Women Priests: The Time Has Come

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s we noted in treating the French Revolution, the

 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 defined equality: “the law must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in its eyes, shall be equally eligible to all … employments according to their ability, and without other distinction than that of virtues and talents.” One cannot get more pointed and straightforward than that.

        

Sixth graders understand the definition and concur with it. If you ask sixth graders why does the Church have seven sacraments for men and only six for women, they instantly get the point. Women have only six sacraments because they are barred from the sacrament of ordination. They are not allowed in the diaconate or the priesthood. The sixth graders’ eyes get wide at the realization and they burst out: “That’s not fair! That’s not equal!”

        

The bishops don’t get it and should take a lesson from the sixth graders. Pope John Paul II expressly forbade even discussion of women’s ordination. Of course, that prohibition failed to stop discussion. 

When the bishops try to justify patriarchy in the Church, they usually descend into triteness: “Jesus didn’t have women apostles,” omitting the fact that many of Jesus’ closest disciples were women, forgetting the male-dominated culture of Jesus’ times, and forgetting that Paul used the term apostle for Junia (a woman) in his epistle to the Romans. We might remind the bishops that Jesus didn’t establish a monarchy, though popes and bishops have no problem with affirming that he did.

        

The point is simple. It is impossible to argue that equality for all humans, male and female, is not a moral imperative. It’s time our bishops acknowledged this fact and argued the truth at the Vatican.

        

It is clear though, that we have no bishops who are courageous enough to act counter-culturally within the purple culture, even collegially. They are inhibited from doing so by fear of personal consequences and/or by the cultic structure of their culture, and by its innate narcissism.

        

Women are being ordained in our times without the approval of either the Vatican or the bishops. They are the forefront of more to follow. They are working in ministry, often with married male priests. Seventy percent of us, the laity, agree that this should be a permanent reality. When you meet these brave women, acknowledge their prophetic role and support them.

Resource:  

Dead Men's Bones, by Stephen Boehrer

Church Change by the Back Door: Usury and Contraception

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ishops have made U-turns on moral issues in the past where the wisdom of the laity prevailed. The bishops do need some sort of back door, however, in order to camouflage the turn-around. An excellent example is the change in their position on usury, the taking of interest on loans.

        

Papal condemnations of usury and money lenders go back as far as the fourth century. Today, usury is often understood as the taking of ‘excessive’ interest. That was not the understanding of usury in the papal condemnations. The definition of usury used by the pope and curia is explicit in the Encyclical Vix Pervenit of Pope Benedict XIV in 1745: “Usury….consists in this: That someone, from the loan itself, which of its very nature demands that only as much be returned as was received, wishes more to be returned to him than was received, and therefore contends that some profit beyond the principal, by reason of the lending, is due to him. Therefore, all profit of this sort, which surpasses the principal, is unlawful and is usurious.”

        

When the Western world changed from a land economy to a money economy, people began taking or paying interest on loans. It became the common practice. Confessors began to notice that people were no longer confessing the sin of usury. Priests and bishops were confused on the issue and various opinions emerged even among the clergy. Harkening back to Vix Pervenit, the bishop of Rheims queried the Vatican on how to deal with the confessors and the differing opinion. The response from Pope Pius VIII (1821-1830) was: “They are not to be disturbed.” In other words, don’t worry, just stop talking about it. The practice of the people had prevailed, and the Pope slipped out a back door.

        

A contemporary example where the laity have decided by their practice on an issue that was and is still being condemned by the Vatican is contraception. Some 97% of Catholic women of child-bearing age use contraceptives. Some estimates say 98% of all Catholics disagree with the official position. The laity are simply relying on their own wisdom. 

They know that sex can be about loving and supporting intimacy as much or more than about procreation. They give importance to the relational aspects over the mere physical act. The gospels are about loving, not about sex. Contraception now has a firm acceptable place in their consciences. And the Vatican is looking for a back door. The door came slightly ajar recently when Pope Benedict XVI moved from a previous position to a contrary one saying that contraception might be appropriate to stop the spread of AIDS.