This is a picture from the latest women’s “ordination” that occurred on Apr 20th in California in an undisclosed location.
As Orate Frates points out “If excommunication was not such a serious matter the photo would be laughable.”
I do think that their croziers really point out a reality. These croziers that seem to be taken from a picket fence and then band-sawed into form speaks truly. These two-dimensional staffs that look more like a prop in a children’s stage play than a real bishop’s crozier is quite an accurate comparison. The reality of women’s ordination is that they are play-acting regardless of what they think will happen. The two-dimensional staffs also represent the 2D view in which they see the priesthood. For the women’s ordination movement priesthood is all about power and being part of a power structure. Service to Christ is something that never makes it into their press releases. Their 2D view does not have the humility to submit to Christ and to dive deeper into the theology of why Christ only chose men as his Apostles. To try to understand this in the false light of equality is to say that everybody must be the same part of the Body of Christ or we are unequal. The Church in her humility says this was willed by Christ and we do not have the authority to change this. The women’s ordination movement says that they have the authority to say that it does and that it can even trump the Pope. I wonder how long it will be until they elect their own pope? Or is it as in the case of all dissidents is that each one is his own pope? One of the things that annoys me the most about them is ironically how they denigrate women in the Church. Their view basically says that the role of women in the Church since the beginning has not been all that important and that only with women priest’s is equality created. That I guess somehow St. Teresa of Avila a Doctor of the Church is less equal than her friend St. John of the Cross also a Doctor of the Church since he was a priest.
This so-called movement likes to frame itself in bravery as going against the hierarchy and acting strongly. Yet they have “ordinations” on riverboats and unannounced locations. The martyrs in proclaiming Christ and reforming the Church were willing to lay down their lives for Christ and his Church. The women’s ordination movement goes into hiding from their local ordinary.
Please pray for these women who have incurred excommunication that they will repent and subsequently lead lives of holiness building within the Body of Christ.
Updated: In Philadelphia two women were “ordained” in a Synagogue (second time that has happened I believe).
Fresen, sitting at DiFranco’s dining room table, tried to reassure her that “excommunication only takes effect if you let it.”
I will try that next time I am pulled over by the police. “No officer I will not let this ticket take effect on me.”
“Nothing can put you out of the church,” Fresen said. “Once you are baptized, you are baptized into Christ.”
Of course excommunication does not remove you from the Church. But if you die in mortal sin baptized or not you will go to Hell. We can with our freewill remove ourselves from the effects of grace and lose sanctifying grace.
Fresen insists there is an underground of support for female clergy, even among the hierarchy. When a South African bishop she knew learned of her ordination to priesthood, she said, he not only blessed her “but asked me to bless him” as well.
No doubt there are underground supporters in the hierarchy and they are even more cowardly than the women if they hide their convictions.
38 comments
“The two-dimensional staffs also represent the 2D view in which they see the priesthood. For the women’s ordination movement priesthood is all about power and being part of a power structure. “Service to Christ is something that never makes it into their press releases. Their 2D view does not have the humility to submit to Christ and to dive deeper into the theology of why Christ only chose men as his Apostles.”
Bingo. Especially the comment about putting themselves first, not Christ. I have no idea why Christ chose only men, or if he did (most of you will love that). But the Church says it happened that way and it has an established precident at this point. If you are thinking of dedicating your life to God and service to his people, how you would then make the leap that it has to happen within the framework YOU choose, in an organization that’s clearly chosen another way, I’m not sure. At some point, it means you’re making your profession be about you and not God.
I love the headline, BTW. Very funny.
One more thing; the biggest mistake of those who are annoyed, mad, or put off by the Church not “reflecting them” is that going to Mass isn’t about being validated; it’s about worshipping Jesus. That part seems to come in second for them.
that is so wrong!! im not a catholic (im orthodox christian), and im a woman, but even i frown upon the idea of women priests. it seems so…unnatural!
On obedience: a couple years ago there was an article about that crop of women leaving the church to start their new one, and they spoke of their bishop. While those authentically and validly ordained to the Priesthood of Jesus Christ vow obedience to their Bishop, these women do not. They vow obedience to no one but themselves.
They’re too busy singing a new church into being on a riverboat to consider important theological ramifications of obedience. How many are being mislead as they call themselves “Catholic”…God have mercy!
Not only is someone missing a picket fence, some villages are missing their idiots.
Is it a coincidence that the ‘ordinations’ were carried out on 420 Day, I wonder? It seems someone was smoking something.
The staffs do call to mind the nursery rhyme about Little Bo Peep… who lost her sheep. Whatever sheep are tended by these shepherdesses are definitely going to get lost.
Those 2-D “croziers” look a lot more like ornate crochet hooks than like shepherd’s staffs (whether ornate or not) to me.
As you said, Jeff—I don’t think they get it.
Peace,
–Peter
I guess the 420 connection is bogus. The ordinations actually happened on Sunday, April 19. The press release was on April 20…
Another example of “me” versus “us” in the Church. Another example of lack of obedience, and in my opinion, ignorance of what it is.
It is complete irony to be Catholic and be so disobedient to the Holy See and Church teachings. If you want to do your own thing, find, Martin Luther led that long ago yet call a duck a duck.
I’d be afraid of any clergy that doesn’t understand obedience. It is an amazing gift in the Church.
It is so sad to see these folish poor women but you are right they need our prayers and lots of them to help them find their way back to Jesus and His Church and away from the counterfeit Jesus leading them away from the true Church. As I sometimes warn my young relatives remember the devil is a brilliant magician who can be a shrewd mimic so be wary .
New Age icon? How fitting that three question marks hang over the heads of these gals. As for Ms. Red Stole, imagine her joined hands completing the cross stroke of a scarlet letter “A” formed by that ever-so-chic scarf draped around her neck.
They’ve got the bedknobs… where have they hidden their broomsticks?
I think it was you who once wrote that the truly crazy are hard to parody because they take the mockery seriously.
My friends and I are anime otaku who like to cosplay, which is precisely what these woman are doing. They are dressing up and LARPing as priests. They just won’t realize it.
Now, to add insult to injury, it’s spectacularly BAD cosplay that any self respecting otaku would shake their heads at in derision.
Where’s the picture of the mirror these women are worshipping? C’mon, it is the most important part of their lives.
Declaring something does not make it so. These women donning crowns and declaring themselves Queens of England is just are rational as going through with the farce of ordination. That is, self proclaimed ordination is not rational at all.
The shape of these “croziers” must mean something. The posts are funny, but there must be some significance to the design. The seriousness of their symbolism would only make the scene more hillarious to me!
“Women priests” just came up this Saturday evening… I confronted (in a very polite way) a woman about the “Obama/Biden” sticker on her car, which is always in the church parking lot (she’s in the choir…).
It turns out that she considers abortion less important than the economy, thinks (at least for certain reasons) that a man does not have the right to tell a woman how to “choose” what to do with her pregnancy, thinks that women should be priests, and constantly used the word “feelings” in the discussion. As far as “abortion vs. economy”, she asserts that she chose the priorities that were most important to her.
Sadly, people like her live aesthetically. In her view, I have my “feelings” and she has her “feelings” and mine are right *for me* and hers are right *for her*. When I tried to explain the concepts of truth and the required correspondence of our views with objective reality I was met with blank looks and reiterations of her sophistical doctrine. Mentioning God didn’t seem to do any good… in her opinion, because we have freedom anyone is allowed to choose what to believe and they will not be judged for it. Examples of car thieves and Nazis were similarly dismissed as irrelevant.
What finally came out is that her ex-husband had “oppressed” her, whatever that means, and she has decided that she has to exercise her freedom and not let men tell her what kind of person to be.
Also, George W. Bush. She more or less said that because W was a bad president, it was okay to ignore the teachings of the Church.
So anyway… look around. These people are not just in loony photos on our dear Jester’s blog. They are also in your parish, maybe even belting out dodgy hymns from your church’s LiberalSong hymnal.
Why can’t any of these women ever seem to vest themselves correctly? Who started the trend of wearing stoles outside chasubles? All theology left aside, if a bishop can’t figure out which stole goes with which chasuble on what day, maybe it wasn’t a good idea to ordain them in the first place.
Adeodatus,
I love the “feelings” part. Was that not a cheesy song in the 70’s?
“Feelings are for cows”. If we let out feelings rule us and not our intellect then no one would go to work, pray, or do what is difficult in life. When someone says that to me I always ask them, “feelings aside what do you think”? I wonder what resposnse you would get if you ask these faux priests that.
Please someone have a ceremony making me president. I will have my bags packed within the hour.
So, what do these woman do with their “ordination” now?
Mentioning God didn’t seem to do any good… in her opinion, because we have freedom anyone is allowed to choose what to believe and they will not be judged for it.
Actually, she’s right. We *do* have the gift of free will. We can choose to believe what we want, vote how we want, and live how we feel is best.
What those people often overlook is that they will have to answer for the choices they made in this life when they are face-to-face with our Lord and Savior.
Of course, that would be an additional belief that some have: no merciful God would really send someone to Hell. He would, and because He gave us free will to CHOOSE whether or not we have a relationship with Him. In other words, He doesn’t force us into a relationship with Him. So why then, after we die, would He toss aside that notion of free will and force those who choose not to know Him in this life to spend eternity with Him?
But I digress.
I know a few people, mostly non-Catholic, who think the all-male clergy is just the most awful thing ever. As a woman, I find nothing about the all-male priesthood chauvinistic or oppressive. This is how Christ wanted it; I’m obedient and accept that. Besides, it’s not about the supposed “power” priests have – it’s about being in service to Christ, according to how we were made in the image of God. Women can do a lot of things within a parish – many of them more “powerful” than the priest.
What I find awful is that a religion is not free to worship in the way it sees fit, because a few find it offensive, and that religion always seems to be Catholicism. I think it’s awful that these PC-types can’t leave well enough alone. Want women priests? Join the Episcopal Church; I hear they need members, anyway. But let us do what we think is theologically accurate. The fact that they’re attempting to alter part of what we believe leads to our salvation shows they are *not* people dedicated to the service of others, but to their own special interests.
“But if you die in mortal sin baptized or not you will go to Hell”
Such finality. Its good to know that the author has such insider information on who goes to hell. I was always taught that salvation was between a person and God , and that no one person can say for sure who is in hell and who isn’t.
I guess most people will tell me that im missing the point of the article but that one line puts me off more then these women ever could.
Mathew,
If somewone dies with an unforgiven mortal sin on their conscience they WILL go to hell. This is a fact, always taught by the Church, because Jesus did teach that.
How is that insider information on who goes to hell? Jeff, didn’t claim to know WHO SPECIFICALLY is going to hell as nobody but God knows a man’s heart and conscience.
We know why/how somebody goes to hell, what we don’t know is who for sure as this is not for us to know.
So I don’t see what your issue is with this.
Hmmm, maybe that photo should have had a sign that said Caution: Scandal Ahead.
If these woman are so proud of their choice of disobedience, why aren’t these ordination locations announced publicly?
Who started the trend of wearing stoles outside chasubles?
Doesn’t the stole stand for authority while the chasuble represents charity? So the priest wears the chasible over all (“over all, put on love”) but women seeking ordination as a “power” issue would wear the stole outermost.
Wow, are the three left ones bishops?!?! They have the cross, and for sure the crosses look ugly enough to make me guess they’re the bosses.
Frankly this is a little sad, but I guess with all the weirdos like Mr. Bozek, we can’t not expect it.
Lily, the sweet little old lady who lives up the street, is 83 years old and has long cherished a very special dream. Last week her moment arrived – several friends and neighbors gathered together and agreed to declare Lily next year’s number one Draft Pick for the Oakland Raiders.
e. I wonder how long it will be until they elect their own pope? Or is it as in the case of all dissidents is that each one is his own pope?
My Latin is rough, to put it nicely, but wouldn’t it be more likely that they’d elect a mome?
How fitting that three question marks hang over the heads of these gals
Ah, I didn’t see them that way at first. I was just thinking of them as vestigal shepherd’s crooks, and was thinking that they would be unable to hook or guide any flock with the tools they’ve chosen.
Ed-I think the term would be ‘mope’….
Silly and foolish women….
These impersonators always complain about the finery of the hierarchy, and yet here they are dressed in similiar regalia.
I haven’t read all the comments, but I’m sure that I will be the only person here who will say this, but it needs to be said. Women wishing to be ordained are not in it because they want power and be part of a power structure, or at least most women aren’t. Have you actually known and loved women who want to be ordained? It has nothing to do with wanting power. It has to do with wanting to serve Jesus Christ in the pastoral ministry which they believed they were called to do. It is about celebrataing the Sacraments and sharing the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ. The pastoral ministry even in the RCC has less authority than it used to. People can say all day that women aren’t called because the church doesn’t recognize the call, and the church has the priveldge to do that, but it is a diservice to women to impugn all their motives and to assume you know their reasons for wishing to be ordained-and that they are all selfish power-hungry ones . I have known lots of formerly RC women who are now Protestant ministers who except for their gender would now be likely be priests. How do I know them? I’m one of them, and accepting the calling to ordained ministry has been one of the blessings of my life. You can say that I am a heretic, I’m not part of the “one true church” and that my ordination is not valid. None of that makes a difference to me and I have no interest in debating women’s ordination. I know who called me-Jesus Christ.
Peace in the Lord Jesus Christ
I know who called me-Jesus Christ.
Madam, the Jesus Christ who was born of the Virgin Mary, died on the cross, rose from the dead, and now sits at the right hand of the Father is the same Jesus Christ who established the Catholic Church and gave His power and authority to Peter and to his successors; through them, this same Jesus Christ calls certain men to the ordained priesthood to serve Him in holiness.
To have experienced a call to do what Jesus, the Head of His Church, has not given His Church the authority to do (i.e., to ordain women), to have experienced a call to leave the one, holy, and apostolic Church and take ordination instead in another ecclesial community . . . is to have experienced a call to do things the Master could not – would not – call one of his flock to do.
My brothers and sisters, be careful, very careful, of calls from Lord. Test every spirit. Pray, yes, and discern, and look within for light and peace on the matter; these are important. But many have experienced light and peace, vision and fervor, but have been deceived, and have come to grief. Above all ask, what does Holy Mother Church teach on the matter? Is this call consistent with what the Church believes and teaches? If it is, then your path is sure to be sound. If it is contrary to what the Church teaches, then beware: a different spirit entirely to the one you want has your ear. Have nothing to do with it.
FenelonSpok,
Jesus called me to be Galactic Emperor so as a consequence you must bow down to my wishes.
Sorry the Jesus called me thing has to be mediated by the Church. Men who think they are called to the priesthood must still go through a process of discernment and it is their local ordinary that decides if they have a vocation. To become your own pope and decide on your own that the Magisterium is wrong is to be a Protestant. People can be totally wrong on their vocations this is why it must be confirmed by the Church.
“Not only is someone missing a picket fence, some villages are missing their idiots.”
LOL!
“Fresen insists there is an underground of support for female clergy, even among the hierarchy. When a South African bishop she knew learned of her ordination to priesthood, she said, he not only blessed her “but asked me to bless him” as well.”
AAAARGH! My own country! Kyrie eleison!
If it was about being in service to Christ, we women would realize that there are many, many things we can do to be of service to Christ and His Church. Being a priest is not one of them, and if we are to SERVE Christ we are, first and foremost to respect and obey Him. Christ made his male apostles priests, and therefore established the all-male priesthood, because that’s what HE wanted.
So to say women who are ordained are doing so out of a desire to “serve” Christ – when they are, in fact, doing the exact opposite of what Christ wanted – is dodgy at best.
I have known several women for whom the male priesthood is never about service to Christ, but about the “patriarchy oppressing women” and that women will never be “equal” until they have the “power” that comes with the priesthood. The split between the two is at best about 30/70, if not 20/80 or 10/90, when it comes to the percentage of women who want to “serve” Christ/women who want power.
As a woman, I find both stances equally offensive. As a Catholic, I find both stances at direct contradiction with what the Church teaches and sincerely believes.
I couldn’t agree more, Amy. Check out Cardinal Rigali’s statement on the “pseudo-ordination” that took place in the Philadelphia area:
http://archphila.org/press%20releases/pr001502.htm
Especially the last paragraph.
Those crosiers look like props stored backstage in a high school auditorium.
BMP
Is it just me or do those crosiers look like a woman in profile, looking left, with a hook above her head?
Just Jason