There is a terrible logical confusion concerning gender discrimination, possibly even misogyny, within the Catholic Church. It’s most certainly true that the organisation, the institution, has views concerning the relative jobs and places of men and women which look more than a tad archaic to the modern eye. They’re also pretty much what the relative jobs and places were for the first 1800 years or so from the founding event. It’s only in very recent decades that we’ve flown free from the physical constraints which imposed those jobs. We here are just fine with, celebrate even, that flight but it’s still true that there’s no problem with whatever the Church does believe. It’s an organisation with a voluntary membership, d’ye see?
“Powerful vested interests” within the Catholic church are being challenged at a conference in Rome on International Women’s Day as calls grow for women to be given positions of authority and influence in the church.
In a sign that a new assertive mood around women’s rights has reached the Vatican, the Voices of Faith gathering will on Thursday hear demands for bold steps towards gender equality within the male-dominated church.
Meanwhile a manifesto of women for the church, which calls for women’s roles that “are coherent with our competences and capacities”, is circulating on social media. It says: “As adult women we experience daily the subordinate role of women in the church.”
Here’s the problem with such calls. It’s no longer true that you get strapped to faggots and burnt if you’re not a Catholic, nor if you harbour heretical views about what being a Catholic means. They’ll not even ban you from a church these days, only deny you sacraments. It’s an entirely voluntary decision to be or not be a Catholic. So, complaining about the rules of a club you don’t have to be a member of isn’t logically valid. Go start your own club with different rules.
We can take another view of course – this is the institution guarding the revealed word of God. Do what they say or lose that eternity in heaven. Well, OK, not that we’re all that taken with Pascal’s Wager. But if that is true then there’s no arguing with the rules, is there? Them’s the Word of God.
It’s either a human institution in which case make your own if you don’t like it or it isn’t a human institution in which case shut up and accept the rules.
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The Left does not create much in the way of institutions. They only canabalise the ones that the Right has built.
In the meantime, nothing has changed. The sensible roles for men and women are what they always have been. Women and men actively prefer it that way. What we have decided to do is to bully them all into accepting the Shaker solution - except with more sex but equally no reproduction. Great. But it is a one generation thing.
The future belongs to those that keep their women bare foot and pregnant or some approximation thereof.
Their gaff, their rules. But they actively seek, as they always have done, to get others to comply with their rules. As they are based on myth, I will continue to treat them with the ridicule they deserve, just as one might a scientist who claimed by faith that the moon was made of cream cheese.
"They’re also pretty much what the relative jobs and places were for the first 1800 years or so from the founding event": apparently not. In an era when neither priests nor bishops existed what mattered were deacons and deaconesses. QED.
As a generalisation people exaggerate how old traditions are. You can see the effect in popular accounts of British history, and see it very clearly in the history both of Christianity and of the Roman Catholic church.
This is a pointless conversation but I would have thought that bishops are about as old as you can get in the Christian world. Old enough, almost, to have made it into the New Testament and certainly old enough to have been mentioned in the first hundred years or so.
Why do you think otherwise?
SMFS -- Find the scriptural evidence for
A) bishops
B) any priesthood
Jesus is on record railing in the strongest possible way against those that apply rules "because they are the rules". However people generally prefer the forms of religion to the message of it.
Jesus is strongly against hypocrites who follow the forms while ignoring the substance. Which I think would describe pretty much anyone who thinks they are better than the Tradition. But no matter.
Acts 14:23 “And when they had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they believed.”
Acts 15:22 “Then pleased it the apostles and elders, with the whole church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas; namely, Judas surnamed Barsabas, and Silas, chief men among the brethren"
Now it depends on what they meant by Bishops but that there were men in positions of authority over congregations is undeniable. But if you want to ignore the traditional interpretation - Titus:
5 For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee:
6 If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly.
7 For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre;
8 But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate;
9 Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.
Which looks pretty definitive to me. Paul specifically appoints Titus over his community with the authority to lecture others on proper behaviour. Does that satisfy you?
As for priesthood, that depends on what terms you translate. Presbyter could mean priest, in fact the English word comes from the Greek, or it could mean Bishop. But how about Revelations?
And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.
First Peter?
5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
Traditions have to start at some point in history, so why not start a new traction now of having women as Pope?
Personally I’m in the private club camp and think it’s none of my business, I’m just making a general point using them as an example.
Tradition not traction :(
It's like with the fight to control the Labour Party, it the hugely valuable brand name and the auto-selecting brand customers that is the value, not what its rules, policies and products are.
This would be more convincing if the Catholic Church hadn't periodically changed their rules (about slavery, for instance, or nuns being cloistered) over time as the absurdity of their older ones became manifest. I'm not a Catholic or even a believer, but the state of mind required for a person of normal intelligence to remain in a religion seems to be: "Well, this is the best guess right now, so I should probably give it a tumble". That doesn't prevent the congregants from occasionally suggesting that the church should guess again.
Neither of those is a matter of doctrine. It is irrelevant to Christians whether nuns are cloistered or not. Some always have been. Some always have not been. There has never been a time 100% of nuns have been cloistered. It is just a matter of discipline and organisation.
The Church being taken over by feminists is more than a matter of doctrine. It is a matter of life or death. The Church has largely chosen to die and so die it will. But if it declares that everything it claimed to believe was made up, then it will die all the sooner.
There is a strong association between the collapse of congregations and female priests by the way.
"So, complaining about the rules of a club you don’t have to be a member of isn’t logically valid."
The rules of this particular club define a process for changing the club rules. You argue your case, and try to persuade the people with the votes to change the rules your way. If they're persuaded, the rules are changed. If they're not, they're not.
If you want a club where the rules are defined by the Word of God and unchangeable by humans, then you'll probably need to ask God to show up and start her own club.
Ann Widdecombe left CoE and joined RC as, amongst other modern/inclusive, she did not agree with female priests etc in CoE
My wife is due to be confirmed over Easter and becoming a practicing Catholic, part of her reason was that they still talk about God and faith and treated them as important things, and also that they haven’t butchered all the old hymns with modern versions, apparently they even did silent night in original German at the midnight mass for Christmas