Women priests for first 1200 years?

[fall_fox]

fall fox

I have been told by a Priest that Bl. John Paul ll, wanted to declare excathedra that women could not be Catholic Priests. An adviser at the time suggested that he not do that, so he took his advice and did not make this infallible decision. His adviser was Joseph Cardinal Ratsinger. I have no proof to give.

There is a thread that talks about girls serving mass, that there are a lot of Catholics that dislike the idea of them serving Mass. I guess I am sort of in that category, even though I have three granddaughters serving Mass. There are a couple reasons I feel this way, When talking with Priests about their Calling to the Priesthood, a large percent will say that it began when they were Alter servers. What are our young ladies to do with thee same feelings, Be a Religious? That isn’t what they will have in mind, they will have the same feelings toward being a priest as guys have, and they will be unfulfilled, they could even loose their faith because of it.
Take a look at how many girls are serving Mass, I’m going to venture that the ratio is about 75% girls 25% boys. Boys that are eight or nine don’t like to join things where girls are involved, they just shy away from the situation. Maybe, heaven forbid, they would be paired up with a girl to serve Mass.
At any rate I feel it is wrong to place girls in this situation. No, grandpa is not going to insist that his granddaughters give it up, that decision will need to come from higher up in the Church

 

[MarkInOregon]

I think Saint Paul said there was. Anyway, I got this from an article linked in another post:

Here’s the original link. americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=2778 I’m not an historian of course, so I can’t confirm this research.

I wonder if that reference to Nicea is online at the Vatican website?

I think the author you quoted has misquoted or misstated.

1. I don’t see the “Apostolic Constitutions” being “codified” in the Nicea documents that I have read though I admit I could have missed it. Though given that it is my understanding that there are issues with parts of the Apostolic Constitutions (tendency toward Arianism) it would seem unlikely that they were codified–I do admit I need to do more reading regarding that. That being said Nicea did say in Canon XIX:
   
   “Concerning the Paulists who have flown for refuge to the Catholic Church,
   it has been decreed that they must by all means be rebaptized; and if any
   of them who in past time have been numbered amoung their clergy should
   be found blameless and without reproach, let them be rebaptized and or-
   dained by the Bishop of the Catholic Church; but if the examination should
   discover them to be unfit, they ought to be deposed. Likewise in the case
   of their deaconesses , and generally in the case of those who have been
   enrolled among there clergy, let the same form be observed. And we mean
   by deaconesses such as have assumed the habit, but who, since they
   have no imposition of hands, are to be numbered only among the laity”

Additionally, the Apostolic Constutitutions (which is a document, of I think, VIII books unrelated to Church Councils) refered to by the author in the link above that you quoted implies that the ordination prayer for deacons and deaconesses is the same–and that is untrue. According the the Constitutions a deacon is ordained “in the presence of the whole presbytery, and of deacons and shall pray and say:” (Book VIII par. XVII) While the deaconess is ordained “in the presence of the presbytery and of the deacons and deaconesses, and shall say:” It is interesting to note that the whole presbytery is specificed for the deacons and not for the deaconesses and that for the deacons the Bishop is also instructed to pray but that he is not for the deaconesses.

Additionally the prayer used is different. The calling of the Holy Spirit is much more forcefull in the case of deacons.

Deacons: “…cause the light of Your contenence to shine upon this Your servant, who is to be ordained for You to the office of a deacon; and replenish him with Your Holy Spirit, and with power, as You replenished Stephen, who was Your martyr, and follower of the sufferings of Your Christ. Render him worthy to discharge acceptably the magistration of a deacon…”

Deaconesses: “…do Thou now look down upon this Your servant, who is to be ordained to the office of a deaconess, and grant her Your Holy Spirit, and cleanse her from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, 2 Corithians 7:1 that she may worthily discharge the work which is commited to her…”

The documents from Nicea and the Apostolic Constitutions are both available online with a Google seach. What seems clear from a quick perusal of them is that it is inaccurate to say “woman were ordained to the diaconate in rituals identical to those used to ordain men to the diaconate”–that is unless you don’t think is is important who was required to be present and what the words of the ordination were.

Peace of Christ,
Mark

 

[MarkInOregon]

I left out this also from the Apostolic Constutitution book VIII par XXVIII:

“…A deaconess does not bless, nor perform anything belonging to the office of presbyters or deacons, but only keeps the doors, and to mistister to the presbyters in the baptizing of women, on account of decency. A deacon separates a sub-deacon, a reader, a singer, and a deaconess, if there be any occasion, in the absence of a presbyter. It is not lawful for a sub-deacon to separate either one of the clergy or laity; nor for a reader, nor for a singer, not for a deaconess, for they are the ministers to the deacons.”

Peace of Christ,
Mark

 

[iloveangels]

A lot of the ‘women priests’ from the ‘Roman Catholic Women Priests’ movement claim that women were deacons, priests and bishops for the first 1200 years of the Church. Where do they get this information? It is my understanding that the Church has infallibly stated that women can not be priests. How would you respond?

They’re making it up.

 

[Talapadme]

I was actually doing research on this just this past weekend and found that women in Church history don’t have that role because Jesus, who in His practice was very fair to women and didn’t go with the standards of His times, didn’t call women for His discipleship though they were there and had important roles in His ministry.

The Church has merely kept with this tradition and will most likely continue to do so though there are many influential women in the church history. So I don’t think the women who made the claims had any real basis for them.