Have faith: Why women will be priests

Chicagotribune.com ^ | July 14, 2002 | Prof. Garry Wills

[heyheyhey]

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.

[Antoninus]

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.

When an article starts with such an obvious, blatant fallacy like this, I say to myself, "why bother to continue reading?"

[Antoninus]

It's funny. I have no doubt that women will be priestesses ... just not in the Catholic Church...

[Evangelium Vitae]

Will he be declared a heretic?

No, though he is.

Will the Church exercise any discipline in this matter?

No.

Should She?

Yes

[BlackElk]

Well, isn't that Garry Wills just touchy-feely. He was even once a Catholic and a conservative until he married his feminist wife. Now, he is just sooooo special that he can even tell when Pope Pius XI intended to issue an encyclical that the Wills of recent decades would have found just peachy-keen but was apparently suppressed (at least in Wills' vivid imagination) by Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) who is not one of Wills' favorites.

Garry has come full circle from the 1960s when he defended National Review's and Bill Buckley's attack on the encyclical Mater et Magistra as a socialist document in Catholic garb (thereby rejecting Rerum Novarum and its progeny which are basic to Catholic social teaching) to now attacking the Vatican for not being foolishly liberal on Church matters as is Wills.

There is one consistency that must be noted. Garry Wills, in his long and sorry career of posing as a Catholic, has never been consistent with the teachings of the Church and has never been a practitioner of humble humility before legitimate Church authority. Humility would certainly be warranted on his part as his persistent rebellions are not.

[BlackElk]

The Church should do exactly what the pope wishes the Church to do, not one bit more nor one bit less. Let us give thanks to God that we are not burdened with such decisions as to which souls to prune even temporarily!

[narses]

I would say, The Church should do exactly what Our Lord wishes the Church to do, not one bit more nor one bit less.

[NYer]

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.

Consider, too:

Theologically, the priesthood must remain male. Consider the words of consecration: 'This is my body'. Now, the priest speaks sacramentally 'in the person of Christ' (in persona Christi). It is Jesus who consecrates the host through the priest who is an instrument only. Thus, since it is Jesus who says, 'This is my body', the priest through whom Christ speaks must also be male otherwise the very meaning of the mass is distorted and perverted. Moreover, the bible talks about human beings made in the 'image and likeness of God' (Cf. Genesis 1:26), and Jesus is said to be the perfect image of the Father (Cf. John 14:9). If the first person of the Trinity is truly a Father, then He must possess the masculine persona as well. So if Jesus is the perfect image of the Father, it follows that He too must be male, and those He chooses to 'channel' His words of consecration must likewise be male.

american colleen I just can't avoid this topic. ;-)

[heyheyhey]

Church should do exactly what Our Lord wishes the Church to do.

According to Wills, according to Oprah, or according to the Holy Father?

You see, how the authority in the Church works?
When one wants to listen “directly” to Jesus, His Word is very explicit,
“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. ” (Mt. 16:19)
“Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me. ” (Lk. 10:16)

Isn’t that something?

Even when the massmedia convince you, as they try real hard these days, that the Church is so corrupt that you must reject her authority, the authority is still unaffected.
Ponder this,
“all they bid you to observe, that observe and do; but do not imitate their works: for they say, but do not do. ” (Mt. 23:3)

[heyheyhey]

isn't that Garry Wills just touchy-feely

Sleazy, too ;)

[american colleen]

I think I may add this book to my reading list: "Ungodly Rage: The Hidden Face of Catholic Feminism" by Donna Steichen

[american colleen]

I just noticed the "keywords" you used when you posted this topic --- LOL!

[Diva]

>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.<

This one is inacurate on many levels. No respectable woman was allowed to perform in public, whether in Church (Protestant or Catholic) or in Opera. It just wasn't done until late in the Baroque period. I know Handel used women in his opera's and Oratorios, but J.S. Bach was not allowed to use women in Church. That was the way it was all over Europe, certainly before 1750. If I remember correctly, the Catholic Church condemned the practice but it was only France whose secular government considered castrating little boys a crime.

[BlackElk]

That's why the Holy Ghost effectuates the election of our popes. None of them perfect but each dependable as to doctrine, indeed infallible. If each of us volunteers to be his own pope, how do we avoid becoming a Catholic version of the maelstrom of disagreement that the reformation has become. I don't have a direct pipeline to the Lord and I suspect that a lot fewer people have such a pipeline than think they do. Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia.

BTW, God's plan may well not be yours or mine unassisted but it has to be better than either. It may well be that some popes have been chosen by the Holy Ghost as a necessary chastisement to us in our unbelief and that their prudential blunders have been turned to God's purposes.

May God bless you and yours.

[TotusTuus]

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.

(Sigh) Would it be that it came out of my mouth first (or keyboard as the case may be). Now I'm envious and jealous...

Could someboby ping Andrew Greeley?

[TotusTuus]

Are you familiar with Gorecki's new setting of "Totus Tuus" in honor of Pope John Paul II? It is magnificent.

Is Gorecki the Polish composer? No, I'm not aware of it. Where do I go to become aware?

[Gophack]

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.

Thank God that He did not establish His church to be a democracy!

We'd have a church then that promotes and encourages contraception, abortion, divorce, yada.

"And the gates of Hell shall not prevail ..."

[TotusTuus]

St. Thomas Aquinas agreed with his teacher, Albert the Great, that "woman is a misbegotten man and has a faulty and defective nature."

RE: The quotation marks. Bordering on an outright lie, but I'll give him old fashion sloppiness. This point concerning the scholastics, particularly the angelic Doctor, is more complicated than Mr. Wills suggests. See "What Aquinas Never Said About Women" and "What Aquinas Really Said About Women"

[Snuffington]

Good catch and thanks for the links.

I also let him get away with this one: "The Catholic Church, that claims to learn from the ages through which it has perdured,"

Which is of course a lie or at least a distortion. The Catholic Church claims to learn from the unchanging will of God, not from the everchanging example of the ages or even her own experience.

[TotusTuus]

There is something not right about it and you don't have to be a theologian to sense it.

"The word of God is addressed to all people, in every age and in every part of the world; and the human being is by nature a philosopher."

ENCYCLICAL LETTER FIDES ET RATIO OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF JOHN PAUL II TO THE BISHOPS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FAITH AND REASON

I thought there was a comment in there about everybody being a theologian at heart. Maybe there is. I'll have to read it through again sometime. Close enough for government work!

[TotusTuus]

I think I may add this book to my reading list: "Ungodly Rage: The Hidden Face of Catholic Feminism" by Donna Steichen.

I remember hearing her say in an interview some time ago that her research concerning feminists in the Church was sort of an accident. She 'stumbled' into the problem while researching nuns in general. Or maybe it was specifically the wiccan influence - I can't remember now. I did note her take on whether or not the title "heretic" was appropriate for them. She said something to the effect that these women were certainly not in schism and that heresy was not accurate either. She felt 'apostasy' best described them since they essentially attacked and threw out the entire core of Christian belief. The Blessed Trinity, the Divinity of Christ, etc.