In the event that the media refers to a Presbyterian or Lutheran being ordained, they are reporting that said action will be legitimately recognized by those for whom it is done.
In the case of Catholics, to say that a woman will be “ordained” a priest, does not imply that she will be serving her intended body of believers (that is to say, Roman Catholics), thus becoming a pretender (as in “pretender to the throne,” that sort of thing).
Therefore the use of “scare quotes.”
How scary is that?

Don’t forget the new Priestess Cruise Lines.
http://www.splendoroftruth.com/curtjester/archives/005957.php

By the way, when someone is legitimately ordained, the identity of the consecrating bishop is a matter of public record, except perhaps in parts of the world where the Church (as opposed to the individual) is persecuted. When a woman is “ordained,” any Catholic would have the right to an answer, when the question is raised as to who laid hands on her. This is especially true in the case of bishops. That these people keep the bishops’ identities a secret is, by itself, sufficient reason to question legitimate apostolic succession — even if those claiming to receive Orders were men.

When I first saw your post I read it (hastily, obviously) as “I’m doing this on the side” – which meaning escaped me. Then I read it correctly, St. Lawrence and all that. Anyway, has there ever been any, as it were, legitimate scuttle-but (make that speculation) as to WHO the two European bishops were in 2002? I should think they would have been booted out, too, if anybody really knew.

Why do we hear crickets from the national episcopal conferences in North America?
Because, IMHO, many bishops and senior clergy and religious superiors actually, and quietly, support this sort of thing. (Right up there with quietly supporting ordination of gay men, viewing celibacy as an optional gift of the Holy Spirit, etc.)
Often the best way to push an agenda outside “offical policy” is to do it very quietly.

“Why do we hear crickets from the national episcopal conferences in North America?”
Perhaps because the ordinands are a bunch of inconsequential publicity-seeking kooks?
Still, the episcopal conferences need to correct the media distortions.

Amy – you’re right! The NCCB should have been in the media’s face explaining to them why the Church teaches what she does. This silence is just another form of consent, and it needs to be addressed by our bishops.

Why do we hear crickets from the national episcopal conferences in North America?
Because, IMHO, many bishops and senior clergy and religious superiors actually, and quietly, support this sort of thing.
Perhaps, Zhou. I recall Bishop Clark glibly saying he ‘wishes’ he could ordain women last year. But a better explanation for the silence is that the conferences recognize this as lunacy performed by schismatics.
They might offer corrective statements to the media as Amy suggests, but you can’t stop and kick every barking dog.

I suppose it’s hardly even worth commenting on the fact that at least one of the “ordinands” lives with her female “partner.”
I agree that the bishops conference should be all over the media coverage of this. And one point to clarify is that, aside from the uncanonical nature of these ceremonies, they are not valid.
None of these ladies can or will become “a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” regardless of anyone’s personal feeligngs on the matter.

It’s not a simple coincidence that one of those to be ordained a “catholic priest” is the wife of an ordained deacon. In some dioceses it is strongly encouraged that spouses attend their husbands’ seminary and formation classes. This leads to the attitude of “She’s just as qualified as I am,” which I’ve heard as a complaint from Deacons in favor of women’s ordination. I’m certain this is the desired outcome of some deacon formators.

I loved this line from the Ottawa paper:
In 1976, Pope Paul VI argued that a priest must bear a natural resemblance to Christ, who is interpreted as being male.
If that is representative of journalistic thought, I don’t think a simple statement from an episcopal conference is going to do the trick.

If the USCCB was interested in being useful…
[chuckle, snort] Prime zinger, Amy.

I would humbly suggest that if you think WOC, We Are Church, BASIC, similar organizations around the world, and the women in Ottawa “are a bunch of inconsequential publicity-seeking kooks” or “lunacy performed by schismatics,” that you might be missing something going on in the Catholic Church today and for the past 25 years, especially in academic circles.
Of course, part of the reason you might be missing it is because the offical policy is not to talk about it, case closed, as Pope John Paul II said in 1994:

Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.

So nobody can be “faithful” and talk about this as something to move toward.
So it is going on quietly. You hear the media talk about, but nobody from the clergy or hierarchy who supports it would dare say a supporting word in public. And many of them would hate to say anything discouraging. So they say nothing.

As a reporter, let me offer a different take. Sure, the USCCB could come out with a statement, but that would, in the media’s eyes, elevate this lunacy to “something the church is taking serously” and would probably be an intervention the church would regret. Despite massive religious ignorance, *everyone* knows that these women are not priests, so there is *no* need to dignify their actions by responding as if there were a legitimate debate that the church needed to get involved in.
An old friend once shared this saying, which may be applicable here:
“Never argue with a pig. You get dirty and the pig *likes* it.”

“If the USCCB was interested in being useful…”
A prime zinger, indeed, yet subtly charitable.
I am assuming you intentionally avoided the use of the subjunctive “were” because you haven’t presumed the statement to be contrary to fact.
;>

I’m sorry, it is “Never fight with a pig …”

Women can serve God and be used by Him, whether they are priests or not. The Bible is full of examples of ordinary women being used by God: Ruth, Naomi, Mary, Sarah, etc.
I alsowanted to share an awesome Catholic resource that I read about today in Catholic Digest. It is called Catholic Connect.
http://www.CatholicConnect.com
This is such an amazing place that I became a member right away! You get to meet Catholics from all over the world and interact with them. You can date if you are single, make friends or business contacts. One of the best things about the site are the ads you can place there to–if you are looking for housing or are trying to sell something (like that old Christmas gift you never opened!) This is a great place to do that. There are a lot of people joining everyday since Catholic Digest gave it a good rating, so it is really worth your time to check it out! Thanks!

See, Wry, that’s not exactly what I mean. I mean trusted, friendly smart people who will get on the phone to the AP, etc, offer corrections, and clarifications and so on. I think there should be someone with that job in every diocese, actually – media liason/watchdog whose job is, as I said, simply to correct and educate the media, to the extent they’re open to it.

“I would humbly suggest that if you think WOC, We Are Church, BASIC, similar organizations around the world, and the women in Ottawa “are a bunch of inconsequential publicity-seeking kooks” or “lunacy performed by schismatics,” that you might be missing something going on in the Catholic Church today and for the past 25 years, especially in academic circles.”
The WOC, We Are Church organizations are now pretty inconsequential, though I well-recognize that if you took a poll, most religious sisters in N. America want priestesses.
Even so, the ceremonies are a sad, sad joke. I stand by my statement that the participants are kooks and no one should pay them any mind.
And, what is up with the clerical “defenders of the magisterium” in Ottawa who are disobeying their bishop? Whatever one thinks of the Archbishop’s order of silence, I don’t see how their actions foster communion in any sense.

Slight change of topic: Did anyone notice the bit in the article on the Minnesota woman that went as follows:

There are some historical pictures and artwork that show women performing ceremonies and wearing clothing only bishops or deacons would. In a Roman mosaic, believed to date back to 313 A.D., over the head of a woman on the left reads the word “Episcopa.” That means bishop who is a woman.

As a complete ignoramus on most matters relating to art history, I was wondering if anyone more educated than I knew which mosaic this is referring to (watch the video clip online to see it), and perhaps a little bit of history about the piece? Somehow I suspect that there’s more to the story than what we were led to believe.

As someone pointed out on another blog, regardless of whether a valid Bishop did the ordination, the matter, so to speak, is not appropriate. It would be the same thing as a valid priest trying to effect transubstantiation using pickle juice and a candy bar (not that I am comparing women to pickle juice or candy bars, mind you).

Patrick:
If they were getting no media coverage on their own, I’d agree. But they’re getting coverage and they will get more. So – responses and corrections are in order.

Dear Daniel W,
The mosaic is in the Zeno Chapel of Santa Prassede in Rome.
Dr. Karen J. Torjesen, author of “When Women Were Priests,” interprets the mosaic this way:

“Under a high arch in a Roman Basilica dedicated to two women saints, Prudentiana and Praxedis, is a mosaic portraying four female figures…. The faces of Mary and the two saints are easily recognizable. But the identity of the fourth is less apparent. A carefully lettered inscription identifies the face on the far left as Theodora Episcopa, which means Bishop Theodora. The masculine form for bishop in Latin is episcopus; the feminine form is episcopa. The mosaic’s visual evidence and the inscription’s grammatical evidence point out unmistakable that Bishop Theodora was a woman. But the a on Theodora has been partly effaced by scratches across the glass tiles of the mosaic, leading to the disturbing conclusion that attempts were made to deface the feminine ending, perhaps even in antiquity.”

Of course, the official interpretation is that this just means that Theodora was wife of a bishop.

The remarks of the St Paul deacon about ‘history shows there were [ordained] women..’ were identical to remarks made to me about 25 years ago by an ex-Milwaukee Seminarian.
Somewhere, out there, is a decidedly flawed “Church History” textbook–and some decidedly flawed Seminary profs.
Rather than the USCC, by the way, where is the Archbishop of St. Paul??

I attended the ordination of a female priest
(Mr. Tighe would say “priestess”) at my husband’s Episcopal church. After the ordination the bishop introduced “the newest priest of the Holy Catholic Church.” Well, they say the Nicene creed, say they believe in the one holy catholic and apostolic church..so they have to believe they are a part of it and if they are and if they have ordained a priest, then QED she is a priest of the Holy Catholic Church. But it took my breath away.
Personally, I wish it were true. I submit to this Catholic doctrine. I don’t understand it in my bones, in my guts, although there are moments when I think I have an inkling of it. It is just that I am not willing not to be a Catholic over it and so take the stance of waiting for further enlightenment to really “grok” (comprehend deeply) the truth of it.
But at least this woman who was ordained by the Episcopalians is going to serve a congregation, minister to people who believe she is a priest, whatever they understand a priest is (which differs among Episcopalians from what a Presbyterian thinks a minister is to the full idea of a sacrificial priesthood.) If these Catholic women want to serve, want to minister to a congregation, the honest thing to do would be to become Episcopalians. They feel they have a right to be Catholics, to keep their Catholic identity, and yet to differ with the church so fundamentally…not quietly, not because they don’t really understand why this doctrine should be, but actively, publically, as a media event, seems arrogant, seems to misunderstand the Church as just like a secular institution all of whose policies are malleable to political and public relations pressures.
And this is an ordination for the purpose of public relations, not an ordination to service, as there is no one for them to serve. If they can do this they can’t believe in Catholicism in such a way that their consciences would prevent them from becoming Episcopalians, can they? So why not do that? I don’t say this nastily, because I want to be rid of them or throw them away. I really respect some female Anglican priests who genuinely believe they are priests in a church which accepts them as such,and who rightly and duly administer the sacraments of their church, preach, and pastor their congregations. I think that would be a better choice for a woman who truly felt called to serve as a priest.
Susan Peterson

That mosaic Zhou mentions is 9th century. If there *had* been an early female episcopate – which I don’t believe – it would have surely died out by the 9th century. As for defacing the “a” in Theodora, that wouldn’t be much use unless you defaced the “a” in “episcopa”. Why would someone damage one letter and not finish the job?
Then there’s the case of those women who were ordained priests in Czechoslovakia under Communism – has anybody heard about that? One version I’ve heard is that the church was considered to be in such danger that only a female priest would be above suspicion. Married men were secretly ordained too, and had their ordinations subsequently validated by the Vatican. Not so the women.

Actually, Theodora was the mother of a pope, Pope Paschal I, who built this chapel in her honor. And for that reason, she was given this honorific.

“Of course, the official interpretation is that this just means that Theodora was wife of a bishop.”
Or the mother of one. In this case, Theodora was the widowed mother of Pascal, Bishop of Rome (and therefore the Pope) in the ninth (???) century.

Hey, Ruth and I were thinking the same thing at the same time. That is so… cosmic, dude.

The Women’s Ordination Crowd often fogs the issue by giving the public the impression the Church HAS the power to ordain women (like it has the power to ordain married men to theoretically ANY level of office in the Church even Bishop) but witholds the Sacrament of Orders because of some “sexist” ideology.
The real issue of course is woman CAN’T be ordained, not that they can but aren’t.
It all boils down to a question of authority. Whose authority do you accept; your own or the Church?

“the official interpretation is that this just means that Theodora was wife of a bishop.”
“Or the mother of one.”
Since “presbytera” (feminine of “presbyteros” = “priest”) is the ordinary honorific for a priest’s wife in Greek Orthodox churches, it is amusing to imagine historian a millennium from now discovering, in some American archeological dig, a Sunday bulletin from 2005, and using it to argue that the 21st-century Orthodox church had female priests.

Women used to bear the feminine form of her husband’s title. Hence: in 10th C Rome Theodora Theophyact was called a “senatrix” because her husband Theophyactus was a “senator.” This reference in a primary source does not mean that women were senators in medieval Rome.
One woman claimed to have been ordained by an underground bishop in Czechoslovakia but the prelate was apparently insane so it doubly doesn’t count.
It makes one wish we still had the formal excommunication by bell, book, and candle to prevent these phony “priestesses” from so much as entering a Catholic Church.

Here’s how I’ve heard it:
“Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time, and it annoys the pig.”

Susan above put it so well: that they want to be Catholic but on their own terms. They want to decide for themselves what the Catholic Church’s doctrine should be. It’s just another expression of the kind of radical individualism and relativism that plagues us today. As one ex-priest who became Episcopalian put it: “I didn’t leave the Catholic Church; the Church left me.” If the Church had to conform itself to the crazy ideas of so many people, heaven help us!

“I didn’t leave the Catholic Church; the Church left me.”
I’ve heard this too. What a cop-out. Unfortunately former Catholics have a terrible influence on other borderline Catholics and non-Catholics.

“I didn’t leave the Catholic Church; the Church left me.”
Yes, in the first century.

“Personally, I wish it were true. I submit to this Catholic doctrine. I don’t understand it in my bones, in my guts, although there are moments when I think I have an inkling of it. It is just that I am not willing not to be a Catholic over it and so take the stance of waiting for further enlightenment to really “grok” (comprehend deeply) the truth of it.” Susan, I think, and I thank.
Ditto for me and probably ditto for most faithful Catholic women. We accept the teaching but can’t deny that it hurts. Maybe what the Church needs to do to get through this crisis, which is not going to go away, is just to acknowledge that the teaching makes women hurt instead of suggesting that there is something wrong with women because the teaching makes them hurt.

“Personally, I wish it were true. I submit to this Catholic doctrine. I don’t understand it in my bones, in my guts, although there are moments when I think I have an inkling of it. It is just that I am not willing not to be a Catholic over it and so take the stance of waiting for further enlightenment to really “grok” (comprehend deeply) the truth of it.” Susan, I think, and I thank.
Ditto for me and probably ditto for most faithful Catholic women. We accept the teaching but can’t deny that it hurts. Maybe what the Church needs to do to get through this crisis, which is not going to go away, is just to acknowledge that the teaching makes women hurt instead of suggesting that there is something wrong with women because the teaching makes them hurt.

“Personally, I wish it were true. I submit to this Catholic doctrine. I don’t understand it in my bones, in my guts, although there are moments when I think I have an inkling of it. It is just that I am not willing not to be a Catholic over it and so take the stance of waiting for further enlightenment to really “grok” (comprehend deeply) the truth of it.” Susan, I think, and I thank.
Ditto for me and probably ditto for most faithful Catholic women. We accept the teaching but can’t deny that it hurts. Maybe what the Church needs to do to get through this crisis, which is not going to go away, is just to acknowledge that the teaching makes women hurt instead of suggesting that there is something wrong with women because the teaching makes them hurt.

I’m a faithful Catholic woman, and the Church’s teaching regarding the inability to ordain women doesn’t “hurt” me one bit. In fact, I’ve never had a problem accepting this teaching at all. I have never subscribed to the notion that the only way to really be involved in the Church is to be a cleric, which is the assumption that seems to be at the root of this debate. I can respect the fact that other women may struggle with the issue more than I’ve had to, but let’s make sure we’re not implying that all, or even most, women engage in some kind of group-think on this issue. It’s simply not the case.

Let me try to express something, making my self vulnerable, and maybe you all can enlighten me. Or not. Maybe I just have to live with contradictions.
How can I say this? I just don’t care. I just don’t care if women are ordained or not.
This does not mean I disagree with the teaching of the Church. Unless I don’t understand. And here you can help me.
Let me explain. There are many sides to this:
(1) Deeply rooted in me are expressions of St. Paul like:

A woman must receive instruction silently and under complete control.
I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man. She must be quiet.
For Adam was formed first, then Eve.
Further, Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and transgressed. (1 Tim 2:11-14)

I do not own a single “Christian” or spiritual book written by a woman. Not one can be found in my extensive library. (Sorry, Amy.) This does not mean that I have never read a book written by a woman, such as Sr. Joan Chittister or Esther de Waal, but I read them and pass them on. They don’t make the “cut” for a place in my wall-to-wall library. Not a single woman author, not even Teresa of Avila or Catherine of Siena.
(2) I socialize with ordained women, Episcopalean, Lutheran, etc., and with Catholic women religious, but I have no interest in hearing them preach. Going to a concert, or a party, or doing some social work together is great. But I have no interst in listening to them from a pulpit.
(3) Now, many of the living Catholic priests that I’ve met, and many of the living bishops that I’ve met and whose writings I’ve read, also don’t really impress me as spiritual teachers, either. The better ones do a good job of presenting the Church’s teaching and tradition, rather than their own opinions and innovations. So what if a woman had their place? It would not make a lot of difference to me. She, like he, would either do a good job of presenting and teaching Scripture and Tradition, or not. If so, fine; if not, I’ll just ignore or avoid this aspect of her or his ministry. In regard to sacramental ministry, I prefer to have someone who would actually execute the Church’s liturgy and rites without a lot of innovation; the liturgy matters to me much more than the gender of the minister. I am there for God, not the minister.
(4) In my Protestant, evangelical Chinese church, there were no female ministers. Zero. There were no female authors of spiritual books. Women were allowed to teach children, and to confirm the teachings of the male ministers, but, in general, they had no voice in “apostolic” ministry. And that was O.K. My wife is still rather put off by the “pushy” Catholic women always striving for positions in the Catholic church. Maybe it is a Chinese cultural thing. I don’t know. Confucian three-fold submission of women and that sort of thing (submission to father, to husband, to son). But the women did a great job cooking, taking care of the kids, etc., and they were happy leaving “ministry” to the men.
Does this make any sense?
So I really don’t care about this pursuit of ordination by women. I think that it is fundamentally contrary to Scripture and Tradition, but, if they succeed in the Catholic Church, as they have in other Churches, so what? I wish them well, just as I wish well Catholic preists and bishops who are all over the theological map, teaching all sorts of strange things, and I’ll pray for them.

I’m with you, Lori. Men and women can be equal without being the same, if that makes sense.

“I do not own a single “Christian” or spiritual book written by a woman. Not one can be found in my extensive library. ”
“But the women did a great job cooking, taking care of the kids, etc., and they were happy leaving “ministry” to the men.”
The teaching of the Church that women’s ordination is impossible should be enough, should it not? Certainly that teaching doesn’t need the support of uncomfortably patronizing gender stereotypes.

I love the “cloak-and-dagger” of this whole thing — it’s hilarious.
I seem to recall the former first lady of Ohio, Dagmar Celeste, was thusly “ordained” — in her case, in the middle of the Danube (at night, surely, to keep the albino-monk hitmen of Opus Dei off their trail).
Has anything been seen since of “Father”/”Mother” “Parental Unit” Dagmar?

+J.M.J+
>>>”I didn’t leave the Catholic Church; the Church left me.”
Yeah, sounds familiar. During my Evangelical daze I used to say something similar: “I didn’t reject the Catholic Church; the Catholic Church rejected me.” What a load of bull that was! It still boiled down to the fact that I wasn’t willing to accept Church teaching on certain subjects, so it was still I who rejected the Church!
For the women here who feel hurt because the Church can’t ordain women, I’ve been there. After I returned to the Church from Evangelicalism I embraced “Christian” feminism and was very pro-”women priests.” I felt quite hurt for many years over the fact that the Church wouldn’t ordain women. I even heard well-meaning Catholics make statements which stung, like the priest who said that if a bishop got drunk and laid his hands on a dog, the dog would still not receive Holy Orders, and it’s the same with women. Gee, thanks. Talk about the wrong way to explain something!
(I should point out here that the same thing can be said of an unbaptized man; he also can’t be ordained any more than a dog can. But that doesn’t mean he’s no better than a dog. Just because women and unbaptized men and dogs all fall into the same category of “Can’t Receive Holy Orders” doesn’t make them all equivalent! Of course, in my excessive emotionalism I pretty much thought the priest saw me as on the same level as a dog, but that’s not what he meant.)
Even as I began to shed some of my feminist views I still clung to the hope that women might someday be ordained. Until Ordinatio Sacerdotalis came out, that is. When I read the Holy Father’s declaration that the Church had no authority to ordain women, I knew that this was official and definitive. I then said one of the most painful prayers of my life. I told God that I would submit to this teaching right now by faith, but asked Him to please show me why women couldn’t become priests, since I believed that the Church’s teachings are reasonable.
A few weeks later, He did give me an answer that satisfied me. The priest represents Christ the Bridegroom to the Church, His Bride. As John Paul the Great put it in Mulieris Dignitatem, the Eucharist, “expresses the redemptive act of Christ the Bridegroom towards the Church, the Bride.” The priest is sometimes even said to be “married to the Church.” Since the Church is our Mother, only a man can be “married” to her, that is, can represent Christ the Bridegroom in the administration of the sacraments. A woman can’t be a priest because a woman can’t be “married” to Mother Church, can’t represent Christ the New Adam.
This article that I wrote many years ago expresses this:
http://home.nyc.rr.com/mysticalrose/ordain.html
There is more that I could add to that article now, and I’m sure some people would reject the argument with the growing acceptance of so-called “gay marriage.” But there it is. I hope it will help others who are struggling with this. I currently have no problem with the fact that women can’t be priests, thank God. I pray that God helps those here who struggle with this teaching.
In Jesu et Maria,

Note that none of these “priestesses to be” want to be ordained in the Episcopalian Church or any of the other 1001 Protestant denominations that ordain women. Why? Because no one would pay a moments notice to them without the Catholic tag. This is all about publicity and 15 minutes of fame and nothing about the Faith that produced a galaxy of female saints and who honor a woman as “humanity’s sole boast”.

Ditto for me and probably ditto for most faithful Catholic women. We accept the teaching but can’t deny that it hurts.
Underlying this hurt seems to be an assumption that, by denying ordination to women, the Church is implicitly suggesting that men are in some way superior to women.
And implicit in that assumption is a further assumption that lay people aren’t really equal to priests in the eyes of God, or at least in the eyes of the Church.
That further assumption, that the laity are really a lower caste (false, but still shared widely among clergy and laity), is the root cause of nine tenths of the problems the Church experiences today. Someone who holds it will hear the term “the Church” and think immediately of a hierarchical institution to which he or she may belong but which is very much separate from and outside of his or her self. He is not an integral part of the Church; rather, the Church is an external force that sets rules.
Deep down inside, such a person begins to think exactly what our first parents thought after Satan whispered to them in the Garden: The whole thing is really about POWER.
It’s not misogyny to oppose women’s ordination, nor is it a denial of women’s profound spiritual gifts (Hey, Zhou — you might think of including one of the many excellent books by our blog hostess in your extensive library). It is a rejection of the underlying clericalism that motivates those who pine for women’s ordination, a clericalism that views the Church as essentially an “institution” and obsesses about “power structures”, a clericalism that completely lacks any supernatural outlook whatsoever.
The women’s ordination crowd is just one manifestation of that clericalism among far too many (including quite a few “conservative” forms). But in all its forms, it is satanic, and we need to root it out of Catholic life.

Boy, I hope Bellarmino isn’t part of the “embrace diversity” crowd.

I do wonder how Zhou has managed to get along with St. Therese of Avila in his library though.

I’m going to volunteer to drive the boat. And before we disembark I’ll offer the ladies a pre-ordination gift, cinder-block ankle bracelets.
Hang on, ladies!!! Rough waters ahead!!!

So do these women go through 6 years of seminary too?

Call me an ape still swinging from the tree, but I feel little pity for women who see gender stereotypes as patronizing–what a dim view of the purpose of life, what an arrogant contempt for previous generations and for biological reality. It’s of a piece with the currently fashionable outlook of revisionist contempt for America’s forefathers for being slaveholders, landowning elites, or worst of all, white men. As if only now in the last 30 years of supreme perfection has man developed into a moral human being. What an incredibly self-centered generation, what arrogant contempt for those who came before.

These womyn can have themselves ordained til they’re blue in the face, but that’ll never make them priests.
It is the pathetic equivalent of a grown woman stuck playing house because she has no real family.

+J.M.J+
Y’know, the timing of this whole discussion is interesting. Three weeks ago a letter appeared in our local diocesan newspaper, calling for married and women priests. I wrote a response that was just printed in the last issue, so I’ve had this matter on my mind recently.
The pro-priestesses letter argued that the Church “devalues” the gifts of women by refusing to ordain them. The writers (a husband and wife) recently attended a Mass honoring a Sister-jubilarian, and they bemoaned the fact (in their minds) that the Church did not “value” this woman enough to ordain her.
So yeah, I totally agree with Simon that there’s a hyperclericalism at work. The letter writers, both lay people, were (perhaps unwittingly) denigrating the lay state. It seems that, in their minds, the laity aren’t “valuable,” only the clergy are. The only way the Church can recognize and “value” a Christian’s gifts is by ordaining that Christian to the priesthood; otherwise the Christian is “devalued.” What rot!
As part of my response, I stated that the Sister-jubilarian is valuable as a nun, and does not need to become something she is not in order to be worthwhile. The priesthood is a man’s job, and the notion that women have to become poor imitations of a man in order to be worthwhile disgusts me.
It’s like these feminists are singing harmony on that sexist song from My Fair Lady that asks “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?”
In Jesu et Maria,

If we’re going to be all hurt that because we’re women we can’t be priests, I think we’re going to have to let all the men lament that because they’re men, they can’t get pregnant and breastfeed. How can we be so insensitive as to have all those Madonna and Child pictures everywhere?
And clearly, men are dying to share the earthy experience of having a period. They only pretend to be grossed out; they’re really just intensely envious.
Back to being serious…why is it that what women do is apparently meaningless, but what men do is what women are supposed to be panting after? Honestly, it seems a bit silly — and not at all feminist. Aren’t men allowed to have anything of their own?

I’m still upset that the Church won’t allow me to become the first married male nun.

“…why is it that what women do is apparently meaningless, but what men do is what women are supposed to be panting after?”
I believe it’s because of an inverted way of looking at the right order of things, which is surely part of the seeds planted by feminism. The world, especially contemporary culture, doesn’t value the dignity of women at all. That doesn’t make it true, but that’s where, I bet, the “hurt” comes from, which, by the way, I have never had. The priesthood is just not part of women’s nature and we – fallen humans – simply aren’t clear-minded enough to see it. We’d rather believe the hype. In this contraceptive society, being a mother is barely given lip-service. But when the creation of an eternal soul is only and every time allowed to happen inside a woman – in her womb – what’s wrong with us that we forget the incredible role we play in God’s divine plan? What we really need is Madison ave. creating a few commericals…
If the most perfect human who ever lived was Mary, then that speaks volumes. We need to unpack that more fully and truly integrate that into what it means.
Besides, one thing everyone keeps forgetting: who, in their right mind, would ever go to a woman for confession?!? No way would they ever be able to keep it all to themselves…and you know it’s true. And I’m a chick.

Re: Zhou
Personal preferences are always something mysterious and difficult to understand. It’d be a mistake for anyone, including you, to place too much importance on the gender of the religious writers you like best or which you find most useful. Sometimes it happens that all your favorite authors in any genre share a gender; sometimes it doesn’t. Frankly, I’d be more interested to know if all your favorite religious writers share certain themes.
But that being said, your taste in writers doesn’t surprise me, and probably doesn’t surprise anyone who knows you.

Zhou-I am disappointed in you. No Theresa of Avila? I think she deserves to be in any library of spiritual writers, sorry. And I do think you are displaying a culturally ingrained attitude.
And KH, that is nonsense about women “never being able to keep it to themselves.” Women in responsible positions in business and the military, including in intelligence, surely can keep confidentiality. As can female lawyers and physicians. That kind of thing is certainly NOT why women can’t be priests. But then, maybe you were joking.
Susan Peterson

It might be nonsense, but it’s damn funny.
“Maybe” I was joking? Well, thanks, Susan, for the vote of confidence…yeah, the smiley at the end is supposed to give it away. Besides, I already made my case as to some of the real reasons why women can’t be priests. When we are rightly ordered, when our desires are turned toward the True, we would not want to be priests. And we would always want to be mothers, either biologically or spiritually.
Remember, every day, all over the world, countless numbers of a certain prayer is prayed…and they mention the womb.

Will the Minn. Deacon’s wife who is to be ordained be refused communion when she approaches? She is openly and publicly denying a fundamental Church teaching, for which she will be immediately excommunicated. Can’t wait to see how that plays out.

Maureen,
You are right, men may not have anything that is their own. The only thing men may have entirely to themselves is gay sex, nothing else.

“I didn’t leave the Catholic Church; the Church left me.”
Yeah man, the Church went up this big hill with a cross. That was just too much of a drag for me, dude. Who wants to sarifice and be a servant. I want the powwrrrrrrr!
On the other hand, please don’t assume all gender preferences are based on the stereotype of women being inferior.
Case in point: When I was in college, I would give blood regularly during Greek Week.
When it was my turn, I asked for a male nurse to draw the blood. The woman thought I was joking, until I repeated it three times. Finally, they produced a male nurse, who made a joke about me thinking men were better then women while prepping me.
I looked him in the eye, “I don’t think men are better than women. I wanted a male nurse, so I could be honest with you when I say, ‘If you miss my vein, I’m going to get out of this chair and totally punch you in the back of the head.’ I couldn’t tell a woman that.”
When I was done giving blood, I’d then pretend to be woozy so I could be comforted by the middle-aged women nurses. We all need mommy time, after all.

Regarding my last comment yesterday:
(1) I would not be surprised if part of what I’m experiencing is cultural. After all, how many (serious) women authors are there in thousands of years of Chinese literature before 1912? Even the special story of Fa Mu-Lan, which Disney is milking for a lot of cash, is something of the historical anomaly. In pre-modern China, women writers are not even called “writers” (Zuo-jia), that term being reserved for men; they were called “woman writers” (Nu-zuo-jia), and expected to stick to a small set of genres. But somehow I doubt that Chinese culture was just “gender stupid” for thousands of years, and that there is some truth to men and women being different.
(2) I do not have a “No Women Writers” sign in my library. There have been books on my shelves written by women. But none at the moment (except for among the two dozen or so books on birds, including children’s literature with bird characters.) Teresa of Avila has come and gone, as has Joan Chittister, and Esther de Waal, and some nice woman from the Boston area who wrote about her experience learning Gregorian chant, and even other modern writers like Scott Hahn and Mark Shea. I only have so much space, and have honestly probably given away or sold 10,000 books in my lifetime, including a whole library of books on Protestant missions, and almost the every book by Thomas Merton (he is also gone…). And it was just an observation that I really don’t have any books by women at this time in the more serious parts of my library.
(3) So what books do I have? They fall into a few areas:
(a) Scripture, including texts in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian and English; the Oxford classical dictionaries for Hebrew, Greek and Latin; concordances of Hebrew, Septuagint, and Greek NT; textual and manuscript studies in Hebrew and Greek and Latin. [several shelves]
(b) Liturgy (Mass and Office), almost all in Latin, with some English, including historical texts. (The Office of Readings does include selections from certain female Doctors of the Church!.)
(c) Chant, Gregorian and Plainchant, and music history. I’m surprised that all the authors are male.
(d) Patristics, from Greek texts of Apostolic Fathers to the CUA “Medieval Continuation” series of translations from Latin. [several shelves]
(e) Monasticism, almost all from my own monastic congregation, or from Cistercian Studies. All male writers; no Merton or Chittister remaining.
(f) Theology and miscellaneous, such as the Catechism in Latin and English, the documents of Vatican II in Latin, the Philokalia, etc. All male writers.
(4) I’m not surprised that someone would say that our life is “uncomfortably patronizing gender stereotypes.” Sorry. My wife really does enjoy “keeping house,” cooking, being an artist, and a caregiver for those who are sick or travelling or in need. She is most happy to leave “making a living in the world,” and “being the man of the house” to me. Really.

And just so you know that I’m an equal opportunity library pruner, the last two books shown the door were:
M. Basil Pennington, The Monks of Mount Athos, and
Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church.
Sorry, too many good books; not enough space and time to keep everything for future re-reading and study.

KH….I was hardly arguing against motherhood.
I have my credentials in that department;mother of nine, grandmother of 7 so far.
Susan

I need a copy of the article in the Ottawa Sun, Thursday July 21,05 regarding the Carleton University Women’s Ordination Conference” Can you help me?

I’m passing the word.
Everybody should read the information at website http://www.revelatorium.com. The site is jammed packed with something for everyone no matter what their faith or level of spiritual enlightenment.
Bless,
Cliff.