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I really dislike liberals. |
Posted on 07/14/2002 7:40:50 AM PDT by heyheyhey
Edited on 07/14/2002 11:32:34 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The Catholic Church, that claims to learn from the ages through which it has perdured, will learn in time that policies formed when women were considered inferior cannot survive in our day.
Some claim that the pedophile-priest scandal has nothing to do with the mandatory celibacy rule for Roman Catholic priests. But a majority of Catholics agree that "priestly celibacy increases the chances of sexual abuse"--51 percent in a Dallas Morning News poll and 52 percent in a Canadian News poll. This is a matter of common sense. How can anyone doubt that the abuse of minors would not have spread so far in secret if priests' wives or women priests had been part of the church's structure? Recent articles have noted how many of the whistle-blowers in recent business scandals have been women. They were not bound by the boys' club rules of the past.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
I'll leave the sloppy reasoning to others (poll taking as a vehicle for knowing God's will?). But I'd at least like to point out the lies:
1. "Under Pope Paul VI, the Vatican released a document saying women could not be priests because they do not look like Jesus."
This is a lie. That was not Paul VI's argument, nor was it the Church's. See ORDINATIO SACERDOTALIS for more background, including Paul VI's statements on the matter.
2. On a slightly more serious level, we are told that Christ did not ordain any women. True. Neither did he ordain any men.
This is certainly a lie if you call yourself a Catholic. Contending as Wills does denies apostolic succession, which defies the earliest creeds of the Church. If Wills believes this, he is no longer a Catholic.
3. The male priesthood developed at a time when women were held to be inferior to men and unclean for purposes of sacred ritual.
Either a lie, or ignorance. Priestesses were common in Jesus' day. Some temples were served exclusively by priestesses and men were disallowed from serving.
4.Canon law prescribed keeping the altar pure from female pollution.
There is no such thing as "female pollution" in Canon Law.
5. It is a sign of Vatican expertise in "natural law" that it held, in the past, that it would be unnatural for a woman to be in the church sanctuary or choir, but that a "natural" way to provide treble voices for the Sistine chapel's music, in the absence of women, would be castrate boys before their voices changed.
The practice of castrating male singers was always condemned by the Church, even if ignored by some sinful clerics.
The fundamental fallacy of this argument is the assumption that one's sex is of no more ontological importance than the color of one's hair. I would like to hear Professor Wills explain why he thinks sex is a unimportant aspect of ontological identity, rather than merrily brushing the issue aside.
The Church's position is that sex is an important part of ontological identity, and as such sees equality as a matter of value and dignity without needing to see this expressed identically between men and women. Mr. Wills rejects this notion, and therefore for him equality of value and dignity can only come when there is an accompanying sameness in the way they live.
Compare this statement by professor Wills:
The Catholic Church, that claims to learn from the ages through which it has perdured, will learn in time that policies formed when women were considered inferior cannot survive in our day.
With this one from John Paul II:
Furthermore, the fact that the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, received neither the mission proper to the Apostles nor the ministerial priesthood clearly shows that the non-admission of women to priestly ordination cannot mean that women are of lesser dignity, nor can it be construed as discrimination against them. Rather, it is to be seen as the faithful observance of a plan to be ascribed to the wisdom of the Lord of the universe.
This fallacy feminism brought the secular world - that women and men are not only equal, but are so nearly identical as to be interchangable - is what Prof. Wills wants to see enacted in the Church.
Wills and his ilk would do better trying to understand true the idea that holiness, not hierarchical position is the proper goal of every Catholic. Where the doctrine of sexual sameness has spread throughout the modern world, holiness has plummeted.
Wills is another CINO idiot and was recently handed his lunch by Father Fessio and Rod Dreher on Peter Robinson's show "Uncommon Knowledge" on PBS. How many of those "Catholics" polled voted for Clinton, twice? Not one word about perverted homosexuals violating their vows and criminal law. This clown offers no explanation for the sexual abuse that takes place in Protestant denominations which do not have a celibate clergy. He is ignorant of Scripture, history and his faith. Don't let the door hit you on the way out Gary.
Now I know why I put down "Papal Sins" in disgust. Wills is just another CINO. Sorry I spent the $20 bucks on his book. I won't make that mistake again.
The final section of ''The Vatican II Church'' and the climax of the book as a whole is a manifesto entitled ''The Pope's Loyal Opposition.'' Here Wills states and vigorously argues the 11 conditions on which ''support of the papacy is possible for the conscientious.'' Drawing on the history of the preceding chapters, he asserts: (1) The papacy is a deeply flawed institution. (2) The church itself is a deeply flawed institution. (3) There have been many papacies. (4) One is obliged to differ from the papacy. (5) The papacy, like the church, changes. (6) Change in the papacy has not been unidirectional. (7) The historical reality of papal teaching has little to do with infallibility. (8) The essence of the papacy is the Petrine charism. (9) The papacy is the sacrament of the unity of the church. (10) Heresy is a sin against this sacrament of unity. (11) The papacy, as a center of unity, has many sources of renewal.
After this catharsis, the jejune 40-page commentary on the creed that ends this otherwise candid, richly informative and perfectly timed book comes as an anticlimax and a distinct disappointment, not least for its studied indifference to contemporary American Catholic theology. Wills reads selected contemporary church historians and three or four Scripture scholars, but with one exception he finds no theologian since John Henry Newman worth a word of either praise or blame, not even Avery Dulles -- a famous American convert become a Jesuit and now, like Newman, a cardinal -- whose ''Models of the Church'' has done more than any other book to keep alive in the American Catholic Church the very ''People of God'' ecclesiology in which Wills has invested such hope.
Why this abstention from theology? The opening, autobiographical portion of the book may offer a clue. As a Jesuit novice, Wills underwent a crisis of faith in reality itself: does anything exist, or are we trapped in a dream? He survived that crisis with the help of a sensitive confessor and the chapter entitled ''The Suicide of Thought'' in G. K. Chesterton's ''Orthodoxy.'' A few years later, Wills left the Society of Jesus; but from that moment to this, Chesterton's vision of ''the mystical minimum'' -- gratitude to God for the miracle that anything at all is -- seems to have remained for him an intellectual bedrock too deep or too private for discussion.
"Will he be declared a heretic? Will the Church exercise any discipline in this matter? Should She?"
I think a pessimist will say, "yes", and an optimist will say, "no".
Prior to the current scandals, I was more pessimistic about the "short-term" (the current century) in the Church. The current scandals have engendered hope within me, because though much evil has been brought to light, it has also been clearly brought to light that much good is blossoming, as well. As a result of the current scandals, it's becoming clear that we are seeing and increase in vocations in selected dioceses that have become more orthodox, or that never really flagged significantly in orthodoxy. It is becoming clear that the sources of heterodoxy, disobedience, and rebellion are deserts of sterility, lacking in the vocations they require to continue into the next generation their evils. It's becoming clear that those who are in obedience, and are therefore orthodox, are spiritually fruitful, and are being blessed with an abundance of vocations.
That's about as good as it gets. I think that is part of the basis of the optimistic assessment.
And if one is optimistic, one will say that disciplining the likes of Mr. Wills produces little real benefit in the short-term, and will be entirely unnoticed in the long-term, as Mr. Wills and friends sink into utter obscurity.
sitetest
He isn’t the only heretic around.
The Church would have to officially declare him as such if he were in a position of representing the Church, i.e., a bishop, a priest, or a lay teacher of theology in a Catholic institution. And even then it would be gradual, preceded by a censure.
He is clearly a heretic, but let the wheat and the tares grow up together until harvest time.
I respectfully disagree with your opinion on Garry’s ignorance. I am pretty sure he knows better, but I think he wickedly uses the ignorance of the general public as well as his scholarly position to make his spin.
Someone who declares to be a member of this Church -- A church that claims to instill family values yet calls the family an obstacle to union with one's fellows is talking nonsense, and pernicious nonsense -- is either a moron, a hypocrite, or a pernicious individual. Garry might be a mixture of them all.
It is sad that people like this individual are actually teaching kids.
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I really dislike liberals. |
He better have his fingers crossed about the successor, though, because JPII put in most of the cardinals. Odds are the next pope will be as opposed to changing to women priests as this one is.
Liberals??? How about plain morons? - I think Garry deserves this tender argumentum ad hominem.
If only someone were willing to bet on it… (sigh).
The doctrine of the Church doesn’t change with new people “in power.” As a former seminarian he must know this much. I think his intention is to generate confusion among the little ones.
Agreed. ‘Equality’ and ‘Identity’ are two words which often get confused. Men and women are equal, but not identical. Viva la Diferencia! See “EUCHARIST AND GENDER” by Mary Rousseau posted by NYer several days ago at my request. (I’m new here and can barely post replies correctly, much less articles). Prof. Rousseau deals very effectively with your point concerning ontological identity. I remember hearing one time a practicing Catholic adult woman (poorly catechisized as is the norm these past 30 or so years) when caught in a discussion on whether or not women should/could become priests, meekly state "I can't see it - it wouldn't look right". She felt embarrassed by this "weak" answer. But, keeping in mind that she held no political or sociological agendas concerning this topic, I felt it was a very natural and correct answer, laying a foundation for supernatural answers I might add. She wasn't consciously aware that her deeper ingrained knowledge of the subject pointed to ontological distinctions between men and women, though she could never word it that way. Give credit to God, the Divne Artisan, who chooses to create, redeem, and sanctify ontological reality, aka Creation, as per His dictums - and not the "polls" that you earlier mentioned.
Or as Mammy said in Gone With the Wind, "It ain't fittin, it just ain't fittin." Same as the Holy Spirit as feminine, which is something the liberals tried to foist on us. So if the Holy Spirit is feminine and Mary conceived of the Holy Spirit then.....it ain't fittin, it just ain't fittin. There is something not right about it and you do't have to be a theologian to sense it. Plus I think of a woman priest who is pregnat saying Mass. Hmmm that seems like some really garbled symbolism.
Are you familiar with Gorecki's new setting of "Totus Tuus" in honor of Pope John Paul II? It is magnificent.
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