Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: jhpb@garage.att.com Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Whether the female sex is an impediment to receiving Orders? Thomism Message-ID: Date: 11 Dec 90 08:00:41 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: AT&T Bell Labs (Liberty Corner) Lines: 44 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu I wasn't quite sure what David Wagner exactly thought of Cindy's posting, but, in case it needs to be said: What she posted was fictional in nature; St. Thomas (in the Summa) teaches that women cannot be validly ordained. Cindy was attempting a rewrite of the relevant part of the Summa to reverse St. Thomas's position. David Wagner, though a Lutheran, seems to have views on the subject similar to the Catholic Church's: Women are barred from exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and cannot even receive the Sacrament of Order validly. He ably summed up some of the Scriptural passages that deal with the vocations of men and women in life. Personally, I feel that all the hoopla over the ordination of women springs from the damage that has been done to the Christian ideals of womanhood in the late 20th century. Consider the beaches, where it might be more proper to talk about what is not worn, than what is. Or the pornographic nature of major department store catalogs. Or the ongoing slaughter of children by their own mothers. These things say a lot about the image of women that our society is pushing. I once attended a lecture by a Catholic woman that suggested something that I have ever since believed. In the words of Dr. Alice von Hildebrand, feminism has its origin in an inferiority complex. Some women cannot stand being women, they want to be men, because they think that women are inferior. Joe Buehler [May I point out that this is essentially an ad hominem argument. Many Protestant churches are full of well-balanced females functioning as church leaders, and they give no sign of wanting to return to the good old days. The number of American Catholic women in favor of ordination of women is somewhere between 40% and 55% (according to Greeley's survey data -- he's quoting this in the context of other variables, so I don't have the actual number). Both the high number and the way it is correlated with other variables make it very unlikely that it is explained by a bad sexual self-image. If half of Catholic women can't stand being women, you might want to ask yourself *why* they can't stand being women, but I don't believe that for a minute. --clh]