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...
Very interesting. I had heard that this new Crown Prince was going to go after the old guard religious authorities but this is pretty major given the nations hostility to the Christian faith. (I remember being in Saudi Arabia and seeing the religious police chase and hit people where not going to the Mosque quick enough, they left us American service members alone)
ReplyDeleteTo be a Christian in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a scary proposition. This is a good step in the right direction.
what christian demonination was this church originally, with syriac, orthodox, maronite. melkite, assyrian options why were the maronites chosen? just drilling down to try to understand the dynamics of the choice. of course this is a major action and oje to be applauded but just trying to understand the methodology
ReplyDeleteThis needs to be read in the context of SA trying to foment division and war in Lebanon. The Kingdom continues to export and fund its genocidal Wahhabi ideology throughout the world. In terms of signaling broad policy changes, this should be taken about as seriously as Pyongyang's Russian Orthodox Church.
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