Conquer Club

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/ju ... atholicism

So... anglicans vote to allow women bishops after acrimonius 7-hour debate. Catholics says decision is 'regretful' and that this makes reconciliation with church of england even more unlikely.

Why are these idiots are so violently opposed to women wielding authority in their institutions? Can someone please enlighten me? Cos right now i'm going with 1) fear and 2) misogyny (stemming from 1))

you missed out 3

3. everyone in the church is a berk, and most of 'em prefer to take it up the Gary Glitter

heavycola wrote:Why are these idiots are so violently opposed to women wielding authority in their institutions? Can someone please enlighten me?

Honestly I'm not sure I can give you a explanation that you would accept. But here is the best explanation that I can come up with; this is the one that is commonly used by the Catholic Church, and a lot of the more traditional parts of the Anglican Communion would also use the same reasoning.

Basically the church is founded on Apostolic Tradition. However a lot of the tradition was passed down from one bishop to the next so the general question is most often "what did the early Church do?" The writings of the Early Church Fathers are therefore important in establishing the "traditions" of the Church. For example, there is a tradition of married priests in the eastern church, but not of married bishops. There is no tradition of those already ordained being allowed to marry, just those already married being ordained but only to the priesthood; not elevated to the episcopate. Within the early church there is a strong tradition against the ordination of women into the priesthood, generally equating it with the pagan priestesses who were basically sacred pagan prostitutes. This was the line of reasoning that caused the Bishop of Rome of the Catholic Church to say that the church "had no authority" to ordain women priests. From Rome's perspective this is now an infallable statement and it's a non negotiable issue. There has been some reconciliation between Catholics and Anglicans; this has been once again set back to the starting point.

There are also other arguments from the letters of Paul that have been used by more fundamental churches in terms of placing women in authority. These may also be used by the more conservative Anglicans who place great weight on scripture.

Yeah, I was under the impression that it is a tradition stemming from the apostiles(after editing out MM) and/or Adam and Steve.

tzor wrote:

heavycola wrote:Why are these idiots are so violently opposed to women wielding authority in their institutions? Can someone please enlighten me?

Honestly I'm not sure I can give you a explanation that you would accept. But here is the best explanation that I can come up with; this is the one that is commonly used by the Catholic Church, and a lot of the more traditional parts of the Anglican Communion would also use the same reasoning.

Basically the church is founded on Apostolic Tradition. However a lot of the tradition was passed down from one bishop to the next so the general question is most often "what did the early Church do?" The writings of the Early Church Fathers are therefore important in establishing the "traditions" of the Church. For example, there is a tradition of married priests in the eastern church, but not of married bishops. There is no tradition of those already ordained being allowed to marry, just those already married being ordained but only to the priesthood; not elevated to the episcopate. Within the early church there is a strong tradition against the ordination of women into the priesthood, generally equating it with the pagan priestesses who were basically sacred pagan prostitutes. This was the line of reasoning that caused the Bishop of Rome of the Catholic Church to say that the church "had no authority" to ordain women priests. From Rome's perspective this is now an infallable statement and it's a non negotiable issue. There has been some reconciliation between Catholics and Anglicans; this has been once again set back to the starting point.

There are also other arguments from the letters of Paul that have been used by more fundamental churches in terms of placing women in authority. These may also be used by the more conservative Anglicans who place great weight on scripture.

Heavy, did we in the forum piss you off? You asking questions that you knew Tzor would chime in with his authoritative drone is perverse.

And where in Tzor's answer was the actual right answer: Patriarchal short-dicked twits who were afraid of what was in between a woman's legs. Can't control it? Let's classify it as a second class citizen or property!

next they are going to try to be pope.

women, always going for more.

thats like me asking, why cant i be an angel? its just against nature

heavycola wrote:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/08/anglicanism.catholicism

So... anglicans vote to allow women bishops after acrimonius 7-hour debate. Catholics says decision is 'regretful' and that this makes reconciliation with church of england even more unlikely.

Why are these idiots are so violently opposed to women wielding authority in their institutions? Can someone please enlighten me? Cos right now i'm going with 1) fear and 2) misogyny (stemming from 1))

There are a few responses.

The Roman Catholic church would say that the priests are descended (spiritually, that is) from the Apostles, who were all male. The Pope is "descended" From Peter who is the keeper of the keys to heaven.

Protestant churches tend to take different views.

Many say that women actually had much stronger rolls in the early Christian churches than has sometimes been thought, but that they were suppressed largely in response to the very heavily anti female bias of the Romans ... and then on down through the Middle Ages.

Others simply say that the role of women has changed and the churches should reflect that.

Some are even beginning to review the roll of Mary Magdalene, in particular. Some suggest that she actually was an Apostle (VERY controversial), but most don't go that far.

(a lot of that was part of the heretical Gnostic group)

Technically, if one wants to pick nits, the bishops are sucessors of the Apostles, this is followed in a bizzare order by the deacons (who were established first and whose establishment is the only clerical title listed in the New Testament) who were ordained servers (so the apostles didn't have to wait on tables) and then the priests. The later evolved after the notion of one bishop per major location. Smaller churches were run by the bishop's appointed priests. Centuries later the "minor orders" were developed. In the Roman Catholic Church these minor orders folded into lay ministries under Vatican II.

All well and good, but this ain't the "Church" this is just one portion of the whole "Body of Christ," which consists of all the members therein. In fact one of the earliest lay orders was the order of widdows. Paul talks about everyone having different gifts long before there were the three clerical major orders. Unfortunately by the time of the middle ages the notion of the laity as equal members of the body of Christ had fallen by the wayside. Francis didn't want to be ordained a deacon, he wanted to lead the order as a lay person, but it was a necessay formality. Clare wasn't allowed to have the same vows of poverty as Francis had. Both clericalism and sexism were commonplace in this era, although that doesn't mean that the underlying principles were thus invalid.

We can go through the pages of history to see how God works through his church; it was a lay woman, not any male cleric of renoun that got the Popes to leave the safety of Avignon France and to return to Rome. All the way to modern times when it was a small little nun who managed to hold her own as an equal with the President of the United States, something no Pope has ever dared to do so openly. But I'm skipping Vatican II.

Vatican II brought back the notion of the importance of the laity. All the minor orders, and there were many, people who read the readings (as opposed to the gospel which is the ministry of the deacon), people who lead the chant, people who opened the doors, all open to the laity both men and women. Some other notions rose and fell back out of favor but could always resurface again, parish councils, lay administrators, and of course lay teachers of the faith. While the church still leans to the sacramental nature of the clergy, the monarchical nature of the clergy has and will continue to fall out of favor as all the members of the body of Christ are empowered to use their unique gifts of the Holy Spirit for the greater glory of the people of God.

One other thing to note, currently these are paper titles, but the electors of the Pope (cardinals) used to be comprised of three types, "Espicopal" (bishops), "Clerical" (priests) and, "Lay," (the laity). Even organizations of bishops are, like most legislative bodies, run more by the subordinates who actually do all the work of preparing the documents and legislation, than the people who look at the documents and generally give approval. Post Vatican II the church has always affirmed that anything that belongs to the laity can be done by men or women, including altar servers.

PLAYER57832 wrote:Some are even beginning to review the roll of Mary Magdalene, in particular. Some suggest that she actually was an Apostle (VERY controversial), but most don't go that far.

I'm no Christian, so my vote doesn't count... BUT!

I say that until the Vatican allows others to view their HUGE archive of top-secret documents.... then their vote doesn't count either. What are they hiding?

And no, I'm not talking about MM.


Of course, I suppose the opposite view would be that if God wanted these docs to be read by everyone, he would make it happen somehow.

Juan_Bottom wrote:I say that until the Vatican allows others to view their HUGE archive of top-secret documents.... then their vote doesn't count either. What are they hiding?

They are not hiding anything. Well other than the fact that a bunch of Italians are not the best people to have in the long term document preservation department.

Pope Urban II documents are probably all water logged, and Sixtus III probably has mildew.

tzor wrote:They are not hiding anything.

Then they should publish everything. That's how Juan Oh! sees it.

tzor wrote:Well other than the fact that a bunch of Italians are not the best people to have in the long term document preservation department.

tzor wrote:Pope Urban II documents are probably all water logged, and Sixtus III probably has mildew.

What's said is that when I used this--> --I wasn't kidding. It really is a shame.

No one seems to have mentioned the Greek Orthodox.

The Byzantine Church and Roman Catholic split "a ways back". But some historians credit them with preserving much of the original church structure and documents. The oldest full Bible, for example, is generally thought to be the Greek text.

I don't believe they allow woman priests, either. However, they take the opposite approach to priests and mandate that their clergy be married. They ask how one who has not married could understand and counsel families.

PLAYER57832 wrote:No one seems to have mentioned the Greek Orthodox.

The Byzantine Church and Roman Catholic split "a ways back". But some historians credit them with preserving much of the original church structure and documents. The oldest full Bible, for example, is generally thought to be the Greek text.

Really? I never knew that.....

PLAYER57832 wrote:No one seems to have mentioned the Greek Orthodox.

The Byzantine Church and Roman Catholic split "a ways back". But some historians credit them with preserving much of the original church structure and documents. The oldest full Bible, for example, is generally thought to be the Greek text.

I don't believe they allow woman priests, either. However, they take the opposite approach to priests and mandate that their clergy be married. They ask how one who has not married could understand and counsel families.

That seems practical. A married man or woman is the best to advise newly-weds about marital affairs. But requiring marriage is a bit much I think. I understand the value that celebacy can have on ones focus and dedication. I understand it, but I have not the patience.

Of course, I find the notion of an organized priesthood holding all the power of the church not inline with what I have read.

tzor wrote:

Juan_Bottom wrote:I say that until the Vatican allows others to view their HUGE archive of top-secret documents.... then their vote doesn't count either. What are they hiding?

They are not hiding anything. Well other than the fact that a bunch of Italians are not the best people to have in the long term document preservation department.

Pope Urban II documents are probably all water logged, and Sixtus III probably has mildew.

You have no idea what they might or might not have, most people would not have dreamt that the Vatican could have a major share in the largest condom manufacturer in Italy

PLAYER57832 wrote:No one seems to have mentioned the Greek Orthodox.

Yes that is in general quite true. It's always interesting when protestant anti-papists start spouting a number of things trying to tie the church with the "whore of Bablyon" only to forget that these are the same traditions used by the Orthodox whose patriarch comes from Constantinople.

As a Roman Catholic, and one who was in dialogue with a Married Orthodox Priest in a newsgroup once, I have mixed feelings about the way the Orthodox does this. Remember, while they permit married men to be ordained they do not permit ordained men to marry. Apparently this results in a rather interesting search to get the person in the seminary hitched before they get ordained.

The average married Orthodox Priest (in the United States) has to endure both the normal problems of a family, but also the low sallary scale due to the fact that their parishes are often generally small and not able to generate significant revenue. Very few of them get any real support from their Bishops.

The western tradition has been slow to adopt the notion of the ordination of married men but has accepted the ordination of married men into the deaconate. In this case it is not young men who are ordained but older men in their 40's. The idea is that most of the difficult years of parenthood are behind them and they can devote more time to the ministry of deaconhood. I really think that this is the better model to extend to married priests than the Orthodox model.

There was a time in the United States when the decline of ordinations to the priesthood was met with an equal increase in the ordinations to the "permanent" deaconate. My current parish on Long Island only has one permanent priest, one visiting priest, but it has three permanent deacons. We also have a nun who is in charge of some of the programs and a number of lay people of both genders in various roles in the parish.

The biggest argument for married priests these days is in fact a lie; there is no relationship between ones married or single state and child molestation. Today, in order to be in any voluntary position in the parish (including singing in the choir) you have to go through special training classes. The potential threat could come from anywehere and from anyone and the only solution is constant vigilance. It's a whole new mindset, things that no one worried about in the past are now major causes for concerns. Comming late to pick up your child from CCD, for example, now requires several adults to remain as long as your child is in their care.

Most of the New Testament was written in Kloine Greek, the international language of business at the time. I think there is evidence that one of the Gospels was originally written in Aramaic, but that appears to be the exception.

edwinissweet wrote:](*,)

next they are going to try to be pope.

women, always going for more.

thats like me asking, why cant i be an angel? its just against nature

I think a woman actually CAN become pope, although she would have to be present during the vote (very unlikely) and all the cardinals would have to "acclaim" her at the same time, having been inspired by the holy spirit. (even more unlikely) Then it wouldn't matter if she were a lesbian atheist with pagan leanings, she'd be pope.

MeDeFe wrote:I think a woman actually CAN become pope, although she would have to be present during the vote (very unlikely) and all the cardinals would have to "acclaim" her at the same time, having been inspired by the holy spirit. (even more unlikely) Then it wouldn't matter if she were a lesbian atheist with pagan leanings, she'd be pope.

Technically no, because the "pope" is also the "Bishop of Rome" and so you must either be a bishop or electable to the order of the episcopate. And technically most athiest bishops would be excommunicated long before they became cardinals. Unlike the Anglican Communion, people like Spong wouldn't last a day as bishop in the Catholic Church.

tzor wrote:

MeDeFe wrote:I think a woman actually CAN become pope, although she would have to be present during the vote (very unlikely) and all the cardinals would have to "acclaim" her at the same time, having been inspired by the holy spirit. (even more unlikely) Then it wouldn't matter if she were a lesbian atheist with pagan leanings, she'd be pope.

Technically no, because the "pope" is also the "Bishop of Rome" and so you must either be a bishop or electable to the order of the episcopate. And technically most athiest bishops would be excommunicated long before they became cardinals. Unlike the Anglican Communion, people like Spong wouldn't last a day as bishop in the Catholic Church.

As I understood the concept, you don't have to be a cardinal or even a member of the catholic church at all in order to be elected pope by acclamation (or was it adoration? Not quite sure of the term any more). At least that was how this former student of catholic theology I know explained it.

Curmudgeonx wrote:

tzor wrote:

heavycola wrote:Why are these idiots are so violently opposed to women wielding authority in their institutions? Can someone please enlighten me?

Honestly I'm not sure I can give you a explanation that you would accept. But here is the best explanation that I can come up with; this is the one that is commonly used by the Catholic Church, and a lot of the more traditional parts of the Anglican Communion would also use the same reasoning.

Basically the church is founded on Apostolic Tradition. However a lot of the tradition was passed down from one bishop to the next so the general question is most often "what did the early Church do?" The writings of the Early Church Fathers are therefore important in establishing the "traditions" of the Church. For example, there is a tradition of married priests in the eastern church, but not of married bishops. There is no tradition of those already ordained being allowed to marry, just those already married being ordained but only to the priesthood; not elevated to the episcopate. Within the early church there is a strong tradition against the ordination of women into the priesthood, generally equating it with the pagan priestesses who were basically sacred pagan prostitutes. This was the line of reasoning that caused the Bishop of Rome of the Catholic Church to say that the church "had no authority" to ordain women priests. From Rome's perspective this is now an infallable statement and it's a non negotiable issue. There has been some reconciliation between Catholics and Anglicans; this has been once again set back to the starting point.

There are also other arguments from the letters of Paul that have been used by more fundamental churches in terms of placing women in authority. These may also be used by the more conservative Anglicans who place great weight on scripture.

Heavy, did we in the forum piss you off? You asking questions that you knew Tzor would chime in with his authoritative drone is perverse.

Tzor that doesnt really answer my question. Other traditions within the catholic church over the ages have included war, anti-semitism and the torture of non-believers. All of these have been dropped for good reason, so why not this 'no women' nonsense? It's a patriarchal and misogynistic attitude.

Interesting how to be holy a woman has to be a) a virgin and b) the mother of god.

MeDeFe wrote:

edwinissweet wrote:](*,)

next they are going to try to be pope.

women, always going for more.

thats like me asking, why cant i be an angel? its just against nature

I think a woman actually CAN become pope

Some historians say there was one once ... Pope Joan. The story is roundly declaimed by the Roman Catholic Church, but there is definitely evidence of women (masquerading as men) entering the preisthood in the Middle Ages and even reaching the level of Bishop.

tzor wrote:

PLAYER57832 wrote:No one seems to have mentioned the Greek Orthodox.

As a Roman Catholic, and one who was in dialogue with a Married Orthodox Priest in a newsgroup once, I have mixed feelings about the way the Orthodox does this. Remember, while they permit married men to be ordained they do not permit ordained men to marry. Apparently this results in a rather interesting search to get the person in the seminary hitched before they get ordained.

I don't claim to be an expert by any means, but this differs slightly from what I was told. I was told they HAD to be married prior to becoming priests.

heavycola wrote:Tzor that doesnt really answer my question. Other traditions within the catholic church over the ages have included war, anti-semitism and the torture of non-believers. All of these have been dropped for good reason, so why not this 'no women' nonsense? It's a patriarchal and misogynistic attitude.

You have to remember that the Roman Catholic Church is extremely hierarchical, male dominated and essentially framed by the Middle Ages in much of its structure. It will be slow to change.

And, a lot of Christians of all denominations still look to subserviance of women as a goal/norm (thought they often claim it is not "subservience", just "respect" or some such). (Think "Promise Keepers")

heavycola wrote:Interesting how to be holy a woman has to be a) a virgin and b) the mother of god.

No question that the church, and society in general are pretty hypocritical when it comes to women. But that is more than an entire thread unto itself ... so let's leave it there.

heavycola wrote:Tzor that doesnt really answer my question. Other traditions within the catholic church over the ages have included war, anti-semitism and the torture of non-believers. All of these have been dropped for good reason, so why not this 'no women' nonsense? It's a patriarchal and misogynistic attitude.

That's a shotgun argument so I'll take each pellet you've fired.

The Catholic Church has never changed it's position on war. It is still based on the Just War theory of Agustine. The Pope's opposition to the Iraq war, for example was based solely on the failure to adequately prove the conditions of the just war theory.

The Catholic Church has never had an offical position on anti-semitism, only the personal opinions of those within the church. The same is true for "torture" of non-believers. (Which I'm not aware of offhand, although I am aware with the permission to use crossbows against infadels.)

The main reason is that the church is "comfortable" with the signs and symbolism of a male priesthood. It rests that comfort upon the solid apostolic tradition.

heavycola wrote:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/08/anglicanism.catholicism

So... anglicans vote to allow women bishops after acrimonius 7-hour debate. Catholics says decision is 'regretful' and that this makes reconciliation with church of england even more unlikely.

Why are these idiots are so violently opposed to women wielding authority in their institutions? Can someone please enlighten me? Cos right now i'm going with 1) fear and 2) misogyny (stemming from 1))

Consistency. The writings of Paul indicate that women should not hold authority in the Church. Therefore women don't hold authority in the Church.

tzor wrote:The main reason is that the church is "comfortable" with the signs and symbolism of a male priesthood. It rests that comfort upon the solid apostolic tradition.

I'd say the MAIN reason is that it's in the Bible...

OnlyAmbrose wrote:

heavycola wrote:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/08/anglicanism.catholicism

So... anglicans vote to allow women bishops after acrimonius 7-hour debate. Catholics says decision is 'regretful' and that this makes reconciliation with church of england even more unlikely.

Why are these idiots are so violently opposed to women wielding authority in their institutions? Can someone please enlighten me? Cos right now i'm going with 1) fear and 2) misogyny (stemming from 1))

Consistency. The writings of Paul indicate that women should not hold authority in the Church. Therefore women don't hold authority in the Church.

Surely your not claiming that interpretation of the bible is consistent? Come on, you can do better than that.