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 notice that while Sr. Vassa is criticized for giving an opinion (which she noted up front was hers and not that of the Church) here we have an example of utter nonsense that the Church ignores, from hierarchs themselves. A fellow is elected bishop while being at the moment the consecrated bishop of precisely NOTHING, NOWHERE and NO ONE. Let that sink in. What a joke. Fix the bishops. Maybe fix the patriarchs. They're broken.
ReplyDeleteBob, I don't know if I'd compare these two issues, but to your point about "titular bishops" I say: Well said! This particular issue has driven me nuts for years. Unfortunately, almost no one seems to see it as a problem or even care...
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