Catholic Newspaper Calls for Ordination of Women

AFP via Google ^ | 12/3/12 | Robert MacPherson

[marshmallow]

WASHINGTON — An independent Roman Catholic newspaper in the United States called Monday for a campaign to reverse the Vatican's refusal to allow women to become priests.

"Barring women from ordination to the priesthood is an injustice that cannot be allowed to stand," the National Catholic Reporter said, waving a red flag in front of the Vatican over one of its most strongly held teachings.

The call to the priesthood "is a gift from God," it said, and excluding women from responding to that call "has no strong basis in Scripture or any other compelling rationale."

With bishops and theologians on record as opposing women's ordination, the Missouri-based biweekly -- a respected voice of the Church's reformist wing -- said it now fell upon the faith's rank and file to press for change.

"We must speak up in every forum available to us: in parish council meetings, faith-sharing groups, diocesan convocations and academic seminars," it said. "We should write letters to our bishops, to the editors of our local papers and television news channels."

There was no immediate reaction from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, which toes a conservative line on other hot-button issues such as abortion, contraception and gay marriage.

The United States has the largest Catholic population of any rich country, with a quarter of its 310 million people belonging to the faith -- a proportion sustained by Latino immigration.

The editorial was prompted by last month's excommunication and expulsion of Father Roy Bourgeois from the Maryknoll order for his role in a women's ordination ceremony in Kentucky in 2008.

[Slyfox]

The the holy monks and abbots reminded the Church that celibacy was preferred.

[RobbyS]

The nutty nuns are liberal Protestants and don’t even know it.

[RobbyS]

I take it that the NCR has an “angel..” One with bats wings.

[RobbyS]

Since Our Lord was celibate as was Paul, and all the apostles save Peter. John the Baptist, of course. Among the Jews, the Essenes also practiced celibacy, so it has not unknown among the Jews. Jeremiah did not marry. The high priest was not supposed to enter the presence of the Lord unless he abstained form sexual relation for a time before.

[D-fendr]

As they’ve progressed toward evil, their circulation has gone from 100,000 to 33,000. They won’t quit the name “Catholic” but Catholics are quitting them.

I wonder who is funding them?

[RobbyS]

no matter how little support they get in the Church, they are the darlings of the Left. This includes, I guess, the secretary of HHS, who also hates the Church.

[Smokin' Joe]

...independent Roman Catholic newspaper...

Okay, I put the 4 words together, and don't really see how the first doesn't negate the second and third leaving a "newspaper".

Either it is Catholic, or it is not. By their doctrinal stance, no.

[Rashputin]

I don't have the links yet but have these notes :

Self identified as Catholic 78 million
On Church Directories as Catholic 66 million
Duplications and errors in Directories avg 3%
3% is around 2 million
24% attend weekly but best metric is actually "several times a month or more" 36% as opposed to 24%, 23 million.
Looking at consistent donation v regular attendance 40-45% depending on G'town or USCCB numbers - 9 million.
Eliminate church employees in charities and social services except for religious .6, use 1
Reduce by number under 16
Reduce by estmates of CINO services - 1.2
7 +/- mil equal TC group norm in the 50s
social .5 or 1.5?
NC social 14% - 6 mil? % of 78 or 66 =================================

I remember I used studies done by Georgetown, ND, USCCB, the Vatican, and a study done in the fifties by a group of dioceses in the NE?. Maybe not the NE but a regional group of large dioceses. I also remember a study by a university or group in San Diego that I used but don't remember the specifics, it focused on when parents stopped making kids go and so on.

I'll see if I can get all those links but I thought this might be a start for you. My thought was to measure what number of folks now are equal to the norm in the fifties and that may or may not be a good benchmark. Seemed like a good idea at the time, as they say.

[Biggirl]

In other words, “conservative” Catholic faith.

[Iscool]

Scripture is God-breathed, completely trustworthy and utterly authoritative.

I know it is...But you guys always tell us there is so much more...That it is NOT authoritative...It's just one little leg of the great big table

And now you have a Catholic appealing to Scripture ALONE to prove something...

Whatta ya do, change the rules to fit any given situation???

[Iscool]

Celibacy was always the ideal. Celibacy was not supported because "if it was good for the papacy it was considered good for the entire Church. As a result celibacy became the established norm for the Latin Church."

That's a pretty odd statement since thru out history, your popistry wasn't very celibate...

[A.A. Cunningham]

Care to explain the reason why 21 of 22 Churches sui juris which comprise the Catholic Church that already ordain, as a norm, married men all have a shortage of Priests?

[A.A. Cunningham]

Married Priests mean legitimate claims to an inheritance by their offspring...

Only to the obtuse. Your claim fails the smell test by virtue of the fact that 21 of the 22 Churches sui juris which comprise the Church that ordain, as a norm, married men aren't doling out inheritances to the children of deceased Priests. Incidentally, unlike social security the Church is solvent.

[A.A. Cunningham]

Just a little bit of history:

Correction: Just a little bit of revisionist history:

Back in the middle ages,

Incorrect.

As a result celibacy became the established norm for the Latin Church.

Celibacy has been the norm since the inception of the Priesthood. The exception was to ordain a married man but require he and his spouse to adopt the discipline of lex continentiae - total continence. See Canons XXVII and XXXIII of the Council of Elvira. The fact that some chose to ignore their vows was by no means the "norm". The Gregorian reforms only enforced the discipline that already existed. It did away with the exception to what was the norm.

[A.A. Cunningham]

You said you were leaving. Why do you care what the Church that produced the Bible over 12 centuries prior to King James commissioning the abridged and heavily edited version that you now embrace does?

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“That’s a pretty odd statement since thru out history, your popistry wasn’t very celibate...”

First, if you’re going to attempt to talk about something why not use the correct terms rather than make a fool out of yourself? Second, there’s nothing odd about my statement and it is absolutely true. Some early popes were married. That does not mean they lived as conjugal husbands when they became priests.

[vladimir998]

True enough but that was always the case.

[Slyfox]

I didn’t mean to imply that celibacy was not endorsed always. I have been reading a lot of mediaeval and Reformation history lately. It seems the Protestant reformers pushing for priests to marry gave the Church a reason to reflect as to why the Church had always endorsed celibacy. It was determined that celibacy was actually a great positive for the priesthood and the Church as a whole, because every time the Church needed great leaders she was able to find the best ones in the monasteries where celibacy was revered even more so than in more secular arenas.

[Iscool]

First, if you're going to attempt to talk about something why not use the correct terms rather than make a fool out of yourself? Second, there's nothing odd about my statement and it is absolutely true. Some early popes were married. That does not mean they lived as conjugal husbands when they became priests.

Conjugal??? Some of your popes were queers...Some of them had offspring while being married...Some of them had children out of wedlock...

These guys are your Magisterium...And then these guys warn Catholics not to go outside of Catholic instruction to learn their history...

[vladimir998]

you wrote:

” It was determined that celibacy was actually a great positive for the priesthood and the Church as a whole, because every time the Church needed great leaders she was able to find the best ones in the monasteries where celibacy was revered even more so than in more secular arenas.”

Well, I don’t think the Church has had too many great leaders come out of monasteries over the last 400 years. The great ‘new’ religious orders, and secular diocese, have supplied most of the best popes, bishops, and male saints of the last 4 centuries. Unless I am mistaken, Gregory XVI, was the last monastic to become pope. Have you ever heard ANYTHING AT ALL about him? I haven’t. That was 170 years ago. I think we’ve had only about 6 monastic popes in the last 700 years.