Women's Ordination Heresy?

[kentuckyliz]

On a light-hearted note, I have found a sola scriptura justification for a female only priesthood:

Call no man father!

 

[FCEGM]

English really is a ****** language isn’t it?

Well, I guess I’ll have to accept that the Church doesn’t have the authority. I may not like this, but I suppose the Lord can help my unbelief. Oh how I wish it were possible…

But it still seems strange that the church has the power to cast out the very demons of Hell from a persons body if possessed or to bind and loose stuff or to heal diseases and forgive sins… yet she can’t do something as simple as ordaining women.

honestly it just seems bizarre to me. i’ll have to ask jesus why when i get to heaven eventually, if i get there

I hope God does help my faith on this one

Cause the whole thing just seems wierd ya know?

No, I don’t know. It’s not weird at all. Try these articles:

bringyou.to/apologetics/a51.htm

bringyou.to/apologetics/a49.htm

 

[vern_humphrey]

Let me explain it

In THEORY it is possible for God to do anything. However, in practice, God chooses goodness and only goodness due to his purely good nature which prevents him from doing evil (consider this God’s insight in psychological terms). So while in theory God COULD sin, in reality he chooses not to due to his all good nature. if God were to sin, he would contradict himself, his very nature and would therefore no longer be considered God.

Actually in theory and in practice, God cannot sin. A sin is an offense against God. Whom would He offend with His act?

 

[lumendelumine]

But it still seems strange that the church has the power to cast out the very demons of Hell from a persons body if possessed or to bind and loose stuff or to heal diseases and forgive sins… yet she can’t do something as simple as ordaining women.

Well, the Church can only do what God gave her the power to do. She can’t rule for example that tomorrow the Eucharist will be confected from coffee and cheesecake. She can’t declare that Marriage or Confession are not sacraments anymore. She can’t declare that the Pope is unnecessary. She can’t declare that Christ was not conceived from a Virgin…

So it is with the ordaining of women. It would be a change in the matter of the sacrament (cf. the “Eucharist” celebrated with cheesecake and coffee) - and the Church is not allowed to change the matter of any sacrament.

 

[Nagoda]

Would it not be theoretically possible to say that he’d be hurting and offending himself? It’d be like suicide basically.

 

[FCEGM]

Let me explain it

In THEORY it is possible for God to do anything. However, in practice, God chooses goodness and only goodness due to his purely good nature which prevents him from doing evil (consider this God’s insight in psychological terms). So while in theory God COULD sin, in reality he chooses not to due to his all good nature. if God were to sin, he would contradict himself, his very nature and would therefore no longer be considered God.

Sorry, but that doesn’t wash. God can only do good because He IS Good, i.e., He IS Goodness. By His Nature He cannot be or do other than Good. Our personal considerations about Him, while effecting our relationship to Him, do not and can never add to or diminish Who and What He Is in Himself. The same holds, btw, for Our Lord Jesus Who, Being God Incarnate, not only did not sin, but could not sin.

 

[FCEGM]

Would it not be theoretically possible to say that he’d be hurting and offending himself? It’d be like suicide basically.

NO

 

[Nagoda]

Alright, fair enough, however wouldn’t that mean that God has no free will? If he could not choose evil, then he did not have a choice. I know that free will is to say that we are free to choose God, but in this case God would have no freedom to even choose himself. He’d be obligated to by his very being. Consequently, how could he give freedom of choice to humanity since free will comes from God if God had no free will pertaining to himself?

 

[vern_humphrey]

Would it not be theoretically possible to say that he’d be hurting and offending himself? It’d be like suicide basically.

No – for a simple reason. God** is** the standard. Imagine for a moment the impossible – God sins. How would we know? By what standard could we judge His act? Is there some other God, or something external to God by which He may be judged?

 

[guanophore]

El_camino;2026143:

Well, I’m Catholic, so hopefully we have an Episcopelian (sp?) come online and refute that. However, I suspect you are off base on this one.

Keep in mind, there are many who think the CC doesn’t preach the true gospel. Try going to a non-catholic forum, its full of that nonsense.

BTW, bashing another denomination doesn’t solve anything. They are your fellow Christians, keep that in mind.

Are you saying you think it is Christian to ordain practicing homosexuals to active pastoral ministry?

 

[guanophore]

Celebacy is a mere discipline – it has no theological basis, and no one with authority in the Church ever said it did. In fact, we do have married Catholic priests.

However, John Paul the Great said the Church has no authority to ordain women, and “this is to be accepted definitively by all the faithful.”

The matter is closed.

How can you say it has no theological basis! Why on earth would the Church be DOING it, if there were no theological basis! there is even scriptural basis, notwithstanding the other traditions. None of them are secular!

 

[Nagoda]

In the sense youre talking about it would not be valid to ordain any priest. If practiced homosexuality is a sin, then by your logic it would not be legit to ordain anyone who keeps on practicing in sin. However, every priest has sinned and sins every day, be it mortal or venial. He is just as guility of being a practicing sinner as the practicing homosexual. The question becomes not should we or should we not ordain a practicing homosexual but rather should we or should we not ordain a practicing homosexual who is continuing to practice without trying to resolve his sin?

 

[vern_humphrey]

Are you saying you think it is Christian to ordain practicing homosexuals to active pastoral ministry?

Equally on point, the man in question was married. He left his wife and children for his male lover.

Does anyone think the Episcopalians would have ordained a bishop who had left his wife and children for his female lover?

Would Episcopalian spokesmen have defended an adulterous heterosexual affair as a “loving relationship?”

 

[vern_humphrey]

How can you say it has no theological basis! Why on earth would the Church be DOING it, if there were no theological basis! there is even scriptural basis, notwithstanding the other traditions. None of them are secular!

Celebacy has no theological basis – and the proof is that there are married Catholic priests.

 

[FCEGM]

Alright, fair enough, however wouldn’t that mean that God has no free will? If he could not choose evil, then he did not have a choice. I know that free will is to say that we are free to choose God, but in this case God would have no freedom to even choose himself. He’d be obligated to by his very being. Consequently, how could he give freedom of choice to humanity since free will comes from God if God had no free will pertaining to himself?

We are getting quite off the topic, but this explains well the nature of God’s free will; you might find the full article to be of further help:

1. The Divine Will

Description of the Divine Will

(a) The highest perfections of creatures are reducible to functions of intellect and will, and, as these perfections are realized analogically in God, we naturally pass from considering Divine knowledge or intelligence to the study of Divine volition. The object of intellect as such is the true; the object of will as such, the good. In the case of God it is evident that His own infinite goodness is the primary and necessary object of His will, created goodness being but a secondary and contingent object. This is what the inspired writer means when he says: “The Lord hath made all things for himself” (Proverbs 16:4). The Divine will of course, like the Divine intellect, is really identical with the Divine Essence but according to our finite modes of thought we are obliged to speak of them as if they were distinct and, just as the Divine intellect cannot be dependent on created objects for its knowledge of them, neither can the Divine will be so dependent for its volition. Had no creature ever been created, God would have been the same self-sufficient being that He is, the Divine will as an appetitive faculty being satisfied with the infinite goodness of the Divine Essence itself. This is what the Vatican Council means by speaking of God as “most happy in and by Himself” – not that He does not truly wish and love the goodness of creatures, which is a participation of His own, but that He has no need of creatures and is in no way dependent on them for His bliss.

(b) Hence it follows that God possesses the perfection of free will in an infinitely eminent degree. That is to say, without any change in Himself or in His eternal act of volition, He freely chooses whether or not creatures shall exist and what manner of existence shall be theirs, and this choice or determination is an exercise of that dominion which free will (liberty of indifference) essentially expresses. In itself free will is an absolute and positive perfection, and as such is most fully realized in God. Yet we are obliged to describe Divine liberty as we have done relatively to its effects in creation, and, by way of negation, we must exclude the imperfections associated with free will in creatures. . .

newadvent.org/cathen/06612a.htm

 

[Vincent]

Does this mean that a person who agrees with, believes in or supports women’s ordination is holding a heretical position?

The doctrine that “priestly ordination is reserved only to men” has the character of a doctrine definitive tenenda, that is, it is “to be held definitively”.

Whoever denies definitive tenenda doctrines “would be in a position of would be in a position of rejecting a truth of Catholic doctrine and would therefore no longer be in full communion with the Catholic Church.” .

This differs from a doctrine de fide credenda, which is “to be believed”. Whoever denies doctrines in this latter category falls under the censure of heresy.

The assent that is to be given to doctrines in both categories have a “full and irrevocable” character. However, because they differ in theological qualification, they differ in the consequence for withholding assent. Denying de fide credenda doctrines is heretical, while denying definitive tenenda doctrines puts one out of full communion.

So, to be precise, denying the doctrine that “priestly ordination is reserved only to men” is not “heretical”. One does get put out of communion for denying it, but that censure, strictly speaking, differs from the censure of heresy.

What I’ve written here is my summary of the relevant paragraphs in CDF’s “Doctrinal Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the Professio Fidei” (see the new *Professio Fidei *here). The discussion of the doctrinal categories in the “Doctrinal Commentary”, which is based on Pope John Paul II’s motu proprio Ad Tuendam Fidem, is the most recent development of previous articulations of the topic and carries a certain authoritative weight that supersedes, for example the classifications in Ludwig Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma.

 

[starrs0]

There NEVER WHERE and NEVER WILL BE women priests. those that do not accept this INFALLIBLE fact of the faith need be lifted up by the hair of their head and thrown out of the church.
"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."

it’s right there in black and white clear as crystal

ROME HAS SPOKEN THE MATTER IS CLOSED!

 

[DB_AND_ALI]

Not in my mind, but in the infallible pronouncement of John Paul the Great, who directs all the faithful to believe this definitively.

Since it has been rulled on definitively, it is not possible for “a new pope” to rule it to be acceptable – any more than “a new pope” could rule the Real Presense is no longer a matter of Catholic dogma…

Thankyou for that…i never realised that this is irreversible !!! Wow…there sure are going to be a great number of disgruntled woman out there…as they form the backbone of many , many parishes perhaps we should pray real hard that they remain forever in the church.

 

[Genesis315]

I think it would be quite another thing if one accepts the statement that the Church has no power to ordain women, but yet thinks it would be a good thing if it were possible.

Yeah, that might be even worse. You’d be saying you believed God didn’t do what was best and that you know better than Him God is all good. If were a good thing, He would not have had a problem with it.

 

[mikew262]

There NEVER WHERE and NEVER WILL BE women priests. those that do not accept this INFALLIBLE fact of the faith need be lifted up by the hair of their head and thrown out of the church.
"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."

it’s right there in black and white clear as crystal

ROME HAS SPOKEN THE MATTER IS CLOSED!

Such hostility!

BTW, because somebody does not like a particular teaching is no reason to throw them out of the Church. If we did that, The Catholic Church would be small indeed.