Scoop commented on my last post thus:
I cannot read God’s mind but I can clearly see what He did in Scripture.
He breathed life into Adam and then made Eve from Adam; flesh of thy flesh.
He set Aaron up as being the High Priest of His first Church and even his sister was punished for thinking herself equal to Aaron.
Christ too, had many faithful and loving followers amongst women and yet not a single one was invited to His Last Supper which we Catholics see as the first ordaining of Bishops for His Church.
Christ breathes upon the 12 (men) and tells them that they can forgive sin: a type of blessing) and a very important role for the priesthood. This follows from he OT Church which passed blessings on by the laying on of hands to the first born son etc.
We see a man being ordained by the laying on of hands in order to replace Judas.
We see no other texts in the last 2000 years that the Church has ever ordained a woman as a priest or bishop.
Let’s look more closely to make sure that we are not doing what my last post suggested men have done, which is read into Scripture what they think is there, and then to use that as exegesis.
It would be equally true to say that we do not see Jesus breathing upon any men except Jewish men, and that the Apostles, in seeking a successor to Judas do not choose anyone except another Jewish man. Yet no-one would argue that only Jewish men could be ordained, so at some point something happened for which there is no scriptural warrant – that is non-Jews were “ordained.” The quotation marks are there advisedly, because the very use of the word “ordain” is a loaded one. Where, in Scripture, is the word “ordain” used about what the Apostles did? Again, as it is not there, it suggests that as tradition developed it seemed reasonable to apply that word to what happened to Matthias.
If we go back to the examples offered in earlier posts of Junia and Phoebe, I would hope to have made the case that they occupied positions of leadership and that they exercised “ministry”, which raises the interesting question of what that might have meant.
If we begin with the example of the priesthood. Let us follow Scoop’s wise advice and turn to Scripture. Surely, there we shall find something to help us, whom does Paul describe as a “priest”, and what qualifications were there? There are certainly plenty of “priests” in the Jewish Scriptures, and not only are they all men (as Scoop correctly points out with reference to Aaron and Miriam [for some reason while he gives Aaron his name, Miriam is just “his sister”]) but they are all from the tribe of Levi. Alas, here Scripture is not a great deal of help when we get to the New Testament. The word “priest” is never used, and the only use of the word “priesthood” is in Peter’s first epistle (2:5) where it refers to the priesthood of all believers.
Now it might reasonably be argued that the word “priest” is used, what else, might be said, is meant by the word “presbyter”? The answer to that is that, unless we wish to engage in the sort of circular argument which says Junia cannot be a female and an apostle, because women weren’t apostles, but if “she” becomes a “he” called Junias, the problem is neatly solved – and I suggest not going there for the reasons outlined at some length in earlier posts and by C451 – then we would have to admit that the Greek word is capable of a number of translations into English.
In Acts 14:23 and 20:7 the word is translated as “elder”, while in Acts 15:4, 6, 22-23 they are associated with the Apostles. In Philippians 1:1, Paul writes: “To all God’s holy people in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons”, but at no point is anything said about gender here, and indeed, the only person specifically identified by Paul as a deacon, is Phoebe. But, I think I already heard someone cry, “hold on a cotton-picking minute Miss Hoff, with all the Scripture you’re citing, how come you missed 1 Timothy 3:13 and Titus 1:5-9, that wouldn’t be because they totally flatten your argument?” To which my answer is, I needed to deal with the question of the words “presbyter” and “priest” before saying something about these passages. So, to work, woman!
So, what is 1 Timothy 3 about? It is describing the moral character of an “overseer/deacon/bishop”. Where does it say these orders can be held only by men? Indeed, given that we have seen that there were women deacons, and even a woman Apostle, why do we begin by assuming what it is needs to be demonstrated? It only makes sense to say that these verses “prove” that only men could hold them on two conditions: the first is that we disregard everything just said about Phobe and Junia; the second is like unto it, which is that since women could not be deacons and apostles, it follows that these passages refer to men only. But precisely where does Paul say that? Or is this yet another example of reading into the text what we want to see?
What is plain to see is that Paul is describing the moral character of people holding office in the Church. No one but a fool would read this verse literally: “A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach”. Why, because it would make a total nonsense of the Romman Catholic and Orthodox view that a bishop must be celibate. Clearly, I hear the chorus (with which I agree), this is not saying that the bishop must be married; why then do we assume that the bishop must be a “he.” The male pronouns are ones inserted, and yet we know that often, in traditional English use, “man includes woman”. Why not assume that here? Ah, I forgot, “because we know that the church never ordained woman.” How do we know? Because the Bible uses the word “he” and 1 Timothy 3 supports that – except, as I have just deminstrated, it doesn’t.
I still hear that chorus, this time thus: “Very ingenious Miss Hoff, but are you not forgetting the order used by Paul – bishops, deacons and then wives and women in general”? No, I am not, I am suggesting that given that there was a female apostle and at least one female deacon he might well be addressing both genders. The counter-argument only works if we presume what it claims to “prove” from Scripture.
Oh well, it might be argued, here is one of those feminist women arguing a novel case because of the times in which we live, it is all part of the dreadful trend that is destroying the Anglican/Catholic/Presbyterian/Lutheran Church. Clearly:
If the testimony borne in these two passages to a ministry of women in apostolic times had not been thus blotted out of our English Bible, attention would probably have been directed to the subject at an earlier date, and our English church would not have remained so long maimed in one of her hands.
Which dreadful modern feminist wrote this? That was a trick question. It was Bishop Lightfoot who was Bishop of Durham from 1879 to 1889 – he is “regarded as one of the greatest New Testament and patristic scholars of the Anglican tradition.” Lightfoot is also germane when we turn to the one question still to handle – the position of Bishop.
Lightfoot, a man steeped in Biblical history and one of the greatest Greek and Bible scholars of his day. Lightfoot did not :
regard the terms episkopos and presbyteros as entirely synonymous. He believed that the second of these had been taken over from the synagogue and was used especially to refer to the leaders of Jewish-Christian congregations, whereas episkopos was an equivalent term used mainly (if not exclusively) among the Gentiles. According to Lightfoot, the difference was one of flavour and reference, rather than one of substance, i.e., what we would now call an early example of ‘cultural contextualisation’.
A fuller discussion of the translation issues connected with the word “bishop” is offered in Loveday’s 2012 lecture in Chester, which I was lucky enough to be able to attend, and the text of which can be found here. Loveday concludes:
Overall what this shows is that most modern
translators (even the Catholic JB) have virtually ruled out the possibility that there might be any bishops in the Bible, illustrating graphically how Bible translationreflects not only the changing faces of historical scholarship, but the tradition andecclesiology of the translators.
So yes, tell me firmly that the version of the Bible you use to confute me is from your tradition and accepts its traditional ecclesiology, and I will respond, of course it does, but what it does not do is what Scoop says it does, and shows there were no women bishops. It shows, depending on your ecclesiology and translation that there were no bishops in the Bible until translators put them there.
A reasonable riposte, with which I would agree, would be to argue from tradition and to say that by the time of Ignatius there clearly was a model of what has been called a monarchical bishop, but that tells us only that by the early second century women may not have been playing the role we see them playing in Paul’s epistles. What it simply cannot do is to tell us that Paul was wrong in describing women as being in positions of leadership.
Paul tells is that in being baptised into Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile. Some in the Jerusalem Church were so cross with him that they told Peter off for saying that the old Jewish diatary laws were a dead letter, and it took a heated conference in Jerusalem to decide that despite everything the Jewish Scriptures said on the issue, Paul was correct. Paul also said that in Christ there was neither male nor female. Are we asked to believe that he did not really mean this and that what he really meant was that there is a real distinction, and that in spite of the fact that women were playing leading roles, they were barred from positions such as “bishop” which did not actually exist in Paul’s day? You might argue that there was no equivalent of the Council of Jerusalem on the issue, and you would be right. But might that not mean that no-one thought the issue a problem? Women were taking leading roles, as we have seen, so what?
In short, unless we use tradition to say you can’t have women in positions of leadership in the church, you are on shaky ground basing yourself on Scripture alone, which is why what Scoop says works for his church and for him. But if your tradition does not teach that in some quasi-mystical manner a “priest” represents Christ at Calvary and that as Christ was a man, a priest must be, then even there, your ground for denying the ordination of women is not as firm as all that.
What I wish to suggest in closing, is that none of this is anything to do with strident feminism or modernity, it is to do with there being neither male nor female in Christ, and it is to do with doing justice to the role women have played and can play in the Church. If that also involves questioning the male version of events and that makes me a feminist, then I suppose I can live with that. But it is not the result of wanting to be on trend, but to be in Spirit with the apostolic church.
Scoop said:
I find it strange when you embrace “change” and loathe “stagnation” but cannot but place some kind of conspiracy of men in how the Church grew and understood things such as the Sacraments and the orders and how they relate to these Sacraments. It grew like a boy into a man or a girl into a woman. But it was no male conspiracy. The fact that it survived to this day and the OT Jewish Church did the same . . . at least amongst the hassidic Jews must at least be accounted for by something of relevance other than prejudice. It was tradition (an unwritten law of preservation of the Church as established by Christ but informed by the Holy Spirit) even by the time of the Didache.
But if you want to consider the radical feminist movement of the worldly with the Church informed by the Holy Spirit that is your prerogative. The Catholic Church tried to appease these feminists first with considering the issue of birth control and our response was Humanae Vitae much to the ire of many who (as you rightly say chose not to accept it). How many of them are authentically Catholic? None.
Likewise we did not embrace Margaret Sanger while the world was eager to do so. Now abortion is considered to be not only a right but a ‘good’ as it is now referred to as women’s health.
As though these feminists were unable to read victorian English we gave them a gender-neutral translation of the Bible which is horrific and used to this day. Following that an allowance was made for female lectors, female altar servers and female extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist.
It is very worldly and very much the modus operandi of these radical feminists to use the thin end of the wedge strategy as the Church opened the door by appeasing them in every way possible. It was not a problem for 2000 years but it has become one in our age: why? Maybe the conspiracy of women in the world is more likely than the conspiracy of men in the Church???
Lastly, you have not proved as you think you have that any woman was an apostle. We still have the problems with the sentence itself which can be read as this woman (Junia) was known TO the apostles. I am sure she was a very holy and good woman to have been pointed out by St. Paul but it is unclear under the best scholarship to be a proof text.
And yes, all persons are equal in God’s eyes. There is no race or sex stamped upon a person’s soul. But does that make “orders” (which is the functioning of Christ on earth) something that is not or should not be regulated by the Church. You make fun of the Catholic Teaching as quasi-Mystical and yet it is quite biblical. The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ; as it will always be. Its operations by that standard are beyond this world and guided by Christ through the Holy Spirit. That it was hijacked by wicked men (and it was over and over again) is not a conspiracy. She always recovered from these moments in Her long history. The tin foil hats might best be reserved for those who think the Church has been busy protecting a lie via a male conspiracy within the Church.
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JessicaHof said:
I don’t know if it because you seem to deal in conspiracy theories, or whether I was unclear, but re-reading my posts I really can find not a single mention of the word “conspiracy” or anything which I have written which says I put the ignoring of the role of women down to any conspiracy of men. It is precisely that thing you profess to abhor, following secular fashion, which led to what I describe. Where the Lord Jesus, and the Apostles after him, treated women as equals and ministered with them, the fashions of the day soon prevailed as the church grew and spread. Secular society, Jewish or Gentile allotted secondary places to women, and given that for most of the next two millennia that practice continued, there was no need for conspiracy. Yes, men said, as you have, kind things about the role played by women, but those roles were ones allotted by men on men’s terms/
In our day, as women’s role in society changes, and as women become scholars, we can read what the Apostolic Church did, and we claim for ourselves the roles Jesus and Paul saw us in. Absolutely no one was “ordained” and the word “priest” does not occur in the NT except, as I pointed out, in the context of the priesthood of all people – note, people, not male people.
You cite later practice, and that is your tradition, one, as you point out, which is increasingly under challenge even there. Elsewhere, we women reclaim our natural roles and get on with preaching the Good Word to the nations.
Tin foil hats, are the preserve of those who deal in conspiracy theories, and I don’t think that hat fits my writing … .
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Rob said:
Deaconesses or ministers (same word) are mentioned in the New Testament and Pliny refers to torturing them in a report sent to the emperor in 112 AD. In 363 AD the council of Laodicea disbanded the office of a presbyteres’.
Tertullian 180 AD says Priscilla preached the Gospel and the sub-apostolic church wrote of the apostle John and Philips daughters (Prophets) calling them ‘great lights’
The Montanists and the Priscillians of Spain had women teaching the scriptures as did the Waldensians in the 12th century. Many of the Anabaptist’s wives of the 16th died alongside their husbands as they were engaged with then in teaching the flock e.g. Huhmaier, Sattler. The Moravians of the 18th Century had female elders (presbyters) and John Wesley ardently supported female teachers of the word. The 19th century was flooded with female missionaries (apostles) while Booth of the Salvation Army said: “My best men are women”.
This is in no way modern feminism as some have tried to claim. It is another tradition seeking to follow a truly Biblical tradition apart from that of Roman Catholicism and the reformers of that Catholic tradition. From the early centuries most radical groups attempting to renew the growing Constantinian territorial church with its regulation of women, re-emphasised the woman’s place in the church.
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Scoop said:
Preaching the Gospel and living a heroic Christian life is not being disputed: ordination of women is. We say the following at most Masses:
To us, also, your servants, who, though sinners, hope in your abundant mercies, graciously grant some share and fellowship with your holy Apostles and Martyrs: with John the Baptist, Stephen, Matthias, Barnabas, (Ignatius, Alexander, Marcellinus, Peter, Felicity, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia, Anastasia) and all your Saints: admit us, we beseech you, into their company, not weighing our merits, but granting us your pardon, through Christ our Lord.
Note that seven of the saints are women. We have hundreds of renowned female saints and Martys recognized by the Church. One of the latest was Mother Teresa of Calcutta and none of them ever even though of becoming a priest. In fact Our Lady Herself never was made a priest or bishop nor did She ever in any apparition straighten us out about that fact. Seems if we have treated women so badly that one of our many saints or the Mother of God Herself might have pointed this out.
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Scoop said:
This is a pretty good tract on the issue from a Catholic perspective:
https://www.catholic.com/tract/women-and-the-priesthood
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JessicaHof said:
Thank you so much Rob – some great examples here xx
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NEO said:
It seems to me that Jessica makes a good argument here, for women’s leadership in the church. As ministers, presbyters, elders, deacons, and perhaps others.
She also makes an excellent argument for the destruction of the priesthood, both/either male and female. It has no Biblical basis in the New Covenant, and is at most a traditional practice but hardly an imperative one.
She also makes a good case for the abolition of the hierarchy itself, it also has no basis in the New Testament. Yes, we have a need for some sort of review to guard against apostasy, but there is no warrant for a monarchical hierarchy That function was originally fulfilled by the Apostles acting collectively, in short, a synod.
So I think if Scoop and others want to defend the priesthood, let alone the male priesthood, which Luther and others abolished, he’s going to have to find something other than the Bible to base it on. Sola Scriptora says there is only the High Priest and the Universal Priesthood.
There is something in some women faith leaders (by no means all, or even a majority) that seems to drive them to change the focus from God to themselves, and they should indeed be curbed. It is by no means a new occurrence, it has been evident in male church leadership since almost the beginning. It has however, become endemic in our modern churches.
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Scoop said:
Actually I am mostly influenced by the Church which has not let itself yet, let itself get swept up in this secular movement that soon entered into the Church.
It doesn’t matter at all if people believe women can be priests; as they are in this life to pick and choose the denominational beliefs of whatever faith tradition they want to embrace. I am surprised however that a Church that until only a few years ago was in communion with the Catholic practice succumbed to a movement when all they needed to do was step sideways of walk down the street to a different tradition. I never could wrap my mind around why the Catholics who do not believe what the Church teaches would not either leave for another or start their own Church. It begs an answer: why are they so incensed to allow the Church to continue its 2000 year tradition as handed down to us? And similarly, in the Anglican Church, why are they willing to incite many, like C and many others, to leave the Anglican Church when all they needed to do was step sideways to the Episcopal Church.
For the Catholic the stakes are too high to let it go. If we were to have women priests we are told even by the early Church Fathers (*see link above) that their consecration would be invalid. That would mean that the Eucharist will simply be bread and wine, that absolution of sin would be invalid and any other sacrament invalid due to an invalid ordination. I wouldn’t role the dice for any modern cause that would not simply change the face of the Church but fundamentally destroy the Catholic Church while keeping the name Catholic when it is no longer that. The apostolic blessing is one that we consider grave matter.
So in the worldly view I have no problem with people following their conscience but in a supernatural sense it is the whole enchilada between valid and invalidity.
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JessicaHof said:
Since it was secular fashion (not a conspiracy) which led the early church to abandon the practices of the Lord Jesus and Paul in treating women as equals, pardon me if I laugh at you now wanting to resist secular fashion. All I, and other religious women, want, is to reclaim the roles we played in the days of Jesus and Paul.
I am not sure, given the small numbers of white males in Western Catholic seminaries, what your church would do without Africa. Certainly here in the UK, they fill some of a huge gap. But what when the day comes when their societies imitate the Western fashion here? You don’t want married priests, you don’t want women priests – in three generations you will have very few priests – which might also destroy your church in a rather fundamental way.
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NEO said:
One can indeed pick and choose. But one should pick wisely. My understanding, which is not all-encompassing that the Catholic Church, like the Lutheran accepts the universal priesthood. That means amongst other things that in the right circumstances, any member may consecrate the Eucharist (just as they may baptize) it isn’t about the officiant, he/she is merely the voicebox, the words are spoken by Christ Himself. I would never trust a parish priest or minister to guarantee that the Eucharist is valid, that too is a promise from Christ, if done in good faith, it is so.
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Scoop said:
In emergencies we can baptize. Not the other sacraments. In an emergency we can confess to God himself if a priest is not available. But that is all Catholics can allow.
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JessicaHof said:
Thank you, dearest friend. All I, and many other women want, is to be able to work like Phoebe and Junia and Mary Magdalene. The Lord Jesus and Paul found no problem with it, my own church, like yours, has no problem with it. I suspect that once Africa reaches the stage where it is not exporting priests to the West, the RCC will have to face up to the fact that in the West a celibate and all-male priesthood is simply dying out. It may, of course, simply die out before that stage.
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NEO said:
Perhaps, my church does have women clergy, and I’m not entirely comfortable with it, but I have have more pressing problems with the ELCA, as I would with the ECUSA or the CofE. That said, my experience has been universally good, but some things I have read make me uneasy. There seem to be a higher percentage of women clergy in churches where they are more common, that have moved the focus from Christ to themselves. Now, like I said in my original comment, this is by no means all women clergy nor is it restricted to females, but it is a problem for me. The Catholic Church has the problem with its clergy as well. It is a matter of discipline perhaps, self or imposed, but is most inappropriate.
I’m still on my fence because I do not think women clergy will fix the problem or necessarily make it worse. As you know, I’m quite traditional, and my experience indicates that the best solution is, as it has been for 500 years, a team of a married male clergy, and his wife, because that best reflects the problems that arise in the parish. If we need to find a way to compensate her (in the example) we should, But that is the optimal solution.
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JessicaHof said:
I can’t imagine that women would be any better, or any worse than men – we are all human and prone to sin. That said, you won’t find many women seducing altar boys or girls.
My experience of women in ministry is, like yours, good, but I make no great claim we will be any better than our male counterparts 🙂 xx
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NEO said:
That’s fair enough. 🙂 xx
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Scoop said:
As it stands now the crisis in the priesthood is easily fixed with the enforcement of the rules and practices which are being ignored or interpreted individually. The seminaries have a large part to do with it and their laxity in matters of faith and morals. So that can be fixed.
An illicit and invalid ordination cannot be fixed if this is instituted as a practice of the Church.
It seems to me that C did not so much leave his Anglican Church but felt that the Church left him; at least that is what I get from his posts. It is the same problem that is rearing its head in the Catholic Church. We either fight and win or we will lose. It is kinda like the problem we have with left vs. right in politics at the moment. If the US fails the last bastion of our traditions will be lost. The same can be said for the Catholic Church if we lose this fight. There would be no One, True, Catholic and Apostolic Faith unless a remnant takes up the banner. But I have more hope than that. I feel that Christ will fix our problems once again as He has done in the past and the Church will continue on. He did in the OT Church and He can do it again in the NT Church.
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JessicaHof said:
Golly! Can I get this right? You are telling us all this crisis is “easily fixed” yet none of your archbishops, bishops or priests are doing it? Either your Catholic education system is producing complete duds, or you men need a woman to come and sort you out.
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Scoop said:
What a joke you are. It just so happens that almost everybody involved in religious education in the Catholic Church are women that know not what they do or say.
It is doable to write good curriculum because what we have sucks. It is doable to correct wayward priests and to excommunicate those who seriously violate the teachings of the Church. We haven’t done that since Paul VI.
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JessicaHof said:
We were discussing your seminaries, a topic you raised and this is your response … really? Women do not run your seminaries. Women do not run your dioceses or archdioceses. Where are all these men whom your doctrine insists are the only people who can be priests.
Only you could find a way of blaming women for your lack of vocations.
You are a bold man to call me a joke. You are a man who claims to be a Catholic, but who neither recognises the Catholic Pope, not goes to Mass, and whose blog is constantly critical of the Catholic Church’s hierarchy to whom you owe obedience. I think that might just mean the joke is you.
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Scoop said:
Women are the gatekeepers to many of our seminaries today, The pink palace of renown had women who either gave a thumbs up or thumbs down.
Women are consultants in almost every diocese including the USCCB. I don’t know where the men went. They were replaced by the effete leftists who do nothing but appease women. Women have run our parishes since Vatican II. They have made their mark and driven most of the men out of the parish. Men have all but stopped doing anything as long as women want to do things.
I’ll quote Barnhardt (a very real woman) and a good Catholic to boot:
The girl who is declaring that she is leaving for the Eastern Orthodox Schismatics (they are Schismatics because they deny the Primacy of Peter in and of itself, not the identity of the Vicar of Christ) gets a response from a Trad Inc. partisan that is a flagrant, egregious, obvious violation of the Law of Non-contradiction: that the principle of unity and thus standard of schism, the Vicar of Christ, Peter and his successors, promised by Christ Himself a supernatural negative protection, confirmed by the infallible ecumenical council Vatican I by the infallible definition of the dogma of Papal infallibility, is SIMULTANEOUSLY the Vicar of Christ with whom all Christians MUST be in union, AND at exactly the same time an apostate. In other words, a thing and its negation. Both A and not A.
A textbook Catch-22. You’re damned if you follow Bergoglio because he is an apostate , AND you’re damned if you don’t follow Bergoglio because “he’s the Pope.”
This is SHEER, UNADULTERATED MADNESS, and this is why the girl is absolutely going to go to the Eastern Orthodox if this irrational lie is not corrected, because she thinks that the truth is what the Trad Inc. partisan says, and thus the girl is convinced that the One True Church is a crock. Because nothing that is built upon a foundation of an obvious violation of the Law of Non-contradiction can possibly be “true”.
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JessicaHof said:
Goodness me! Your dislike of women really goes to the extent of actually blaming them for the problems in a Church with a male-only priesthood?
Your anger and bitterness with your own church are so sad to witness. Whatever it was you thought you were returning to, it is clearly not the Church of your golden memories, or the one you have constructed in your imagination.
You seem to realise that your position is untenable. You say you are a Catholic and yet do not recognise your Pope because you, like a good Protestant, have declared him an apostate. That must make most of your bishops and priests apostates too. So to whom do you give your religious allegiance? The Church in Dave Smith’s head which he and other conservative Republicans approve?
All I can say is if I were that unhappy with my choice, I would find a better place. I am happy in my church, and I really do wish you could be in yours. If I am harsh at times, it is with being lectured at about the virtues of the imaginary Catholic Church by a man who clearly intensely dislikes its reality. The 1950s are not coming back Dave.
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Scoop said:
And you are in a Church that will never have a valid sacrament. So your Church is dead.
Nobody asked for the 50’s Church to be re-created. I simply point out the problems of novel changes that have taken place in both our Churches. If you can’t admit them then that is your problem and if you embrace them then you are complicit with the death of your own Church.
And no the problems in a Church with a male-only priesthood is not the problem. It is with the type of men that occupy the Church at any point in history. As Newman said all priest come from those who are as familiar with the sins of the laity as they are . . . because, they too, have sinned. But character is what we are talking about: priests who are not effete and remain silent or those who keep wanting to appease the world. Appeasement (just like left does with BLM and Antifa) does not work. The Church really should be what it always was; at war with the world, the flesh and the devil. Vatican II’s appeasement of the world seemed to let loose the following two in spades. And yes, Jessica Hoff, you are part of the problem and not part of the solution to the problems that have sent many fleeing from your church and mine.
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JessicaHof said:
There’s no way to tell you this that won’t shock you, but you don’t get to tell other churches whether they have a valid sacrament, and if your church had as many white seminarians as mine, you’d be less likely to be dead in two decades. For a dead church, we’re pretty lively across the globe, and we don’t have your problems with large numbers ignoring our teaching, and people claiming to be part of our church while denying our leader is really our leader. I think there is a passage somewhere about motes and beams, so perhaps when you have taken that massive beam from your own eye, you might be better placed to comment.
You may be having problems with effete men in your seminaries, we don’t, and what is more we have full seminaries. As for vatican II, your problem not mine, like your Pope. You don’t recognise your own Pope, you don’t go to Mass, you spend hours a day bitterly criticising your church – are you saying that people like you are part of the solution? Looks more like you are a big part of the problem.
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Scoop said:
It matters little to me what you believe as it is not my church by choice. You have no valid sacrament other than Baptism and you ensure that there will never be a chance of regaining it with giving orders to those who cannot receive orders. It is a faux ordination that ordains a woman. Its just the way it was. And had you read the early fathers in the link I posted you would see that this is the ancient belief that is still held right through JPII.
Traditional orders of Catholics would probably make your seminarians look scant. And we have no women pretending to be studying for the priesthood. But you cannot deny that many men have left your Church regarding this issue. Were they simply stupid misogynistic men or did they have a reasoned understanding of the issue. Is C one of those?
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JessicaHof said:
As you are not even in communion with your own Pope, your opinion of my church is of less interest to me than your opinion of your own church. I don’t know how to tell you, so I will bluntly, your branch of the church does not get to tell others what to do, you may be the only church to yourselves, but no one else shares that view – and it’s quite funny that you imagine otherwise by saying your church (whose Pope you don’t recognise) will never recognise us. It’s taken your church nearly 500 years to catch up, and if it doesn’t catch up on other matters soon it will be dead as the dodo.
No idea what your ‘traditional orders of seminarians” are, but I do know you are suffering from a lack of vocations. You had one priest in the whole of Ireland last year, and here in the UK seminaries are closing.
Yes, some men left, of whom C was one. I have not accused him or others who left of misogyny, I leave the personal accusations to you as I regard them as gutter-sniping, at which your experience will always trump mine.
Bottom line, I am happy in my church and support it, you don’t even go to church. That says it all. You seem to be a sad and bitter old man who seems to regret his choice – get off your knees and your soap-box and do something other than whinge.
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Scoop said:
My church is all but shut down by the foolish decisions of our bishops and priests.
You are foolish to keep banging on about being in communion with the pope when you have no idea who the real pope is due to the irregularities surrounding both the resignation and the vote tampering and active political activism to elect him by the St. Gallen Mafia. Then a split papacy is not legal, Bergoglio is a heretic and a strong ally of Jeffrey Sachs who would like to contracept or abort the population of the planet down to 2 Billion souls. A former pope does not give the apostolic blessing, wear the papal cassock and reside at the Vatican. But it doesn’t bother me that you are not familiar with what is going but it is funny how you say you don’t care about my Church that you continue to bang away at trying to shame me as a good Catholic. That will be up to Christ and not to your superior intellect that seems to think that she has proved that which whole committees within the Church have examined and came to the opposite conclusion: that women cannot be ordained. But you know better. What hubris.
Further, no Catholic is required to be in communion with an invalid antipope or a heretic, both of which is well documented. Newman spoke against the antipopes of old and how the people were not required or even expected to follow them. What is so hard about this
I am in the camp that claims Benedict is still pope until he passes on and Francis dies and we have a new election. So what’s it to you?
You are among the radical feminists that were not satisfied with all the changes that they made in secular society but wanted to invade the sacred spaces as well. They have taken on the modern argument that the Marxists love: the so-called victimization of whatever group one wants to align with and foment hatred and demand retribution. It is now black vs. white, rich vs. poor, educated vs. uneducated, men against women, LGBT’s agains heterosexuals and all the rest of the breakup of society. Yes, you only have to have a heartbeat not to notice (if you’ve lived long enough) that this is being taught to our children so even our children are against their parents and grandparents.
It is not lost on me when they try to change that which they cannot change: the Church that Christ founded. She will recover and she’s been in situations almost as bad as the crisis we face today.
Your superior attitude and false premise that you have proved that which nobody else has done though I am sure the caliber of these men just ignored your ‘proofs’ and that the Church is wrong. Good luck with that and why do care if the Catholic Church remains adamant concerning the validity of ordinations. You are free to believe anything you want but your logic does not recognize even the father’s of the Church and that which they have written on the subject much less that which JPII taught infallibly. But then you are an Anglican and your Church saw fit to do what it did and you are free to embrace women as valid priests that can forgive sins and consecrate the sacred species. So continue on and stop trying to make it look as if we are the one’s who are wrong since we continue to hold that which the Church has held from the beginning.
Feminists don’t care that the Church Herself is feminine, that the singular human who never sinned is the Mother of God; Mary nor all the saints . . . none of which became or wanted to become priests. I wonder why? Sad when secular ideas of equality is now being used to subvert the supernatural. So we both agree: I say no women priest is valid and you maintain that they are. That is as far as we can agree on any of this. So your personal attacks on me and my personal faith is all you have left and there is nothing close to charity in any of your responses. But then I can be as obstinate as anyone when it comes to holding to my moral and religious principles. But then I do think that I might only respond to others from now on as it reminds me of how it is easy it is to fall into sin by ignoring the duty I have to pray for your soul.
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JessicaHof said:
Did you ever see a conspiracy theory which you didn’t buy into? You are welcome to the tin-foil hat world you now occupy, and your ramblings about your own church are just plain sad to read. I shall pass them by – so embarrassing.
I never claimed to “prove” anything, I simply demonstrated why so many of us, men and women, think that it is time women played a full role. The evidence here and elsewhere is it is good for the church – still, if you will dress your male priests in frilly nighties, don’t be surprised by who you attract. You know in your heart that within 50 years your church will also be ordaining women.
I do love it when a right-wing man tells me what I, as a feminist, believe. You actually haven’t a clue, as your own prejudiced words show. There is not a single type of “feminist” and yet you write with confidence as though there was.
Your church, by your own admission, is a sad mess. My own church goes on nicely and I am very happy in it. Let us all know when you are happy in your church.
Thank you for your prayers, you have always been, and always will be, in mine. I give as good as I get – cette animale est mechant, quond on attaque, elle s’defend.
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Scoop said:
What in the world? What do you know about anything and that which I hold to? You are, my dear, a mean and contentious hag and at such a young age. I hope you grow out of it.
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JessicaHof said:
As Mrs Thatcher said: “ I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.”
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Scoop said:
Sound advice and that which you should learn from.
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JessicaHof said:
I did – hope someday you may, but hey, you’re the one who is deeply at odds with his own church, so I leave you to it.
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