[NYer]

Can women be ordained to the priesthood? This is a question which provokes much debate in our modern world, but it is one to which the Church has always answered "No." The basis for the Church’s teaching on ordination is found in the New Testament as well as in the writings of the Church Fathers.

While women could publicly pray and prophesy in church (1 Cor. 11:1–16), they could not teach or have authority over a man (1 Tim. 2:11–14), since these were two essential functions of the clergy. Nor could women publicly question or challenge the teaching of the clergy (1 Cor. 14:34–38).

The following quotations from the Church Fathers indicate that women do play an active role in the Church and that in the age of the Fathers there were orders of virgins, widows, and deaconesses, but that these women were not ordained.

The Fathers rejected women's ordination, not because it was incompatible with Christian culture, but because it was incompatible with Christian faith. Thus, together with biblical declarations, the teaching of the Fathers on this issue formed the tradition of the Church that taught that priestly ordination was reserved to men. Throughout medieval times and even up until the present day, this teaching has not changed.

Further, in 1994 Pope John Paul II formally declared that the Church does not have the power to ordain women. He stated, "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. Luke 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" (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis 4).

And in 1995 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in conjunction with the pope, ruled that 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)" (Response of Oct. 25, 1995).

The following quotations from the Fathers constitute a part of the tradition on which this infallible teaching rests.

Women and the Priesthood

[RichInOC]

They asked me how I knew
My true love was true
Ohhhhh, I of course replied
Something here inside cannot be denied

They said someday you’ll find
All who love are blind
Oh, when your heart’s on fire
You must realize
Smoke gets in your eyes

So I chaffed them and I gaily laughed
To think they could doubt my love
Yet today my love has flown away
I am without my love

Now laughing friends deride
Tears I can not hide
Ohhhhh, so I smile and say
When a lovely flame dies
Smoke gets in your eyes
Smoke gets in your eyes

[famousdayandyear]

Thank you, Vatican II

[OldNewYork]

Sounds like instant excommunication to me, whether the official imprimatur has yet been added to it or not.

[dangus]

Were any of the “womenbishops” “ordained” by Catholic bishops?

[Pollster1]

My (Protestant) minister is female, and she’s fabulous. I think the Catholic Church is wrong on this question - carrying over a cultural detail from 2,000 years ago that is not central to scripture and should not be central to doctrine.

That said, my opinion is entirely irrelevant. The Church is the sole authority on who is a Catholic priest. These women should be Catholics and follow the Church’s rules or protestants and admit honestly that they are not Roman Catholic. I see no point in their current dishonest path.

[Mr. Silverback]

Pink Smoke also throws in Galileo (of course) and half-truths or outright lies about the history of priestly celibacy, several actions of the last two popes, and (again of course) the sexual abuse of minors.

Yeah, when we've changed from male priests molesting kids and having their deeds covered up by a male bishop to female priests "introducing" young girls to their repressed lesbian sexuality like something out of the Vagina Monologues and having their deeds praised by a female bishop, that will be a HUUUUUGE improvement. /Sarcasm

[hinckley buzzard]

Women who want to be priests, some of whom claim to have been ordained. Sympathetic bishops, they say, have helped them. The first "ordinations" of the infamous "Danube Seven" were done in Germany in 2002—on a boat, so that they were on no bishop's territory, and in secret, so the bishops involved would not be found out.

I'm gonna start a mailorder business to save them the trouble. Just send in two boxtops from your favorite grocery store box wine and 25 dollars to: Womanpriest, Box 5000, Ansonia Station.

In return you get a genuine certificate, suitable for framing, declaring you a priest; a rare prized facsimile of the papal ring; and a complimentary pack of wafers to help you get started.

[marsh2]

Seems like the women could seek out the many modern Protestant Christian religions that worship a Savior that welcomes women as human beings of equal capacity and value to males and that welcomes women to the priesthood. Run to the Christ with the open arms.

[reaganaut]

They felt called to priesthood, they felt excluded from power, they felt overjoyed at the idea of women at the altar, they felt felt FELT.

- - - - -
Feelings over facts always leads to heresy.

[MarkBsnr]

They felt called to priesthood, they felt excluded from power, they felt overjoyed at the idea of women at the altar, they felt felt FELT.

Here is some industrial felt for their perusal.