Sr. Vassa: There's no ontological impediment to priestesses
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...
Please don't comment just to tell me you knew this already.
ReplyDeleteAs a child attending a Baptist school I learned that "X-mas" was a shameful & unabashed attempt to take Christ out of Christmas. When I was older I discovered the above info, and as time went by I realized that much of what I was taught growing up was as misinformed as this error.
ReplyDeleteThese types of abbreviations are all over our iconography too, and prayer books in Slavonic text shorten most words that appear often. Do they do this in the Church in other languages/alphabets like Greek, Georgian, etc.?
ReplyDeleteYes, certainly.
DeletePerhaps we should push for "XPmas" to eliminate the confusion.
ReplyDelete