Friday, July 11, 2014

Women In The Clergy Doesn't Have To Be A Threat, But It Sure Is

Forty years ago this was such a violation of gender roles women hockey players were unthinkable.  Unfortunately  Catholicism has not seen fit to open the limits of it's female gender expectations for quite a bit longer than forty years and it's truly harming the Church.


Over at his blog Bilgrimage, Bill Lyndsey starts out a recent post with a really important statement.  I've been thinking a lot about this sentence for the past couple days, especially the last clause:

"One of the most fateful (and evil) decisions made by the Catholic hierarchy in the 20th and 21st century has been to treat the movement of women around the world to claim full personhood and a full range of human rights for women as illegitimate, and as a threat to the Catholic faith."


Bill's post goes on to ponder the recent Hobby Lobby decision and it's ties to the GOP attacks on women's reproductive rights, but my musing dealt specifically with why women's rights are treated by the Church as a real threat to the Church itself.  It's not just women's rights that seems to be the threat, it's gender redefinition that is more and more becoming a major talking point in conservative Catholic circles.  The attempt to circumscribe women's ability to access contraception and abortion are the most visible signs of the Church's discomfort with the advancement of women claiming full personhood, but my gut says this 'threat' is about way more than whether women have enough babies to satisfy the male God.  There seems to be something more going on.

Here's another example of the threat of gender redefinition in another area.  This comment concerns the problems the Anglican Church have with installing women bishops.  On the surface the comment first struck me as frivolous and then I really thought about the point Tridentinus was making and I think he is absolutely right about a certain mindset:

"Can you imagine the C of E with half of its bishops not recognising the other half as priests, let alone bishops? Can you imagine the problem for parishes in deciding whether their priest was validly ordained or not? Every priest will have to have a pedigree declaring that no woman was involved in his ordination nor in the ordination of the bishop who ordained him or the bishop who consecrated that bishop. Ok, for now but in twenty years?
The mind boggles.
It doesn't really matter anyway as none of them are in Holy Orders but transpose it to the Catholic Church and the result is chaos."

What boggled my mind is thinking a given priest or bishop would have to have proof of ordination that didn't include women anywhere along the priestly pedigree.  It's hard for me to think of a pedigree or lineage that excludes the female half, but that's what Roman Catholicism has bequeathed to the world...a spiritual ministry whose pedigree is free of the female.  Is this supposed to be the most pure thing male humanity can imagine God wants,  or is this just truly sick?  

After much thought, I have come to the conclusion it's truly sick and that Bill Lyndsey is truly right, only in a sick system can the movement towards the full personhood of women be a threat to Catholicism.  Pope Francis can talk all he wants about a deeper theology of women, but what Catholicism really needs is not a deeper theology of women, but to reflect on why so much of it's current theology, eccelsiology,  discipline, and doctrine excludes the thought and presence of women and why that developed into the albatross it's proving to be for the post modern world.  If this evaluation was done honestly and with integrity, I think we would find out it didn't start with Jesus.

I think one thing that needs to happen is exactly what happened with women's athletics back about forty years ago.  A lot of men back then thought women's team athletics was nothing more than a few 'wannabe men' or terminal 'tom boys' who were hell bent on forcing their way onto the masculine stage.  Sports for women was almost exclusively individual sports like tennis, golf, swimming, gymnastics, and some track events.  Those sports featured girls and women cavorting in skirts or short shorts or swim suits and for the most featured grace and elegance, but not too much power and muscle, and were to be given up immediately upon marriage and motherhood.  Team sports like basketball and volleyball and softball and such represented some sort of gender busting magical line.  Hockey was unthinkable..except by a few of us whose dads or brothers needed us to be puck fodder in a hockey goal and we were dumb enough to do it just to be included in the fun.  We found out it was a lot of fun.

Then came Title IX and everything changed for women.  For my male contemporaries, some who really were upset with this legislation,  I would laughingly tell them wait until you have a daughter and then suddenly realize you have another captive audience for your sport fantasies.  It's amazing to me how many of these daughters went onto have great careers in sports.  So I know change in gender roles and expectations can happen, be accepted, rejoiced in and bragged about--endlessly.  Every time I watch a women's college basketball game between U Conn and Tennessee I have to pinch myself because back in my day we were lucky to get our parents and family to come and watch our games.  

The problem for the Church is priests don't have daughters and that means our lay men are going to have to do some 'mansplainin' to their clerical brothers about the fact there are no magic gender lines.  There's only patriarchy and an unexamined expectation about gender roles--roles that women never had a lot of input in how they developed, but that input is precisely what today's woman expects to have....and that's probably the big 'threat' to Catholicism and the root to all the clerical angst about femi nazis and the evolution of gender roles. Women expect to be treated as intellectual and spiritual equals and will not accept a few token crumbs.  Game on. 



101 comments:

  1. sylvesterpatsteffenJuly 12, 2014 at 1:42 AM

    The depth of this sick mentality shows in the Supreme Court of the United States. "Citizens United" rallies to the cause of male corporate idolatry. Personhood credit (male) is given standing even as the ontological priority of female biology goes unrecognized and denied in service to male arrogation. The Catholic majority of Justices is solidly grounded in prejudice and ignorance, like the dominant male hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. The People cannot let this injustice stand.

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  2. sylvesterpatsteffenJuly 12, 2014 at 3:24 AM

    Two principles of biological evolution pertain directly here:
    1. "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny": the embryonic phases of individual development repeat phases in the evolution of the phylum
    2. "the sporophyte (male) is borne as a parasite from the archegonium (female) of the gametophyte" (individuals manifest characteristics of both sexes). Human males carry female characteristics, e.g., breasts/ nipples, right/left physical/ psychical dispositions.

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  3. As a Catholic woman gifted with the charisms of priesthood and called to the priesthood, all I can say is "ditto that!" Beyond mere gender, however, the question of a female priesthood points to an even bigger issue - and that is the issues of power and privilege. When the priest - be it a male or female, married or single, straight or gay - is set apart as "better than," "more special,"
    "different in some way," then you really have a problem - and one certainly not ordained by Jesus. As long as the Church considers priesthood to be a position of power, control, privilege and as the one who has authority, and confirms this through the vestments, rubrics, rituals, etc., then the issue remains - regardless of the gender of the priest. Women, ordained into the priesthood, will be equally tempted to enter into the power game currently enjoyed by so many of their male counterparts. If the Church really wants to reflect the teachings of Jesus, it needs to change its view of women, and most importantly, live this view in the world so that not only the Church, but the world can begin to restore the honor and dignity of the sacred feminine.

    Lauri Lumby
    http://yourspiritualtruth.com

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  4. At first, I thought the picture accompanying your post was the "Holy Goalie" aka Bishop John Paprocki. I'm sorry. Wrong sex.

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  5. Thanks -- wonderful insight and beautifully said.

    Among all the issues that "progressive Catholics" consider and try to deal with, which are many and grave, most despicable, and all wrong on a deep level, misogyny is the watershed for me. With western civilization and its history having developed and described almost solely by men (at least in their minds), women's contributions are barely noted and usually only by exception -- except for that quirky human biology, of course, that requires both our ova and nurture. Somehow, we're good enough (and naughty enough) to produce new priests, to create our own lords and masters. Lucky us. How special we are.

    How much more valid, more true to the Gospel message and spirit, if all the clerical-collared dropped the titles and entitlements and were referred to as "servants" -- and really became those servants -- just as Jesus envisioned. Would females still be prohibited, I wonder? After all, don't we have credentials by now to be really good servants?

    I

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  6. BaptizedBabyBoomerJuly 13, 2014 at 10:44 AM

    The patriarchal boys running things are making a real mess of it. There is more divisiveness than there is of anything virtuous coming from the Vatican or from the US Bishops, those clinging to powerful positions who do believe they're better than anybody else, especially women.


    The RCC has become a sport for power politically over women instead of a Church for healing and growing for men and women. Instead of the RCC being a safe place, it is a symbol more of pain and misery. I can't take the RCC seriously as a truly Christian entity anymore. I realize that within this vast network of religious and laity within the RCC around the world there are a few lights that stand out in the darkness. However, the institution itself has crumbled all around us due to the institution's leadership being so corrupt, so sick and in denial of its own disease.


    Despite that it takes men and women to create a civilization for people to live in harmony, the RCC leadership of men have thrown harmony out of the very soul of the Church. The full range of instruments that creates harmony have been muffled into silence and taken off the stage.


    What a shame that the RCC has been taken over by such a sick spirit that has no light emanating from it anymore. It's just not a healthy place for men and women any more, especially since in the US the men are taught to be bullies and the women are taught to just take it and shut up.

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  7. Game on strikes me as exactly right. If I think of the MBC as a FIELD rather than as a body I have less sense of a hierarchy and more excitement about possibilities for all the players. I don't mean to be obscure--just thinking that team membership applied to the image of the church seems more egalitarian--the members seem less dominated by one part of the body. Women athletes at the Olympics inspire me.

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  8. That's where my faith is taking me, too. God does not abandon Her people, no matter how hard we think He loves one group more than another. However, God seems to have placed us with this fearful, liturgical, committed group -- either to leave or to stay. Wonderful either way, and sucks either way. Bless you for your dilemma.

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  9. "The RCC has become a sport for power politically over women instead of a Church for healing and growing for men and women."



    That's how it seems to me, too, BaptizedBabyBoomer. You put the point really well.


    And coming to realize that this is what has been made of our church by the patriarchal boys running things (in collusion with patriarchal boys running things in society): this causes me deep grief. The church could have been so much more at this point in history, especially after Vatican II.

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  10. Well said. I wonder the same things when I attend Mass on Sundays, what am I doing here?

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  11. BaptizedBabyBoomerJuly 13, 2014 at 5:38 PM

    Thank you, Bill. Sure seems that the boys running the RCC & the Supreme Court would rather mess things up, just as they did in the 20th Century with two world wars. They've apparently learned nothing from the bloodiest century. Or rather, what they've learned is to just put things in repeat mode.


    I honestly can not sit in a pew in a Church or be in Communion with a Church that is so intent on keeping people either ignorant or as pawns to be used for political purposes or in a sick head game they are playing to excuse their abuse of children, men and women, causing great confusion and despair in the process.


    The fruit of their labor is bitter and rotten and can only cause more deep grief. Such bitter fruit can only fall from the branch.

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  12. BaptizedBabyBoomerJuly 13, 2014 at 6:04 PM

    Such bitter fruit from the RCC hierarchy and the US Supreme Court came from a very diseased branch. It is the doing away with Vatican II. Yes, Bill, the Church and its people could have been so much more. The US could have been so much more too. But when those in power are bullies & care only about money, this is what we get. Rotten fruit not edible for human consumption.

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  13. sylvesterpatsteffenJuly 14, 2014 at 5:28 AM

    It is urgent that Catholicism (all religions) come to Enlightenment. This from http://ncronline.org/blogs/young-voices/knights-columbus-funds-help-step-womens-rights#comment-1483370939
    =====================================
    The “RIGHTEOUS” Mind and EPIGENETICS: the New Metaphysics: As
    psychological evolution (consciousness) is a mind in evolved physical life, so reason and faith co-evolve and mutually depend in organic consciousness. The root problem of the present CATHOLIC (Robert’s SUPREME COURT is that it is “religiously” and politically fixated in the Metaphysics of medieval Scholasticism. Medieval Scholasticism presumes “ontological dualism”, that is, the real (ontological) separation between the realms of the spiritual (soul) and material (body) in the presumed Earth-centric universe (and the priority of males over females). These “metaphysical” presumptions derive from the philosophy/ theology of St. Thomas Aquinas and persist into the present time.

    The religious/ political fixations of present-day “Rightists” presume on medieval belief in the divided realms of the physical (material) and the spiritual (soul, consciousness); modern science, however, understands the energy/ matter (spiritual/ material) equation as one of identity, that is, Einstein’s E=MC². Modern Metaphysics also understands the acentricity of Cosmology, Philosophy and Theology; the relative insignificance of Earth in the cosmic context; and consciousness as dependent self-awareness in organically evolved Earth-life. Organic consciousness “remembers” from the past and codes for the future the sustainable developments in life’s universal coding of DNA. Real life experiences impact on DNA coding and impose changes. The daily impacts of experience work as “tags” that effect DNA coding and life’s unfolding, for better and for worse.

    EPIGENETICS is the New Metaphysics that responds to first-hand experience and qualify physical/ psychical responses. The “rightness” or “wrongness” of living in the present is with consequence on the future, physically and psychologically. Life cannot act with impunity; if it violates the working norms of sustainable living it suffers the consequences. Neither religion nor politics is above dependency on the proven coding of evolved (evolving) organic life. Humankind is obliged in conscience to find its place in the "ecozoic" (Thomas Berry) order of evolved Earth-life; humankind suffers the consequences, as the depleted state of nature and the desperation of global people testify at this time. [Search: Sylvester Steffen, the New Metaphysics]

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  14. You have totally missed the point.


    None of this is about men or women, or about keeping the "pedigree" free from 'female taint'.


    It is about valid Orders. If you have been ordained by someone who is not actually what they think they are, then you have not been ordained.

    That is a big deal. To say that it is about women is to totally miss the point.

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  15. Yes, I get that it's about 'valid' orders. That's magic not metaphysics and the invalidity is based on gender and I don't care how you want to spin it, the Catholic Hogwarts is closed to girls and for no 'valid' reason.

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  16. Unconquered, you just kicked out of the church Catherine of Siena, Augustine, Athanasius, John Henry Newman, and many others. They chose to be Christian by helping to enlighten the church. They moved Christian belief instead of bowing to it.


    The church changes, but your arguments do not.

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  17. It's Catholic teaching. Many other Christians don't hold to Catholic magic on the nature of Christian ministry regarding women.

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  18. We are speculating now, but I don't think the writings of Augustine would indicate that he would have supported Newman. I wonder how that argument is going in heaven, and which saint shall be cast into demon torture as unworthy?


    Or maybe we develop and continue to learn.

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  19. You are speculating, into risk of error no less.

    The rest of the Church remain of the rock, hoping that the Anglicans adrift may soon join them.

    It is important to have valid orders.

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  20. Risk of error. I'm always wrong about God. So are you. There is no risk. God did not ask us to be right. it is above us.

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  21. God is not dependent on anything, of course, any more than he was "dependent on" the Israelites when he set them apart, or on man and woman when he created them, or on any such thing.

    But he created a priesthood, with its own characteristics, and the Church with its own gifts and teachings.

    When we reject them, we reject He who sent them.

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  22. The Christian religion is not so esoteric as that. God sent His son to give us right teaching, to be taught and protected by His Church. This the Church has faithfully done, as Jesus assured us it would.

    God cannot be said to have hidden His plan from us!

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  23. It is Christian teaching. Priestesses are not a Christian concept.

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  24. This Church went off the rails the moment it sold it's soul to Constantine and became an arm of empire rather than the hands of Christ.

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  25. It is a very tiny male mind that that believes God discriminates. No matter, that tiny mind can use male omniscience to assign one sex even to God.

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  26. The official priesthood was created by the Men of this church.. Men were the ones responsible for making Mary Magdalene into a prostitute rather than the great Apostle that she was. This was one of the early manifestations of fear of women and misogynistic belief. It is past time for men of this church to overcome this pure prejudice. The Eucharist of the early Christians was celebrated by men and women in their homes and the celebration only required more than one person.. The celebrant was elected by the participants. Currently society many are electing women and the male churchmen in their deluded righteousness are rejecting them....

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  27. It may have gone off its rails accepting the autocratic leadership of Paul, himself. Early Christianity kept more to the Jewish customs and perhaps for very good reasons...

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  28. BaptizedBabyBoomerJuly 15, 2014 at 11:03 AM

    A lot of good "Christian teaching" did in the 20th century with two World Wars, right, Invictus?


    With the kind of backwards teachings from the RCC hierarchy, the consequences are not really "Christian belief." They are the teachings of men gone mad.


    Don't be a Christian, you say, while at the same time your words are a refutation of Jesus' teachings and keep you stuck in false beliefs that are unchristian.


    Your "God" has a bigoted narrow-mind and your words are a reflection and projection of that belief.


    Follow the teachings of Jesus or follow the men into another century of Wars and bigotry and hate and suffering.

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  29. Then why do you call yourself "Catholic"?

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  30. That's rubbish and you know it. The priesthood is in the Bible for goodness sake.

    You're talking pure conspiracy theory here, on the basis of nil evidence. Totally unsubstantiated nonsense.

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  31. BaptizedBabyBoomerJuly 15, 2014 at 12:09 PM

    There are some priests in the priesthood that one should wholeheartedly reject, Invictus_88. Especially pedophile one's and their enablers. Especially those who preach falsehoods that say only men can be priests.


    Your "God" says that genitalia determines whether or not the Holy Spirit can lead the Church and the People of God closer to God…. What utter nonsense you believe.


    You speak about gifts that God created, yet deny that women are included as being gifted that is being rejected by the RCC. Women cannot be included as sharing in the gifts that God made is what you are saying. Your God is a bigot and made in man's image and likeness. Your idea of being Catholic is to be a rotten misogynist.

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  32. No, it is true that only men can be priests. That is not a falsehood, it is a normal part of Christianity.

    The Church accepts women, and all their gifts, and promotes those gifts better than any schismatic group does.

    Please, do not slander God in that way.

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  33. BaptizedBabyBoomerJuly 15, 2014 at 1:22 PM

    It is true that the RCC hierarchy do not include or accept that women can be priests. It does not mean that the RCC hierarchy are not slandering God by doing so.

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  34. BaptizedBabyBoomerJuly 15, 2014 at 2:14 PM

    And how can a Church accept women and all their gifts when it rejects women and all their God-given gifts, Invictus? How could the RCC accept the gifts of women when they do not even hear or really see women as being equally qualified as men to lead the Catholic Church?


    The Roman Catholic Church has become the schismatic group when it repeatedly acts against the People of God and gangs up on women, such as the not so lovely or at all compassionate Cardinal Dolan's of the world. If he is the symbol and normal part of Christianity now, then being Catholic means to not really be a Christian at all. It means being a liar, a thief, a pedophile enabler, a priest of doom and gloom.


    Go sit in your pew and be a holy hypocrite and spread the word of hypocrites then, Invictus. Go follow the blind to your doom and gloom.

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  35. So exactly how does the Church accept women and ALL THEIR GIFTS? How do they promote them?


    I have spent years with Indigenous spiritual leaders....mostly all male and from half a dozen different Tribes. They will freely admit they do not teach women. This is not because women are spiritually or ritually inferior, but because they truly believe women do not need the extreme rituals, like Vision Quests, men need to specifically get over their male egos. In their belief women are already connected to the spiritual realm by virtue of being 'women'. Jesus seemed to hold the same view. So did God. Mary did not need some priest to interpret her experience. She was so connected she went with the message. If men were of the same bent, Jesus would not have had to spend three years dragging twelve of them around to teach them how to be human and not male.


    How many years will you follow this blog before you get this simple message. There is no male and female. There is no slave and freedman. There is no priest and priestess. There is only HUMAN believers. No different from hockey players who recognize the human love of hockey in each other.

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  36. Because this Church has a spiritual dimension that is far beyond the muddled meanderings of those of us caught up in being human.

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  37. Maybe Dennis. I have a soft spot for both Paul and Peter. Sometimes our visions are way beyond our upbringing and our education. We get caught between the two, advocating for one at some points and the other at other points. Hopefully the overall trend is to bring out the best in everyone, self included.

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  38. Historically, the Eucharist was celebrated in the homes of the early christians. There was no Holy Orders at that time. Many Icons show it was women as well as men who were the leaders. Mary Magdalene was not proclaimed a prostitute until a bishop did so i the sixth century. Mary Magdalene was at the cross and at the empty tomb. She certainly may have been the greatest of Jesus's followers. She certainly was a female Apostle. Not one of the 12 men but she certainly was one of the greatest early followers of Christ. It is only fearful men that will not recognize her... These are facts that can be easily found. Perhaps they are not correct but they seem to have more a chance of being correct than your pronouncements Mr. 88.

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  39. Well maybe you are right, but there seems to be two Pauls when you read Corinthians. There is a lot of recent biblical study that is not very favorable of the more cruel parts of Paul found in these books. Paul like JP II showed tremendous qualities of leadership, but he like JP II was also an autocrat in the early influence of the Church. Not saying he was a bad person, but saying he was good and bad at the same time and perhaps way too powerful.


    I think it important that we keep in mind what the Gospels say and take some of Paul with a big grain of salt.

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  40. There is male and female, and God explicitly built that into his plan; all the Abrahamic faiths accept that. He also established a priesthood and the Church. The Bible is very clear, even the protestant religions don't dispute that.

    Those are simple, clear messages, and true. Perhaps you should take account of them?

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  41. Also, your sexism is not helpful. Please try to be kinder toward the other sex.

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  42. That is such a weird statement I don't even know where to start. Maybe you need to take the blog back to basics, and unpack for your readers a) the reasons you look down on humanity and b) the origins and foundation of your paganistic belief system.

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  43. Facts easily found? Or quack histories eritten by people with their own problems with Christian teaching?

    Because I've looked at these claims before, and they are very weak indeed.

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  44. I do take that into account. I find it remarkable that God made men dependent on women to further their genetic line. I wonder what the message could be for men in the fact God made it so they couldn't have their own children.


    I also find it quite sad that men took the wrong lesson from God's design and abrogated to themselves the right to 'own' the woman who is necessary for the provision of children. I don't think 'ownership' and subjugation of the feminine was in God's plan. I think that's why Jesus was incarnated independently of a human male. God couldn't afford to be 'owned' by a human male. I just wonder when men are going to get the lesson, because this attempt at exclusive male ownership has gone on quite long enough.

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  45. More projection of you internal self!

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  46. Weak in the eyes of someone who believes there is always a right and a wrong even in history.... Yet History was written by the Powerful. Why don't you try reading something like The History of the US written by native Indians. There are several books out there. Or the Peoples History, written by Howard Zin.

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  47. Again a projection of your own flawed internal self onto others.

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  48. I think we should never ever encourage anyone to leave the faith, if indeed we believe it is the one true faith. The nuns taught us that God would understand us losing our faith but he or she would never ever understand us becoming protestants (OK..they were irish)...But apparently at least one woman has been ordained a cardinal in the cold war I believe...in case they did away with the males...i can not verify this.

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  49. i am not sure it is prejudice as much as gynophobia..and i am dead serous.

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  50. There is a biological continuum between men and women. what is the cutoff point (oops).

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  51. BaptizedBabyBoomerJuly 16, 2014 at 5:51 PM

    Leaving the RCC in the US is not leaving the Faith. It is leaving an institution that does not serve the Faithful. And leaving the institution does not in any way say that one is no longer a Catholic. It means that one has grown to see the hypocrisy & ignorance prevalent amongst the priesthood in their poisonous teachings of things such as theology of the body and that women are just sub species, essentially just considered like dirt to the men. Women, gays, divorced & remarried people are not counted as Catholic anyway. We're just a nuisance to the brainwashed zombies who are taught to treat us like **it.

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  52. To CAELewis-- your message resonates with me. At 72 my perception is that humans are screwing up the Church. I hate the notion of losing faith but feel alienated by everything the US hierarchy puts out. Also by the hyper dogmatic politically partisan individuals who have seized the steering wheel. Someone put it well when he said if you won't bear the cross why should you be able to wear the crown? People interpret this differently. The fact you haven't left speaks volumes. Love is supposed to be the organizing and driving force behind humanity. You are probably manifesting it better than the person sitting next to you at Mass. I harbor the notion that it may be true of me.

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  53. There is absolutely no scriptural support for either priestly celebacy or an all-male clergy. It is tradition only and that was dictated by men. It would seem to me that an organization so singlemindedly bent on self preservation would use the means available to it to build up the body of Christ.

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  54. To BBB--also because the all-male hierarchy thinks that loving people is only OK if it's reproductive.

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  55. And yet the Church does not. Could it be that it is not a slave to popular fad and political expediency?

    After all, when you look at the groups who have bent to include priestesses, they don't usually show much sign of moral courage or doctrinal integrity in other areas.

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  56. That doesn't have anything to do with what I said.
    And I already have the People's History of the United States in audio, so I know it also has nothing to do with what I said.
    Seriously, this is like talking to AI sometimes. You should just reply to points or not bother typing.

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  57. That doesn't sound like an apology, or an explanation. You said some horrible things there, surely you realise that?

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  58. I wasn't talking about fad and popular notions--or what is expedient politically. I was talking about reason and common sense, both of which seem to be eluding this dialogue. What is it in the bible or church doctrine that says women don't have full standing? Someone in the Curia has read a couple of Dan Brown books and has gotten scared. Really scared.

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  59. A bishop or a priest would not be the first man to be intimidated out of his mind by an intelligent and outspoken woman. Just ratchet the phenomena up to an institutionalized level and, viola, there you have it.

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  60. The reason you do not
    understand me is because you suffer from the symptom of having a concrete
    inflexible understanding of reality. Perhaps some day you will learn to
    grow and develop and not be caught in a long past paradigm of thinking which is both developmental and
    societal dinosaur of thought.



    Howard Zin's People's
    History, if you listen to it will show you some vast differences from what the
    powerful who wrote history declared as true. It was used as a
    demonstration to show you that history is so often the opinion of those who
    write it and while it may have some truth, it certainly is not all or many
    times most of what happened and was thought to have happened....

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  61. Who is afraid?

    Those who stand firm in faith, or those who fall back from the pressure of popular opinion?

    The Church alone stands. You and the others fall back in disarray. How brave, how faithful!

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  62. I'm the dinosaur? The posters on this liberal dissident echo chamber all appear to be more than double my age, and to bring me up to date you recommend a dead historian who fought in the war and was a professor when my own dad was a child?

    Good job I'm not as prejudiced as you are about old ideas.

    Anyway, Zinn's history is just a subjective narrative. See what I did there? Your relativism cuts both ways. ;-)

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  63. Like praying in thanks every morning that you weren't born a woman? Be realistic; Jewish customs are no closer to your new age ponderings than Catholic ones.

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  64. No, you were simply answered in kind. Typical bullying from the usual troll.

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  65. In kind? Because I have been calling people hypocrites, blind, paedophile enabling liars? Don't be silly.

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  66. See, Unconquered, this is how bullying works. I didn't do anything as bad as You did. You are wrong. I'm just pointing it out.


    I learned that in third grade. Share your conservative faith, but leave this garbage at home.

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  67. This is your prime defense Invictus to not understand what others tell you. It is a either shallow, stupid or disingenuous.

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  68. Someone said that faith is not faith unless it is challenged. That has the ring of truth to it. Popular opinion is not always wrong-- nor is it always against religion. Religion gets a much fairer shake in public policy than people admit. The Curia is committed to changelessness and secrecy as it always has been. That's reason to fear many things. There are a lot of pastoral practices the pope can change without changing dogma. If every life is important that principle should be evenly applied to all situations. Women should have equal standing with men.

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  69. Thinking does not depend on age. Your concrete thinking of pretending you know more about history or anything else is a symptom feelings of omniscience and an inner emotional failure to grow. You could be 20 or 90+ and still have this unfortunate mind set. Your use of age of people is to attempt to subvert the conversation for which you have only pat dry and very old answers.

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  70. Sorry but my mind set is of a growing Catholic and much of my recent academic challenges were with very Jewish people from whom I have learned a lot.

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  71. Zinn is no more subjective than you.

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  72. Yet women were ordained by RRC Bishops in Eastern Europe during the cold war and recently on the Rhine. I know one RCC woman priest and another Old Catholic Woman Priest. We have a woman priest writing on this board. The Anglicans have woman priests and now woman bishops. Time is against you Mr. 88. It is also against any proclamation a hastily appointed saint may have made.

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  73. I think it is both and it certainly is misogynistic. .

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  74. The Anglicans have female ministers of religion who they title as priest and bishop (and vicar and parson etc), but they have sacramentally speaking no female priests or bishops. For one, because it is doubtful whether Anglicanism has valid sacramental orders, for two because any ordination conferred on a woman is by definition invalid - hence the seriousness of the canonical prohibitions against who attempt it.

    The Anglican "priesthood", is not the same thing as the priesthood of the Church, though of course they have many learned and goodhearted ministers.

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  75. Don't mistake me, I enjoyed his history. I just cannot accept your spin on Church History.

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  76. Mr. 88 you said, "For one, because it is doubtful whether Anglicanism has valid sacramental orders, for two because any ordination conferred on a woman is by definition invalid - hence the seriousness of the canonical prohibitions against who attempt it."


    This idea is from an old Papal Bull. It certainly can not be looked at in anyway as purely authoritative.
    BTW, there have been several cross ordinations of Anglicans by Orthodox Bishops whom the RCC considers valid but illicit.


    Again, we do have Old CAtholic women priests, At least one Catholic Woman ordained behind the Iron curtain in the cold war and several RCC woman priests that began at the hands of RCC male Bishops on the Rhine River. We now have a RCC woman Bishop from this line.


    So believe as you may, many of us don't see it your way at all.

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  77. That's OK, but my history has many truths as does yours. Neither of our histories are THE TRUTH. Have you been at events in which you saw reported on the news (current history)? If so how many times did you absolutely agree with the current history reporting of the news caster? All of history is much the same way. Open up your mind to more views and you will learn more about truth--- but not THE TRUTH.

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  78. That doesn't help excuse your unsound claims about the historical Church.

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  79. An Mr. 88 that is your own opinion that I all let other judge how sound or unsound you are....

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  80. Er. We're discussing historical claims here, not each other.

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  81. Err, that is right and you have your own opinion on what history to believe and so do others. One thing we know that what ever tract you and I take, neither of us have the whole truth and all the truth.

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  82. Reality still exists, however.

    As there is no serious evidence that the Church has had priestesses, or clergy elected ad hoc by the laity, you should not make those claims as you have done here. If it is not lying, it is very close to it.

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  83. Check the catholic woman priest page to begin with if you are looking for "serious" evidence. They recently found even more in the Roman Catacombs but of course the Vatican is trying to suppress it but the Anthropologists have already seen and photographed it..

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  84. Reality is not hate....

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  85. It is not an apology and there is nothing said that he should apologize for to you or the RCC. He is speaking from reality not denial...

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  86. He is speaking from reality and has nothing to apologise for?

    "... then being Catholic means to not really be a Christian at all. It means being a liar, a thief, a pedophile enabler, a priest of doom and gloom.

    Go sit in your pew and be a holy hypocrite and spread the word of hypocrites then, Invictus. Go follow the blind to your doom and gloom."

    That's worse than anything I've ever said by a long way, yet people on this blog call me a bully?

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  87. The RCWP? Their site doesn't seem to have any evidence to support your claim that the Church has ever had priestesses, or cleegy elected ad goc by the laity.

    These photos sound interesting though. What journal/s are they in?

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  88. Not so, He is only saying this because of the misogynistic leadership. He is calling a spade a spade. To criticize hypocrisy in the faithful and the way they follow poor leadership is not worse than anything you have ever said. I would agree that women have been ordained in recent RCC some in Germany, at least one behind the Iron Curtain. They routinely offered the Eucharist in their homes in early Christianity. He is telling you that we have a cultish schismatic leadership. You may not agree and you may not respect what he says but he is not bullying you nor is he calling you a personal name as you often have done to others, me included......

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  89. Why don't all those that really hate the church become Episcopalians? Or form your own church?

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  90. Being obedient is tough. Welcome to the club.

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  91. That is all very interesting, but it is none of it reputable academic sources and is none of it evidence for the ordination of women or lay-elected priests.

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  92. Here's a quote from Dr. Elizabeth Johnson, a nun who teaches at Frodham University and whose work has been criticized by the RCC. I hang on to it by my fingernails when I want to give it up. I hope this is a bit of a consolation to all you dear fellow Catholics who have affirmed how difficult it is "to stay,"

    "If you feel deeply enough, you stay. Not because you are a masochist, but because it is worth it. You are struggling for the soul of something."

    I hope so.

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  93. I take it when you say lol you don't mean lots of love!
    I can only give you an internal smile hoping that you eventually catch on....

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  94. The sources pass the evidence of critical thinking. So your judgement does not seem pertinent here.

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  95. Your critical thinking apparently, but not mine or that of the Church.

    You expended many words explaining that Mary Magdalene was a saint and devout follower of Jesus, but that is so obviously nothing to do with either the ordination of women or lay-ordination-of-priests that your confident assertion that it all meets a standard for critical thinking looks bizarre.

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  96. What are the teachings of the Church of God, the church christ founded, that you feel are wrong?

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  97. I feel that you want me to defend what I believe and are challenging me to list which issues in the church I find contrary to Christ's teaching. I am not going to take up that gauntlet. However, if you carefully read what many of us have already expresed, you may start to understand that what we are questioning are the man-made rules.

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  98. Why shouldn't you defend what you believe? That should be easy if you are defending a truth.

    But you aren't defending a truth are you Lydia? You are defending how you feel. How YOU want things to be.

    It's the Fall all over again.

    I looked up Dr. Elizabeth Johnson. The Feminsist movement HATES women.

    They think women are so inferior to men, that men have to be lowered and women have to be artificially "raised" to the masculine.

    This is a misunderstanding of reality. Here's reality. A maple is not superior to an oak. They are different. They have different things about them.

    The lie we are all in is one of superiority and inferiority.


    Men are NOT superior to women. They are different. We have different strengths and weaknesses. Christ was a man, sister. And his priest are stand ins for him.


    Maybe you would be happier as a protestant. Since it sounds like you are in perpetual protest.

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  99. Omg. Leave the church if you hate her so much, jeepers....

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