I was thinking more about the whole women ordination movement and some further thoughts came to me on the subject. Groups like the Women’s Ordination Conference who advocate for priestesses within the Catholic Church are really missing key components. Say for example that you buy the premise that women can be ordained as priests, which I certainly don’t. Then why would the process for women entering the priesthood be so different from men then? Why aren’t they building seminaries to train them first? Shouldn’t there be some kind of discernment other than just the feeling of a call? Do they believe that all women who feel this call are always being called by God to the priesthood? Jesus said in John 15:16 "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you." So there has to be a process of discernment to determine if someone is called to the priesthood or not. There has to be a sifting out to determine someone’s vocation. In Catholic seminaries not every male who enters goes on to be ordained. Ultimately it is the bishop of the diocese or head of a religious order that makes this decision.
Do they believe that these women require zero training in theology, philosophy, the pastoral life, etc first? If they do and they believe in equality then why aren’t they demanding that the Church drops seminaries and that any man who feels he should be a priest is immediately ordained? That these men should just seek out any sympathetic bishop regardless of the church they belong to and be ordained immediately.
If they did start seminaries exactly what would be their ecclesiology. I have often mentioned that dissenting Catholics have no rational ecclesiology. That the Church is the true except the parts you disagree with is not exactly a deep ecclesiology. That the Holy Spirit guides Holy Mother Church in all truth except when he doesn’t. I think they would have a difficult time determining what to teach in the first place. Martin Luther soon found out that that everybody has a "pope in their belly" and so would these women find out the same thing. When you cut yourself of from the magisterium there should be no surprise that you start to drift. The magisterium is the anchor of the Bark of Peter. How do you settle theological arguments when each individual is their own magisterium? No surprise that the women’s ordination movement would have the same problems of Protestantism, they are just less honest than Martin Luther was. By their own actions they believe that you can just get ordained and setup shop where ever you want. So I guess you also don’t need a diocese with a Bishop in the first place since you don’t really need any sort of permission from the local ordinary. You can also do away with the Pope since if you don’t have to be obedient to him, then he is just a figurehead that can be done without.
Now another question I have is that if these women can just determine of their own volition that they are called to the priesthood, then why can’t I just show up there and tell them that I was called to be their bishop and start ordering them about ? Do you think that they would buy that one? I think not, but I don’t see how they could discredit my argument without invalidating theirs. Again it is hard to appeal to authority or tradition when you yourself deny such an appeal by your actions. Dissent is in the eye of the beholder. When you are the one dissenting it is a wonderful and brave thing, when someone dissents from you it is not quite viewed the same way.
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I declare myself the first woman Pope – wait – can’t use the word “Pope” because it’s patriarchal. Let me see… I declare myself to be the first ever “Mope”…
Anyhow, the “contact” page on the WomenPriests web page has contact info for a “co-ordinator of the RC WomenPriests’Program of Preparation for Ordination. Their website has bios of all of the women who have been initiated into their group, and calls them Womanpriest or Womandeacon. It’s like they know they are not validly ordained.
Well put! I’ll have to remember your argument.
The other day (I blogged about this )I actually decided that I am called to be a tomato and so I had a gardener “ordain” me as such. I figured that if these women can have someone turn them into priests, then I can be a tomato, or some other kind of fruit or vegetable.
Had I run into you prior, maybe I would have changed my mind. Is it too late to leave my tomatohood in the dirt? Can I revert?
Mater Suspiria (to anyone who gets the reference, yes, I can be dark)
Julie’s post on her blog is very good and she even did battle with some pesky commenters adorotedevote@blogspot.com
Excellent post. You make several good points.
I say yes – claim your call to the RCWP’s as “their bishop”, and write your own excommunication papers for them.
BMP
If any of you are truly interested In wil ordain you as Patriarch of Kentucky or Primate of Central America. Ever since the Holy Spirit told me that I was both Pope and Emperor…
Yes, that’s the common sense reaction. All “calls from God” require a discernment process and reality checks, both Church and everyday common sense. I was thinking this week that all Catholics who have been called to who have done the not previously done, have all a) obeyed Church authority and b) the reformers stayed with orthodox Catholic teaching.
I would point out that most women’s ordinations groups do not support any theology of the Papacy, or the concept of ordination in general as a sacrament. In fact, many have the open goal to “delimit” and empty the sacrament of any meaning – any distinction between cleric and layperson. I believe it is WomenPriests who had an article on their website about this.
It all smacks of Protestantism to me. Just prove that you have a desire to be in ministry, and spend enough time doing so, you can be “ordained” anything.
Recently God revealed to me that I am the real King of the United Kingdom. Sure, I’m Mexican and Irish, but with God, all things are possible.
Great argument, “Bishop” Miller! The extra-odd thing is that Joan Houk insists their dissent (my term) is taking place “firmly within the Church.” How can you openly rebel against the Church and call yourself ‘firmly’ within it? And then declare that you have no intention of starting a new religion? Oh, wait, maybe they’re not starting a new religion but a new SECT of Protestantism…The one clear thing is that these women are not thinking clearly.
You know, women who feel called to the priesthood aren’t running about in some parallel Quasi-Catholic universe. They are in our Church, in our seminaries, and often times, running our parish ministries. Some are loud about it (WOC) and some just keep quiet and live their sense of vocation in smaller less public ways.
In the US women can earn the same education that priests receive- the Masters of Divinity degree- and they can parallel the formation track, too, if they work at it. (That is, they could go through a process of discernment, in this case with a spiritual director.) It hardly seems worth it, though, to undergo years of discernment and prayer about becoming a priest if the end result is the same. But some do it anyway.
I doubt the women ordained by WOC have any real expectation of becoming regular ministers after their ordination. If I remember correctly, WOC refers to the ordinations as a ministry of agitation. The ordinations are done to get people thinking about the possiblities and as a source of hope to the women who find themselves in the desperately confusing place of being simulteaneously Catholic, female, and called to be a priest.
In terms of their sense of vocation, I don’t think it is our business to judge the validity of their call any more than it is our business to judge any other person’s vocation. God does all sorts of wacky things that are beyond our understanding.
And yes, the Holy Spirit guides the Church, but the communication is not limited to the Holy Spirit calling the Vatican on the telephone. The Holy Spirit speaks through the rest of us too. (Immaculate Conception, for instance, was originally a movement of the people that the heirarchy later backed.) Is it not possible that the Holy Spirit could be guiding us by calling women to the priesthood?
Do it. Seriously, this needs to be done for real.
Someone needs to come up with a really cheesy “bishop” costume, get a tiny entourage, and crash one of these on the pretext that they are in fact the self-proclaimed bishop and in charge.
Make sure the costume is in exceedingly bad taste. Inflatable crozier, tin foil cross on the mitre, visible tag on the vestments, some macaroni art, and lots and lots of rainbows.
I would pay good money to see this.
There already is a guy who virtually declared himself pope. Reminds me of the crazies who go around impersonating Napoleon …
http://www.truecatholic.org/pope/
Re: Re, “In terms of their sense of vocation, I don’t think it is our business to judge the validity of their call any more than it is our business to judge any other person’s vocation. God does all sorts of wacky things that are beyond our understanding.”
Actually, God DOESN’T do wacky things. You’re confusing God with several performance artists/comedians, such as Gallagher.
You’re right, though. It’s not our job to judge their vocations. That job is reserved for the legitimate bishops of the Church.
That said, it’s been my experience that many people who’ve felt “called” to do certain things – especially wacky things – are best served with therapy and sometimes medications.