Posted on 04/16/2012 9:21:41 PM PDT by Salvation
You are missing the point, which is made clearly in the article. In the post to which I am responding, you are suggesting that holiness is somehow an enabling qualification, like being good at math and thus being qualified to be an accountant. That is as far from the point as one can get.
The point is that the function of priest is to sacramentally celebrate the mysteries of the Church. It is not be to especially holy (though being chaste, demure, supportive, et al, certainly are assets).
And you might recall that some of the mightiest saints have been lay folk and some of the most awful sinners have been not only priests, but bishops. It would be best for you to separate the notion of worthiness from the concept of vocation. We are none of us worthy, but some of us unworthy types are called by God to serve at His altar. As the article said, had He intended women to be part of that call, He would have called them when He was among us.
A woman can be a sacristan, can run a ministry such as the Fatima statue traveling around, can teach catechism, can be in charge of adult formation in RCIA, can teach Bible study, etc.
And women PRAY!
Acts 20:28 - Holy Sprit appointed you overseers, to
tend Church
Lk 22:19 - do this in memory of me
Jn 20:22 - As Father sent me, I send you...receive Holy Spirit
Acts 6:6 - the apostles prayed and laid hands on them
Acts 13:3 - they laid hands on them & sent them off
Acts 14:22 - they appointed presbyters in each church
1Tim 4:14 - gift received through laying on of hands of
presbyterate
2Tim 1:6 - gift of God you have through imposition of hands
Tit 1:5 - appoint presbyters in every town as I directed you
Acts 20:28 - Holy Sprit appointed you overseers, to
tend Church
Lk 22:19 - do this in memory of me
Jn 20:22 - As Father sent me, I send you...receive Holy Spirit
Acts 6:6 - the apostles prayed and laid hands on them
Acts 13:3 - they laid hands on them & sent them off
Acts 14:22 - they appointed presbyters in each church
1Tim 4:14 - gift received through laying on of hands of
presbyterate
2Tim 1:6 - gift of God you have through imposition of hands
Tit 1:5 - appoint presbyters in every town as I directed you
**The point is that the function of priest is to sacramentally celebrate the mysteries of the Church**
Hammer meets nail!
The key point is that the "matter" of the Sacrament of Holy Orders is a man, just as the "matter" of the Holy Eucharist is bread and wine. Both points are connected to the nature of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the re-presentation of both the giving of Christ's Body and Blood at the Last Supper, and of the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross.
In this sacrifice, Christ is both Priest and Victim: He offers Himself to God the Father for us. The ministerial priest is mystically conformed to Christ Himself, and mystically participates in the (original) Last Supper and the Crucifixion. Because the priest is in place of Christ ("alter Christus"), and Christ was a man ... a real man, human flesh and blood and members and hormones and everything else ... the nature of the Eucharistic Sacrifice requires that the priest also be a man.
I think it is essential that we understand this theologically, because the Truth is True, independent of all other considerations. What "men" as a class or "women" as a class are like is irrelevant, particularly since almost all such generations are largely personal prejudice, rather than reality. The fact that the Apostles were all men is a useful guide, but it's not the key. The fact that "ordaining" women has been a first step toward catastrophe in many denominations is fascinating and instructive, but also not the main point.
Great answer, thanks.
Thank you. We discussed it on the way to Weight Watchers this morning.
Tax-chick at #26 has got it right (take a bow, TC: it was well-said.)
It's about the "matter" of the Sacrament of Holy Orders. A woman could "represent" Christ in many analogous ways: as healer or shephers(ess), speaker, wonderworker, prophetess, national hero(ine), royal descendant of Abraham and of David, and in many other ways; but a female cannot embody Christ as priest and as sacrifice on the altar, since these are embodied by "a" "particular" male, Jesus Christ.
Perhaps it makes things clearer if I point out that a woman can live in CXhrist fully, can even say with St. Paul, "I live: yet not 'I', but Christ lives in me" -- but cannot embody Christ because bodies are always either male or female, and Christ was a male. Was, and is a male in heaven, and in the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar, even now.
Oh, that's well-put! Have a Guinness!
I shan't waste time re-hashing them.
I maintain that, in addition to those explanations, I find that the most powerful practical argument against ordaining women is to be found in the manifest unfitness for ministry of those women who clamour most loudly to be ordained.
but a female cannot embody Christ as priest and as sacrifice on the altar, since these are embodied by "a" "particular" male, Jesus Christ.
Conversely, to suggest that a woman could "embody" the particular man Jesus Christ is to deny that Jesus Christ was actually incarnate as a man ... it is to deny the reality of the incarnation ... it is to resurrect the ancient Nestorian heresy.
Jesus choose 12 men as His Apostles. Popes, theologians and militant would-be priestesses may argue and speculate about why He choose only men, but none have argued that He choose only men.
Bingo! Go to the head of the class! I actually thought of that while I was running the mop machine, but I came back to find someone with cleaner floors had preceded me.
Amen to that.
Jesus CHOSE to be a man as our Messiah. He CHOSE 12 men as His apostles. He could have done the opposite. He didn't and our Church respects His choice.
I never did think it was a big deal even way back in my quasi-feminist days. The women who get their grundies all bunched up are women who don't like themselves .... and Catholic priests have ALWAYS been a target of men-haters.
I still don’t get it, and have spent rather more of the day than I should have done researching the whys of it.
Still, thank you to all of you for trying to explain - this is something I am going to shove in the same part of my mind where I keep the Trinity, as something that simply is.
“Understanding, teaching and discussing God’s will does not, to me, seem to require testicles.”
Testicles are not the only difference between men and women. We are vastly different in so many ways that one despairs of listing them.
It’s funny: so many people accept that women understand things that men can’t, but utterly reject the notion that there are things men understand that women can’t.
One of those things is a man’s dignity.
A male priest, through study and empathy, can be an entirely satisfactory spiritual guide for women, mutatis mutandis. Women cannot be satisfactory spiritual guides for men. Oh, perhaps they are acceptable to liberal weenie Episcopal eunuchs, but I am talking about men here.
I could go on and on for volumes without repeating myself, but I’m just too bleedin’ tired.
You mentioned accepting the ineligibility of women for the priesthood because the Holy Father said so, but let’s not forget that he didn’t just invent the principle—it’s found in the scriptures.
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