Truth is true whether one likes it or not. If the whole world voted for the earth to be flat, it would still be round.
I keep telling that to global climate change denialists, and they persist in their denialism anyway.
Same thing with creationists. Science is science. It's the study of objective reality. You can have your own opinion (i.e. "What should we do or not do in response to this reality?"), but you can't have your own "alternative facts". So, I agree with you on that point. I think there is a lot of room for subjectivity when it comes to opinions, but we should all be able to acknowledge the same underlying facts.
So if it was true yesterday that women cannot be priests it will be true today and tomorrow.
Ah, but what if women could always be ordained as priests and the Church simply chose not to do so? Though a male-only priesthood has been framed as a matter of faith by some of it's advocates, I consider it a matter of discipline, like priestly celibacy. There were actually likely times when there were no married priests- like after the Great Schism and before some Eastern churches were created in union with Rome or reunited with Rome. So, one could have said at one time "It was true yesterday that married people can not become priests, so it is true today", but that was never ontologically true. Bishops could have always ordained married men as priests, there were times when they simply chose not to, perhaps on orders from the Pope.
If some sort of indisputable evidence existed that in 687AD in some far off diocese, a bishop secretly or not so secretly held an ordination for a woman priest, I would consider that person to have been a validly ordained priest. It might have been illicit, which is to say not allowed by the rules, but she would have sacramentally been a priest, in the same way some renegade groups like the SSPX on the right or the Old Catholics in Europe on the left ordain men against the rules, and they are valid priests, just illicitly ordained. Actually, come to think of it, the Old Catholics do ordain women as priests as well, so there are women priests in the Catholic world, even if not in communion with Rome. Their rites are indisputably Catholic rites, and their episcopal lines come from the several Roman Catholic dioceses that separated in 1870 AD or so, and can be easily historically verified. I also believe that Anglican orders are valid, so I believe there are women deacons, priests, and bishops in the Anglican Communion as well, but I don't want to get bogged down in a discussion of the validity of Anglican orders, which is obviously controversial in and of itself, and separate from the matters at hand.
Now, people can run out all sorts of quotes from important people in the Church who do not believe that women can be validly ordained and that it's a matter of unchangeable doctrine that the Church has no authority to confer such ordinations, but there were times, particularly around the Great Schism when a priestly celibacy seemed to be elevated by some to the level of doctrine, and it turned out the people who had that "higher" view were wrong- it was always a matter of discipline. After Rome starts ordaining women as priests, and that could take centuries, but I believe eventually it will happen, I think we will retroactively say it was always a matter of discipline. Remember, we see but through a lens darkly.
But if it is true today that women can be priests, it means that the Church has been in error and is thus not the Church.
Humans within the Church can error, sometimes even the Church leadership. What Saint was it who said the road to hell is lined with the skulls of bishops? I know someone did actually say that, I'm not saying it- I'm basically quoting a Saint. I actually would be very reluctant to go that far. But mistakes have been made.
Theology tends to try to draw very precise lines about when the infallible Church is speaking and when the fallible humans who make up the Church (Including Popes and bishops- as I know you know, but some reading may not- Vatican I never said the Pope was infallible generally, just under very specific circumstances). When things that were deemed unchangeable change, the goal posts are moved. The minority view that was once dismissed becomes the new orthodoxy.
Look at the changes in the Church's apparent stance towards religious pluralism in the Vatican II era on forward relative to prior to that point, for example. And, actually, that last sentence is something you could go over to the conservative Salt of the Earth area, and they'd agree with me that something changed there. It's just that I think the change was good, and they think the change was bad. Popes like John-Paul II did a good job of trying to plausibly reconcile them as consistent teachings, but, in the end, I don't buy it, and I *like* the changes. But they are changes.
It doesn't bother me that the Church changes and progresses. Change is a fact of life. What you want to do is try to hope that the changes go in the correct direction.
I wonder, F&B, and I'm just musing out loud here...
The issues on which Pope Francis is attempting to make great strides are ones where lives literally hang in the balance. People die of poverty, and climate change, with its disproportionate impact on the poor, will likely intensify that badly.
Is it possible that His Holiness has chosen one or two of the most urgent, most ethically compelling issues, to champion, knowing that he simply cannot do it all? If that were the case, would you be able to feel that that's an acceptable stance to take?
Or is anything less than all-out on everything just not enough?
I'm not pushing any particular agenda there, just, as I said, sort of thinking about what I can see of the bigger picture...
I think it's actually very plausible that the Pope is very progressive on economics and the environment, and very conservative when it comes to homosexuals, and somewhat conservative when it comes to women. No Popes in recent history have ever aligned 100% with what we would consider either the left or the right in American political terms, even though some obviously leaned more one way or the other, relatively speaking.
It's also possible that the Pope realizes that while in theory he is the successor of St. Peter and has monarchical power, he realizes that theory is not practice. Change too much too quickly, and you wind up with wide-scale schism, or other problems. The Curia and all of the world's Cardinals and bishops are in theory accountable to the Pope, but have their own power bases and their own opinions and duties, and you need to kind of play to those constituencies to some degree or you find them in revolt. He's also the shepherd of souls of a worldwide community. Move too far too fast, and you lose a lot souls. So, it's also possible that he's picking his spots, as you mentioned. His economic and environmental views are less of a move from the positions of prior Popes than some of the other things we've discussed, and less prickly for theology majors.
Largely, he's just strengthened pre-existing things, adding to them in spots, and started framing them more in moral and ethical terms, as matters of faith and morals rather than discretionary matters, and put more of a spotlight on them. The ordination of women and the acceptance of gays are sort of "third rail" issues within the Church- the second you touch them, a lot of people will go nuts. It may be that he considers these issues things he would like to do, but doesn't believe the consequences are worth it, or it may be that these are things he doesn't want to do in the first place- he could be like our forum friend here Paul, who applauds Francis' economic and environmental reforms, but wouldn't be entirely comfortable with the rest- Paul is proof that there are some people who fall exactly where Pope Francis says he is. And if Pope Francis says that's where he is, who am I to say otherwise?
However, Pope Francis being in one place doesn't mean that his successors will all be in that same place, necessarily. Sometimes progress is, well, progressive. It doesn't come all at once, it comes gradually.
female ordination and gay priests?
I don't feel as strongly about these issues as you do.
I know. I'm alright with that. We don't always have to agree on everything.
