Posted on 04/28/2008 6:33:10 AM PDT by NYer
In the run-up to Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United States, there was a tremendous display of unseriousness at the National Press Club, followed by a sacrilege at a nearby Washington, D.C., church.
A misguided group called the Women's Ordination Conference held a protest – a press conference and an all-woman "Mass" at a local Methodist church. The group, as the name suggests, wants to see "the ordination of women as priests, deacons and bishops." Sadly, the group doesn't understand women or the Catholic Church.
In a prepared statement, WOC executive director Aisha Taylor declared:
"The failure to ordain women is a blatant manifestation of sexism in the church that has wider repercussions in the world.
"In the three years of his papacy, Pope Benedict XVI has made a few encouraging statements about women, but he has done nothing that suggests willingness to open the discussion on women's ordination. That's why for his 81st birthday, we are offering the pope a present: the gift of women, their leadership, talents, experiences and unique perspectives."
The group trailed the popemobile to papal events with a billboard truck that asked: "Pope Benedict, How long must women wait for equality? Ordain Catholic Women."
As they are stuck on their version of "equality," the fundamental problem with the group and its message is that whatever Benedict says or does will not be enough for them. They are not open to listening, but to dictating an unworkable agenda. If they were open to it, they would hear and see the Roman Catholic Church's embrace and celebration of women. Women will not be priests, but they will always be an essential part of the Church.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
I don’t think we have had posters from St. Joan of Arc’s in Minnesota before, isn’t it a treat?
Big surprise. Not.
So you are only proving the poor catechism that most American’s who call themselves Catholic have received. If and when the Church ever becomes answerable to a majority vote on matters of faith and moral bring on your polls. Till then take a hike.
Let us know when you get ready to storm the Vatican. Will be the ones defending Holy Mother Church against your onslaught.
Inflippingcredible.
Are you comparing being a woman to being an amputee? Freud would jump up and down at that one.
This is really the fundamental error of feminism: it thinks femininity (and symmetrically, masculinity) are at best social constructs with no inherent connection to the whole person. At worst, they're things that degrade, rather than exalt, human persons.
That's Gnostic, not Christian. It's just a rehashing of an error that's millenia old.
And ironically, feminism makes far too little of femininity.
Understand this: "God created them, male and female he created them." Being a woman is not a disease, it is not the consequence of disease or injury like amputation, it is not the consequence of sin (the Tower of Babel) like ethnic or racial distinctions are ... no, being male or female is how God made us, and what God saw, and what God pronounced very good.
And when feminism looks at that and tries to turn women into men to "empower" them, it's really just belittling God and his creation. It's second-guessing him and pronouncing that it knows better than God.
The original author of that particular storyline was in the Genesis story as well.
Read the JP2's theology of the body. You need to deepen your understanding, because you're very far from the truth.
You’re missing the point. Christ didn’t arrive on the earth at this time. He showed up 2,000 years ago. Man can speculate all he wants about what Christ would do if He had appeared on Earth for the first time right now, but it is irrelevant. He must have chose the time He chose for a very good reason.
Do you even own a Bible, let alone read one?
Back in the day, if a woman wanted to be a teacher or work in a hospital, she could become a religious sister and do so. Otherwise, it was tough for her to get the type of education necessary. In this way, the Church was far, far ahead of mainstream society. Imagine that!
Now, mainstream society has caught up and women can pursue these interests without becoming nuns. Back in the day, a call to become a teacher or a nurse would have involved joining a religious order. Now, it just means going to college and getting the proper degree. Being called to the religious sisterhood has taken on a separate meaning.
Not to mention the fact that sisters nowadays do not wear their habits. Sisters look just like everyone else. “So why bother joining, Sister looks exactly like I do.” However, orders where habit-wearing is maintained are keeping their numbers up, and growing, even.
I think that this is part of the reason why the sex abuse scandal happened. Without nuns present in every church, teaching the children, with this duty being given to laypeople who are not on site 24/7, there was a layer of checks and balances that was taken away. Priests who give in to sin were able to pursue their desires without anything standing in their way. However, this is a minor reason. There were plenty of others. The ordination of bad priests, the rejection of good candidates who did nothing wrong other than hold firm to a non-progressive belief system, etc.
The bottom line is that the Church in America was in the hands of men who wanted to ordain women as priests, the only thing stopping them was Rome. They filtered out all the good priestly candidates who agreed with Rome instead of them. As a result, we have had a generation of bad priests who have unleashed this scandal upon us. Feel free to read Michael S. Rose’s “Goodbye, Good Men” for more info on that point.
Well, Doctrine can change, albeit very grudgingly, but dogma can’t.
Courageous sweet Joan, my favorite Saint, would have a serious problem with those people in MN. She was such a “fundamentalist,” that she went to confession anytime she could, definitely before every time she went into battle.
I believe they post it Annually in January.
Thanks!
Sorry, Doctrine does not change.
If the Church is the bride, how can a woman be Her spouse?
Last I checked, the Church is the bride of Christ, and the priest is His visible representative of that relationship.
In the simplest terms, taking a woman and making her the “husband” of the Bride is as perverted as same-sex marriage under any other guise.
In his Apostolic Letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis (1994), the Holy Father Pope John Paul II, declared 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.” This definitive statement leaves no “wiggle room” for those who would like to continue debating the question. As the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith made clear in 1995, the statement that the Church has no authority to ordain women as priests, is not merely a matter of Church discipline (which can be changed), but belongs to the deposit of faith (which cannot). “This teaching requires definitive assent, since, founded on the written Word of God, and from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium (cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium 25, 2). Thus, in the present circumstances, the Roman Pontiff, exercising his proper office of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32), has handed on this same teaching by a formal declaration, explicitly stating what is to be held always, everywhere, and by all, as belonging to the deposit of the faith” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Concerning the Teaching Contained in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis).
This Apostolic Letter alludes to the reasons given in the Declaration Inter Insignores, by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1976. They include, in addition to the testimony of Scripture and Tradition, the example of Christ, who though counter-cultural in many respects, continued Israel’s tradition of a male priesthood in reserving the Office of Apostle to men. That the Apostles did not regard this as a divine oversight is evident from the fact that they themselves ordained only men. And so the Church has continued this Sacred Tradition down to the present.
The question why women can’t be ordained priests is often confused with the issue of equality. The Holy Father has made it clear that men and women (as far as their sex is concerned) are equal before God (e.g., Mulieris Dignitatem 6). But equality isn’t identity. Men and women have different though complementary functions. Priesthood is a male function, for the reason that a priest is an icon of Christ, and Christ is male. The maleness of Christ is an important sign of His relationship to the Church, His Bride. As in nearly all cultures a man takes the initiative in winning a wife, so Christ took the initiative in winning souls and establishing His Church. For this reason, marriage is a “mystery” or sacrament of the Church (Eph 5:32).
St. Paul develops this theme in his parallel between a local church and the family. A “bishop” (or “overseer,” which applied to both bishops and priests in NT times) is expected to keep his own family in order, “for if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he care for God’s church?” (1 Tim 3:5) Male headship in the family is an axiom of both Scripture and Tradition, and if the Church is the Household of God, and Christ is Head of the Church, then His headship in the Church can be represented only by men.
However, lest it seem that God has honored men above women, we should recall that of all created beings, including the hierarchy of Angels, God raised a Woman to the highest place, the Blessed Virgin Mary. Though she was not an Apostle, she was made Queen of the Apostles, Queen of Angels, Queen of the universe, and the Mother of her own Creator.
Answered by David Gregson, PhD
Apologetics - Doctrine - Canon Law - Eastern Churches - General - History - Liturgy - Moral
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I went to a Defending the Faith conference at Steubenville back around 1993 or 1994, and Peter Kreeft gave a talk wherein he said that we couldn't ordain women unless we were also prepared to endorse lesbian marriage.
I came home and told that to my wife, who was, at the time, an Episcopalian 100% in favor of ordaining women. She said, "That's ridiculous".
But 14-15 years later, here we have the denominations which started ordaining women talking about and/or actually doing, the blessing of lesbian "marriages".
The two agendas are very much linked.
Or do you go to such a liberal parish that there are NO women covering their hair today? We're a minority in my parish, but there's at least one in every other pew.
I remember when you could always tell if a lady was Catholic...when she opened her purse the veil and rosary were right on top.
It's a Massachusetts diocese.
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