I was mostly happy to hear about the lineup that the NYT got for their Papal Visit blog, especially with their recruiting Amy Welborn. Well there is one contributor they didn’t announce ahead of time. Feminist theologian and all around dissenter Catholic Rosemary Radford Ruether posted today. The post is so typical that I could have wrote it as a parody in my sleep.
You know that lack of priests is all due to not ordaining women and dropping the requirement for celibacy and how the sexual abuse crisis is all because of repressed sexuality. If only they could get married they wouldn’t abuse predominantly pubescent boys. And of course women’s ordination is all about the current Pope’s opinion.
To say such nonsense you have to ignore that vocations are on the upswing and that sexual abuse is orders of magnitude worse in institutions like public schools. She writes that they are "taught to view sex as the opposite of sacredness." I guess she considers that sexuality reserved only to marriage ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring as not being sacred. But fornication, adultery, and homosexual acts which are inherently sterile are sacred. The sacredness of an act deals with the context of the act and sex within an act that is inherently evil can never be sacred.
But then again you can’t argue with someone that would say something like "Once the mythology about Jesus as Messiah or divine Logos, with its traditional masculine imagery, is stripped off, the Jesus of the synoptic Gospels can be recognized as a figure remarkably compatible with feminism."
12 comments
I’m not happy with that blog. The NYT is deliberating censoring comments that are “un-PC”, especially if one dares to mention the lavender elephant in the room.
I would be surprised if my own comment gets moderated. Dissent must not be brooked unless it is against the Church.
So far, all three of my comments to the blog have been filtered out. Here’s what I wrote to Rosemary:
I don’t think the requirement of celibacy is the reason for the diminished number of priestly vocations. If a link could be drawn along these lines, it would be better to point to the source: an inability or an unwillingness to live one’s sexuality in a generous, self-giving way. This is the call for every Catholic, whether married, single, or vowed as celibate.
We don’t live in a culture that supports chastity — the ability to put one’s erotic desire at the service of another in a generous, selfless way. This is the key to enduring marriages and enduring vocations to priesthood and religious life.
There’s nothing repressive about this vision. When the Theology of the Body espoused by John Paul II (and by Benedict also in encyclicals such as Deus Caritas Est) truly comes into its own, I believe we’ll see an abundance of vocations lived in a beautiful, life-affirming, and love-filled way.
It’s not the time to give up on celibacy. Because it is not the time to give up on love. A celibate life, well-lived, is a witness to hope.
Jeff –
Your comment DID get posted. As did mine. The Grey Lady is full of surprises today!
That’s the New York Times we know and…love? Well, the New York Times we know. We’ll leave it at that.
Nice to see that most all the comments were in favor of the Pope and the teachings of the Church. only a smattering of the same old tired arguments… “come on, this is the 21st Century”
Because in the 21st Century, its the Future now, and well priestly celibacy is so old.
If only we could strip Jesus of Jesus, what? What a mess!
I guess I should be proud. My comments are so spot-on that the NYT cowards know they expose the nonsense in most of the blog posts.
It’s been a fascinating blog, and it’s good to see that your rebuttal of Ms. Radford Reuther’s boilerplate was posted.
Game set and match to Mr. Miller.
I also liked Clayton’s response, and I thought Peter Nixon from dotCommonweal had a good answer.
Gerry – I wouldn’t mind seeing what you tried to submit. Maybe you could post it here?
My favourite is the one which says “I’m a woman” more than once as if that’s some trump card, then predicting some men might view it differently. Then she comes responds to another poster with “Like most men, you aren’t listening”. It gave me a nostalgic glow for the men-hating feminists of my alma mater. 🙂