An open letter to Pope Benedict
Dear Pope Benedict:
In your speech to the United Nations, you spoke eloquently about human rights as a path to equality, however, sadly, the Roman Catholic church discriminates against women . Church law bars women from ordination and patriarchal structures have colluded with the sexual abuse and violence against women that occurs in all religions, nations, and cultures throughout the centuries.
As I watched the magnificent papal Mass at Nationals Park in Washington DC, I was struck by the exclusion of women even as acolytes and eucharistic ministers at the altar. In many parishes, girls and women serve in these ministries weekly. In fact, women do most of the work to serve Catholic parishes in the United States. According to surveys, 80% of lay ministers are women. You could never tell that women play such an important role by their representation at the papal Mass during your visit to DC. Women are good enough to do the work, serve at the altar, distribute communion, but when the you come, it is the old boys' clerical club only, no women allowed. The clear message is that women are second-class citizens in the Roman Catholic Church. Do you think this is what Jesus would do?
Jesus called both women and men to be his disciples. According to all four Gospels, Mary of Magdala is the first witness to the Resurrection and is the apostle to the apostles. According to scholars, women were ordained for the first twelve hundred years of Christianity.
Roman Catholic Womenpriests are offering the church, Pope Benedict, a gift of a renewed priestly ministry. Womenpriests are shaping a more inclusive, Christ-entered church of equals in grassroots communities where all are welcome including the divorced and married, gays, lesbians, bisexual, transgendered and women who are treated like second-class citizens.
Yes, Pope Benedict, human rights is the path to equality not only in our world, but also in our church and women's rights are human rights. The Roman Catholic Church has ignored the clergy sex abuse of and exploitation of nuns and women. The National Catholic Reporter wrote about the failures of the Vatican to respond to this situation that occured in Africa, Europe and North America. The church needs to address the issues of domestic violence against women and acknowledge the role that patriarchal structures have played in the abuse of women throughout the centuries. Womenpriests address these issues in sermons and ministrial outreach in our local communities, but a structural change is necessary in the institutional church. Women are equal images of God and need to be included in decision-making roles in every area of church life. In my view, you missed an opportunity to realize your theme, Christ, our hope, by failing to address the full equality of women during your visit to the United States.
Next time you come, I hope Roman Catholic womenpriests will be at the altar with you, and partnership and equality will be a reality in our church and world.
Bridget Mary Meehan
Sister for Christian Community and Roman Catholic Womanpriest
A vert impressive posting
A vert impressive posting Little Bear and the most impressive statement, the finale: "If only men received Jesus' Body and Blood---then only men should be able to receive Communion. And, how did the the women (including Mary, Jesus' mother) get to be included in the Pentecost experience? After all--- only the Twelve Apostles should have been there."
Why are women included, (why is there no question about it)in the experience of the Sacramental Jesus in Baptism, Eucharist,Reconciliation, Sacrament of the sick (Last Rites or whatever), Matrimony but solely excluded from Holy Orders? Christ gave and gives himself utterly and totally to us men but not to women? And He invites, challenges us, women included, to give ourselves totally to Him?
The exclusion of Matrimony to the western male priesthood is simply a man-made, discretionary dictate that has only minor currency in the East and by exception in the west. It is however, an extension of the male fear/hate of, dare I say it: "w-o-m-(b)-a-n".
With reference to the abuse
With reference to the abuse scandal, Bill Maher said that as grand inquisitor, the then Cardinal Ratzinger told American bishops that they were not to allow these allegations to become public until the statute of limitations had run out.
I had never heard that before. If it were true it would make the present pope complicit in the coverup and an accomplice after the fact.
Does anyone know of any such order and where I might find reference to it?
Thanks. Frannie
Bill "the Pope was a Nazi"
Bill "the Pope was a Nazi" Maher has zero credibility when it comes to religion, so unless there is a source I think we ought to consider it as coming from Maher's imagination.
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nightwalker on Catholic Answers
Thanks for the
Thanks for the reassurance.
Frannie
Wow, Marie R-I like that way
Wow, Marie R-I like that way of putting it. I try to stay open to what God is asking of me but I believe the Church is not listening to the Spirit when it limits so many options to "Only males need apply".
One thing that experience
One thing that experience has taught me to be true of the Spirit is that it is persistent. I tend to think there is no peace where the attitude prevails that priesthood is a men's only club, even though, from where we sit, it appears that the club members are content. A couple of weeks ago, priests in our area were noting in their homilies that one of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus--the unnamed one--was likely to have been a woman. Sure, now and again one might make mention of this, but what would prompt even a second one to do so?
What a blessing that we live
What a blessing that we live in a country where all we have to complain about is the ordination of women. I am taking a history class now and we are going over pre-civil war period, talk about discrimination. Or the Discrimination of Christians by Muslims in places like Sudan or Saudi Arabia. Is it on par with those situations that Father Bridget places her not being able to be ordained a priest? Also, I guess Father Bridget is not familiar with the term extra-ordinary minister of Communion. The ordinary minister of Communion is the priest. At a Papal Mass there are more than enough ordinary ministers(priests, Bishops, Deacons) present to not need lay people.
Talk about discrimination.
Talk about discrimination. Jesus did not choose any women for his twelve disciples. He also did not choose any black men. In fact, he only chose Jewish men...
Oi vey! What happened to the
Oi vey! What happened to the priesthood?
In spite of the seeming
In spite of the seeming sarcasm of your intent there is a nugget of value in your response. Yes, "what a blessing that we live in a country..." and indeed in a time when this a valid complaint can be expressed. There was a time and other political environments when a dissent such as this would yield very personal reprecussions. It is indeed a time when dissent can be expressed. We are further blessed that, as Maslov's hierarchy of values and needs attests that 'higher' values are not out-distanced by the primary needs of basic survival. It is therefore incumbent upon us, individually and as a community of believers that injustices such as the exclusion of women can be raised, expressed and address demanded so that we can marshall the full resources of the human and devine to deal with the issues that require humanity not just maleness and the obvious deficit of moral imperitive. Thank you marfan46.
The issue of the ordination
The issue of the ordination of women to the priesthood is hardly a complaint at this point. It is a demand that needs addressing by the Pope without prejudice.
I think the reality also at this point about extraordinary ministers of Communion is that during the week they are called "extra" but are "ordinarily" needed as there are not enough priests. I think what was being proposed in the article was for the Church to show in public the true Catholic Church as it exists during every week in our parishes: that lay people, men and many women are doing what used to be done ordinarily by priests.
The lay people, the women included, are needed in order for the Church to continue to exist. It would have shown them respect and an honor for them if they had been included at the Papal Masses to perform what they usually do extraordinarily well in their Church every week. The excuse that they did "not need lay people" at the Papal Mass speaks volumes about what the male hierarchy really thinks of lay people when they decide they don't need them and deem them as essentially just "extras" like in a movie set.
i suppose I should be
i suppose I should be offended that I am not allowed to be a swiss guard because I am not from Switzerland. We all have different roles (vocations) one is not greater or lesser than the other. we do not need to worry about what we can and can't do and worry about what God is calling us to do.
Mavfan, God is calling me to
Mavfan, God is calling me to point out that his Church is in a harmful state of imbalance when it comes to the expression of feminine energy. God is calling me to point out that the caste system in force in an exclusively male dominated teaching authority is not good for His church or good for His people. It is not in His image and likeness. It is in mans image and likeness. We were supposed to have gotten beyond genital differences by this point in our development.
The church has traditionally taught that it's priesthood is a higher calling and vocation. Jesus did not. He taught that it was a service vocation, and acted like a woman to make the point when he washed the feet of His disciples. Men didn't take to this notion and remade the priesthood in a different, more 'masculine' conceptualization.
colkoch.blogtoolkit.com
Without going through the
Without going through the files again, I think that it was in the papal letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis by John Paul (written by, of course,Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger) and followed up by Ratzinger himself that said simply that the Church does not have the authority to ordain women and that Roman Catholics, particularly those who teach and form clergy must not reflect upon let alone teach that women can be ordained. I read sometime ago in an archived article by Fr. Reese, fired editor of America, that in the process of selection of Bishops one of the key five or so virtual oaths that candidates must take is that they uphold the denial of women from the priesthood. The open letter is therefore, in my mind, a noble but merely poetic statement and moral stance with no chance of being taken with other than a grain of salt by anyone up and or down the hierarchy.
This reality is sad, and, to my mind and heart, a miscarriage of Christ's message and mission not to mention simple logic, justice, morality, common sense and intellectual honesty. It may even be more, a lie. It may be a defence mechanism for property, an obscuration of de facto error in the long-standing scriptural interpretation and "sacred" tradition and theology as well as a challenge of intimate proximity to papal infallability. Its waves lap at the foundations of institutional and historical institutionality and the arrogance of authority that will sacriface Christ for the sake of its preservation as a male preserve.
One can argue that the access of women to the priesthood is of minor, selfish concern in the face of the many challenges of the contemporary church and of the planet including the suffering of the poor, the oppressed and the ill and the grander issue of the salvation of souls which might more effectively utilize the diminished and diminishing energies of the Church. I would contend that without resolving the injustice and the immorality of this issue, without facing and resolving this issue and its consequences whatever they are and whatever the cost, the Roman Catholic Church cannot assume the moral, spiritual or religious resource or capacity to legitimately address Christ's challenges. The Church hierarchy has barricaded itself behind a facade of insufficient reason reinforced by the full remaining weight of its intransigence and assumed rightiousness and in the abusive call of its pius to support an injustice robed in obedience to Christ and devotion to the His mother, the Blessed Mary.
While the open letter has cosmetic appeal it will have no impact; it will not even garner substantial attention. Without the effective marshalling of substantial support organized around a cohesive strategy and the stark challenge of consequences the voice of the church will successfully stand in its hypocritical maintenance of mysogyny masked as fidelity.
It is ironic and sad that such a male-like aggressivity would be the required route to the full access to sacraments for women. The alternative is patience, awaiting the virtual deterioration of the institution as we know it. This latter, while in a way the gentler, is in effect the continued toleration of a tradition of mysogony. A stance is required that recognizes, confronts and rectifies a wrong as well as documenting and celebrating the needed fundamental regeneration of the Church in Christ's name.
Dennis I'm not convinced
Dennis I'm not convinced that Cardinal Ratzinger wrote Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. Ratzinger's writings at least had and have a logic to them which one can follow even if one doesn't agree with the opening assumptions. Not so in the case of Ordinato Sacerdotalis. To end with the statement the Church has no authority to ordain women contradicts Jesus's statement in Mathew in which Jesus is not recorded to have placed any restrictions on what the Church could or could not loose or bind.
OS was the kind of thing my dad would proclaim when he had no real argument against something and knew it. He always followed this kind of pronouncement by declaring the issue closed and not up for any more discussion. This may have solved the issue for him, but left my siblings and I stewing.
You're right of course, that this open letter may as well have been written on toilet paper, for all the good it will do. But the issue of the sacramental inferiority of women in not a luxury or an incidental as Mavfan would have us believe. This sacrmental inferiority goes right to the heart of the Christian message and negates it's message of intrinsic equality for all humanity.
Worse than that, it keeps women from full participation in the teaching authority because their prophetic voice is artificially muted by the very existence of an all male clerical system.
No woman speaks for or about women. I wish men would put themselves in a similar position, where no man spoke for or about men. It's an almost impossible scenario to imagine, but women have lived this very scenario for two millenia in Catholicism.
colkoch.blogtoolkit.com
I can see how Cardinal
I can see how Cardinal Ratzinger could have writtn the OS. If one is immersed in the scholastic system to the extent he was/is it is reasonable to see how the strict laws of logic become more important than that about which the structure is applied. The "Letter to the bishops on the collaboration of women and men..." is a further case where to solidify a prejudged conclusion otherwise non substantial premises are given a credibility they do not merit. Objectively I would term that intellectual dishonesty, but maybe it is simply a scotosis. Nevertheless it is not credible argumentation unless one accepts the conclusion regardless of the premises or reasoning.
Perhaps the point being made
Perhaps the point being made should not so much focus on the principle of women's equality within the Church, but should challenge the Church to explain what it is about people who have female bodies that they should be restricted in how they answer God's call to bring Christ to the world.
Little Bear Pope John Paul's
Little Bear
Pope John Paul's position expressed in "Mulieris Dignatatem" centers on the fact that Jesus himself intended that only men preside at the Eucharist. This seems to be indicated by the New Testament stories of the Last Supper that depict Jesus as having present only the Twelve Apostles, who were all men. While Jesus broke through other social barriers regarding gender, He may have had something important in mind by including only men when he instituted the Eucharist. The early tradition of the church developed a male-only priesthood, often in tension with heretical groups in which women had strong roles of ministerial leadship.
Or so the story goes. The Vatican admits that their supporting data(no women at the Last Supper--no women--commissioned to "Do this...") is debatable. After all, Jesus was radically inclusive regarding women. The Vatican, admits that it is speculating but believes that the burden of proof is on those who want to change this long standing tradition. In other words, the Church believes that the Gospel stories contain the whole truth as experienced by the Twelve Apostles. Or do they?
Let's take a look at who WROTE the Gospel stories, and who was actually AT the Last Supper. The Gospel of Mark is the oldest Gospel that we have. If one follows what the Church teaches about the Last Supper--only the Twelve Apostles were there. Mark was not an Apostle---therefore he was not at the Last Supper. And he did not see who actually was there. Did Mark know Jesus? Yes, probably. He may have been a disciple and may have been the young man in the Garden of Gethsemane who left the bedsheet behind--- and ran away naked. But was the WRITER of the Gospel of Mark actually there? No.
The Gospel of Matthew---Matthew was certainly an Apostle. But Matthew was a tax-collector and as such, engaged in a dispicable occupation as tax collecting, was not permitted to study the Law. Yet, Matthew's Gospel is full of references to Judaic Law, and also had the genealogy of Christ. Matthew the Apostle, could not have written the Gospel named after him. Perhaps a Levite or Pharasee who became Christian (and maybe a disciple of Matthew the Apostle) wrote the Gospel and used the name of his teacher---Matthew. But the WRITER of Matthew's Gospel was not at the Last Supper.
The Gospel of Luke---Luke was a Greek convert and was not present at the Last Supper.
The Gospel of John--John, the son of Zebedee was an Apostle and also the writer of the last gospel. Or did he write it? In the Last Supper scene, we are introduced to a mysterious person found only in the Gospel of John, describe as the disciple Jesus loved. He is mentioned several more times in this gospel: At the foot of the cross with Jesus' mother (19:25-27), on Easter morning, when he enters the empty tomb with Peter (20: 2-12), and after the Resurrection when he identifies Jesus from the boat (21.7,20). He is always with Peter or where Peter should be (such as at the foot of the cross).
So who is the mystery man? Traditionally, he was been identified as John, the son of Zebedee and certainly one of the Twelve Apostles, and also as the writer of the Gospel of John. But if that is true, why does he refer to himself so strangely? Many biblical scholars today believe that the Beloved Disciple was a lesser-known follower of Jesus who was the founder of the Christian community that ultimately produced the Gospel of John.
So this presents us with a dilemma. If the Beloved Disciple was a lesser-known follower of Jesus---then others beside the 12 Apostles were also able to be at the Last Supper. People like the women disciples (who probably prepared the Upper Room, cooked the meal, served it and sat down to eat) and witnessed as Jesus, washed the Apostles'feet, instituted the Eucharist, taught other lessons that John writes about.
If the WRITER of the Gospel of John--is John the Apostle, then John, the young fisherman from Galilee, was a learned man, who had the soul of a poet, the intensity of a dramatist, and a spiritual theologian that could rival Thomas Aquinas. Possible? Probably not! The WRITER of the Gospel of John was not present at the Last Supper. He probably heard the story from John, the Beloved Disciple (not Apostle).
The truth of the matter is, the institutional Church doesn't know for certainty that women were NOT present at the Last Supper. If the institutional church is basing its premise on the eyewitness accounts of the Apostles they are probably in trouble. Nobody who WROTE was actually present at the Last Supper to see who was and who was not there.
Here's one more question. If only men received Jesus' Body and Blood---then only men should be able to receive Communion. And, how did the women (including Mary, Jesus' mother) get to be included in the Pentecost experience? After all---only the Twelve Apostles should have been there.