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...
"open minded clergy...who will be immune to fundamentalism...who will know how to coexist peacefully and build bridges with..."
ReplyDeleteWhat nice secular speak. So God is going to turn the tide of the Islamic route of the Imperial Church of the East in Turkey with...secular speak/attitudes/ideas?!? Puuuuulleeeeaaasseeeee.
That said as a bibliophile I would love to spend a few weeks in the library...
Sad. I think the best thing for the library is to get it exported to someplace safer than Turkey. There have been earthquakes and manmade "accidents". The local government would send a card of condolences but the fire department (if there is such) would be terribly slow, would lose the address if something happenned. Halki lives in short youtube videos, nowhere else, call it a day. The monk is probably an example of the quality of the education one could expect IF it reopened. Building a bridge to Islam....That would be the one over the Golden Horn, right? There's already a school headed in the direction of closing that does that in Boston.
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