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...
As a parent of a 4 and 10 year old, this is on my radar. Behind it, or rather the elephant, is the secularism *within* (in each of us, in our parishes, etc.). My experience has been that while many (most) parents, some laity, and a smattering of clergy are willing to in some way significantly address it, there is real resistance. Clergy in particular don't seem to want to acknowledge/address it for diverse reasons, some of which I can get my head around and others I can not (not that I agree with any of the reasons I have understood so far).
ReplyDeleteIf most of this seminar suggestions is of the variety of "attend more feasts/church/services and all will be well, all will be well" then that will be unfortunately more of the same...