Catholicism Poll II: Should the Catholic Church allow women to be Priests?

[M forever]

Well said, Sarge. That sounds like a book I may want to read  . It has long been my suspicion - because I can't say I "believe" or "think" that - that one of the factors which gave the original early Christian movement so much drive was that they accepted everyone as equal, including women who did otherwise not have a very high status in the world in which this movement originated and that women probably played a very important role in early, original Christianity. This must have come as an enormous liberation not only to women, but also to men who wished to cherish women as equals or even more. As carefully edited as they are, there are some very strong traces of that in the "official" canon of texts. Women often play more crucial roles than men the gospels. There are also indications that it may have been Mary Magdalene who held the movement together at first after the Romans had deleted the "Messiah". I find the idea interesting that at the root of all this perverted mess may originally have been a truly humanist movement. And equally disturbing that it has taken us a good 2000 years - to a large degree because of the doings of the "Catholic Church" to at least approach the ideal of a world in which all human beings, and that means men and are truly equal.

[Don]

Here's a good idea for the United States - any religious organization that does not offer females equal opportunity for all its positions has its tax-exempt status revoked.  

[bwv 1080]

Well said, Sarge. That sounds like a book I may want to read  . It has long been my suspicion - because I can't say I "believe" or "think" that - that one of the factors which gave the original early Christian movement so much drive was that they accepted everyone as equal, including women who did otherwise not have a very high status in the world in which this movement originated and that women probably played a very important role in early, original Christianity. This must have come as an enormous liberation not only to women, but also to men who wished to cherish women as equals or even more. As carefully edited as they are, there are some very strong traces of that in the "official" canon of texts. Women often play more crucial roles than men the gospels. There are also indications that it may have been Mary Magdalene who held the movement together at first after the Romans had deleted the "Messiah". I find the idea interesting that at the root of all this perverted mess may originally have been a truly humanist movement. And equally disturbing that it has taken us a good 2000 years - to a large degree because of the doings of the "Catholic Church" to at least approach the ideal of a world in which all human beings, and that means men and are truly equal.

OK which is more ridiculous, the traditional orthodox account, or the revised new age version that projects a swath of modern liberal sensibilities on a little known first century Jew?  Do you really think you or Vidal or anyone else can read between the lines of the New Testament and figure out some "secret story" of what really happened?  This is all pure speculation.  Also the gnostic gospels are if anything more sexist than the accepted canon - like the close of the Gospel of Thomas which states that a woman must become a man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

[M forever]

My ideas are based on speculation or a "suspicion". I don't think it is more than that - in fact, didn't I say that explicitly? I think I did. The general role Paul has played in deforming whatever was the original form of Christianity is not speculation however. It is backed up even by the scriptures and the discussions therein.
I don't think though that the ideas I suspected may have been at the core of early Christianity are "modern liberal sensitivities". I think they are the core of our best possible qualities. Bringing them out is one of the major struggles in the history of trying to become more civilized beings - which organized religion has pretty much completely worked against for millenia. I think those ideas could have occurred to someone back then big enough to look beyond the indoctrinations of the day. There were many other thinkers back then and long before that who formulated ideas which were millenia ahead of common insight.

[Hollywood]

Why not? Hey if it's good enough for the Church of England ("The Vicar of Dibley"), it's good enough for me. 

Now if only the catholic church would only allow women to take the birth control pill. Since they are against abortion then why not allow women to take the pill so they won't have an unwanted pregnancy which may end up in an abortion. That and the church's rule that you only have sex after you are married and only in order to create children. Sorry but I don't want any church telling me when I am allowed to have sex. The church already has me down as a sinner headed for hell  since I have had sex out of wedlock and that I took the pill and had my tubes tied years ago so I would never get pregnant. I may have survived 12 years of catholic schools but nowadays when someone asks me what religion I am I tell them I am a Druid. 

[Lethevich]

Sarge: nice post

A lot of what is considered "conservative Christian morality" originates from largely unspecified people after Jesus's death, and isn't even mentioned in the bible.

[Shrunk]

OK which is more ridiculous, the traditional orthodox account, or the revised new age version that projects a swath of modern liberal sensibilities on a little known first century Jew?  Do you really think you or Vidal or anyone else can read between the lines of the New Testament and figure out some "secret story" of what really happened?  This is all pure speculation. 

I think that's just the point.  There are the known facts of Jesus' existence, which are few, and then there are the interpretations and meanings that people have drawn from his reported words and actions.  And the latter are up for endless amounts of variation.  The point I take from Sarge's post is that Gore Vidal has every much right to draw his own inferences as Paul did, and his version is no less, or more, authoritative than Paul's.

[david johnson]

it's a matter for catholics to decide.

regarding nt female christians - philip, the evangelist, had daughters who were described as prophetesses.
lydia was leading others in meetings by the riverside.
dorcas is described as a deaconess.
prescilla helped teach apollos, the preacher.

there is no christian clergy mentioned in the new testament, but there are apostles, teachers, preachers, elders, and deacons as well as those gifted in other ministries.

i have never read of a female preacher in the new testament.
if a group views the nt as an idea book, then it's easy to come up with an understanding accepting of having female clergy members.
but if the concept is that the materials presented in the nt should more closely adhered to, then you will not feel comfortable putting women in certain postions...nor will the women want them.

dj

[Cato]

The archaeology is debatable: type in "Theodora Epsicopa" to your Google webfinder, and you will find scholars on both sides of the axe grinding away their positions!

This is a reference to a mosaic where a woman is shown and named as a female bishop (Episcopa).

Or is she?  The one side says it is there because she was the mother of a bishop, and the title is purely honorary.  The other side says no way: she is wearing a virgin's headdress, and cannot be anybody's mother!

Etc etc etc

[Hector]

Why fly in the face of centuries of prejudice?

The Catholic Church is a dangerous irrelevance that cannot own up to the pederastic tendencies of its own priests, for example.

Unfortunately, it has millions of blind followers Worldwide and, therefore, cannot be dismissed lightly.

How many of them still wish they could burn heretics ?

[bwv 1080]

I think that's just the point.  There are the known facts of Jesus' existence, which are few, and then there are the interpretations and meanings that people have drawn from his reported words and actions.  And the latter are up for endless amounts of variation.  The point I take from Sarge's post is that Gore Vidal has every much right to draw his own inferences as Paul did, and his version is no less, or more, authoritative than Paul's.

Maybe not more authoritative but certainly much less relevant.  Leaving aside any supernatural claims, a religion means what the people who hold it believe it to mean. Paul was the key person in Christianity becoming a fusion of Greek and Judaic thought, but for him it likely would have remained an obscure Jewish sect like the Essenes.  Christianity then became the mechanism by which classical culture was transmitted and preserved to Northern and Western Europe and the foundation of the culture that developed in the middle ages. 

Lets grant for the sake of argument the free-love hippy Jesus whose teachings perfectly harmonize with everything currently promoted by the latest Oprah show gurus.  He would then be completely irrelevant.  If his true teaching is only what people 2000 years found by cherry picking historical texts to confirm their own pre-existing views then there is absolutely no value to any of it aside from a minor historical curiosity, like finding out that some unknown 1st century figure had completely worked out calculus and classical mechanics ahead of Newton but had not transmitted the knowledge to anyone.  What is much more important then is what the Catholic Church believed and how it was able to create a sense of European identity that heretofore had not existed. 

I do not believe you could run a pre-modern society on contemporary liberal mores.  From our vantage point in time all we see is the aspects of Catholicism that appear archaic and there is a certain satisfaction in coming up with revisionist histories that destroy the religion's foundation and allow us to mock its more credulous adherents.  But this misses the real aspects that we owe much of our culture to Christianity and to just dismiss it as some sort of primitive superstition impoverishes our own identity and heritage.

[Cato]

Why fly in the face of centuries of prejudice?

The Catholic Church is a dangerous irrelevance that cannot own up to the pederastic tendencies of its own priests, for example.

Unfortunately, it has millions of blind followers Worldwide and, therefore, cannot be dismissed lightly.

How many of them still wish they could burn heretics ?

It has been published that the percentage of pederasts/pedophiles among priests matches that of the general population: it is obviously a marvelous profession for such a person to hide behind.

I suspect no Catholics today are interested in burning heretics.

I find the term "dangerous irrelevance"  fascinatingly boring!   0:)

[Shrunk]

Maybe not more authoritative but certainly much less relevant....

Good post, bwv 1080.  I can't really disagree with anything you say there.

[david johnson]

there is a great difference in new testament christianity and how the catholic development proceeded.
my personal view ends with the authority of scripture rather than how its perception by church leaders after the 1st century, on their way to becoming what we term catholic, generated their concepts.
i find women, as i earlier posted, serving in various ministries during the nt times.  i can't see that they functioned in a priestly manner.  they seem to be more teachers and deaconesses.
not being catholic, i must now bow out of the discussion.

dj

[Bunny]

No, it was Paul who appointed the different roles within the Church, as the author makes clear in the previous paragraphs. And who was Paul? A self-appointed spokesman for the dead Jesus who quarreled violently with the true disciples, the disciples Christ had personally appointed. Paul was a weird guy who traveled around the Mediterranean, acting like he'd known Christ personally, claiming that only he could explain who and what Christ was and exactly what it meant to be a Christian. He was a bachelor who enjoyed the company of young Greek males (e.g., Timothy), thereby instituting one of the most sacred traditions of the Catholic church; a tradition that flourished for almost two thousand years...until the law finally caught up with it in the last decade of the last century. Gore Vidal has written what is most likely the most accurate account of Paul and Timothy's travels together 




"In the beginning was the nightmare, and the knife was with Saint Paul, and the circumcision was a Jewish notion and definitely not mine. I am Timothy, son of Eunice the Jewess and George the Greek. I am fifteen. I have golden hyacinthine curls and cornflower-blue, forget-me-not eyes, and the largest dick in our part of Asia Minor.... It had been Saint's inspired notion that Jesus had come as the messiah for everyone, Gentiles as well as Jews. Most Jews still didn't accept this, and of course we pray for them, morning, noon, and night. But the Jews in Jerusalem--like the oily James, kid brother of our Lord, and Peter, known as "The Rock" because of the absolute thickness of his head--finally accepted Saint's notion that although the Gentiles were unclean, Jesus was probably too big an enterprise for just the one tribe..."

Sarge

Is that why they call him the Protestant Saint?

[Hector]

I suspect no Catholics today are interested in burning heretics.

I find the term "dangerous irrelevance"  fascinatingly boring!   0:)

How do you know?

"Fascinatingly boring" is an oxymoron.

You must American!

[Cato]

How do you know?

"Fascinatingly boring" is an oxymoron.

You must (be) American!

After six decades of service with and among thousands of Catholics in various states, and after 5 decades of reading about the Church in the news, I can attest that not one person in my personal experience, nor one person mentioned in any of the thousands of news items about the Church which I have read, has ever said or been quoted as wanting to burn heretics!

An oxymoron: well, good for you!  And please read more carefully!

I am an American: Thank you for the compliment!   0:)

[M forever]

if a group views the nt as an idea book, then it's easy to come up with an understanding accepting of having female clergy members.
but if the concept is that the materials presented in the nt should more closely adhered to, then you will not feel comfortable putting women in certain postions...nor will the women want them.

Remind me - where in the NT among the alleged sayings of Jesus does he say "everybody has the same value and everybody deserves respect and love  - except, of course, women!!!"? I can't seem to recall such a passage.

[Shrunk]

Remind me - where in the NT among the alleged sayings of Jesus does he say "everybody has the same value and everybody deserves respect and love  - except, of course, women!!!"? I can't seem to recall such a passage.

It seems pretty clear from the information presented here that the ban on female priests is a doctrine that is not directly based on scripture, but rather on a tradition originating with Paul and being promulgated since then.  The Catholic Church is able to adapt to the times in some areas, but seems to be particularly intransigent on areas of sex and gender.

[M forever]

And it is easy to understand why. Controlling sexual behavior is one of the most powerful tools to control people. And since these organized religions are mostly about that, that is what they focus on so much. Instead of on the humanist message of mutual love and forgiveness and all that. Jesus (allegedly) said "don't judge, but forgive each other" but judging and condemning is pretty much what the Catholic Church, among others, has done for the past 2000 years or so. If we really find interest in Jesus' (alleged) message, then the first step is to get rid of these forms of organized religion. There is more *about that* in the NT anyway than about who can be a priest or not, or who can screw who or not, with or without a condom.