Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!spool.mu.edu!news.cs.indiana.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: oracle@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Brian T. Coughlin) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: ambitious women may approach the altar now ... Message-ID: Date: 27 May 91 03:12:24 GMT Article-I.D.: athos.May.26.23.12.22.1991.24580 Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH Lines: 148 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Re: Joseph H. Buehler In article , jhpb@garage.att.com (Joseph H Buehler) writes, in response to my response to [someone]: >>> The Catholic hierarchy is all male, by Divine will. Women cannot be >>>validly ordained, and cannot exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction. >> The second sentence is true, up to a point, while the first is untrue. >> Women cannot be validly ordained, that's true... AT PRESENT. It is not >> Catholic moral teaching that inhibits women from being ordained, but >> rather it is procedural doctrine of the Church as institution; that >> is, the prohibition against female clergy is a procedural tradition >> that is NOT infallible moral teaching, and is capable of being reversed >> by the Pope at a moment's notice. >It is true that there is no exercise of the extraordinary infallible >magisterium on the subject of women's ordination. This does not mean >that the Pope can reverse the present custom at a moment's notice, >however. Hi, Joe! I must insert, here: I was exaggerating a bit for the sake of poignancy, in that statement. Certainly the Pope cannot change world policy in an hour; I was merely emphasizing the fact that the Pope has "sovreign authority" over the moral teachings of the Church, and is answerable to no human for his decisions in such matters. The Pope may indeed change non-infallible custom as he sees fit... with or without the approval of the College of Bishops. > There is also ordinary infallibility to be considered. It is >a fact that women have *never* been allowed to be ordained in the >Roman Catholic Church. This is of moment in Catholic theology. Whether >it can be changed depends on why the traditional practice is what it is. First of all, "ordinary infallibility" is a vague concept, at best. No one is quite certain WHAT falls into that category... hence, the formalization of the "statement Ex Cathedra" doctrine; no one would have NEEDED such a doctrine, had there been no doubt as to what was infallible and what was not. Consider: how many of the teachings of the Council of Trent are infallible? Even assuming that ALL of them are... how are we [fallible] humans to interpret those infallible teachings without error? Is the Trent-ian teaching of "God is indeed provable from natural science" infallible? If so, in what way? You see the problem, I hope. The idea of "ordinary infallibility", in addition to being too vague to be of any practical use in this matter, is too convenient, in the sense that one can grab any random Catholic teaching of the present or past and throw it under that category. Consider further: blacks were not allowed into the Catholic priesthood until the last two or three centuries. Was that an infallible practice? After all, it lasted almost as long as the ban against women priests has (i.e. 1700 years compared to 1900); you may be unjustly assuming that, merely because you happened to be born AFTER the introduction of black priests and BEFORE the introduction of women priests, that that's the way it SHOULD be. Doubtlessly, many a young person thought the same about black priests in the 1500's (i.e. "Blacks simply aren't allowed to be priests, by unchangeable command of the Church). Would that make them right? I say no. >I frankly do not think there are any Catholics present who are competent >to defend the idea that women should be ordained. To deal adequately >with the issue requires training far above and beyond anything that a >layman is likely to possess, at the very least. Other post-ers have commented nicely on this statement. I'd like to add that, should your statement be true (which I'm inclined to disagree with), then there would not be any Catholic present who are competent to defend the idea that women SHOULDN'T be ordained! >A precise understanding of the traditional theology on the subject would >be required. This would involve a doctoral level study of the history >of the theological sources. Forgive me, but your "cutoff" line of "Ph.D = competence in the topic" strikes me as somewhat arbitrary. Certainly, someone with a doctorite will have much expertise in such a topic, (given that that was part of their field of study), but that in no way proves that those with Master's degrees, Bachelor's degrees, and lower cannot have the same, or greater, insight into the problem. > Why did the predecessors of the current >hierarchy not ordain women through so many centuries? The reasons have >to be completely understood. If the reason(s) are such that they are >unaffected by time (as I believe they are), then women cannot be >ordained in the 20th C any more than they could be in the 19th. And if the reason(s) are merely a social/cultural bias that was prevalent in ancient times (as I believe they are), then women could easily be ordained in the 20th century... and, moreover, SHOULD be. >I think that the present agitation for women's ordination springs from a >number of motives. One of them is a profound confusion over the >different roles intended by God for men and women. This also introduces a few questions: - What *IS* God's intended role for woman? - Would any differences between women's and men's roles affect their worthiness for the priesthood? - Is God's role for men and women the same today as it was 2000 years ago? It's only modern misunderstanding of philosophy that insists that God's purposes for humans cannot change with time. If God wishes a species to develop, then develop it shall. >Holiness doesn't have anything to do with the issue at hand. The Mother >of God is admitted by all Catholics to be the most holy of all >creatures, beyond even the angels. Yet she could never be a priest. >This is a question of office, not holiness. The idea of "Could Mary have been a priest" is misplaced, in my opinion. It's akin to asking, "Could I have been one of the 12 apostles, had I lived in 1st century Judea?" Mary had a specific role to play, and it didn't involve the modern Catholic definition of "ordained priest". The question is: do the roles of modern women involve being Catholic priests? I say yes. >The question is more one of the male psyche vs. the female, and the >Divine will for order in human society. There is a *reason* that God >the Father is God the *Father*. It isn't simply that society is >male-dominated: that would be to make the proper names for the persons >of the Trinity depend on the whims of men, certainly not something I >think appropriate to Catholic theology. Forgive me again, but your argument is rather thin. Consider: God sent the Messiah to Earth in a male-dominated era, and in a male-dominated culture. In order for God's Messiah to be taken seriously by such a culture, it could well have been the case that a male Messiah was chosen [for that reason]. Likewise, had Jesus talked about "God the Mother", it would have contradicted centuries upon centuries of Jewish thought (bad idea, if one wishes to gain acceptance). In that sense, the titles of "God the Father" and "God the Son" could well have been dependent upon the opinions of men: the men of 1st century Judea. ---- Take care! Sincerely, Brian Coughlin oracle@eleazar.dartmouth.edu