Is the male-only priesthood a discipline or essential to the nature of being a priest? Sr. Vassa (again unflinchingly taking up a contentious topic by climbing up the ladder to the highest platform and then jumping into the deep end head first) dives right in and says there is no reason beyond personal preference to not have female clergy. You know, when people ask me about women in priesthood, they say, 'Sister, why can't women be priests?' And I say, 'Women CAN be priests. We don't WANT them to be priests.' Because you see, God can do anything, and the Church, by divine authority, uh, can do anything, but, the Church doesn't want to - and that's a legitimate reason. What I don't like is when we TRY to pretend that there are other reasons for this, because it's legitimate not to want something, and there are reasons not to want this - right? - but, we shouldn't pretent that there's some... reason, that, for example, the maleness...
I'm trying to muster up some sort of shock or surprise but, sadly, this is what we have come to expect.
ReplyDeleteTo be frank I don't really see anything shocking in this, and I'm a Traditional Catholic.
ReplyDeleteSo, the Pope and an Orthodox Patriarch exchange, year after year for more than 40 years now, a delegation on two important feast days. They attend each others' liturgy, exchange nice words that don't really say anything, have a few photo ops, and that's it.
Rome hasn't given in on a single iota of doctrine. And the Orthodox haven't become Catholics. Rome hasn't swerved away from papal infallibility. And the Patriarch of Constantinople hasn't thrown the Athonites out. At the very least, it is an exercise in niceness.
It seems to me that for some Orthodox (and a few Catholics), it should be a scandal for Catholic and Orthodox prelates to be even seen talking to each other. I submit that there have been excesses in Catholic-Orthodox ecumenism but there could be hardly any scandal in a mere photo-op.
I don't see anything scandalous here at all. This sort of meeting happens multiple times a year every year.
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