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...
If you do nothing else watch the last 3 minutes (the last question and answer)...
ReplyDeleteJake, I took your advice. The tail end was excellent. Thanks for the tip.
DeleteWell, I take that back - don't listen to the man:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/patriarch-kirill-fidel-castro-orthodoxy/
Seems he is a Big....Fat....Hypocrite. The rascal in me hopes some day to meet him or EP/Archbishop Demitrios (of GOA)/etc. In this world we don't know much, but we know that these men have traded their souls for the world (or in these cases, church buildings). I would like to ask them what that is like - what does it *mean* to live like that?