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...
Hilik Bar
ReplyDeleteHamas rockets are aimed at Israel's civilian population, and are unprovoked, sent with murderous intent. Since the beginning of Operation Protective Edge, Hamas has fired over 1,500 rockets into Israel. Israel's operation, meanwhile, is dedicated solely to removing the capacity of Hamas to fire missiles into Israeli population centers and dismantling its terror tunnels.
To discuss the concept of proportionality, one must offset the number of deaths against the aims of the operation. In the context of putting a stop to intolerable, hourly murder attempts against an entire population, Israel's campaign is perfectly understandable. One wonders how the UK would react if a terror group overtook the Isle of Man and began raining missiles down on Britain.
The coldhearted subtext is that Israelis must die in order for their military campaign to gain any sympathy. Yet no interviewer would dream of asking a British army general or politician why more Afghans died than British soldiers in the war there. As Israel's ambassador to the UK, Daniel Taub, said recently: "We don't have to apologize for Israelis not being killed."