Posted on 03/02/2016 3:15:04 PM PST by marshmallow
The Vatican newspaper has published essays suggesting that women should be allowed to preach at Mass.
Under existing canon law, only priests and deacons are authorized to preach at Mass. But in a special section of L'Osservatore Romano dedicated to women's role in the Church, three writers call for a re-examination of that policy.
"This topic is a delicate one," acknowledges Enzo Bianchi, the founder and head of the Bose ecumenical community; "but I believe it is urgent that we address it." He says that allowing women to preach would be "a fundamental change in their participation in Church life."
Sister Catherine Aubin, a Dominican theologian, adds an observation that women have been effective evangelists throughout the history of the Church, and today are regularly invited to lead spiritual retreats. Sister Madeleine Fredell remarks that she is allowed to preach in Lutheran churches, and says, "I believe that listening to the voice of women at the time of the homily would enrich our Catholic worship."
“utopia of irrationality” - great phrase to encapsulate the progressive direction global culture continues to take.
It’s hard to avoid making bad calls way back when. People get wiser with age and we all know the Earth is not flat and the Sun does not revolve around it.
Other than “it’s always been that way”, logic will prevail.
see you give OOD’S word to them ...and they still want to argue..i am no biblical scholar.... sound pretty simple to me
I never claimed to “not like it”. Those are words you chose.
My question was “what is the logical reason for not allowing women to preach the gospel?”
There are many things in the Bible that have been revised because of logic and reason. Again, what is sacred about refusing women the honor of preaching the gospel?
and I can not spell either
It is common for lay people to give “reflections” during the homily time of the Mass. The priest would either do a quick homily and introduce the special lay person (often someone leading some retreat in the near future).
This seems like a nothingburger.
Sure, that happens all the time, wrongly so. That is not proper or permitted in the mass, and not because the “special person” is a woman, but because only the ordained may give a homily.
I have often seen a guest speak at the END of mass or afterward at the coffee hour; that is what priests allow who obey the Church’s definition of their role.
If you are ignorant of liturgical rubrics or practice, don’t blame me for telling you what they are.
There are many things in the Bible that have been revised because of logic and reason. Again, what is sacred about refusing women the honor of preaching the gospel?
*********
So you consider the Bible a living document? Interesting. I think you’re on the wrong web site.
No. Next question.
I categorically reject, your perception that the Bible has been revised by logic and reason. But we can agree to disagree on that.
However, about your question regarding women preaching, the Bible is clear that it all goes back to Eve’s deception in the Garden.
Here is an old quote on this topic from the well-known evangelist, Dr. John R. Rice (1895-1980):
“And again Paul says that the weakness of a woman and her aptness to be misled is shown because “Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.” Satan found he could deceive Eve easier than he could deceive Adam. God made a woman after such a fashion that she should be a comfortable and obedient helpmeet, a mate who would fit to his will and plans.
“So, in the nature of the case, women are not as well fitted for executive authority. If women are more easily led, they are not as good leaders. Every pastor knows that women are easier to enlist in good work. But careful observers must admit that women are also easier led into false doctrine and into errors of various kinds.
“But the argument here in 1 Timothy 2:14 is that Satan was able to deceive Eve when he could not deceive Adam, and that this is an evidence that women should not be placed in authority in churches and in Christian work. If he could deceive Eve easier in the Garden of Eden, he could deceive women easier now. This means that women leaders are more likely to lead into heresy in doctrine and unscriptural practice than men. Women are not fitted to teach men or usurp authority over men, says this Scripture.
“But also, in verse 15, God has a special duty and privilege for women in childbearing. If they submit themselves to God’s plan in humility and meekness, then they shall be rescued, and preserved, when pangs of childbirth are come upon them. When godly women have found sweet comfort and ease and help in the time when they go down into the valley of the shadows to bring forth a child for the Lord, receiving help from God because they were willing to take a woman’s place in submission.
“Let us consider carefully verses 11 and 12.
1. The woman is to learn in silence, with all subjection.
2. A woman is not to teach. Certainly not to teach men, but evidently not to teach general groups, including men.
3. A woman is never to have authority over men.
4. And then again it is emphasized that a woman is to be “in silence” in such public services.
“We know well that God does not want Christian women to remain silent outside the mixed public service. Titus 2:3,4 plainly commands “the aged women likewise . . . that they may teach the young women.” Here we are plainly told that old women may teach young women, and should do so. But they are to teach them, among other things, “to be obedient to their own husbands” (v. 5). Women are to be in silence, then, as far as teaching the whole church is concerned, or teaching men, or groups including men, but older women may teach younger women.
“...So when Paul said, “I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence,” it seems clear to me he is forbidding a woman to take a place as a public teacher of men. A woman is to be silent in the public assembly in the sense that she is not to teach as an official of the church. She particularly is to be silent as far as teaching men is concerned. That is plainly forbidden. No woman, according to this passage, is to be allowed to teach a class of men, or to teach a mixed class including men, nor to teach the church in a public assembly, including men.
“It is equally clear that no woman is to take a place as an official of a church, having authority over men. No woman could be pastor of a church, according to this plain verse. To do so would be a usurpation of authority that was forbidden her.”
“In New Testament churches a woman’s place was to be taught, not to teach. A woman’s place was to be silent, not to be a public speaker. A woman’s place was to be in submission, and not to be in authority. Certainly this Scripture forbids any woman to be a preacher or pastor or evangelist.”
SOURCE: Dr. John R. Rice; quote from Bobbed Hair, Bossy Wives, and Women Preachers; pg. 41-43; copyright 1941 by SWORD OF THE LORD publishers, Murfreesboro, Tennessee; ISBN 0-87398-065-4
The difference is that in Catholicism, the specific ordained ministry (deacon-priest-bishop) is not just a matter of what you "do" (functionally, the job description) but what you ARE. In other words, your being male or female is part of the message. You are not just doing something: you are embodying something.
Holy Orders and Holy Matrimony are like in this way: the actual sex of the persons involved, is a "sign." It's a physical, embodied part of the message.
In Catholicism, liturgical preaching ("the Word") is exactly parallel to the liturgical sacrifice ("the Bread"). It's to be done by clergy. Most men are not clergy, for that matter. And no women are clergy. Case closed.
Women can and do teaching on this, in a non-Mass setting: but we do not preach liturgically.
I myself do a lesson for our Catholic Catechumens called "Breaking Open the Word." I help them understand the principles of Scriptural interpretation. I daresay I do that as well as, or better than, any priest or deacon in our parish.
However well I do this, there's one thing I can not "be": a bodily sign of Christ the Bridegroom, or of God the Father.
I don't resent this at all. Let the men embody C hirst as an outward sign. I am grateful to be a member of a Church which stubbornly conntinues to teach that one's sex (male/female)is sacred, signficant, consequential, providential; an embodied sign: it is significant; matter matters.
The most important people are the saints.
>So you consider the Bible a living document?
I make it a habit to disregard statements beginning with “So” and their baseless accusatory tone.
>Interesting. I think you’re on the wrong web site.
Not likely. There are many statements in the bible that have been disregarded by the faithful over time because they are just plain wrong. For example ...
Deuteronomy 21:18 - 21:21
18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and [that], when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
19 Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;
20 And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son [is] stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; [he is] a glutton, and a drunkard.
21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
Don’t try that at home.
Good luck with that kind of degradation of women. It just ain’t gonna float on the biggest of trial balloons. Just imagine if that kind of thinking and rules were to infiltrate a governing body of citizens.
You might as well wrap the women in burkas, forbid driving and going shopping without a male escort.
Thats not degradation, but believe what you want. I’m a Christian. I don’t question God, I believe His Word.
>I don’t question God, I believe His Word.
As do I. God has yet to tell me that women teachers are inferior to men teachers. I prefer to communicate with God directly rather than subscribe to everything someone else may have interpreted thousands of years ago.
Things can get lost in the translation.
Well, I believe the Bible. Sorry you don’t.
>Well, I believe the Bible. Sorry you don’t.
I believe much of it. It, like anything else compiled by humans are prone to errors and misjudgments. No human is 100% all the time.
Why not?
.
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