From: jbuffer@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (James J Buffer)
Subject: Re: FWD: Something for the mailbag
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 22:47:46 GMT

In article <00963730.B0226380.15171@swdev.si.com> "Brian Tillman, Smiths Indust
ries, VAX Support, x8425" <tillman@SWDEV.SI.COM> writes:
>This is being forwarded from the Episcopal list.  I thought the comments about
>priests and Mary to be very interesting (but don't attribute them to me).
>
>From:    MX%"uunet!dragon!compuserve.com!76675.3032@esseye.si.com"   
11-NOV-199
>00:12:17.64
>To: TILLMAN
>CC:
>Subj:    Something for the mailbag
>
>Let me just throw in my two or three cents on the Virgin Birth. First
>of all, it has little or nothing to do with Mary. I realize I may surprise
>some of my more "Catholic" sisters and brothers, but I do not feel
>that the extra-credal Marian doctrines have much to say one way or
>the other to a lively Christian faith. As pious beliefs or devotions they
>can support the Christian life, as can the example of Mary as the
>queen of saints, and obedient servant of God. But as doctrine they are
>adaiphora.
Well, a few clarifications are called for. Catholics are not amazed to hear 
that the doctrine of the Virgin Birth--or did you mean to say the Virginal 
Conception of Jesus?--is Christocentric. We have said this from the beginning. 
We were saying this when the Anglo-Saxons were running around with their faces 
painted blue. But we went and preached the Gospel to them anyway, until we were 
blue in the face.
Second, to assert that Christ was born of the Virgin Mary is about as "creedal" 
(sic) as you can get.>
>Most importantly, the Virgin Birth isn't a Marian but a
>Christological doctrine. It defines the Incarnation. It expresses the
>essence of the human nature of Christ; and far from being an
>outmoded legend grafted onto the faith, the doctrine of the Virgin
>Birth bears directly on issues as pressing, urgent, and current as the
>ordination of women, and the nature of gender. For example, here is
>a brief reflection I wrote some years ago, on what Richard Hooker
>might have said about the ordination of women:
>
>     They say that women may not receive the benefit of the sacrament
>     of order. But how is this; seeing that they may receive the benefit
>     of both the sacraments ordained by Christ, and may be, as they
>     will admit, the ministers of baptism, which is the prime sacrament
>     of the church's very being; and seeing that they may alike receive
>     the benefits of the other sacraments of the church, in
>     confirmation, penance, matrimony, and unction; wherefore then
>     are they incapable of receiving benefit of this one only sacrament
>     of orders?
Note that Hooker mentions all the sacraments except--anyone?--that's right, the
Holy Eucharist, which Vatican II called the source and summit of the Church's
life. Hooker did not have an orthodox belief in the Eucharist, therefore his
understanding of priesthood is necessarily defective. Anyone can baptize, but 
only a priest can confect the Eucharist--although Hooker wouldn't agree with 
me.

Hooker continues:
 Is it that they are incapable of receiving this grace, as if
>     they were a material unfit to receive the impress of a seal? What is
>     the grace? and what that receives it? Is there somewhat in male
>     humanity that exists not in the female?
Yes: maleness. Weren't you married, Richard?
 Is it not rather that male
>     and female are qualities of the individual nature, and not of
>     collective human nature? For humanity as a whole is neither male
>     nor female, but each individual is either one or the other.
Exactly. And Christ was a male.
 There
>     are not two human natures, one male and one female, but one
>     human nature. To say otherwise were an error, since we know that
>     all that is of human nature in woman comes from man, as Eve was
>     taken wholly out of Adam; and further, all that is in human nature
>     resides in woman, for Christ's humanity came to him wholly by
>     way of his blessed mother, and she could not bestow that which
>     she did not possess: and finally both man and woman come from
>     God as made in God's image. (1 Cor 11.12) ...

Modern biology tells us that the male supplies the genetic material which 
determines the sex of a child.>
>
>Liberals who undermine the doctrine of the Virgin Birth are
>disturbing the foundations of one of the most radical and important
>supports for their own arguments. If God could make Christ from a
>woman's flesh, so too can God make bread and wine Christ's flesh
>and blood at a woman's hands.
He could have--if He had wanted to. But did He want to?

>I mean this last quite seriously. Some years ago a member of my
>community, Sr Clare Connell, was ordained to the priesthood. I had
>the honor of preaching at her ordination. A short while later, she
>celebrated the eucharist for the gathered community for the first time.
>This took place in the old chapel at Graymoor, a tiny monastic affair,
>with a miniature altar up against the wall, a tiny wedding cake in
>white marble carved with disturbingly lifelike cherubic faces. This was
>hardly the first time I'd been to a mass celebrated by a woman, but
>something about the "old position" and the calm authority of Clare's
>voice struck me. When she said the words, "For in these last days you
>sent him to be incarnate from the Virgin Mary, to be the Savior and
>Redeemer of the world," it suddenly clicked, and I thought, "O my
>God, we've made a terrible mistake: men shouldn't be priests!
1900+ years of Masses down the drain!

 Only a
>woman should share Mary's honor of bringing Christ's Body into the
>world! The priest isn't _alter Christus_, but _alter Maria_!"
The Fathers saw Mary as a type of the Church, which brings Christ into the 
world in many ways.  Common comparison was between Mary's womb and the 
baptismal font.>
>
>The grounds for their action seem clear to me. In response to the
>nominating committee's question, "Do you accept women as Priests
>in the Episcopal Church?" Iker stated, "I am unable to accept women
>as priests and bishops in the Episcopal Church. Such ordinations do
>not provide an assurance of full apostolic authority, so I cannot
>accept the sacramental acts of their ministry..."  At the same time,
>Iker responded to the question on the role of the Holy Scripture in
>this way:
>
>     Yes, I do believe "the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New
>     Testaments to be the Word of God, and to contain all things
>     necessary to salvation; and I do solemnly engage to conform to the
>     doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Episcopal Church." I
>     heartily affirmed this when I was ordained a deacon and again
>     when I was ordained to the priesthood.
>
>Yet, could he honestly take the same oath of conformity when
>ordained to the episcopate? Does he in fact engage to conform to the
>doctrine and discipline of the Episcopal Church. In fact he does not.
>He does not accept as priests and bishops those whom the Episcopal
>Church ordains as priests and bishops. The church says that women
>are valid ministers of all the sacraments, being duly ordained (see
>Articles XXIII and XXXVI). Iker says they are not. If this is not a
>rejection of the church's doctrine, discipline and worship, what is?
Good question. Perhaps Rev. Jack will soon ask himself, if has not already done
so, "Why am I not a Roman Catholic?"

The whole questions of women in Holy Orders is so trying to the Anglican 
Communion because it exposes the Anglican fiction that there is one, 
commonly-held set of doctrines within that Communion. The debates provoked byt 
he Tractarian movement exposed the inner contradications in the last century; 
now the ordination of women is serving the same purpose in these latter days.