Posted on 04/25/2005 7:19:28 AM PDT by Rutles4Ever
We have a new pope. A conclave of 115 Roman Catholic cardinals chose Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to lead the world's 1 billion Catholics. The selection of Pope Benedict XVI was full of pomp, glory and majesty.
The moment might have been majestic, but the process was illegitimate. Not one woman played a role in the decision. For 2,000 years, women have been excluded from the priesthood and all other major leadership positions in the church.
I am a lifelong Catholic, and for most of that life I have wondered: How can an institution that professes to be the "one true faith" and world arbiter of morality promote a wholly immoral stance that oppresses half of its membership because of their sex?
The argument is simple, but silly. Jesus Christ chose 12 male apostles to lead his church 2,000 years ago. For two millennia, church leaders have used this rationale to deny women the right to become priests, deliver the sacraments of communion and confession, or serve as deacons. For decades, church activists in the United States and Europe have demanded reforms that would end the oppression. They have been ignored.
Pope Benedict is the keeper of that doctrine, and he fully embraces it. I don't know which Jesus these guys pray to, but my Jesus would not dictate the oppression and exploitation of half a billion people.
This Catholic is proud to have been baptized at a church that was named for my Jesus -- Corpus Christi Church at 49th and King Drive on Chicago's South Side. I was blessed with 12 years of Catholic school education. It was always made clear to me that, in the church, women were second class citizens. At Sunday mass, my younger brother served as an altar boy. I worked on the church newsletter.
As a black Catholic, it's a little better. African Americans have long been a small minority in the church. As a youth, the priests and nuns who educated and counseled me academically and spiritually were all white. Today, Cardinal Francis Arinze, a member of the Ibo tribe, was among those who cast the votes last week that made a pope. He was reportedly on the short list of candidates for the job. According to the U.S. Conference of Catholics, there are 13 African-American bishops. You can be black, Latino and a member of every other ethnic and racial group and sit in the Vatican. But you cannot be a woman.
For 2,000 years, it's been OK for the nuns and laywomen to educate the children, feed the masses, nurse the sick. But they cannot have a voice. They cannot lead.
No one knows that better than the sisters. From my pigtail days to the prom, I was guided and nurtured by Catholic nuns. In my day, the nuns were to be seen and not heard. Sisters were the role models for silence, obedience and sacrifice.
No more. Last week, some of the sisters stood up against the moribund church hierarchy during the run-up to the papal conclave. The National Coalition of American Nuns took to the streets to urge that the papal conclave select a pope who might support the ordination of women. In Chicago, they marched on Holy Name Cathedral, and called for equal participation in the church hierarchy. They burned pellets that emitted a pink-colored smoke -- an alternative to the ceremonial white smoke that would signal a new pope to the throngs outside the Sistine Chapel.
They got nowhere, of course. The old boys' club tapped another one of their own -- for the 265th time.
On April 19, after Benedict's selection, the coalition issued a statement noting that he is an orthodox cleric who is "not known for his sensitivity to the exclusion of women in the church's leadership."
Still, they "take hope in his selection of the name Benedict. Perhaps in the spirit of St. Benedict and Benedict's sister St. Scholastica he will, like the Benedictines, be hospitable and welcome all persons."
They added: "We do believe in miracles."
That's a good thing, sisters. If we are going to turn the church around on this issue, we are going to need a few.
In fact, if she hadn't said "Be it done to me according to Thy word" there wouldn't be a papacy in the first place.
Laura Washington needs to read up before she makes silly comments like this.
What was the greatest threat to the early Church? The orgiastic sects and the widespread worship of mother earth godesses. Ms. Washington has such an alternative today, if she wishes to take it.
I wish people like this would do themselves AND the Church a favor and LEAVE. Ugh.
Then leave the church, Laura.
BTW - Laura Washington is a racist pig.
Well, there were the Ninja Nuns (Nunja?) but most that I ran into were seen and spoke fairly freely. And I have the ruler marks on my knucles to prove it!
Yeah, Catholics are funny that way.
A Pope can't be Jewish, or Islamic, either. Now that's bias for you.
Maybe it has something to do with Popes being descent from Peter who was a man.
You just have to marvel at the stupidity of feminists, especially the religious ones.
If she is so upset maybe she should hold a one woman hunger strike at the Vatican and stop writing silly columns.
Laura Washington is a pig who plays the race/gender card in every column.
The woman is a disgusting pig.
The stupidity of these people gives me a headache!
*sigh*
I am a survivor, too. For twelve years, I was held captive by the ironically named Sisters of Mercy. I saw them every day, and I heard them every day. Now, more than ever, I am so very grateful to those same nuns who gave me a first-rate education, and a sense of moral purpose that is so lacking in the young people today. Celebrate my diversity? Promote my self-esteem? Only the suicidal children tried that stuff!
Also, at Mass last Sunday, our priest mentioned that not one woman had professed for a vocation with the RSM in over 35 yrs. Women like Mz. Washington, who so desperately need to make a difference, will drive by a sprawling Catholic hospital or university, and not think twice about the fact the it was the nuns that built those places from scratch.
Hail Mary,
Full of Grace,
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit
of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary,
Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now,
and at the hour of death.
Amen
Women Doctor's of the Church:
St. Teresa of Avila, St. Catherine of Siena, and St. Thérèse of Lisieux
Ordinatio Sacerdotalis
Apostolic Letter on Reserving Priestly Ordination to Men Alone His Holiness Pope John Paul II May 22, 1994
PRIESTLY ORDINATION, which hands on the office entrusted by Christ to his Apostles of teaching, sanctifying, and governing the faithful, has in the Catholic Church from the beginning always been reserved to men alone. This tradition has also been faithfully maintained by the Oriental Churches.
When the question of the ordination of women arose in the Anglican Communion, Pope Paul VI, out of fidelity to his office of safeguarding the Apostolic Tradition, and also with a view to removing a new obstacle placed in the way of Christian unity, reminded Anglicans of the position of the Catholic Church: "She holds that it is not admissible to ordain women to the priesthood, for very fundamental reasons. These reasons include: the example recorded in the Sacred Scriptures of Christ choosing his Apostles only from among men; the constant practice of the Church, which has imitated Christ in choosing only men; and her living teaching authority which has consistently held that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is in accordance with God's plan for his Church."[1]
But since the question had also become the subject of debate among theologians and in certain Catholic circles, Paul VI directed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to set forth and expound the teaching of the Church on this matter. This was done through the Declaration Inter Insigniores, which the Supreme Pontiff approved and ordered to be published.[2]
2. The Declaration recalls and explains the fundamental reasons for this teaching, reasons expounded by Paul VI, and concludes that the Church "does not consider herself authorized to admit women to priestly ordination."[3] To these fundamental reasons the document adds other theological reasons which illustrate the appropriateness of the divine provision, and it also shows clearly that Christ's way of acting did not proceed from sociological or cultural motives peculiar to his time. As Paul VI later explained: "The real reason is that, in giving the Church her fundamental constitution, her theological anthropology-- thereafter always followed by the Church's Tradition--Christ established things in this way."[4]
In the Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem, I myself wrote in this regard: "In calling only men as his Apostles, Christ acted in a completely free and sovereign manner. In doing so, he exercised the same freedom with which, in all his behaviour, he emphasized the dignity and the vocation of women, without conforming to the prevailing customs and to the traditions sanctioned by the legislation of the time."[5]
In fact, the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles attest that this call was made in accordance with God's eternal plan: Christ chose those whom he willed (cf. Mk 3:13-14; Jn 6:70), and he did so in union with the Father, "through the Holy Spirit" ( 1:2), after having spent the night in prayer (cf. Lk 6:12). Therefore, in granting admission to the ministerial priesthood,[6] the Church has always acknowledged as a perennial norm her Lord's way of acting in choosing twelve men whom he made the foundation of his Church (cf. Rev 21:14). These men did not in fact receive only a function which could thereafter be exercised by any member of the Church; rather they were specifically and intimately associated in the mission of the Incarnate Word himself (cf. Mt 10:1, 7-8; 28:16-20; Mk 3:13- 16; 16:14-15). The Apostles did the same when they chose fellow workers[7] who would succeed them in their ministry.[8] Also included in this choice were those who, throughout the time of the Church, would carry on the Apostles' mission of representing Christ the Lord and Redeemer.[9]
3. Furthermore, the fact that the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, received neither the mission proper to the Apostles nor the ministerial priesthood clearly shows that the non-admission of women to priestly ordination cannot mean that women are of lesser dignity, nor can it be construed as discrimination against them. Rather, it is to be seen as the faithful observance of a plan to be ascribed to the wisdom of the Lord of the universe.
The presence and the role of women in the life and mission of the Church, although not linked to the ministerial priesthood, remain absolutely necessary and irreplaceable. As the Declaration Inter Insigniores points out, "the Church desires that Christian women should become fully aware of the greatness of their mission; today their role is of capital importance both for the renewal and humanization of society and for the rediscovery by believers of the true face of the Church".[10]
The New Testament and the whole history of the Church give ample evidence of the presence in the Church of women, true disciples, witnesses to Christ in the family and in society, as well as to total consecration to the service of God and of the Gospel. "By defending the dignity of women and their vocation, the Church has shown honour and gratitude for those women who--faithful to the Gospel--have shared in every age in the apostolic mission of the whole People of God. They are the holy martyrs, virgins, and the mothers of families, who bravely bore witness to their faith and passed on the Church's faith and tradition by bringing up their children in the spirit of the Gospel".[11]
Moreover, it is to the holiness of the faithful that the hierarchical structure of the Church is totally ordered. For this reason, the Declaration Inter Insigniores recalls: "the only better gift, which can and must be desired, is love (cf. 1 Cor 12 and 13). The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven are not the ministers but the saints".[12]
4. Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church's judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.
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.
Invoking an abundance of divine assistance upon you, venerable Brothers, and upon all the faithful, I impart my Apostolic Blessing.
From the Vatican, on 22 May, the Solemnity of Pentecost, in the year 1994, the sixteenth of my Pontificate.
Joannes Paulus Pp. II
Question: Is the author, Laura Washington, excommunicated ipso facto?
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
What does she mean "we"?
" But they cannot have a voice. They cannot lead."
This is silly? St. Catherine of Sienna couldn't lead? St. Teresa of Avila couldn't lead? Mother Teresa couldn't lead? And they didn't have to fit the neat categories of modern feminism. It is the lust for power rather than service that is the problem with these women.
Funny - I thought the No. 1 criteria was being a Catholic.
Did these men not have Mothers? Are not the Mothers who raised these men one of the biggest factors or influences in their lives?
Women exercise power far beyond that of their 'position' in life. They may not have the title that this author seems to want them to have, but that does not mean that women were not able to influence the lives of these men and thus by extension to have influence on the decisions they make.
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