How liberal am I, actually? And, the evils of misogyny

[Thatgirloncfforums]

I had a friend who wanted to be a Catholic priest. She has a profound devotion to the Theotokos and to Sts Therese of Avila and Hildegard of Bingen. But she has succumbed to the idea that such a desire is heterodox and self-serving. Very sad.

I was astonished, when I was new here, to find I was considered liberal, because I always considered myself pretty straight-down-the-line orthodox. But what I found is that irl, in Australia, "liberal" would mean something like, rejects the Creeds or the basic tenets of Christianity. (What Sir Humphrey Appleby might call "modernist, Prime Minister.") But on CF "liberal," as you have found, seems to mean well-grounded theology which is integrated with the best insights of other disciplines, or anything that's not incredibly socially conservative, or both.

My sisters above are right; this site is saturated in misogyny and sexism, and all but the most blatant seems to be accepted as part of the Christian landscape. The Egalitarian forum was created to be a haven from that, and having it is better than not, but it's a long way from really addressing the problem.

 

[The Liturgist]

I had a friend who wanted to be a Catholic priest. She has a profound devotion to the Theotokos and to Sts Therese of Avila and Hildegard of Bingen. But she has succumbed to the idea that such a desire is heterodox and self-serving. Very sad.

Well, it is my opinion studying the canon law of the early church that at a minimum, the office of deaconess is canonically required. And I can’t find any canons that prohibit, or conversely, permit, female priests and bishops, but at a minimum, every church should have deaconesses and so the ministry is open to women, according to ancient canon law.

Some canons required deaconesses to be 40, and other later canons raised the minimum age to 60, and some canons required celibacy, just as some required priests to be celibate, however, deaconesses tended to be widows. These should not be viewed as binding in a contemporary context. But the ministerial vocation of women is incontrovertible due to the canons mandating deaconesses, even if one accepts the theory that deaconesses are different in rank from deacons, or that a deaconess is not a part of the diaconate proper, which is a theory I reject. The bottom line is that the ministry of women is not heterodox but orthodox.

Also, the minimum age for priests was historically 30. Most non-Eastern Rite Roman Catholic priests and friars start in their late 20s. I need to study the current Code of Canon Law, and the medieval Decreetals, and compare them with the Greek Orthodox Pedalion, which consists primarily of canon law from the first seven ecumenical councils, the legislative Quinisext Council of Trullo, non-ecumenical councils, and the canons issued by bishops like St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nyssa, and John the Faster, a contemporary and to a certain extent, nemesis, of Pope St. Gregory the Great (both John the Faster and Pope St. Gregory the Great, known in the East as St. Gregory the Dialogist, are venerated by the Eastern Orthodox, but Pope St. Gregory is far more important, since among other things he is, correctly I think, credited for writing the current version of the Liturgy of the Presanctified (the Roman Catholic Church used the same text in the Mass of the Presanctified until Pope Pius XII ruined the Paschal Triduum in 1955, also changing the Mass on Holy Saturday so that it no longer resembled the Vesperal Divine Liturgy the Orthodox celebrate on Holy Saturday Morning, and changing the liturgical color on Good Friday from black to red; dark red was historically used before black vestments appeared in the Orthodox Church during Holy Week, and still is in Greek churches and in most other churches at the Vesperal Divine Liturgy on the morning of Holy Thursday, but bright red vestments in both churches were always reserved for feasts of the Apostles and Martyrs and St. John the Baptist, and for St. Thomas Sunday or Low Sunday, the first after Easter Sunday, and in the Western tradition, Palm Sunday and Pentecost (the Orthodox use Green on those days, and Gold when no other color is specified, the equivalent to Ordinary Time).

 

[Thatgirloncfforums]

Superb! Please share your findings when you can! Link me. Thanks.

Well, it is my opinion studying the canon law of the early church that at a minimum, the office of deaconess is canonically required. And I can’t find any canons that prohibit, or conversely, permit, female priests and bishops, but at a minimum, every church should have deaconesses and so the ministry is open to women, according to ancient canon law.

Some canons required deaconesses to be 40, and other later canons raised the minimum age to 60, and some canons required celibacy, just as some required priests to be celibate, however, deaconesses tended to be widows. These should not be viewed as binding in a contemporary context. But the ministerial vocation of women is incontrovertible due to the canons mandating deaconesses, even if one accepts the theory that deaconesses are different in rank from deacons, or that a deaconess is not a part of the diaconate proper, which is a theory I reject. The bottom line is that the ministry of women is not heterodox but orthodox.

Also, the minimum age for priests was historically 30. Most non-Eastern Rite Roman Catholic priests and friars start in their late 20s. I need to study the current Code of Canon Law, and the medieval Decreetals, and compare them with the Greek Orthodox Pedalion, which consists primarily of canon law from the first seven ecumenical councils, the legislative Quinisext Council of Trullo, non-ecumenical councils, and the canons issued by bishops like St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nyssa, and John the Faster, a contemporary and to a certain extent, nemesis, of Pope St. Gregory the Great (both John the Faster and Pope St. Gregory the Great, known in the East as St. Gregory the Dialogist, are venerated by the Eastern Orthodox, but Pope St. Gregory is far more important, since among other things he is, correctly I think, credited for writing the current version of the Liturgy of the Presanctified (the Roman Catholic Church used the same text in the Mass of the Presanctified until Pope Pius XII ruined the Paschal Triduum in 1955, also changing the Mass on Holy Saturday so that it no longer resembled the Vesperal Divine Liturgy the Orthodox celebrate on Holy Saturday Morning, and changing the liturgical color on Good Friday from black to red; dark red was historically used before black vestments appeared in the Orthodox Church during Holy Week, and still is in Greek churches and in most other churches at the Vesperal Divine Liturgy on the morning of Holy Thursday, but bright red vestments in both churches were always reserved for feasts of the Apostles and Martyrs and St. John the Baptist, and for St. Thomas Sunday or Low Sunday, the first after Easter Sunday, and in the Western tradition, Palm Sunday and Pentecost (the Orthodox use Green on those days, and Gold when no other color is specified, the equivalent to Ordinary Time).