Sep 30, 2005 19:31
One of the things that I like about my job is that I can drink beer while I do much of it.
In other thoughts, why is it invariably the worst single release from an album that ends up getting airplay after the popularity of the album has passed?
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This is a response that I posted to sum up my questions:
I'm not saying that it [Jesus picked men over women to spread the gospel for practicality reasons] true, simply that there are other possibilities other than 'Priests can only be men because all the apostles are men. Hence Jesus would not approve of female priests because it is a "masculine role'". (It also seems to be completely ignoring the fact that Jesus DID have female followers who preached and followed him. They simply were not labeled "apostles").
If one goes on the axiom that the Scripture is written by men and therefore could include mistakes, not on morality but simply on hierarchy, then the idea that the Gospels play down the roles of Jesus's female followers isn't that big of a stretch.
There is no way to argue with "Priests can only be men because the Church interprets such things thusly and it is internally consistent."
Sure, it is internally consistent. Fair arguments. But if there is no man or woman in the eyes of God --whatever Paul meant by that, I am not educated enough to guess-- then it would make sense that these many women who have such a strong calling to the priesthood wouldn't be barred simply because they are women. I just don't see why the essence of a woman would make her unfit for such a role.
And is it based on "the average woman" or is it saying that all women --ie gender essentialism at its best-- are exactly the same essence?
Or better yet, what is it of a man --the organism with the penis and the XY chromosome-- that makes them ALL, in essence and substance, more worthy of the role? I haven't gotten a definitive answer to this.
Of course, the response I got was "you have to have faith the church cannot err, and since you don't I'm not wasting my time explaining it to you."
There HAS to be a long, complex, solid theological reasoning behind this beyond the sexist idea that "men are better, oh wait wait. No they are different, and therefore men are the only gender capable of providing the sacraments, and using the fact that the Gospels only labeled the male followers of Jesus as the apostles and not the females.
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The first is the very nature of gender. Our society hinges the equality of the sexes essentially on sameness. To it, equality means that a woman can do anything that a man can do and visa versa. However, Catholicism holds a much different view. Men and women are equal in dignity, not in roles, not in characteristics, not in abilities, but in dignity. And part of what gives men and women their dignity is their uniqueness. This is something profoundly missing in our society, in which men and women are not alike in dignity, in fact, the reliance on an equality that is "do or have anything that a man/woman can" denies dignity.
Related to this is Catholicism's view of sexuality. Our culture's notions of sexuality are very, very narrow, looking little beyond genital sex. But in the view of Catholicism, every time we interact as our gender, that is sexual, regardless of whether it is genital or erotic. So, the way that we interact with the world cannot be divorced from our gender. Now, the quote of Paul that you cite is one often taken out of context. Paul says this in his larger treatise on partiality, God shows no partiality. What he is saying is that none of these things affords someone preferential treatment from God - a notion held by both Gentiles and Jews within their own cultural contexts - not that they do not differentiate us before God.
The next premise is that the priesthood is not a right. No one is entitled to it, no one is worthy of it. Unfortunately, Catholic culture has contributed to the confusion here. A priest is no better than anyone else. That women cannot be priests says nothing about the worth of women, because to be a priest says nothing about worth, but only vocation. Tying to the former, we see that a calling to the priesthood is not a mark of favor or partiality by God.
The next is power. The priesthood has authority, but of a specific kind. The leadership of the Church is in the hands of all the Church. When the laity leaves the leadership to the clergy alone, they are shirking Jesus' call that they be a priestly people. So, that women cannot be priests says nothing about the power of women. In fact, truly speaking, the most powerful members of the Church are mothers, a role that men cannot fill. Even Jesus obeyed his mother, and Mary is the model of feminine authority in the Church. If we are to speculate *why* Jesus instituted a male-only priesthood, it is my belief that this is why, to help maintain the balance of dignity of the genders.
Then, there is the nature of being called. Feeling called means nothing. What matters is whether God is calling us. Many who have felt called to the priesthood were not in fact called and many who God has called have not felt called. So, the fact that there are many women in the world who feel called means nothing. It is a frequent phenomenon seen by vocations directors that people mistake God's call to holiness with a call to the priesthood or religious life. Again, we have to remember that priests, monks and nuns are not more holy than anyone else just because they are priests, monks or nuns.
The last is the authority of the Church. The Church's power is not unilateral. There are some things the Church can do and some which she cannot. The Sacraments are gifts from God, physicalities to which God has wedded supernatural Grace. Since they are a thing of God, the Church has no authority to alter their nature. So, if the material aspect of the priesthood - a Sacrament - is essentially a male, the Church has no authority to change that, no matter how much she may want to.
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Building on this is a highly related reason. Catholicism believes that the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit. And here we have another premise of Catholicsim. The theological authority of the Church is not built on the prowess of her theologians and bishops, but on the guidance of the Holy Spirit promised by Jesus. And every time this question has come up in the Church, and it came up very early, the bishops of the Church have, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, discerned that women could not be ordained to the priesthood. So, in addition to the authority of scripture, we have this authority as well, and this authority - an authority born by the body of bishops as a whole, not by individual bishops who may dissent - has spoken clearly and consistantly on the issue.
The gender argument is actually the weakest, but potentially the most profound. When the priest acts in the Holy Sacrifice of the mass, he acts in persona Cristi, in the person of Christ. When Jesus acted, he was both God and man. When he acted, he acted not just as a human, but specifically as a man. In order for one to fill that role, one must act, one must interact with the world, as a man, something that would require a woman to renounce her feminity and therefore denigrate herself, relinquish her dignity.
As an argument for a male-only priesthood, I don't think this is very strong, and certainly wouldn't stand on its own, but as an argument about the dignity of gender, it is profound. It says that in all things, we must interact with each other and with the world as what God created us. God created humanity, not just human, but man and woman. Our gender is part of what God created to be. To try to be the other gender, or act as the other gender, is to deny what God created us to be, to reject both the gift and dignity of our gender and the will of God.
Hope that helps.
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The problem that I have, and granted most people do not fall within this catergory, are the people who simply do not fit the gender norm. There are plenty of masculine women and feminine men, or those who are intersexed (who look like and have the hormonal levels of one gender, but the chromosomes of another), or hermaphrodites, eunichs, transsexuals, etc. The best one to address is intersexed simply because it is a proven fact that they exist, and many of them simply don't know and never know which gender they really are. Plenty "feel different" because of their chromosomes, but have characteristics of their outer gender as well. What of an intersexed woman who has XY chromosomes and doesn't feel like a "regular" woman, but a kind of mix?
I will have to think on all that you have said, and will probably have some questions down the road. I am still having a hard time grasping how a woman being a priest would denagrade her dignity since the argument seems a tad circular: it is "decided" that priests can only be men, and therefore it would denagrade women to be in a male-only rule.
Where did you get your theology degree?
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I am still having a hard time grasping how a woman being a priest would denagrade her dignity since the argument seems a tad circular:
The idea of it being denigrating to a woman's dignity is predicated on a male-only priesthood, not a justification for a male-only preisthood. The profound thing that it brings up is that equality is not derived from sameness .. in fact, that striving for equality through sameness requires the denigration of human dignity, a dignity derived in part from distinctness. Our culture hinges equality on sameness, but this issue is a profound example of how Cathocism rejects this notion and hinges equality on dignity, and dignity on embracing God-given diversity and distinctness .. even when that precludes being or doing what others (both inter- and intra-gender) may be able to be or do.
Where did you get your theology degree?
School of Hard Knocks: Department of Persecution of Religious Minorities. ;)
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Is there anything comparable to the gift of being able to consecrate of the eucharist that women can do within the church?
How do you feel about female deacons?
"Our culture hinges equality on sameness, but this issue is a profound example of how Cathocism rejects this notion and hinges equality on dignity, and dignity on embracing God-given diversity and distinctness"
I've never heard it explained this way, and it does indeed sound beautiful. But it just seems strange that the Church's attempts at noting diversity hinders a lot of people because they don't fit their ideas of HOW diverse people should be.
I know plenty of men with feminine spirits and women with masculine ones. And then there are some people who simply feel as though they are both. All of these people are marginalized from the Church as people who have "a cross to bear" by way of being marginalized instead of embraced. This is my big beef with their gender essentialism.
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Is there anything comparable to the gift of being able to consecrate of the eucharist that women can do within the church?
How do you feel about female deacons?
"Our culture hinges equality on sameness, but this issue is a profound example of how Cathocism rejects this notion and hinges equality on dignity, and dignity on embracing God-given diversity and distinctness"
I've never heard it explained this way, and it does indeed sound beautiful. But it just seems strange that the Church's attempts at noting diversity hinders a lot of people because they don't fit their ideas of HOW diverse people should be.
I know plenty of men with feminine spirits and women with masculine ones. And then there are some people who simply feel as though they are both. All of these people are marginalized from the Church as people who have "a cross to bear" by way of being marginalized instead of embraced. This is my big beef with their gender essentialism.
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Give birth. And far more women are able to do that than men enter the priesthood.
How do you feel about female deacons?
If done in the right way and for the right reasons, I am in favor of reinstating the practice. But if if is used just as a ploy to advance the cause of the ordination of women, that is not the right reason.
But it just seems strange that the Church's attempts at noting diversity hinders a lot of people because they don't fit their ideas of HOW diverse people should be.
There's a difference between personal diversity and ideological pluralism. The Church rejects *ideas* that are contrary to the Catholic faith, but not the diversity of people.
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