Roman Catholic Women Priests

[pnwmom]

http://www.romancatholicwomenpriests.org/

Roman Catholic Womenpriests (RCWP) is an international initiative within the Roman Catholic Church. The mission of Roman Catholic Womenpriests North America is to spiritually prepare, ordain, and support women and men from all states of life, who are theologically qualified, who are committed to an inclusive model of Church, and who are called by the Holy Spirit and their communities to minister within the Roman Catholic Church.


Myths and Truths

MYTH: Women (by virtue of their sex) cannot image Christ.
TRUTH: It is the call of every female and male Christian to image Christ; and it is the call of every female and male Christian to see Christ in every person.

MYTH: Roman Catholic women have never been ordained.
TRUTH: Epigraphic evidence exists of women bishops. Until at least the ninth century the Church gave women the full sacramental ordination of deacons. Women priests existed in the West during the 4th and 5th centuries according to literary evidence, and according to epigraphic evidence.

SNIP

[hedgehog]

1. What about the Czech women ordained during the Cold War

so the Church could continue to thrive should the Commies drive it underground? I fail to understand why we can ordain women if there is an outside threat, but not if it's a mere matter of closing thriving parishes because of an artificial priest shortage!

[pnwmom]

2. Here's an article about one of those Czech priests.

Interesting. It turns out that the impetus for ordaining women was to have priests who could minister to women in prison.

http://www.iol.ie/~duacon/javorova.htm

"Ludmila Javorova, one of several women ordained as Roman Catholic priests for the underground Church of Czechoslovakia during the Communist era, paid a private two-week visit to the United States late in 1997. She was accompanied by three Slovak women, one of whom, Magdalena Zahorska, served as an ordained deacon in the underground Church.

"The visit, under the auspices of the Women?s Ordination Conference and Catholics Speak Out, brought Reverend Javorova into contact with approximately 200 American Catholics in four cities. She was able to share with them her story and the story of the underground Church in Czechoslovakia.

"The 1948 Communist takeover of then Czechoslovakia brought vast social changes in education, health care, housing and employment. It also brought heavy persecution of Catholics, who constituted 66% of the population of 16 million. Thousands of people were imprisoned for practising their religion. Despite the threat of imprisonment, believers nourished a vibrant faith in an underground Church that paralleled the government-controlled parish structure.

"Bishop Felix Davidek (1921-1988), a brilliant scholar, linguist and medical doctor, was consecrated with Vatican approval to serve the underground Church. When a need for sacramental ministry for women in prison emerged as a serious concern, it was clear that a male priesthood could not answer it. Davidek called a secret Synod composed of bishops, priests and laity to consider the ordination of women."

SNIP

[Matilda]

3. If the hierarchy want to be really nitpicky,

they could ordain only men of Middle Eastern origin, because that's the demographic for those whom
Christ ordained.

He didn't ordain blacks, Asians, Italians, Germans, or Poles. The Church has grown from its origins
so they should get over it.

It's all about power really. And a very patriarchal mentality.

[pnwmom]

4. Technically, Christ didn't "ordain" anyone, did he?

Except Peter, I suppose.

But women were always among his closest followers.

If a few women had happened to be at the Last Supper -- for example, serving the food -- how do we know that the writers of the Gospel stories would even have thought that was worth mentioning?

I've always found it odd that none of the nativity stories mentions anything about any woman attending Jesus's birth. What are the odds that a Jewish man like Joseph wouldn't have gotten a woman to attend Mary? It was unclean for a man to be involved in childbirth. Yet none of the Gospel writers say anything about another woman being there when Jesus was born.

[hedgehog]

5. My patron saint, Martin de Porres, was refused ordination

because he was illegitimate. (I'm not certain if his mother's race figured into that as well!)

[pnwmom]

6. Men with Celiac disease are no longer allowed to be ordained.

Though they are perfectly healthy if they abstain from wheat (and other forms of gluten).

The Church has taken a very rigid stance about the necessity of using only wheat in the Communion wafer, even though an Irish Archbishop with the same disease pleaded with the bureaucrats to reexamine the theological basis for the decision.

[Matilda]

7. I've read about that,

and I think it's the cruellest thing.

I don't believe for a minute that the Jesus of the Gospels would support such a stand - he was about
inclusion, not exclusion. There are times when the Vatican takes stands that seem to be about
nothing other than reinforcing their own orthodoxy. Jesus was a man, not an institution, but too
often the institution is favoured over humanity.

[pnwmom]

8. It is cruel, and I can't see where there is the theological justification

for deciding that the ingredient of wheat is absolutely necessary. It just happened to be that it was in common use in that place in that time. Somewhere else, it might have been rice.

This, of course, affects all Catholics with Celiac disease, not just whose aspiring to the priesthood, because even a tiny amount sets off the immune reaction. So people who follow the practice of "intincture" (dipping the host into the wine) are unknowingly poisoning the wine for any Celiacs who follow them.

[DemBones DemBones]

12. Catholic celiacs have been told to simply receive the

Blood of Christ, but since the priest breaks off a small piece of the gluten-containing Sacred Host and drops it into the chalice following the Consecration, the Blood contains a small amount of gluten. A small amount that's enough to make celiacs sick.

Are celiacs supposed to go up and receive the Blood of Christ before it's commingled with the tiny particle of the Body of Christ? That would mean they'd receive before the priest does and before the Agnus Dei so I can't see that as an alternative.

There are low-gluten hosts available and some priests will consecrate special hosts made of rice for parishioners who need them but that's skirting the rules. (Not the low-gluten hosts, the gluten-free ones.)

However, the rules are the kind of dietary restrictions found in the Old Testament, which Jesus said no longer applied. And Jesus did not make new rules about using only wheat bread in the Mass.

Now that it's estimated that celiac disease affects 1 in 130 people (or 1 in 133, depending on the source), and Italy is testing all children for the disease, the Church needs to re-examine this. Europeans and people of European descent are particularly at risk, as are people with other autoimmune diseases. If people with celiac disease don't follow the gluten-free diet carefully, they may develop cancer as a result.

Vatican II did away with altar rails, only priests giving Communion, only receiving Communion on the tongue, among many other things. Why can't an exception be made for those with celiac disease? I would be very unhappy if I could not receive Communion for medical reasons.

We also should not lose priests who have celiac disease or priests who are recovering alcoholics. It's known that recovering alcoholics can't drink but priests who have requested permission to consecrate unfermented grape juice for their own Communion and wine for the congregation, have been refused that permission, which means they can no longer celebrate Mass at all. Neither could a celiac priest unless the rules are changed.

[AngryOldDem]

10. I get upset when I hear stories about kids with celiac....

...being told that they can't take the host at their First Communion. Sadder are people who defend to the teeth the Church's ridiculously rigid stance on this, even saying to the kids and their families, if you don't like it, you can leave. To me, that is the cruellest thing, and if I were the parent of such a child, I would most likely take them up on their offer.

You're right: The Church (as an institution) must ask itself -- WWJD? I really don't recall Christ putting that many rules into the playbook. Love your God with all your heart and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. That was it. The rest, as they say, is commentary.

Better not get me started. Lately I've had it up to the proverbial HERE with the Church and its dogma.

[Matilda]

11. "Love your God with all your heart and soul, and love your neighbour as yourself".

That's what it's all about. Or should be.

If providing the Host in a gluten-free form won't harm anybody else, then they should just do it.
When they see that the sky doesn't fall, they might begin to realise what Christianity is really
about.

Love, acceptance, inclusion.

[hedgehog]

9. This is a case of the bishops behaving like a typical school board.

School boards come up with the most outlandish rules and refuse to make exceptions out of fear of a law suit. I can understand the bishops concern that someone doesn't present a steak dinner as "communion", but to make an exception from time to time for health reasons is only reasonable. They're supposed to have some judgement; they should use it.

[Book Lover]

13. Further reading: NYT "A Place at the Altar"

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/magazine/24wwln-essay-t.html?ref=us

On a late winter Sunday in San Diego, Jane Via, dressed in the traditional garb of a Roman Catholic priest — a white alb, a gold stole draped over her narrow shoulders and a green, flowing robe called a chasuble — led the 100 or so congregants of the Mary Magdalene Apostle Catholic Community in a forbidden Mass.

Via is 59, and if it were not for the accident of her sex and the fact that she is married with two sons, she would be an ideal candidate for the priesthood. Via converted to Catholicism as a freshman in college and has a Ph.D. in religious studies and a law degree. A deputy district attorney in San Diego, she has worked as a prosecutor for 17 years, putting thieves, murderers and child abusers behind bars. In her other job as a Catholic priest, however, she is purposefully breaking canon law 1024. That law says that only baptized men can be ordained as priests. “I have long believed in the legal principle of civil disobedience,” Via said. “The canon law that bans women from the priesthood is unjust. We have to break it in order to change it.”

Since 2002 about 40 Catholic women have been ordained as priests in defiance of Vatican law. While a small number of renegade female priests may seem like more of an irritant to the Vatican than a threat, their numbers are growing. More than 120 women, many with long ties to the church as nuns, college professors, chaplains and lay leaders, are currently in training for ordination. Eleven North American women are expected to be ordained by the end of the summer.

Church leaders view the women as heretics or, perhaps worse, as mere impersonators. “For an analogy in the secular sphere you might imagine that I could get a friend to swear me in as governor of New York,” said Cardinal Avery Dulles, a professor at Fordham University in New York City. “Would that make me governor?”

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