Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: oracle@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Brian T. Coughlin) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Ordination in general Message-ID: Date: 18 Sep 90 08:54:50 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH Lines: 53 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Re: Jeff Carroll (Hello, and greetings! I'm back!) In article bcsaic!carroll@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Jeff Carroll) writes, in response to Matthew Huntbach: >>Christ very explicitly called 12 apostles to follow him, and at >>another point sent 72 disciples to spread his word. He didn't >>just say that anyone who followed him was an apostle. >>So the notion of church order and of certain groups of *men* >>being ordained to a special role goes right back to Christ. Thank you for bringing up the point. (I'm going on a tangent, here, but thank you, anyway! :) ) It is said that one *possible* (?) "justification" for the exclusion of women from the Catholic priesthood is the long legacy extending from the apostles on downward. In fairness, I wish to counter this somewhat by saying that, in the early "church" (before any form of the word "Catholic" was ever applied) of the first few centuries A.D., men and women were allowed fairly equal "air time" as far as being religious leaders. It wasn't until the first Councils were held that any sort of formal stricture was placed upon women as such. At the present time, it's more-or-less the will of the present pope that keeps women out of the ordained ministries (in seeming opposition to the spirit of Vatican II, I might add!). > Another good example is the "You are Peter, and upon this rock I >will build my church" line. Even if this is authentic (which some >scholars doubt), Christ is not quoted as saying, "You are to be the >first Bishop of Rome, and your successors shall be acknowledged as the >infallible heads of My Church." Absolutely. The idea of infallibility of the Church bishops (not just the pope [i.e. the Bishop of Rome]) was extrapolated from various sources in the Bible and from the Sacred Tradition of the Church. In fact, most of the structure of the Catholic Church is extrapolated dogma. In defense of this, however, I would add that this extrapolated dogma was done (on the whole) with the best of motives, and is not necessarily invalid for having been extrapolated rather than written in Scripture. Just a few $0.0x worth... -- Take care! Sincerely, Brian Coughlin oracle@eleazar.dartmouth.edu