What you didn't see last week: Women
Wednesday April 23, 2008
They are the majority of worshipers every Sunday (and through the week), and they make up some 80 percent of the more than 30,000 lay ministers (and growing fast) serving in the nation's 19,000 parishes. There are more of them...
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About Benedictions: The Pope in America
The last update to the Benedictions blog was in April 2008. We welcome your comments about the Pope and Catholicism in general in our http://community.beliefnet.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=140”>Catholic forums.
David Gibson is an award-winning religion writer who specializes in writing about the Catholic Church, which he joined as a convert at the age of 30. He is the author The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World. He also wrote The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism. He has written about Catholicism for leading newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, New York magazine, Boston magazine, Fortune, Commonweal, and America. Gibson worked in Rome for Vatican Radio for several years and traveled frequently with Pope John Paul II. He later covered religion for The Star-Ledger of New Jersey. He has co-written several recent documentaries on Christianity for CNN. For further information check out his website at dgibson.com.
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Pope Benedict: A beautiful communicator: sincere, direct, frank, and to the point without sounding judgmental. During John Paul II's funeral one network reported that he had recommended his personal secretary, to the cardinals as the next pope. The cardinals did that. I thought it would be hard for anyone to follow John Paul II, but Pope Benedict is also a great communicator in his own quiet inspiring way.
NS Inner Peace Movement
Perhaps you are not aware that liturgical norms specify that lay people may only be allowed to distribute communion if there are not enough ordained ministers available, and then only if they are duly formed and commissioned as extraordinary (note: not ordinary) ministers of Holy Communion? That would explain why only ordained ministers were distributing communion at the papal Masses, because priests and deacons are ordinary ministers of Holy Communion.
This practice is all about the relationship between the Eucharist and Holy Orders, not about gender.
Are you aware that each individual bishop is permitted to choose whether or not to have female altar servers in his diocese? Using altar girls is not universal in the Church.
I enjoyed the papal visit immensely. The differences between the papal liturgy and what I might have in my home parish help me realize the diversity of practice in the Church. This is the Catholic (universal) Church, after all!
It is a cause for concern that more Catholics are not informed about their faith that they misunderstand church teaching and practice in this area, and many others as is evident in the rest of this post.
What most bothers me about this post is that the author (and those he cites) seems to be a victim to the clericalist mindset that the important people in the Church are the clergy, not the laity. I, as a woman, do not have to be a priest, distribute communion, or be an altar server to be "important" in the Church! We laity are not second-class citizens! We have a vital vocation to transform the world in Christ.
I highly recommend JPII's apostolic letter on the dignity and vocation of women (mulieris dignitatem) for those who want to know what the Church really thinks about women - and I guarantee you that Pope Benedict agrees wholeheartedly.
I laughed when I attended the "American Mass" in Rome at the church od St. Susanna. The priests invited everyone down to the altar to hold hands. Come on, men; this is not at a seance, the stupid 60's are over, thank God, and we didn't fly across the Atlantic to enact a stereotypical self-parody.
Pauli
The Catholic Church will never have women Priests. Christ instituted a male Priesthood and the Priest acts in persona Christi he acts as Christ therefore women cannot be Priests.
Pope John Paul II said that there won't be women Priests because the institution of a male Priesthood, and if he said that one of our great Popes but definitely a more liberal one there will not be women Priests, and I will continue to pray that there never will be.
Women do play an important part in the church and they should continue to do so, but they should never be allowed to be Priests.
So far as I could tell, at the papal liturgies women were not 'nearly invisible', and certainly not inaudible. Almost all the lectors were women (some commentators even wondered out loud if men were deliberately excluded!) and a number of cantors and readers of intercessions were women as well.
The roles of lector and cantor are at least as significant for the liturgy as those of server or extraordinary minister of Holy Communion. And Pope Benedict would not have been surprised, either, since women fill those same roles at some liturgies in Rome.
I believe that what is said in the BIBLE should be payed close attention to. Not everything will be perfect in society's virtual mind. But, thats just life. If God appointed men to be in priests position, women should not interfere. Thats not right by God. And arent you in any sort of church to serve him anyways? I think that question needs to be aknowledged by the anyone who thinks differently. Nevertheless life on Earth is not going to change, everyone is still going to sin, and do what is not expected of them in the Bible. Some things in life arent ment for some people but they push it anyways knowing that it is actually wrong...
Just a few observations:
The essential question is, what does the liturgy (the word means "work of the people") symbolize? If the liturgy symbolizes a male-controlled, male-dominated, currently dysfunctional church, then there was nothing wrong with the papal liturgies. However, the liturgical law provides that ordinary ministers of the eucharist (clerics) are only to be used where they are participants in the liturgy (not floating in from the dugout)--that is, of those participating in the mass, ordinary ministers of the eucharist are first, then extraordinary ministers of the eucharist who are participating the the mass. Further, the liturgical norm in the United States is that (as in accord with canon law) any lay person may serve as acolyte (altar server). While diocesan iscops are free to ignore the recommendations of their bishops' conferences, in the US only the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska does not have female altar servers (or female extraordinary ministers of the eucharist).
Obviously, everyone wants to encourage the fine priests and seminarians who have dedicated their lives to the church by giving them symbolic roles in the liturgy, but the 30,000 dedicated lay men and women, and the 16,000 deacons in the US, could have been better represented, and in fact would have been better represented, if the church hierarchy was more in touch with reality and less involved with itself.
Why worry about Catholic women in the RCC, when they are accepted in churches who are bible based.
It is the Catholic Church--not the Roman Catholic Church--and among its 21 Eastern Churches the Catholic Church has a great deal of tradition regarding ordained women deacons.