Who's the "pope of America"? It's Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan:
He's also a scholar and a passionate defender of the church's traditional views on what he calls "settled questions." If you've ever wondered why exactly the Catholic church opposes gay marriage and ordination of women as priests, listen to Dolan articulate the church's beliefs. It's far from a simple matter of saying "no."...I was playing the video on that, and Meade said: "He sounds like Scalia." And I said: "That's what I thought!"
For example, here's the archbishop on gay marriage: "I have a strong desire to play shortstop for the Yankees. I don't have a right to because I don't have what it takes. And that would be what the church would say about marriage."
And here's Dolan arguing against the ordination of women as priests: "Jesus gave women positions of responsibility. The only ones at the foot of the cross except for St. John? Women. The people that discovered his resurrection? Women. The people that were with him on his journeys? Women. People say, 'This guy was kind of a pioneer in women's rights.' So, if he were going to intend them for the priesthood, he woulda done it. And he didn't."Got that?
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249 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 249 of 249Yo Rusty,
If the name of YHWH is not spoken, why would anybody bother to add vowels to allow it to be spoken?
I've tried, but can't manage, to say YHWH. Sounds like a cough. But with the vowels those Jews added in the Middle Ages, it's much easier.
My understanding of the Junia/Priscilla thing vs the other Pauline verses is the difference between public congregational worship versus smaller, private one on one conversations.
Pentescostalism is growing, but is is also the biggest purveyor of bad theology, fake miracles, and the fleecing of widows out of their money.
HaHa Shana,
You speak of Pentecostalism and "fake miracles." What, pray tell, are real miracles?
If you find any, you can apply to get $1,000,000 from James Randi and Scientific American.
HAHAHAHA. Wow, Jimbino, that was a great one. Oooohhhh, burn. Are you 15?
and the one sacrifice on the cross is all that was needed
And that is all that is offered by a sacramentally-ordained (Catholic or Orthodox) priest, in persona Christi, in the Holy Mass, one and the same as the one sacrifice on the Cross.
But you are correct above -- whether or not there can be "women priests" is entirely dependent upon one's theology of the ordained priesthood (which is different from, albeit related to, the priesthood of all the faithful, in which women do participate).
Paddy O, good post at 1:31. I attended a Nazarene church in late grade school through high school. Great memories :)
The Anglican Communion has a problem. The English missionaries did their job all too well. Now the Africans are suggesting that what they were taught by the English is true. The Anglican Community, is now presented with the unhappy task of informing our brown brothers that things have changed. Immutable things have changed. They have become nuanced, dont you see.
I need a "like" button for Michael's post.
Shana,
You need a "don't comprehend" button for the other posts.
Keep working on that sense of humor there Jimbino. You almost sound human.
Shana,
The point is that we "teenage" commenters out here don't care what it is that you do or don't need. We're interested in information, observation, reasoned debate--not your motherly advice or ruminations.
Reasoned debate is exactly what you are not interested in. You wouldn't know your beloved Goddess of Reason if she bit you on the ass.
I fail to see how or why anyone is supposed to take jimbino seriously after his pathetic behavior at that National Park last week.
Jimbino is a sullivanistic troll.
...because "priestess" makes most people think of someone wearing nothing but an antler headdress dancing in the woods under a harvest moon.
Or, at least, it does me.
The Anglican Community, is now presented with the unhappy task of informing our brown brothers that things have changed.
This observer from the other side of the Tiber would observe that it looks as if our brown brothers have been engaged in the unhappy task of informing their white brothers in the Episcopal part of the Anglican Community (and perhaps others), that things have NOT changed, that the faith remains the same. The Africans have become the missionaries. More than a few in North America have shifted to African-led dioceses (and some have crossed over the Tiber).
Bender, I think Michael was making the same point. Read a little sarcasm/irony into his post and you'll see what I mean.
Sorry. The lack of word verification has me all discombobulated.
"Just as shiloh hasn't a clue regarding the nuances of "pissed," I think you haven't a clue as to the nuances of "pagan.""
I wonder where you get that impression. I'm actually quite well educated on early church history, at least comparatively. Though my degree is in political philosophy I've actually spent quite a bit of time studying early church history.
Bender. My point exactly. The irony is sad gut delicious.
(I spent the day working, so I couldn't respond earlier.)
> Someone made the point that Jesus didn't ordain Gentiles, so...
This isn't merely about what our Lord himself did; it's about what the early Church, led by the Lord's handpicked men, did.
It was they who ordained bishops, priests and deacons--although the word "ordination" is an anachronism; Scripture speaks of laying on hands, etc., but that isn't an important point.
For Catholics (apart from the Jesus-Seminar types whose Catholic Faith is endangered by the acid of deconstructionism they pour on everything), the sacrament of Holy Orders originates from the Lord, through the Apostles.
What makes Gentile or Jew immaterial is a combination of what our Lord himself taught, what the Apostles taught, and what they did, and what the early Church did, on their heels.
It's a question of what is essential for one to be called to holy orders, and what is not. It's silly to equate sex, as an essential quality, with every other attribute one might identify with those who were first called. The universality of the Church--embracing Jew and Greek, and all nations--is clear from the beginning. The fight over circumcision and observance of the ritual law was a key fight, and the position that won is universality.
And we know, from Church history, that the early Church rather quickly became predominantly Gentile.
Part of the conflict over the priesthood between Catholics (and Orthodox, I suppose) and Protestants is the notion of special calling and the reason most Protestants don't have monastic orders. The logical progression is for most Protestants to go whole hog and have women pastors (and many do). Back to African Anglicans--they're strongly opposed, which has caused trouble between them and Evangelical Anglicans in the US who occasionally support the idea of women priests. A very strange but enlightening conflict.
Despite the internal logic of Protestantism, they've retained at least a good portion of their observance of Catholic tradition even if they no longer share the theological roots.
Pope Dolan? Well, you've got to admit, it has a nice ring. And, surely, there is a strong diversity argument to be made for it too.
Just not as Pope of America.
Shortstop. Really? I would have guessed center field.
Someone else made an interesting point about priestesses in pagan religions; yes, I was alluding to that, but perhaps not clearly.
Another point is worth making on the tradition of priesthood in Judaism.
People may forget that in Judaism of the time of Christ, and before and after, there were both those who were strongly attached to the Temple, and also, if you will, an "anti-Temple" tradition.
Remember that the Lord wasn't always happy with the goings-on in the temple, and through the prophets, was pretty scathing toward the temple worship and the priests.
Recall that the Temple of Solomon was destroyed; then rebuilt, then rebuilt again, in effect, by Herod. Herod was not terribly popular with a lot of Jews, and it didn't help when he put a Roman eagle on the temple.
In our Lord's time, there were currents of Jewish life that definitely did not revolve around the temple, although the life of the nation did. Thus you have the synogogues, the Pharisee movement, and then the Essenes, who took their rejection of the Temple so far they went off on their own.
How does all this bear on men or women as priests?
To the extent folks bring to this subject an assumption that the Apostles would find it a bridge too far to allow for women priests, then I think this history, plus all that they did have to accept in following our Lord, should give reason to question that.
Also remember that Judaism, not long after the Apostles began their mission, ceased to have a priesthood altogether, to a great degree as a result of the leaders getting together and asking, what do we do after the Romans destroyed our temple? They might have tried to sustain the priesthood, but at least the prevailing party chose not to.
Third catch-up post...
There has been some discussion of the theory that the priesthood is reserved to males because Jesus is male, because the priest is "father" and this images God the Father, and/or because of there is something about the priest as bridegroom to the Church, the bride.
There's some merit here, but it has to be refined; but even then, these are explanations, not rationales. In other words, these are attempts to explain why the Lord and the Apostles did what they did. But since they didn't tell us, we can only offer surmises, some better than others.
But when the Church articulates her practice, most recently--and, importantly, infallibly--via Pope John Paul II's declaration, she doesn't premise the teaching on these rationales. We can't know what the Lord's mindset was.
But we can say, with reasonable certainty, what he did. That's the central argument the pope makes: we don't have the authority to go beyond what our Lord and the Apostles have handed down to us.
Roma locuta est; causa finita est!
jimbino said...
Bender,
If you could read Genesis in Hebrew, you'd find out right away that God is plural.
Horseshit, jimbino the prog Jew pretending to be a Paraguayan..... Judaism is monotheistic, not polytheistic.
jimbino said...
OK, Shana, try this one:
Jesus had no disciple who was a woman, a physicist or a goy. Should physicists and goyim, along with women, be barred from the modern priesthood?
Horseshit again. Luke was a disciple and a physician.
what do we do after the Romans destroyed our temple?
And now there are places in Germany -- Germany! -- that want to ban the sign of the covenant, something which I do not believe even Herr Hitler tried to do.
I think we are reaching a point where the perception is that the Church had a problem with gay chickenhawk priests preying on young teens. Not "pedophiles". And a public that still generally supports the Boy Scouts wisdom in keeping gays out - because if they had admitted gays - they would have had the same PEDERAST problem the Church did.
And politically, that the demonization and bashing of the Catholic Church has gone on long enough over what the gay priests did, which started in 2001, has gone on long enough. That it is only lasting because gay activists and their media allies want to spin it and milk it.
Poltically, you would have to be an exceptionally stupid Catholic to not realize and see almost all the people actively smearing the Church are Democrats and the priests fellow gays.
Bender:
Well, yes, but...Hitler simply tried to kill everyone who was circumcised under that covenant.
I.e., as bad as the German judge's attack on circumcision, I don't think you can say it's worse than Hitler.
If the Hebrew word of "God" in Genesis is plural, shouldn't someone have said "you'd find out right away that God are plural"? And what difference does it make if a word for a single thing is grammatically plural, like 'pants' and 'scissors' in English, and the Latin words for army camp (castra) and ambush (insidiae), and the Greek names of Athens and Delphi and Thebes?
when the Church articulates her practice, most recently--and, importantly, infallibly--via Pope John Paul II's declaration, she doesn't premise the teaching on these rationales. We can't know what the Lord's mindset was
Quite right. Blessed Pope John Paul II largely grounded his authoritative declaration, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, on what Jesus Himself had done and the Church not having authority to do something other than that --
The Declaration recalls and explains the fundamental reasons for this teaching, reasons expounded by Paul VI, and concludes that the Church "does not consider herself authorized to admit women to priestly ordination" . . . Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church's judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.
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.
___________
As such, the "official" reasons for the definitive judgment of the Magisterium are fairly limited, even if elsewhere John Paul did provide a theology of the body discussion on the matter, e.g. --
26. Against the broad background of the "great mystery" expressed in the spousal relationship between Christ and the Church, it is possible to understand adequately the calling of the "Twelve". In calling only men as his Apostles, Christ acted in a completely free and sovereign manner. In doing so, he exercised the same freedom with which, in all his behaviour, he emphasized the dignity and the vocation of women, without conforming to the prevailing customs and to the traditions sanctioned by the legislation of the time. . . . We find ourselves at the very heart of the Paschal Mystery, which completely reveals the spousal love of God. Christ is the Bridegroom because "he has given himself": his body has been "given", his blood has been "poured out" (cf. Lk 22:19-20). In this way "he loved them to the end" (Jn 13:1). The "sincere gift" contained in the Sacrifice of the Cross gives definitive prominence to the spousal meaning of God's love. . . . Since Christ, in instituting the Eucharist, linked it in such an explicit way to the priestly service of the Apostles, it is legitimate to conclude that he thereby wished to express the relationship between man and woman, between what is "feminine" and what is "masculine". It is a relationship willed by God both in the mystery of creation and in the mystery of Redemption. It is the Eucharist above all that expresses the redemptive act of Christ the Bridegroom towards the Church the Bride. This is clear and unambiguous when the sacramental ministry of the Eucharist, in which the priest acts "in persona Christi", is performed by a man. This explanation confirms the teaching of the Declaration Inter Insigniores, published at the behest of Paul VI in response to the question concerning the admission of women to the ministerial priesthood. (On the Dignity and Vocation of Women 26)
as bad as the German judge's attack on circumcision, I don't think you can say it's worse than Hitler
Hitler merely tried to kill their bodies (as well as try to dehumanize them). For a faithful Jew, to prohibit circumcision is to try to kill the souls of the Jews, to kill their relationship with God.
"Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna." (Mt. 10:28)
Chickelit,
National Park stuff? Who needed to wait till then? Wasn't the rants about "breeders" in "Amerikkka" enough to clue y'all in?
Jimbino said:
When I contend that there are almost no Amerikan minorities who frequent the national parks and forests and that you won't find a Latin reading a book, I give you for free the summary of my extended scientific observations.
As a scientist, I welcome evidence to the contrary,
But Jimbino, on August 14 the day you said that first, I cited two studies by the National Parks Service showing that minorities made up thirty per cent of the visitors at Yosemite ...
Yosemite National Park conducted a winter survey from February 2-10, 2008. There was a 60% response rate. The entire survey and results can be viewed at the Yosemite National Park Visitor Study: Winter 2008 [638 kb PDF].
http://www.nps.gov/yose/parkmgmt/statistics.htm
and another survey said that 30% of minorities had visited some national park in the last year.
Thirty-two percent of respondents reported visiting a National Park System unit within the
previous two years. Thirty-six percent of white non- Hispanics, 33 percent of American
Indians, 29 percent of Asians, and 27 percent of Hispanic Americans reported visiting an NPS
unit within the previous two years. The visitation rate for African Americans was 13 percent."
http://nature.nps.gov/socialscience/docs/archive/EthnicAndRacialDiversity.pdf
These reports suggest that your personal observations are a statistical fluke. So why do you just go on repeating your statements? why don't you explain the discrepancy with these Park Service surveys?
Wildswan, you are stastically challenged. Do you see a difference between:
1. 5% of the circumcised are Jews, and
2. 5% of the Jews are circumcised.
The "minorities" at Yosemite are virtually all Asians and most are not Amerikans, and most are upper-class or rich. The absent minorities are the same ones who can't make it in our tax-supported public universities and who are not seen in the public lands they own in part: Hispanics, Blacks and Native-Amerikans.
Cedarford,
Luke was no disciple of Jesus and you spell "physicist" funny.
Bender,
The Jews sexually mutilate Atheist babies. Nobody is born a religious Jew, Muslim or Christian.
Dr Weevil,
When I said God in Genesis is plural, I was not referring to grammar, but to number.
"The divine assembly is often mentioned in connection with God’s creation of humanity, as in the P source in Genesis and in Job (Gen. 1.26-27, 3.22; Job 15.7-8). Moreover, it is frequently found in connection with the prophetic calling, as, for example, in 1 Kings 22.19-22, Is. 6, and Jer. 23.18 (cf. Amos 3.7). Other more general references to the divine council abound throughout the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Zech. 1.10-11; Dan. 4.14, 7; 8.10-13, etc.)."
Get yourself an education over at:
http://faithpromotingrumor.wordpress.com/2008/12/17/the-divine-council/
The best argument against priestesses is...priestesses. The ones I have encountered (ECUSA) were ...well, I won't continue that sentence because it would be uncharitable.
America doesn't have a pope. The universal church does.
I love my German Shepherd.
Yes, there are married priests--the 23 Eastern Catholic rites have married priests, and some Anglicans/Episcopalians who converted have been ordained as Catholic priests, even though they were married. Two of my faves: Fr. Ray Ryland and Fr. Dwight Longenecker.
I am happily Catholic and sing righteous alto harmony in music ministry.
And yes, the people in the pews are pissed. Not drunk--angry. No matter what their politics are.
"That's the central argument the pope makes: we don't have the authority to go beyond what our Lord and the Apostles have handed down to us."
That was Martin Luther's argument too!
"Pentescostalism is growing, but is is also the biggest purveyor of bad theology, fake miracles, and the fleecing of widows out of their money."
Have you seen Catholic cathedrals and studied the history of the Church? What you accuse Pentecostals of doing, the Catholic Church has been doing much more thoroughly all over the world since before the East and West split.
Again, Martin Luther's argument. It wasn't that he wanted to split, it's that he was heartily protesting the bad theology, fake miracles, and fleecing of widows and orphans so as to pad the accounts of clergy--many of whom didn't believe in God.
Pentecostals also are significant in leading people to Christ, in doing good works all over the world, in participating in real miracles, etc. and so on (as are Catholics).
"Nobody is born a religious Jew, Muslim or Christian."
That's not true. There, my assertion cancels your assertion.
When I saw this post about Archbishop Dolan I wondered long it would take for someone to bring up priests and pedophilia. Shiloh got to it by the ninth comment. Some things are so predictable.
Paddy O:
It doesn't work that way in science.
If I assert that there is no planet but Earth with intelligent life, I am not logically required to check out the entire universe for planets and then search those for intelligent life.
But if you assert that there is another planet with intelligent life, you are logically required to provide some evidence.
I don't disagree withe the majority of what you are saying, PaddyO, except that the modern Catholic church did undergo its own reformation after the Protestant Reformation. The Pentescostals leave a lot of messes, theological and otherwise, to clean up. But where there are no oxen the stall is clean, and God's servants answer to Him and not to me.
shiloh said...
"Hey, I have a soft spot :D for Bill Donohue, as he was the only fool who "tried" to defend Cardinal Law of Boston just before he was whisked off to a Vatican desk job!"
Pedophiles: Penn State fires them. The Catholic Church promotes 'em.
"Cardinal" Dolan protected more pedophiles than Joe Paterno ever knew existed.
Galatians 3:28
King James Version
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
Jimbino:
I don't know how you can possibly know that Luke was not a disciple of Jesus. Any more than you can possibly know what sort of belief--or non-belief--happens in the minds of newborns.
Either of those assertions demands rather substantial support. May we have it, please?
St. Junia the Apostle, pray for us.
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