The World Needs Women Priests

[bbbbbbb]

The vow of celibacy is extremely personal.

Women priests is the correct door.

Is that your personal opinion or the professed belief of the Catholic Church?

 

[Abaxvahl]

But are you not positing a passivity/receptivity of the intellect and will also? Or if it is purely in reproductive terms, how is that relevant to ministry in any way?

It is mainly reproductive to me currently as I need to look into more proper sources on how the soul works (my view of the soul has radically developed and changed via studying the Fathers with a friend this year, so gender will touch it), but I would not be surprised if it touches the soul because the body is yourself to me also, there is a unity between it and persons are male or female. It has nothing to do with ministry to me I was just saying what sense God is male in, the main reason women aren't priests to me is just "God said so," any deeper reasons are unknown to me but I suspect there are some as He doesn't will without eternal reason.

 

[bbbbbbb]

There already are married Catholic priests, in the Eastern Rites and the Anglican Rite. I don’t think the Roman church will ordain women, or ordain married clergy into the Roman Rite, but if it does, that combined with the actions of Pope Francis will cause the largest schism in the Church since 1054. As it is right now Traditiones Custodes and the Amazonian synod and Amor Laetitia are veritable powder kegs which could cause explosive growth in the SSPX and implosive shrinking in the canonical RCC, which would be a very bad thing, since the SSPX has not shown itself to be as charitable as the RCC.

This is just one of many reasons why mutual respect is called for, between those churches which ordain women, and those which do not, as opposed to the current trend towards Othering, that people on both sides of the equation seem to be engaging in, which is attested to both by the horrible things people say to female clergy like Paidiske, and the horrible things people say about traditional churches like the RCC.

Although I certainly agree with you, I do see, as I am sure you do, an accelerating crisis in the RCC, at least in the United States, for priests. Parishes are being closed and merged for the lack of priests with a concomitant decline in membership. Many parishes have foreign-born priests of which some are here on visas which do expire resulting in the return of the priests to their home countries. This trend can only go so far before there is a significant implosion.

From my limited perspective the response in general has taken several forms.

1. Accelerated building construction. It seems to be counterintuitive that a denomination which is declining numerically (at least in terms of active, committed members) would engage in a major construction program, especially in light of its multiple, successful filings for bankruptcy in the face of the child abuse crisis. However, the RCC does seem to have significant financial resources such that it has been building new churches. This was the successful action which it took in the Counter Reformation and it seems to be their response in this crisis.

2. Promotion of laity to more active roles in the mass. Rather than having only altar boys there are now not only altar girls, but women readers and married deacons serving more actively. All but the Eucharist seems to be open to the laity.

3. More outreach to immigrants, especially Catholic immigrants such as Hispanics. The Catholic Church has a long tradition of this which has generally been successful. The problem in this case is that Hispanic culture is not geared toward active engagement in the Church. As is typical, a large swathe of these immigrants come from the lower rungs of society who are struggling to survive and are not motivated to engage in religious activities of any sort.

4. Very aggressive recruitment of new priests. It is not unusual today to see large billboards imploring folks to pray for more "religious" (which is the curious use of an adjective as a noun).

5. Very aggressive outreach to "lapsed" Catholics to "come home". Again this is evidenced by prominent billboards and other media.

One of the historically successful methods of lay engagement and religious recruitment has fallen completely by the wayside. That is the parochial school system. With the sharp decline and aging of the large numbers of nuns who staffed these school at a very nominal cost, tuition had to be raised to pay lay teachers. The result has been the closure and merger of most parochial schools. In my home city when I was young every parish had its school and there was a male high school, a female high school, and a coed high school, all of which were thriving. As of this writing there is only one Catholic school operating which combines K-12 education in the former coed high school building.

The future is not looking very bright for the RCC. OTOH in my home town when I was growing up the Greeks, of which there were maybe 200 had their ethnic church. It is now thriving and has moved into a larger, abandoned church. This is primarily because of the increase of the Greek population in the city and the ethnic cohesion of that population.

 

[Love365]

Women are better at communication.

Women priests would cause more people to come to Church,
to hear her preach.

 

[Strong in Him]

Women are better at communication.

Women priests would cause more people to come to Church,
to hear her preach.

Not necessarily.
Much as I agree with you about God calling women to be priests and the fact that this is beneficial to the church, some male priests have left/resigned over this matter.

Besides, should we be persuading people to come to church - shouldn't we be getting out there and taking the Gospel to them? Jesus went to people and met them where they were. He didn't sit in a synagogue and tell his disciples to bring people to him.

 

[pescador]

Women are better at communication.

Women priests would cause more people to come to Church,
to hear her preach.

Why do you say that women are better at communication? There is no proof of that.

There is also no proof that women priests would cause more people to come to Church.

You're living in a fantasy world.

 

[Love365]

Women priests could adopt children.
Some of those children would grow up to become priests.
This would solve the priest shortage.

 

[pescador]

Women priests could adopt children.
Some of those children would grow up to become priests.
This would solve the priest shortage.

Some of those children could also grow up to be criminals.

 

[Strong in Him]

Women priests could adopt children.
Some of those children would grow up to become priests.
This would solve the priest shortage.

Yes - but all this has nothing to do with the question of whether or not God calls women to be ordained.
Single people and gay couples can adopt children - some of those might grow up to be priests/Ministers.
Ministers and clergy can have, or adopt children who might grow up to leave the church, become atheists or cult members.

Asking women to have/adopt more children so that some of them can grow up to be priests has nothing to do with whether God is calling women themselves to offer in ordination.

 

[Love365]

A male priest represents Jesus at the Last Supper,
during Communion.

A woman priest represents the Holy Spirit,
when she adopts children.

 

[Strong in Him]

A male priest represents Jesus at the Last Supper,
during Communion.

A woman priest represents the Holy Spirit,
when she adopts children.

Interesting opinion but not Scriptural and nothing to do with whether or not women are called to be Ministers.

 

[rturner76]

Women priests could adopt children.
Some of those children would grow up to become priests.
This would solve the priest shortage.

While I do believe that allowing female Priesthood could solve the shortage. I wouldn't want to ordain them for that reason. It should be decided by scripture and tradition. Female ordination is fine in Protestant churches. The Anglican/Episcopalian denomination is very similar to Catholic. Because when the break was made, Archbishops and Bishops from Rome remained in place so it is believed that their church is still part of the Apostolic Succession.

 

[pescador]

A male priest represents Jesus at the Last Supper,
during Communion.

A woman priest represents the Holy Spirit,
when she adopts children.

And a dog represents a faithful worshiper.

 

[Albion]

Women priests would cause more people to come to Church,
to hear her preach.

If we consider the mainline churches with substantial membership totals that did begin to ordain women in recent years, their experience afterwards was a significant loss of members.

 

[pescador]

If we consider the mainline churches with substantial membership totals that did begin to ordain women in recent years, their experience afterwards was a significant loss of members.

And you consider this a valid argument? Can you show a causal relationship between the two? I'm betting that you can't.

 

[Philip_B]

Women are better at communication.
Women priests would cause more people to come to Church, to hear her preach.

The experience of the Ordination of Women in the Anglican Communion would suggest that you argument is probably wrong. Having been part of a Church which has been ordaining Women for more than thirty years now I would say that some women a good communicators and some are not. Preaching as a form of communication requires a number of skills, including theology, oratory, logic, compassion and listening amongst others.

Within the traditional sacramental communities people do not attend church simply to hear the sermon, valuable though that might be, but to pray and to worship, to give thanks and to sing, to repent of the past and to commit to a brighter future, to hear the Holy Scriptures read and to write them in our hearts.

Filling buildings on a Sunday is not the primary purpose of the Church. So whilst I agree with what you are arguing for, I do not agree with your argument.

 

[Albion]

And you consider this a valid argument? .

I consider it to be information that calls into question the claim made by our friend who said a woman pastor "would cause more people to come to Church." The evidence seems to run the other way.

 

[bbbbbbb]

I consider it to be information that calls into question the claim made by our friend who said a woman pastor "would cause more people to come to Church." The evidence seems to run the other way.

I agree. The evidence is not merely in the Episcopal Church but in many other mainline churches. One of the problems seems to be that women ministers seem to be assigned to struggling churches which are generally small to begin with. Or, they assume secondary positions in larger churches. I believe that there is a glass ceiling within most denominations that ordain women.

 

[Love365]

If we consider the mainline churches with substantial membership totals that did begin to ordain women in recent years, their experience afterwards was a significant loss of members.

More women priests should be televangelists.
That might help their membership.

 

[Strong in Him]

More women priests should be televangelists.
That might help their membership.

If a woman is called by God to be a Televangelist, I'm sure she could/would be.
It's not a matter of whether she should, but has she been called by God to do so?