Just so it doesn't go completely unanswered, no, Holy Tradition is not our
ultimate authority, and no, the NT did NOT come from it. Holy Tradition
(thank God for it) is subservient to the Scriptures. Scripture, written by
men, is God-breathed (II Tim 3:16); Holy Tradition, as wonderful as it is,
is not. The only infallible word we have is Holy Scripture, and (I should
not have to say this) according to Article 6 is the ONLY standard by which
our conscience may be bound:
Holy Scripture...so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved
thereby, is not to be required of any man
Of course, I agree that ordination is to be restricted to men, but to be
more than simply church policy that can be changed, this must be proven
directly from Scripture. We need to be sure to found such statements on
that which is sure. The AMIA document on ordaining women (which concluded
this was not allowed) is an excellent example of how to go about this task.
the virus
-----Original Message-----
From: The Rev GDVWiebe SSC.,PhD [mailto:gdvw@...]
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 2:27 PM
To: faithandlife@...
Cc: bigchese@...
Subject: [FaithandLife] CATHOLIC WRITERS AND THE PRIESTHOOD
> Brothers+
> Revelation means that God intervenes in a specific
time and place to achieve something He desires to
do.(Sitz um Leben).He can do anything He wants in
any way He chooses -and to deny that is to deny God
as God.
Thus
He could have intervened, had He chosen so to do, to
sort out Earth's problems by appearing as a koala in
Antartica 100,000 years ago. But He did not do this
and we are bound by His actions and decisions.
Holy Tradition is our
ultimate authority (The NT comes from that) and it
is Holy Tradition that has always restricted
sacerdotal ordination to men.
Trying to change the rules 2000
years down the road is a puerile and brattish
attempt to 'play God' and frankly insults anyone who
knows anything about Church history.
The Apostles (the first Bishops)
could have chosen Mary Magdalene for example to
replace Judas but they chose St Matthias
instead-Mary was not even nominated! But they did
shortly thereafter acc. to the Acts of the Apostles
establish the diaconate and admitted both men and
women to it.
As Catholics we are happily,irretrievably bound to
Holy Tradition (and what it actually is sometimes is
a shock for some).
Protestants can (and do) change as they like but
by their own admission (when they are honest and
sometimes some of them are brutally so)they do not
claim/desire to be Catholic hence the Quadrilateral
disqualifies all of them ab initio.
Few of them have any problem
with this as they do not see the Church as the Ark
of Salvation.
Our
Lord's words about 'those who are not against us are
for us' may apply in some way soteriologically to
some of them as individuals but no more.
> Attempts to make priests and bishops out of women
are part and parcel of the crusade-like effort to
denigrate and destroy the sacrament of Orders (the
lies and prevarications about certain of our
brethren in the Latin priesthood are another facet
of this diabolical thrust).
We should / must fight this before we
fight anything else because without the priesthood
we end up with no sacraments and thus no grace.
Blessings & Happy
Sta Bibiana Day 2005. GDVW+
Months ago I indicated that I
had yet to see a
> convincing argument for women's roles in the Church
> and commented that "Mercifully no one has asked me to
> defend the position of our communion in regard regard
> to women in orders." If one were to question me in
> that regard, I've decided to launch into a Tevye's
> song in "Fiddler". When asked "Why" by his daughters
> he would sing, "Tradition! The FAther!." That should
> send them running for cover.
>
> I know, appealing to Tradition is not going to be
> perceived as a logical answer, but it is the only one
> I have. I quoted Bp Kallistos Ware who in 1997 said,
> "If there are certain things within the Church that
> women cannot do, we must give a reason- not just say
> it has always been so and it will always be so. We
> must give a reason." Mea Culpa Bp Ware, as the
> following debate reveals, logic runs thin on this
> subject.
>
> In view of our recent re-run of the topic here, I
> found the following from a Roman Catholic Blog of
> interest. These are comments from the ladies. Again,
> quoting Tevye, "Its enough to cross a rabbi's eyes!"
>
> These letters and many more came from a stimulating
> exchange in First Things August/September 2003. If I
> remember correctly, when questioned on the issue
> JPII's response was something to the effect "over my
> dead body." Now that has been accomplished, what will
> the RC's do?
>
> Charles+
> }"-------------------------------------------------------
>
> In "Ordaining Women: Two Views" (April), Sarah
> Hinlicky Wilson writes that "if the female cannot
> represent Christ because of her femininity, it is hard
> to understand how Christ in his masculinity can
> represent her in his death and resurrection."
>
> It is not the case that a "female cannot represent
> Christ because of her femininity." That is an
> incorrect answer to the question, "Why can a woman not
> be ordained?" Any woman can represent Christ precisely
> because of her femininity. Most significantly, the
> Virgin Mary, through her grace-filled femininity,
> represents Christ as the penultimate model of
> submission to the will of God. What a woman cannot do
> because of her femininity is act in persona Christi as
> the person through whom Christ's saving grace is
> directly communicated to the faithful through the
> sacraments of the Eucharist and reconciliation, as
> Jennifer Ferrara competently explains. <snip>
> "=========================================
>
>
> I read with curiosity the exchange between Jennifer
> Ferrara and Sarah Hinlicky Wilson concerning the
> ordination of women. While both writers made some
> persuasive points, it is distracting to argue over
> shoulds, shouldn'ts, roles, traits, obligations,
> rights, etc. The issue is not really how women should
> behave in private or public life. The issue is: Does
> gender matter? Does gender add something to our
> humanity? Does femaleness make it literally impossible
> for a person to be ordained?
> To answer no to these questions is to stray from the
> precision of incarnational faith into dangerous
> territory, joining company with the many through the
> ages who have said Jesus is only seeming God, seeming
> man, or who have denied the hypostatic union.
> Let's start by considering the fiat of the Virgin
> Mary. Here we have a real, live woman, approached by a
> real, live lover (the Holy Spirit), who conceived a
> real, live child. I think we can assume that her fiat
> was above all a sexual response to the Holy Spirit.
> Her reply was not the dutiful "Yes, you know best,
> whatever you say" that is often depicted. It was an
> ecstatic assent, given with body and soul. Certainly,
> in Mary we can assume a perfect concordance between
> spirit and flesh; but her response, and its fruit, was
> no less physical than spiritual. The incarnation comes
> about through the specificity of the female sexual
> response.
> A man may spiritually "give birth" to spiritual fruit,
> but only a woman could physically give birth to the
> Word made flesh. By analogy with Mary, although it may
> be harder to discern, can we not assume that there is
> something uniquely male about Christ's salvific role?
> The doctrine of the Virgin Birth tells us that all of
> Christ's human nature is inherited from his Mother.
> She could not have passed him the y-chromosome
> necessary for maleness. We must infer, then, that his
> maleness was given by his Father along with his
> divinity and not as part of his human genetic makeup.
> Jesus' maleness is not an attribute of his humanity
> but of his divinity. (Conversely, when Eve was created
> from Adam, Adam's x-chromosome may have been
> duplicated, or supplied by God in an additional act of
> creation.)
> Jesus' masculinity is a supernatural attribute which
> nevertheless has a physical effect on his human
> nature. It gives a spin to his human nature. His
> maleness is the locus of the union between his
> humanity and divinity. Whatever vein of speculation
> one chooses to mine, it is clear: his maleness is
> somehow a key to the hypostatic union.
> In our perennially Arian way, we repeatedly
> shortchange both the physical and the spiritual. The
> physical is considered "merely" physical, the
> spiritual belonging to a plane of higher truth. On the
> other hand, only the physical is thought to be
> "literally" true, while spiritual truths are seen as
> mere metaphors. But both are equal in value, although
> one is ontologically prior-there is nothing "mere"
> about the physical realm, the flesh taken on by our
> Savior. And spiritual truths are no less literally
> true than physical ones. Both are literal-one
> physically, the other metaphysically. Both are
> metaphorical-the physical is a metaphor for the
> spiritual, and vice versa. Both matter.
> June McIntosh
> Mercersburg, Pennsylvania
>
> "---------------------------------------------------
> The masculinity of Christ does indeed explain why
> women cannot be ordained to the priesthood, but not
> for the reasons enumerated by Jennifer Ferrara.
> Nothing about Christ can be understood apart from the
> fact that God chose incarnation as His response to
> original sin. Thus, women cannot be ordained priests
> because priests image Christ as the sacrificial lamb
> of God, as the ones who have committed their lives to
> representing Calvary though the Eucharist. The
> Eucharistic Calvary signifies not only human atonement
> for human sins stretching back to Eden, but also the
> restoration of the human loves and friendships
> sundered in Eden through original sin.
> In Eden, the race lost not only its unity with God but
> also the unity between man and woman. As a result,
> Christ had two missions: the humanitarian mission of
> restoring unity with God and the gender mission of
> restoring heterosexual unity. The humanitarian mission
> of restoring unity with God required that the lamb of
> God be fully human and fully God. Accordingly, since
> women are as human as men, God could have incarnated
> as a woman. A female Christ could have restored the
> human race to its original unity with God. It is not
> Christ's humanitarian mission that required Christ to
> be male.
> The maleness of Christ is rather required in order to
> restore the unity between men and women destroyed by
> original sin; for as Genesis 3:16 states: "Your desire
> will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."
> This passage indicates three gender consequences of
> original sin: the excessive desire or obsession of
> women for their men, male domination over women, and
> sexual inequality. Freeing the human race from these
> consequences of original sin constitutes Christ's
> gender mission.
> These consequences are significant. In his letter "On
> the Dignity and Vocation of Women," John Paul II
> identifies male domination with chauvinism and blames
> it for the many ways in which women suffer
> discrimination and lack of proper appreciation for
> their equality and dignity. Chauvinism as a
> consequence of original sin necessitated that the
> Christ be a man. For due to chauvinism, a female
> Christ would not have been recognized by men as being
> their Lord, their Rabbi, their Savior. Christ
> exemplified sacrificial love, which chauvinism
> identifies as a weakness and as a peculiarity of
> women; according to chauvinism, maleness is about
> strength, independence, power, and control. Not so,
> taught Christ; rather, masculinity is for the sake of
> pouring out one's life for another in love, not for
> the sake of self-gratification and domination.
> Fallen women also needed Christ to be incarnated as a
> man-and not only to teach men a lesson. Original sin
> weakened femininity to the point where it blinded
> women to the truth about their desire for love.
> Original sin derailed woman's transcendent passion for
> God with an egocentric passion for man-for a Mr. Right
> able to satiate desire. Fallen woman thus assumes
> either that Mr. Right will be perfect as promised by
> fairy tales or that accommodating his chauvinism and
> domination will be the sacrifice that enables her to
> be loved. Thus woman needed not only to be freed from
> the harms of chauvinism but also from the misdirection
> of her desire. Women needed to learn not just that
> there can be only one perfect man, Jesus Christ, but
> also that men need not be chauvinistic. If Christ had
> been incarnated as a woman, these lessons would have
> been untaught.
> If Christ had to be incarnated as a man in order to
> fulfill his gender mission, then it is not possible
> for women to undertake this mission. If it is not
> possible for women to undertake the gender mission,
> then it is not possible for women to be ordained
> Catholic priests. For the Catholic priest images
> Christ in his gender mission as well as in his
> humanitarian mission. This is particularly the case
> since the Catholic Church was founded as the remedy
> for original sin. Thus if the Catholic Church were to
> ordain women her priests would not be able to image
> the gender mission of Christ. But since the effects of
> original sin continue even unto this age, there is
> need for priests to image the gender mission of
> Christ.
> Furthermore, since the refusal of the Catholic Church
> to ordain women is grounded in the gender mission of
> Christ, it is a refusal that promotes sexual equality.
> It is important that the Church promote sexual
> equality-for two reasons. First, it is through sexual
> equality that the harmful inequities resulting from
> original sin are countered. Secondly, as John Paul II
> points out, it is only when spouses recognize and
> appreciate the equality of the other that they are
> able to appreciate properly the other's spousal gift
> of self. Without this appreciation, marriages fail to
> properly image the loving equality of the Trinity. But
> we are made in the image of God and we love best when
> we love as God loves.
> Therefore, it is in the interest of promoting sexual
> equality and Trinitarian love that the Catholic Church
> forgoes ordaining women. By so doing, she proclaims
> both the importance of Christ's male incarnation and
> the need to image his gender mission. This
> proclamation, in turn, witnesses to the ongoing
> effects of original sin and the need to counter those
> effects by relying upon the grace and wisdom of
> Christ.
> R. Mary Hayden Lemmons
> Associate Professor of Philosophy and Catholic Studies
> University of St. Thomas
> St. Paul, Minnesota
>
> "---------------------------------------------------------
> Jennifer Ferrara replies:
> R. Mary Hayden Lemmons rejects the reasons I give for
> restricting the priesthood to men, but does not
> respond at all to the content of my essay. Instead,
> she proposes a novel thesis of her own, one for which
> she provides no evidence from Scripture or tradition.
>
> I am unaware of any basis for her claim that Jesus was
> on a gender mission to restore the heterosexual unity
> destroyed by original sin. True, men's dominion over
> women is a result of the fall, but men and women
> continue to be united in marriage. By God's grace
> received through the sacraments, husbands and wives
> can be equal partners in a marriage based upon a
> radical giving of self on the part of both spouses, a
> giving that results in mutual submission. However, the
> roles of men and women are not the same, but
> complementary. This diversity within unity lies at the
> heart of the nuptial mystery proclaimed throughout
> Scripture. For instance, Ephesians 5:21-33 says that
> New Covenant wives are to be subject in everything to
> their husbands as the Church is subject to Christ,
> while husbands are to sacrifice themselves for their
> wives as Christ did for the Church. The priest is a
> symbol of the gift of Christ's love for his bride, the
> Church.
>
> Prof. Lemmons ignores this beautiful imagery and
> instead, using sterile words that could only emanate
> from the academy, says the priest "images Christ in
> his gender mission." In the end, her own rationale
> suggests it might be time to ordain women. If Christ
> has been on a gender mission to overcome the effects
> of chauvinism, he has been largely successful in
> Western democracies, at least. Certainly, priests no
> longer need to be male in order to be taken seriously
> as rulers and managers of the Church. Those who
> recognize the God-given inherent differences between
> men and women and their importance for the Church and
> society will want to reject Prof. Lemmons' arguments
> and stick with the traditional teachings of the
> Church.
>
> Pastor Gregory Yeager says he followed me up to the
> point where I said Roman Catholic priests who avoid
> having a relationship with Mary run the risk of
> becoming narcissistic. Let me clarify: I did not have
> Protestant pastors in mind when I made the statement.
> I was addressing the problem of celibate priests who
> are in danger of leading lives divorced from the
> feminine. The crux of the argument is that men and
> women have a symbiotic relationship: men learn how to
> become receptive, and therefore holy, from women.
> However, if Pastor Yeager was indeed with me up to
> that point, I would think he would be eager to partake
> in the characteristically feminine, self-giving
> receptivity of the Marian fiat ("Let it be done to me
> according to your Word."), which lies at the heart of
> a spiritual relationship with her.
> Since Andrew Van Sant was kind enough to recommend a
> book to me, I wish to return the favor and suggest he
> read Manfred Hauke's comprehensive Women in the
> Priesthood? (Ignatius, 1988). If he does, he will see
> that the iconic argument for the male priesthood is
> neither recently developed nor without substantial
> witness from Christian authors of both the patristic
> and medieval periods, including those of Eastern
> Orthodox lineage.
>
> With regard to Patricia Coyne's interesting proposal,
> perhaps she does not know that the Catholic priest
> also acts in the person of the Church, that is, as
> representative of the whole Church, but he does so, as
> Inter Insignores observes, only "precisely because he
> first represents Christ, himself, who is the Head and
> Shepherd of the Church." Protestant pastors, however,
> do not claim to represent either Christ or their
> churches in this sacramental way.
>
> -----------------------------------------
> Sarah Hinlicky Wilson replies:
> The exchange of articles with Jennifer Ferrara, and
> now of letters with readers, has been for me a most
> instructive exploration into the nature of debate.
>
> First, a few specific responses. Mark Chance, Father
> Matthew Kowalski, and Gil Costello criticize me for
> not accepting Roman Catholic anthropology or
> sacramentology. For that I offer no apology. I would
> like to note that I do indeed think that Jesus'
> maleness has theological significance, but that is
> another article. June McIntosh and R. Mary Hayden
> Lemmons present midrashic interpretations of Christ's
> masculinity, which, though interesting in their own
> way, are otherwise unfounded in Scripture and
> tradition. Mark Wyman caricatures my argument in
> misleading ways that would be tedious to enumerate.
> Pastor Peter Speckhard complains because I did not
> write the article he wanted-one that is primarily
> scriptural in nature. This is for the simple fact that
> I was writing in response to Ms. Ferrara, herself a
> Roman Catholic, and as the letters from other Roman
> Catholics amply demonstrate, they are overwhelmingly
> more interested in questions of gender ontology than
> scriptural warrant. I certainly could provide a
> scriptural case for the ordination of women, but it
> would not be convincing to such a reader, since I,
> like Martin Luther, am not a scriptural inerrantist.
>
> Of course, these brief rejoinders will persuade no one
> who was not already persuaded by the initial article,
> which raises (to me) the more interesting question:
> What makes an argument persuasive? And who is allowed
> to debate? Note the following features of these
> letters. I am charged with making bald assertions, and
> yet refuted with further bald assertions. I am labeled
> a Gnostic despite the fact that I argue for a
> flesh-and-blood biology instead of an ethereal
> ontology of gender. Because I discuss the nature of
> ordination, I am indicted for treating it as "an
> invention of the Church, which can be remade as
> desired." Indeed, for engaging in a theological
> argument at all, I am accused of being a "liberal
> Protestant" who puts her own judgments above
> Scripture, tradition, pope, and council. My simple
> request for charity is treated as a shameless play for
> cheap grace, and the philosophical principle of
> charity in debate-presuming the best in one's
> opponents' arguments rather than the worst-is handily
> ignored by my respondents.
>
> All I have done is amass arguments from Scripture,
> tradition, and plain reason regarding the ordination
> of women. That is what theology is and does. Any
> doctrine to which the Church holds was not handed down
> from on high, pristine and complete, but was developed
> and debated by the Church's theologians over
> centuries. True doctrine stands up to genuine
> challenges. Here, however, I have encountered no
> meaningful response to either the trinitarian or the
> Christological arguments, and the responses about
> gender only further support my thesis that unclear
> thinking and mystical befuddlement surround the issue.
> So did I cause offense by the content of my argument,
> or by the fact that I made the argument at all?
>
> I presume no greater certainty about the validity of
> ordaining women than the risk of faith allows. I'm
> with Gamaliel on this one: "If this plan or this
> undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if
> it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them"
> (Acts 5:38-)
>
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