Womens ordination, todays scripture, and need advice

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AmberDale

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The family and I got up and went to Mass, as we do every Sunday morning. The scriptures were about “If they aren’t against us they are for us”. The homily was quite disturbing. It sounded to me like our padre, who normally seems good, was being heretical. I could be overreacting, or I could really be feeling God telling me it’s time to move parishes.

During the homily Padre was talking about things that don’t hurt anything but are rules, that he doesn’t follow. I.E. letting lay people clean the cups. Why not? I have to much to do and they are helping.It’s a little rule that doesn’t mean much (:eek:)…Girls being alter servers, etc.
While Girls being altar servers is allowed, what came next was disturbing. My heart felt like it was ripped out of my chest. Slavery was abolished 150 years ago, so we are progressing. Womens ordination is not to be brought up and discussed (then why bring it up), you guys can discuss it after Mass.
Those words in the context of the other things said, really disturbed me. Was he openly flying in the face of Holy Mother Church?? Do I need to change parishes. My heart was crying the rest of Mass and I couldn’t focus. What is the Holy Spirit saying this is wrong??
 
Obedience pleases Christ. Disobedience crucifies Him anew. Moreover, by permitting people to do things that they shouldn’t, he is leading them to Hell, because they are participating in his sin of disobedience. Tell him that, if he believes not following rules hurts no one.
 
I don’t understand, I’m sorry. My mind is really whirling.
I converted to Catholicism because of the TRUTH and having Holy Mother Church to guide us. Now the priest seems to be telling people “Things will change…The rules set forth are meaningless”
I know he’s wrong. I just. sigh My heart is still crying.
He’s new to the parish, been here a year. But he’s been at the other parish for much longer. He now does post parishes, due to our priest retiring and a shortage.
 
Christ suffered and died for our sins. His Passion, while undergone in the past, is present at every moment, because. while it is history, it also trascends history - just as the Incarnation, the Transfiguration, the Resurrection, and the Ascension are historical yet trascendant. Because of this, He is crucified anew when people sin. Also because of this, He is comforted in His sufferings when people love Him and give Him thanks. So, obedience pleases Him, while disobedience crucifies Him anew.

There are nine ways to participate in another’s sin, and by permitting people to do things they shouldn’t, one permits those people to participate in one’s disobedience. Sin leads to Hell. The priest, if he is sinning, is leading these poor souls to Hell. Pray for your priest and ask him for clarifications on his homilies. The fruit of charity is understanding. The fruit of pride is rash accusation.
 
AmberDale said:
The family and I got up and went to Mass, as we do every Sunday morning. The scriptures were about “If they aren’t against us they are for us”.
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The scriptures were about two things. One was, “If they aren’t against us, they are for us” and “would that all were prophets.” Fine. There is lots of preaching to do. Outside of Mass, the women can do it as well as any of the laymen.

But the scriptures were also about ruthlessly cutting out whatever leads away from the truth. If you mislead the little ones, better that a millstone were hung on your neck, and you be thrown into the sea. The images of cutting off limbs and plucking out eyes makes it clear that sticking to the truth and living it comes before all else.

If someone outside the Church is telling the truth about Christ, then let them tell it. Where they are in the truth, leave them alone. If it falls to you to tell the truth, even within the Church, because no one else nearby is willing to tell it, though, then it falls to you to tell it! If we have to allow people to cut themselves off from the Church in order to continue teaching the truth and living according to it, then that has to be done, too, as sad as it is. It isn’t about respecting persons or holding on to what we consider our blessings. It is about always putting the truth and the will of God first.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, who was clearly not one to respect the artificial boundaries of mankind when it came to his relationships with women, did not call any women to the episocopacy. The Apostles, in their turn, continued to reserve the episcopacy to males. This, even though Paul clearly preached “there is neither male nor female.” The dignity of women was well understood in the early Church. The Lord and the Apostles were free to ordain women, and they did not. That’s the truth.

As long as this priest talks about the possibility of discussing the ordination of women outside of Mass, without bluntly preaching the conclusion that it needs to happen, and he does not participate dircectly in those discussions, it may be that he knows where his bishop has drawn the line, and so chooses to dance next to it.

In our archdiocese, my impression is that the line is “it is the policy right now that women will not be ordained ever, so that is where we are now, and that’s it”. The only way you can tell those who are open to ordination of women is that they add that qualifier “now”…which is true, but implies that just maybe things might change. The others roll their eyes at the qualifier “now”, as if everyone knows that this “now” business is code for “this isn’t my opinion, but my bishop didn’t accept my ordination so that I could push my opinion.” Our archbishop picks his battles, but he’s clearly not in the “now” camp. I suspect that is the line in the sand of obedience that he has drawn, though.

Pray about it, then decide what your duty to the truth is. Act, then pray some more. Repeat. You could even go back to the CCC and read about the demands of truth, under the section about the 8th commandment. It will counsel you against rash judgement, detraction, and calumny, for instance. If your dilemma is taken in the context of the entire section, it might answer your question about what to do, whether it is to let this instance go, to talk to the priest, to talk to the vicar of clergy at the chancery office, or whatever. Whatever you do, though, remember Mother Teresa’s byword: “God did not call me to be successful. God called me to be faithful.” Be faithful to all the truth demands, and let God take care of results.
 
Women (of whom I am one) are not** suppressed** because the Church has no authority to ordain women to the priesthood.

Frankly, we are ‘suppressed’ when people try to tell us that we ‘should be’ something which God has said we should not. I’m sure the serpent was quite convincing to Eve. . .I mean, what could be wrong with a fruit (priesthood for women)? We surely won’t **die **if we go against God’s clear teaching and wishes simply by exercising our ‘free choice’ to disobey him when clearly we know better than He. That fruit was beautiful to look at and delightful to taste. By all ‘worldly’ standards it was the ‘right thing’ to do to eat it–to gain that knowledge of good and evil, to become ‘like god’. By worldly standards they’ll argue that it’s the ‘right thing to do’ to ordain women. . .or marry homosexual couples… . heck anything that God says ‘no’ but we enlightened and oh-so-tolerant humans say yes to, well, sure we know better than GOD as to what is really ‘right’ behavior and actions. Our whole history just is rife with examples where we went **against **God’s teachings and wound up doing so much good, isn’t it? :rolleyes:
 
He was preaching against the Catholic Church and is completely wrong.
It is quite evil to encourage or allow others to be encouraged about a desire for womens ordination, as it is first an insult to the Priesthood of Christ and second an insult to women. Women have value in themselves and do not need to be like men to have more value. Would you allow a man to represent our Blessed mother, isn’t that kind of sick? In the same way it is very very wrong to lead others astray in this way and promote the heresy of womens ordination. Pope John Paul was quite clear in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis.

I would pray for your Priest, unfortunately there is a lot of heresy being taught and implied throughout the Church today and we need to be strong and faithful no matter how difficult it is to be faithful.

(altar girls are not prohibited but are often promoted by those who encourage female Priests as a kind of first step, it is commonly understood that having altar boys will encourage vocations to the Priesthood)

Be faithful, pray and be strong.
In Christ
Scylla
 
MusicMan said:
The continued suppression of women is not logical.
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As a woman, I find that statement itself illogical. I don’t support the idea of women priests. Women hold a very special and sacred place in the Church and it is not as priests. Many faithful Nuns will tell you they don’t want to be priests. They want to be out “In the trenches” doing the “hard” work. My trenches and hard work is being a wife and mother and trying to immulate our Holy Mother. The Church isn’t suppressing women.

Thank you all for your replies.
 
Well put Ladies! too many fail to realize that it is OUR JOB to conform to the Church,
not the Church to conform to our various desires & selfish wants.

The Church does NOT teach that “not yet now” aspect it teaches the Truth Eternal.
The teachings of the Sacred Magisterium is the 3rd pillar of support for the Church and we are required to acquiesce to that which is Doctrine & Dogma. no debate.

So pray for those that can not or will not submit to the Authority of the Church but instead harken to those whose words scratch their itching ears, those who lead the
little children astray, the False Prophets, the Corrupt Teachers, Pray for them & those that they have and are leading awry.

Lastly Pray for my Family and I, that we may persevere in Christ and His Church.

yours in Christ
 
MusicMan said:
The continued suppression of women is not logical.
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Maybe you would like to elaborate on exactly what you mean that women are suppressed in the Church? A little vague don’t you think?

Don’t get me wrong as for being a man I strongly believe in the valued dignity and honor for all women in the Catholic Church. To throw off any estimation of pride in mans so called logical thinking, just look at what God did in His creation. He created a perfect blessed woman ('The Immaculate Conception") without sin to bear the all glorious Son of Almighty God. I believe that (“Motherhood”) is the greatest vocation aside from the Marriage Union that happens between husband and wife.
No man even in his fatherhood could stand in place of the real gift of a Mother.
I see a lot of beauty and wisdom looking at what many women have talked about in this thread.

The late Archbishop Fulton Sheen said something beautifully poignant about women.
(“To The honor of womenhood it must forever be said: It was a women who was first at the foot of the Cross on Good Friday. It was a woman who was first at the Tomb on Holy Saturday and it would be a women who would be first to meet Jesus ressurected in a Garden on the wings of the first Easter morning”). Of course there are many gracious things to say about womenhood. Even the former Pope John Paul II said that a womans Motherhood was a much more greater vocation than the priesthood.
 
MusicMan said:
The continued suppression of women is not logical.
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This has been said but it is important to say it again. Ordination is not a right, no one has a right to be ordained.

There is no suppression as woman can not be ordained.

Saying that because woman can not be ordained is a suppression is like say that mean are being suppressed because they can not give birth.
 
AmberDale said:
The family and I got up and went to Mass, as we do every Sunday morning. The scriptures were about “If they aren’t against us they are for us”. The homily was quite disturbing. It sounded to me like our padre, who normally seems good, was being heretical. I could be overreacting, or I could really be feeling God telling me it’s time to move parishes.
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Well, I’m not quite sure he technically said anything heretical. As you pointed out, he personally didn’t address the women’s ordination issue. Everything else you mentioned are matters of discipline not faith.
As you said, he’s normally not this “controversial” so I wouldn’t advise you to rush out and change parishes just yet. If its just a blip on the radar there’s no reason to uproot yourself to another parish.
My advice would be to write a very polite and respectful letter that explains why you felt uneasy about the homily. And be sure to sign it, otherwise he won’t take it seriously. As long as your letter doesn’t accuse him of heresy and is respectful then it will probably give him food for thought.
 
If you mean you put in the comment about women’s ‘oppression’ as a tongue-in-cheek bit of sarcasm and are delighted to see the responses giving the correct Catholic teaching (and thus a ‘good education’ for anyone perusing the thread), well and good–but I encourage you if that is the case, next time you try, please do put in an emoticon so that we will know it is not meant as a serious comment.

If you meant the remark at face value (vague as it is), then I hope that indeed you appreciate the good education of the correct teaching that hopefully made you realize that you were wrong to think women oppressed by their ‘not’ being eligible for ordination in the Church.
 
Tantum_ergo said:
If you mean you put in the comment about women’s ‘oppression’ as a tongue-in-cheek bit of sarcasm and are delighted to see the responses giving the correct Catholic teaching (and thus a ‘good education’ for anyone perusing the thread), well and good–but I encourage you if that is the case, next time you try, please do put in an emoticon so that we will know it is not meant as a serious comment.

If you meant the remark at face value (vague as it is), then I hope that indeed you appreciate the good education of the correct teaching that hopefully made you realize that you were wrong to think women oppressed by their ‘not’ being eligible for ordination in the Church.
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I would suggest that he not do this again if that is what he did.

Sarcasm does not work in a written form.
 
NewEnglandPries said:
Well, I’m not quite sure he technically said anything heretical. As you pointed out, he personally didn’t address the women’s ordination issue. Everything else you mentioned are matters of discipline not faith.
As you said, he’s normally not this “controversial” so I wouldn’t advise you to rush out and change parishes just yet. If its just a blip on the radar there’s no reason to uproot yourself to another parish.
My advice would be to write a very polite and respectful letter that explains why you felt uneasy about the homily. And be sure to sign it, otherwise he won’t take it seriously. As long as your letter doesn’t accuse him of heresy and is respectful then it will probably give him food for thought.
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While a letter might be a good idea I think it would be better if you scheduled some time to actually speak with him about it rather than writting a letter.
 
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