a papal encyclical:
Quote:
Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) 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.

This is not an “optional teaching”. Catholics cannot simply “disagree” about this; it has passed to a binding matter of faith and morals. To “disagree” with this teaching is to disobey Christ (Luke 10:16), and should not be done lightly (Acts 5:5).

There seems to be a sense from [various] posts that [X] believes the Church doesn’t fully appreciate women. I disagree, and with significant reason. Please read Mulieris Dignitatem. This document, more than any other, helped me to understand that the Church’s teachings about women are true.

Please let me know after reading this if you still feel the Church doesn’t appreciate women. I am willing to discuss the matter openly.

God Bless,
RyanL

 

[shannin]

Look at it this way:

Every woman has the right to be ordained as a priest. She just cannot remain in the Roman Catholic Church if she does (from yesterday’s thread on on Clever Quips to fight Cafeteria Catholics)

 

[CindyGia]

shannin:

Look at it this way:

Every woman has the right to be ordained as a priest. She just cannot remain in the Roman Catholic Church if she does (from yesterday’s thread on on Clever Quips to fight Cafeteria Catholics)

Don’t get me wrong. I’m personally not hoping there will be women priests, but sometimes I think it could happen because the church has evolved so much in just these past 40 years.

But RyanL’s post was the nail in the coffin.

 

[DianJo]

Paris Blues:

I haven’t read all the posts here (it’s impossible) but if we had women priests, that would be, and I REALLY HATE TO SAY THIS, like a “gay” thing so to speak to the Church because male preists are married to the CC so to speak so since the CC is the Mother, why would a woman be “married” to the CC?

Sorry, crazy thought.

Being the new Catholic you are, I’m very proud of you with this statement! You have hit one of the nails on the head, my girl!

The whole context of this issue goes to the “marriage theology” of the Church. The priest is indeed married to the Bride of Christ. If you have woman priests then you have that sort of woman to woman thing going on. This may sound crazy but the analogy was expressed to me by a very orthodox, teaching priest, fairly new to the priesthood.

God and Israel’s relationship has always been described as a marriage. God the husband and Israel the unfaithful wife. Christ is the Bridegroom to the Church - the Bride of Christ. God’s covenants have always been in the sacremental marriage sense.

If you start messing with women as priests, you start messing with all major theology of the Church.

God created men and woman different - not one over the other. The man is to love and protect and provide, the woman to bring forth life and nurture. These are complimentary roles. One is not supposed to be without the other. You don’t start mixing up the roles to please some who feel left out. There’s just too much at stake. You have priests for offering sacrifice, teaching and leading, protecting. You have nuns for nurturing the faithful and helping the priest with teaching and holding the flock together. We, the faithful are the recipients of all the that the priests and nuns offer us -together we represent the family - father, mother and children.

Everything represents either the husband-wife or father-mother-children. You start interjecting women priests into this mix and you come up with some pretty far out combinations.

There are reasons for women NOT to be priests, I don’t care how anyone FEELS about it and the Church has spoken on the issue. I did the “how I feel about it” or " well, I think" or “my opinion is” thing for many years and it got me nowhere but trouble. Personally, I’ll follow the lead of our Mother Church every time because she is unchanging and worthy of my trust as far as my salvation goes!

If there ever were women priests, I fear our Church would’ve lost her way because I would know that her leaders would have turned Christ’s theology on it’s ear and gone against truth. I am confident that that will never happen because Christ promised that the Holy Spirit would lead Her to all truth and that the gates of hell would not prevail.

 

[MariaG]

CindyGia:

I remember watching not so long ago an episode of “Mother Angelica” on EWTN which originally aired in 1981. The episode title was “The Immaculate Conception” and as Mother Angelica usually did, joked with the audience and asked if it “were still a Holy Day of Obligation” because as she put it, “you know all the changes brought about by the Vatican Twol!” This got a pretty good laugh from the audience. I had no idea what she was talking about basically because I’m a new Catholic, I had no idea such “changes” had been made. But now I can understand what she was referring to. I understand as well that many feast days of “some” saints have been altered to make room for other saints. That’s fine of course, but also didn’t the Vatican do away with some Feast Days of Mary? I’ll do more research on this myself. By the way, does anybody remember the first movement called "Vox Populi Mariae Mediatrici (Voice of the People for Mary the Mediatrix)? 6 million Catholics from 155 countries petitioned the Vatican to oppose the Church’s diminution of Mary. And to declare three of Mary’s traditional titles “articles of faith”: Advocate for the people, Mediator of God-the-Son’s and God-the -Father’s divine grace, and Co-Redeemer (not equal to Christ but uniquely with him). The Vox Populi movement included approximately 550 bishops and 42 cardinasl, plus numerous other clergy who privately expressed agreement. From late 1996 through 1997 media around the world picked up the scent of a struggle and ran prominent articles about the petition. According to what I’ve read “It was too tough to call the odds on this fight, (the journalists conceded.) On one side were (then) millions of people and at least initially, the pope, whose Polish devotion to Mary is strong. On the other side stood Cardinals and Bishops within the Vatican, who were joined by a battalion of male theologians and functionaries ostensibly protecting the “progress” of ecumenism. The commission concluded by a unanimous vote that any doctrinal elevation of Mary would be contrary to the direction established by Vatican II and would be distasteful to Protestants and Eastern Orthodox.” Following the commission’s report, the Vox Populi movement was emphatically rebuffed by Vatican operatives. Now this is what I read folks.

There were less changes made than many people think. The “spirit” of Vatican II was used to implement many changes that were not warranted. So when you look for the “changes” of vatican II make sure you look at the documents themselves and not someone “interpretation” of what if meant, unless that source is solidly Catholic.

I did find this, Will the Real Vatican II Please Stand Up? from This Rock in the CA library.

Any other suggestions folks?

God Bless,
Maria