WOMEN ONLY: Your "opinions" on Women Ordination

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I am in the 50+ group and as a woman I like things just the way they are. Listening to Jonette Beckovics shows I was finally able to see that the equality demanded by many feminist groups is to have women be men. This false equality has been very damaging for me personally. The parallel equality of women in the Church is much more rewarding. The virtue of humility encouraged in the gospel is not understood much in the world.

st julie
 
Originally Posted by frdave20
with all due respect, what is the point of this thread? the Holy Father has stated, infallibly, that women cannot be priests for a variety of reasons that culminate into the fact that the Church has not the power to confer ordination upon women.
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AuntMartha:
But **unfortunately, there are people today who continue to push for this (women priests), in spite of all the reasons not to ordain women. **

I think it’s just a really unfortunate off-shoot of “women’s lib”. Barking up the wrong tree. It’s so unfortunate that all women can’t be convinced of their worth in God’s eyes without needing to be falsely placed in such a position of power.

Aunt Martha
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But - why do we bother with them? Their opinions are just that - opinions, and opinions without any merit whatsoever. Opinions are a dime a dozen, and, unless backed by truth, are useless.

In fact, by continuing to give them space and notice, we are just encouraging them to continue with their tiring diatribes. Let’s just ignore them in future. The Pope has spoken, the matter is closed.
 
The truth is the truth & nothing can change that. Just because we have modern ideas doesn’t make them truth.

I heard a sound bite of President Bill Clinton which reflects the unrealistic nature of how many people, especially Americans, think. He was asked what he thought the Catholic Church should do now that Pope John Paul II was dead & a new pope was going to be elected (this interview was before Pope Benedict XVI’s election). To summarize his comments, he stated that if the Church wasn’t willing to change it would wither & die.

This just cracked me up. He was so intent on looking at everything in a modern, political, and an American way that he didn’t hear what he’d said. After 2000 years of existence, why would the Catholic Church wither up & die at this point in time just because it didn’t embrace modern ways which are constantly changing? As I recall, the Church has been around since Christ, fighting and not giving in to all kinds of modern ways. Many of these modern ways are now considered ancient.

It hasn’t withered up & died because the gates of hell cannot prevail against it.
 
The male only priesthodd is DE FIDEI
Therefore, anyone who promotes otherwise is:
  1. In a state of disobedience to the Deposit of Faith, and the infallible Teaching of the Catholic Church.
  2. Those who continue to promote non-male priesthood are promoting heresy against the Deposit of Faith, which is objectively a serious sin. Doing this with willful persistence makes one a heretic and outside the Catholic Church.
  3. One risks ipso facto excommunication for promoting a non-male priesthood.
JPII:
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. Luke 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."
Pope BXVI - Ratzinger:
**Whether the teaching that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women, which is presented in the Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis to be held definitively, is to be understood as belonging to the deposit of faith. Responsum: In the affirmative."

Excommunication for promoting non-male priesthood:** ** 1997 January 2: **Father Tissa Balasuriya of Sri Lanka wrote a book in 1990 titled, “Mary and Human Liberation,” in which he called for the ordination of women. The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) investigated his writings and found them heretical. …The CDF asked again in June 1996 that he sign the original statement (correcting his error); he refused. The Congregation decided to excommunicate him, but did not act on that ruling because Father Balasuriya had appealed his case to Pope John Paul II. On January 2, 1997, Pope John Paul II upheld the excommunication.
 
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AServantofGod:
The truth is the truth & nothing can change that. Just because we have modern ideas doesn’t make them truth.

I heard a sound bite of President Bill Clinton … He was asked what he thought the Catholic Church should do …To summarize his comments, he stated that if the Church wasn’t willing to change **it would wither & die. **
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Old Mr Bill looks in the mirror to shave each morning. He KNOWS who is withering…and dying. And it ain’t the Catholic Church!
 
I agree with Faustina on this one.

Am 50+ so no room for my answer to be calculated. Believe it or not I agree with the Church on this one. I do not believe that God intended for the role of men and women to be so blurred. We have that in our secular society and how far has it gotten us? Women are really not much better off since the whole liberation thing came down. Are our children better off when they are being raised by someone else because mom has a career of her own? Are husbands and dads better off when there is no one at home to handle things? Are moms and wives better off when they are expected to work outside of the home and often must because of financial obligations? When 2 people are working there are alot of things that have to go by the wayside. Children do not get the nurturing they need, moms and dads are too exhausted and overwhelmed to deal with things at home not to speak of loving and caring for their children. It is a mess I believe and I think the Church is on the right track with this. I really believe that God intended for the role of a man and woman in the family and in society to be different. One not being any more important than the other, but different.

God Bless,
Teelynn
 
I’m over 50 and little perverse about this. The more some women and the media push, the more I resist. There can’t be anything good behind all that grasping ambition.

My reasons for keeping it as it is are psychological. We need men in the Church. If the priesthood becomes even more feminized it will drive more good men out. They need the special status and mystique to stay in. I don’t want us to become a women’s church, which would be worse than useless. At least that is my fear, so I support the status quo. And ya know, I think the Catholic Church is one area where we do not have to be apologetic about tradition.

Oh and the reason some of us pejoratively say “priestess” is because there were indeed priestesses in the older pagan religions, and they did not have good reputations. We don’t want to go there.
 
50+ and no room for me--------
Maybe I messed something up on my first post, so I’ll try again. Believe it or not I agree 100% with the Church on this one. (1) Jesus never took MM or any other woman as an apostle did He? I think you must take the life of Jesus and look at it as a whole both in His words and actions in interpreting what He was trying to tell us. (2) We only have past experience that seems to be a very good teacher as to what works and what doesn’t work. The whole feminist movement has been a total bomb as far as I am concerned. (opening myself up for that one I suppose) In our modern world I think it is plain to see that the whole family unit is paying for it big time! Children are being raised at times by total strangers. Moms feel totally overwhelmed at the responsibility of an outside job and then coming home to children to care for— and household duties…I might add SO ARE DADS!!! The strain on the family is sometimes unbelievable. Divorce even among Christians and even among Catholic Christians is at an all time high. I think the Holy Spirit should know where He is guiding us so as not to blur the roles of women and men. THAT IS NOT TO SAY THAT WOMEN AND MEN SHOULD NOT BE RESPECTED EQUALLY IN THEIR ROLLS!!! Both have a roll in society and in the Church that is equal in importance!!! I think Jesus protrayed that very nicely throughout His ministry. Seems plain as day to me anyway!

NOUGH SAID

God’s Love To All,
Teelynn
 
I’m 30 and I chose option #2. Not only should women never be ordained, they never can be ordained. Like I’ve said before, how can a woman be a “Father”? This in no way detracts from the dignity or role of women in the Church.
 
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MariaG:
Something I noticed back in the 40’s of the posting.

Respectfully, part of the reason some people seem unable to comprehend that there will never be female priests is that we fail to keep separate the differences between female priests and married priests.

No female priests is unchangeabl. Married priests is a practice that can and may change. I can not be faithful to the teachings of the Church to pray for female priests. I can be faithful and pray for married priests. If for some reason I do think there should be female priests, it is then my job to pray that God would help me to conform my conscience to the teachings of the Catholic Church. No such need exists for the desire to see priests married.

While I understand the sentiment behind not wanting married priests, these two issues that are so frequently brought up together, are simply worlds apart.

God Bless,
Maria

p.s. I am not in anyway implying the original poster thinks these two issues are on the same level. I am just pointing out that those of us who do know the difference, should be careful not to even appear to place the two issues on the same playing field.
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Maria,
Priests in the Eastern rite are married. Sometimes we western Catholics forget that.
By the way, you have a beautiful name. It reminds me of our Lady…

my Mother my Confidence,
Corinne
 
It would be a blasphemous sacrilege to have women ordained into the priesthood!
 
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Genesis315:
Slaughtering millions of innocents is slaughtering millions of innocents. The feminazis want to slaughter babies and the Nazis wanted to slaughter Jews.

Why not be as as specific as possible so we know exactly what we’re talking about? There’s nothing wrong with gender specific language unless you think being called a female is demeaning. Maybe you do.

The Church does. That’s the whole reason Jesus founded it.

The question is not what God possibly could have done. He could have done anything. The question is what God did do. And when He instituted the sacrament of Holy Orders, He made it valid only on men.

If you still feel like you are valued or worth less than men, please read this:
Mulieris Dignitatem
vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_15081988_mulieris-dignitatem_en.html
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you have tweaked my tweeter!

if you want to talk about slaughter, we can hve some fun with this!

the number of babies slaughtered in abortion defies my imagination. i have to suspect that it would make hitler look like a philanthropist. now in the eeuu, there is going to be stem cell research in california. where are they going to get the stem cells???
from fetuses. from whence the fetuses??
hitler was an amateur, a piker.

in england a legal decision has just been made. it’s ok to use in vitro to grow babies for spare parts.

shades of chromosome 6!
they were bonobos, with added intelligence… whence/

in addition stalin killed 20 million of his own countrymen.
lubyanka. siberia…

the devil is roving and patrolling. fishing for souls to devour…
 
Im against it. I didnt vote, though, because at 16 I dont fit in any of the age groups listed.
 
Women can’t be priest, because we just don’t fit the job discription. It’s not because Jesus doesn’t love us. Besides, there are roles and talents women have that men don’t; and we should count our blessings!

While listening to EWTN a woman said a phrase that sums any of these topics up:
“If you’re trying to change the ways of the Church then you don’t want to be Catholic.”
 
Maria is correct that the issue of a married (male) clergy is entirely different from a female clergy (nuns are not clergy).

The issue of the ordination of women revolves around “sacramental matter”. Just as we use water for baptism (not apple juice) and bread for the Eucharist (not vegetables), the church says that maleness defines what it means to “image Christ” and therefore what it takes to be a priest. I have a problem with that reasoning and so would welcome a CHANGE in our perception of what is “fit sacramental matter”.

Here’s the thing: why is it that maleness in particular is the quality needed to “image Christ”? Jesus was also Jewish. Jesus was middle-eastern. Jesus was a lot of things besides just being male. Why did that one characteristic of his humanity get singled out?

I have yet to be convinced that the reasons hold water. I am hopeful that in time this doctrine will change. (Please don’t scream at me that Church teaching, even doctrine, never changes. It can and does change. Dogmas - our core doctrines - do not change.)

There - now you have feedback from both sides of this question!

M.E.
 
If this were an open question, I would think women should be ordained. I have positive experiences with some Anglican women priests. I have been present at their celebrations of the Eucharist, trying with all my might to sense that there is something not right about it, and have not sensed anything inappropriate.

I understand that the differences between men and women are deep and symbolic. But although he was male and that has to be important, Jesus also took on the humanity which is common to men and women. I think that is of prior and greater importance. It is our human nature that he raised up into His divinity. He had to have human nature in common with women in order to save them by dying for them on the cross. If He is enough like me to stand for me and take my punishment on Himself, why cannot I (that is, any woman,not me personally) stand for Him at the altar?

I don’t make much of the argument that he didn’t ordain Mary; she had a very important role and priesthood would have been an unnecessary and superfluous addition to her place in the economy of salvation. While he did many countercultural things, I think ordaining women would have been way too countercultural to be accepted at that time. It might well have confused the gentiles who had priestesses and associated them with cults of holy sex and earth goddesses. We ought to be free of this association now. (I could say that the Anglican women priests and Catholic nuns who play around with earth mother religion are not making a very good case for women’s ordination when they do this.)

My attitude is that some things have changed in the church despite being loudly and firmly proclaimed, and that if it is possible for women to be ordained, eventually they will be. If it is truly not possible, not because of patriarchy or historic prejudice, but because of something truly rooted in being, in the nature of men and women and the symbolism of maleness and femaleness, it will never happen. If it could happen, it would probably not be for hundreds of years. One thing which should happen first is reunion with Orthodoxy, and some time for the Eastern and Western churches to grow together. Having women ordained is not worth deepening that schism.

Well, you asked. If not asked, I don’t talk about this. I am still reading and reflecting on this and trying to be receptive to understanding why it would not be possible, trying to be receptive of this if it is the truth. Strident arguments from one side or the other just disturb that receptivity.
Susan F. Peterson
 
posted by Mary Eleanor
Maria is correct that the issue of a married (male) clergy is entirely different from a female clergy (nuns are not clergy).

The issue of the ordination of women revolves around “sacramental matter”. Just as we use water for baptism (not apple juice) and bread for the Eucharist (not vegetables), the church says that maleness defines what it means to “image Christ” and therefore what it takes to be a priest. I have a problem with that reasoning and so would welcome a CHANGE in our perception of what is “fit sacramental matter”.

Here’s the thing: why is it that maleness in particular is the quality needed to “image Christ”? Jesus was also Jewish. Jesus was middle-eastern. Jesus was a lot of things besides just being male. Why did that one characteristic of his humanity get singled out?

I have yet to be convinced that the reasons hold water. I am hopeful that in time this doctrine will change. (Please don’t scream at me that Church teaching, even doctrine, never changes. It can and does change. Dogmas - our core doctrines - do not change.)

There - now you have feedback from both sides of this question!

M.E.
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I like this post and not just because you said I was correct:D

I don’t know if the reasoning will hold up, but it reminds me of the understanding of who may be a member of the Catholic Church. The doctrine that no one is saved outside of the Catholic Church is still the same. The difference is the understanding of who may be inside the Church.

Doctrine won’t change, but there is always room for further understanding of that which has been revealed. You bring up an intriguing argument about Jesus’s age and “Jewishness”.

Thankfully, I don’t have to figure it out, all I need to do is Trust in the Lord. He will lead us to all Righteousness.

God Bless,
Maria
 
Women in the priesthood??? We’ve got more important duties! Such as giving birth and raising the boys who will become good men and good priests.

In addition, when the question of whether or not priests should marry, the Pastor of my parish said *“I hope you are not praying for ME to be able to marry… the last thing I need is a wife and kids…”:bounce: *

LOL!
Blessings,
Joanie
 
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