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...
Unfortunately, the effort has been going on a long time. In my part of the country certain Protestant branches have always made the the claim that Christmas was really a Roman pagan holiday and Easter was worship of a pagan goddess.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention the attempt to link icons off Jesus to pagan temple representations of Zeus.
I am 70+ years old and I have heard these things 9n and off my whole life and they were not new when I was young. Jdubs won't celebrate anything even their own birthdays.
These people fundamentally deny both the reality of God and His Incarnation--which is the root of secularism.
The Iconoclasts did the same thing. Nothing new.