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Women are quite "capable" of being a priest. Certainly, they can present homilies and execute the sacraments, humanly speaking.

I agree whole-heartedly: reminds me of the Godfather where he says that all women will get into heaven, but we men have to work hard at it!

Sitetest: all jo kus was saying was that if someone looks at things superficially and says that all there is to make someone a priest is that that person should be able to present homilies and execute the sacraments, then women could be made priests -- even a 9 year old probably.

However, that bypasses the deeper meaning as Jo kus pointed out: you and Jo Kus and I all agree on the same thing, we're just pre-empting people who would say that by not making women priests, we are considering them not "holy" enough.

Dear Cronos, jo kus, and anyone else,

First, see #17:

"Well, if that was what jo kus was saying, then it was unclear to me. However, I could just be dense. ;-)

"In that case, I offer my comment as explanation for the equally dense."

If I "jumped quickly," my apologies.

But jo kus' post was ambiguous to me, and frankly, folks' efforts to clear it up don't entirely remove the ambiguity.

Jo kus initially said:

"Women are quite 'capable' of being a priest. Certainly, they can present homilies and execute the sacraments, humanly speaking."

At the very best, this is very ambiguous, and can easily be interpreted as an error. Women cannot "execute the sacraments" (save baptism). Period. A woman could kneel before the bishop, the bishop could lay hands, say all the right words to ordain the woman, and nothing would happen. The woman would not become a priest.

Upon being not ordained, if the woman were then to hear her first confession, or say her first Mass, nothing would happen at the words, "I absolve...," the bread would stay bread and the wine would stay wine at the words, "This is My Body," "This is My Blood."

That's not "executing the sacraments." That's simulating the sacraments.

Now, jo kus added "humanly speaking." Perhaps by that, he is more or less changing the meaning to "simulating" the sacraments. That doesn't seem the best reading, but if that was his intention, then that's great, and I offer my comments only as clarification for his otherwise excellent points.

The problem is that the language after the "However" is also ambiguous, and not clear to my slow, dense mind. My apologies for that, too.

Jo kus doesn't say, "We can't use motor oil to baptize..." but rather, "We don't use motor oil to baptize."

He goes on to say, "We don't use broccoli and root beer to confect the Body of Christ. And we don't use woman to be 'in the person of Christ' simply because Jesus was a man."

Again, not "can't" but rather "don't."

This leaves open the possibility that what's being said is that these things are being proscribed, they are forbidden. One could interpret this paragraph to mean that to do them would be to violate God's Law. That to ordain a woman would violate Divine Law. That for a woman to confect the Blessed Sacrament would be a violation of God's Law.

Well, again, if jo kus didn't mean it that way, again, I apologize. However, I think that interpretation is more than reasonable. And untrue, or at least quite incomplete.

Ordaining women, women hearing Confession or saying Mass are not like murder, theft, or adultery, where one SHOULD NOT do the thing, but certainly could. They are impossibilities.

It isn't that it is forbidden to ordain women, or for women to perform the sacramental functions. It is that it isn't possible to ordain a woman, or for her to perform the sacramental functions. Nothing actually happens if the words and rubrics are followed on or by a woman. That is why Pope John Paul II did not teach that the Church SHOULDN'T ordain women, even that it is forbidden by Divine Law, but rather that the Church CAN'T ordain women, that it is beyond the power of the Church to do so.

If that is what jo kus MEANT, that's great.

But that wasn't at all clear to me, and from Cronos' reply, which seems equally ambiguous, I'm not sure it was clear, generally.

sitetest