Posted on 07/08/2006 9:23:38 AM PDT by WestTexasWend
By coincidence, a potentially historic speech about women that received little media fanfare was made two weeks before America's Episcopal Church elected Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori as its leader, the first female to head a branch of the international Anglican Communion.
The speaker was Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican's top official on relations with non-Catholic Christians, addressing a private session with the Church of England's bishops and certain women priests.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the 77 million Anglicans, invited Kasper to discuss the English church's projected move to allow women bishops. To date, only the United States, Canada and New Zealand have female Anglican bishops.
Official Catholic and Anglican negotiators have spent four decades working toward shared Communion and full recognition of each other's clergy and doctrine. Mincing no words, Kasper said that goal of restoring full relations "would realistically no longer exist" if Anglicanism's mother church in England consecrates women bishops.
"The shared partaking of the one Lord's table, which we long for so earnestly, would disappear into the far and ultimately unreachable distance. Instead of moving towards one another, we would coexist alongside one another," Kasper warned, though some cooperation would continue.
In the New Testament and throughout church history, Kasper explained, bishops have been "the sign and the instrument of unity" for local dioceses and Christianity worldwide. Thus, women bishops would be far more damaging than England's women priests.
This centrality of bishops also explains why within world Anglicanism there's far more upset about U.S. Episcopalians' consecration of an openly gay bishop than earlier ordinations of gay priests. But Kasper didn't repeat Rome's equally fervent opposition to gay clergy.
The cardinal said women bishops should be elevated only after "overwhelming consensus" is reached with Catholicism and like-minded Eastern Orthodoxy.
Anglicans cannot assume Catholicism will someday drop objections to female priests and bishops, Kasper said. "The Catholic Church is convinced that she has no right to do so."
Why? Casual Western onlookers might suppose Catholicism's stance is simple gender prejudice, but Kasper cited theological convictions that some Anglicans share.
The Vatican first explained its opposition to women priests in 1975 after then-Archbishop of Canterbury Donald Coggan notified Pope Paul VI that Anglicans overall saw "no fundamental objections in principle" to female clergy. That year, the Anglican Church of Canada authorized women priests, followed by U.S. Episcopalians in 1976.
Pope Paul's 1975 reply to Coggan said the gender ban honors "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" this fits "God's plan for his church."
That established basic points which were elaborated in a 1976 declaration from the Vatican's doctrine office and a 1994 apostolic letter from Pope John Paul II.
Before Paul's 1975 letter, Rome's Pontifical Biblical Commission reportedly voted 12-5 to advise privately, "It does not seem that the New Testament by itself alone will permit us to settle in a clear way" whether to permit female priests.
The commission examined numerous Bible passages. Yes, Jesus' 12 apostles were male, it said, and there's no New Testament evidence of women serving explicit priestly functions. However, women filled leadership posts and enjoyed high status. One was even considered an "apostle" if Junio or Junias (Romans 16:7) was female.
Protestants who forbid women clergy don't usually cite Jesus' choice of male apostles but rather 1 Timothy 2:12 ("I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent"). The Pontifical Commission said this scripture perhaps referred "only to certain concrete situations and abuses," not all women anytime and everywhere.
Maybe we would argue then that just maybe both the Pope and Mormon prophet are both right? And how would know they aren't? Neither can justify it Biblically.
Let's turn your argument around on you though. Logically, how can a woman be the husband of one wife?
What do you do with the passages from Scripture that disallow women to teach in church, learn in silence and submission? What do you do with the fact that Jesus never chose a woman as an Apostle, nor did the Apostles ever ordain women.
That one there...again, nice point.
Read up on what? Like I stated in my post, why not just practice what the book of Timothy says and be done with it. Much simpler to me.
Your first comment to this thread. Post #9So the Church cites first timothy when it comes to reason why women can't be priests but it overlooks timothy when it says that priests should be married. Okie dokie.
It seems to me that perhaps you were advocating for women in the clergy. It also seems to me that you are ridiculing the Church for not ordaining women.
Are you a woman? I think by your ID it would seem you are. It sounds feminine.
No, according to the Book of Timothy. Have you read it? I guess you only read it when it comes to whether or not women should be priests instead of them being married.
Dear marajade,
"What the heck does this mean?"
It means that the Catholic Church acknowledges that the practice of the faith grew up in different cultures, and took on different local customs and practices. It means that the Church doesn't believe that in non-doctrinal matters that there must be absolute uniformity between all cultures represented in the Church.
As for doing just what the "Book of Timothy" (I suppose you mean the first letter of Paul to Timothy) does, well, Paul's first letter to Timothy isn't the only book in the Bible. The fact is that St. Paul expressed a strong preference for celibacy among those who would devote themselves wholly to the service of the Lord, and Jesus, too, indicated a preference for celibacy. In fact, both St. Paul and Jesus were celibate men. Were they unworthy for the priesthood, in your view?
Thus, you see diverse practices among the different cultures and traditions that comprise the Catholic Church, and exceptions granted even where a general rule exists in a specific place.
sitetest
I listen intently to the holy spirit. I follow the word of God and when says that priests should be married I believe him.
Why wouldn't you answer my question about whether or not you are a woman? I had to go on a search of your posts and find out for myself you are. Are you sure this isn't sour grapes on your part? You have never answered my questions what it says about women not being teachers in the Bible and to learn in silence and submission. Do you or do you not agree with those passages?
Not meant as an attack on the RCs, just a non-affiliate pointing out the obvious.
I keep asking her that, but she won't answer. The silence is deafening.
YEah, I think I see married priests to be right around the corner. It's not doctinal, it's law (policy). So it can be changed. I'm not altogether for it, but I think it would help reverse the homosexualization of the clergy, along with other measures. And, of course, the main reason would be to get an increase in vocations.
I know there are negatives, I'm not going to go into that now.
LOL! Good one.
M7y take would be that the "Church" doesn't interpret anything. The "Church" does not teach, although we say that a lot. PEOPLE interpret and teach. We simply believe in a hierarchical structure that keeps us all singing from the same page, to some extent. We don't just make it up as we go along. I think we say the "Church" because it's not just this Pope, but all the popes who establish the church's teachings. Moreover, it's not just the Pope, the Cardinals have huge input, and they, as well as all Archbishops and Bishops have significant power over their own Bishoprics.
Would someone please explain what is meant here? Is he saying that the Anglican church should not have women bishops until and unless the Roman Catholic church approves?
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