X-Vmsmail-To: SMTP%"Catholic@American.edu"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.catholic
Date:         Fri, 9 Oct 1992 10:14:52 -0400
From:         URSIC@ASTRO.CS.HH.AB.COM
Subject:      Response to Rae on women priests

Rae writes:
>I've gone back and forth on the issue of women priests for the last
>few years.  Now I find myself fairly squarely on the side which says
>that the Church will not and should not change its position.

It is good to see that you are open to the possibility of changing your
mind. Some (like myself) will never change their minds on this topic.

>Precisely _because_ Jesus allowed women to serve him physically,
>to go with him to his cross, to be the first to witness the
>Resurrection, I think we can't easily dismiss the Church's teaching
>that God calls men to the ministerial priesthood, and not women.

I don't understand the connection between the two ideas. My impression
was that most women had a subservient role back then. The women
followed Him to the cross because they 'could'. His female followers
were probably looked upon as less of a threat than His male followers.
The role of the women in the secular world back then was different than
it is now, (ignoring the obvious difference:-), and I don't see the
childbearing ability as a hindrance to the priesthood.

>The burden of proof is on those who would have the Church change
>her stand, a stand she has not shown any signs of changing for
>2000 years.

I, myself, do not intend to try to change the Church's stand. The
Holy Spirit is going to have to do it all by herself:-)

>I cannot accept that this is a matter of justice.  Men and women
>have been struggling for centuries to work out issues of gender,
>and they continue to struggle.  In the social structures of
>so many cultures and nations, women have been admitted by law to
>the highest offices.  These cultures and nations have been populated
>by Catholics in many cases, Catholic men and women.  Yet the Church
>itself has not changed its law or made any significant move in the
>direction of changing that.

The Church is only 2000 years old, many injustices in the world have
been around longer than that. I hope your not suggesting that we ignore
injustices or not even try to change them. I will grant you that the
Church evolves slowly, so if it takes another 2000 years before it admits
women to the priesthood, I guess it wouldn't surprise me:-)

>I cannot believe that this is due SOLELY to the sexism of the
>men who make up the hierarchy.  I cannot believe that their sexism
>is of a more thorough and consistent degree than that of those in
>the secular world.  If the Holy Spirit is active among these men,
>and if they are not totally deaf, and if the teaching and governing
>authority of the Church rests in the Magisterium (does it?  That's
>the question, right?) then I cannot believe that they would hold
>out in the face of all twentieth-century claims and opinions about
>the nature and meaning of gender.  I cannot believe that the Second
>Vatican Council would have been so steeped in sexism that it would
>have not listened to see if the Holy Spirit was speaking for change.
>(I know, I know, the Holy Spirit has to work with Vatican politics
>too but surely He is somewhere to be found!)

Whether it happens in the 20th, 21st or 22nd century, is probably
irrelevant to the Holy Spirit. It's us humans who are impatient:-)

>I believe that just as women (and I am one such creature) have been
>misunderstood, misjudged, discriminated against (and worse) due
>solely to their gender, so too is the hierarchy being dismissed,
>misunderstood, misjudged and ignored as a group, by many Catholics,
>SOLELY BECAUSE THEY ARE AN ALL-MALE GROUP.

I am sexist because I recognize them as all-male? Or are you asking
us to be compassionate for them for their sinful nature. I guess I
can understand this "they know not what they do" feeling, they are
products an educational system in which new ideas do not fair well.

>I think Catholic men and women need to come to some sort of an
>understanding of the existing situation, and consider it carefully
>in the light of all they know of the faith God has passed down to
>them in the teachings of the Catholic Church, before they clamor
>so vigorously for something which very well might be a passing
>understanding of gender.  We have only lived in the twentieth
>century, those of us reading this newsgroup.  Are we so sure of
>our understanding of gender that we are willing to pass judgment
>on so many centuries of alternate thought?  Is that not something
>dangerous -- century-ism -- the belief that our century is the best, the
>most-englightened one?

I don't think social justice is just a passing fad. I do realize that
human nature is such that we feel 'safer' with what has suited us before,
but I do believe that God is guiding man's and the Churches evolution and
thought. This, to me, is the 'hope' I have for me, my children and future
generations. I don't condemn the past for what they did, I'd rather
learn from their mistakes, and sexism is just one such mistake that humans
have made. -J.J.
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU