Saturday, December 06, 2003
Women Priests in Catholic Church?
"Now here is where the issue gets murky. You can react to the Anglican decision in a variety of ways. Some would say, 'It's about time! Welcome to the Twentieth Century.' Others could say that this gives a home to Catholics who favor woman priesthood. In fact, one could ask, Why don't they just join the Anglicans? After all, if I went into a McDonalds and told the waitress I wanted deep fried chicken with lots of spices, she would simply tell me, 'Sir that is not on our menu, but there is a KFC right across the street.' I have actually said as much to some of my friends who feel so strongly that they say that the pope is unjust.
I hope we can get beyond the rhetoric of justice and injustice in talking about this issue. Those words, as well as oppression, dictatorial, etc. assume that the Church is a kind of sovereign nation. It is not. It is a completely free association. You can accept or reject your baptism. We have no police or court system to make you comply. We cannot levy taxes and force you to pay for them.
I lived in a country for seven years where injustice meant something so terrible that it seems a mockery to apply that word to the Catholic Church. A woman thrown arbitrarily in jail where she is made fun of by the guards and humiliated by the officers is an injustice, especially when there is no calling to account of perpetrators. However, a professor losing his job because what he teaches is opposed to the institution paying his salary is done no injustice. A woman who has hundreds of opportunities, but one of them is not a low paying, high stress, twenty four hour a day job is not a victim of injustice. I am sorry if I offend, but I do not know how to make that point any plainer."
An argument that centers around Heaven as the marriage feast and the essentail femininity of all humanity in relation to our Heavenly Father. This is not, as some amazon.com reviewers would have it, some sort of straw-man argument, but something that cuts to the core of what it is to be Catholic.
Check out the comments near the bottom of the peace for the Women's Ordination Conference and some questions about why vocations are way up for pretty much the entire planet except the US and Western Europe. Or as another put it, there is no priest shortage, there is just a poor distribution of the priests we have.
I hope we can get beyond the rhetoric of justice and injustice in talking about this issue. Those words, as well as oppression, dictatorial, etc. assume that the Church is a kind of sovereign nation. It is not. It is a completely free association. You can accept or reject your baptism. We have no police or court system to make you comply. We cannot levy taxes and force you to pay for them.
I lived in a country for seven years where injustice meant something so terrible that it seems a mockery to apply that word to the Catholic Church. A woman thrown arbitrarily in jail where she is made fun of by the guards and humiliated by the officers is an injustice, especially when there is no calling to account of perpetrators. However, a professor losing his job because what he teaches is opposed to the institution paying his salary is done no injustice. A woman who has hundreds of opportunities, but one of them is not a low paying, high stress, twenty four hour a day job is not a victim of injustice. I am sorry if I offend, but I do not know how to make that point any plainer."
An argument that centers around Heaven as the marriage feast and the essentail femininity of all humanity in relation to our Heavenly Father. This is not, as some amazon.com reviewers would have it, some sort of straw-man argument, but something that cuts to the core of what it is to be Catholic.
Check out the comments near the bottom of the peace for the Women's Ordination Conference and some questions about why vocations are way up for pretty much the entire planet except the US and Western Europe. Or as another put it, there is no priest shortage, there is just a poor distribution of the priests we have.
