Ship of Fools: Horror that Pope is playing with fire...

Thread: Horror that Pope is playing with fire... Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Five days after Pentecost.

Guardian letters

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

When it's said to be about liberal versus conservative or traditional, it's a mislabelling. It's about sexism. I am fine with clergy being sexist, we just need to call them that, to do so honestly, and stop with the traditional/conservative nonsense.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

That article is by Frankie Bown, who in most people's eyes is a fruitloop.

Many of us were glad when he swam the Tiber.

Many across the Tiber wish he hadn't.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

It also depends on how far back you want to trace "tradition". From blogger Fred Clark:

quote:
Can you spot the factual error in this Reuters headline? “US Catholics cautiously hopeful women may one day be deacons.”

Yep, you could read that whole piece and never encounter the fact that the church in Rome used to have women deacons. English-speaking readers of the Bible in translation might be confused about that since our English translations make up new and unusual titles to avoid acknowledging that the New Testament names women as deacons. The same word translated “deacon” or “minister” for Stephen and Philip gets rendered “servant” for women like Phoebe. (And in an acrobatic maneuver of double-think, that erasure-by-translation is sometimes itself cited as evidence that woman deacons are unthinkable.)

Since I’m a chapter-and-verse evangelical type, let me cite chapter and verse: Romans 16:1-16. There’s the deacon Phoebe. And Priscilla. And Mary. And Junia, an “apostle.” And Tryphaena and Tryphosa and Julia and, well, just way too many women for anyone to credibly pretend that women in church leadership is some kind of brand-new, unprecedented thing that it’s somehow “conservative” to oppose.

So it may be more accurate to say that Pope Francis is considering reversing the (relatively) newfangled ban on women as deacons and returning to a more traditional church leadership structure.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

I had formed an opinion of Francis Bown - not quite fruit loopy, but someone to be sorry for in that he doesn't seem to be at all happy that God somehow found it necessary to arrange for another sort of person to share the world with him.

And I have written to the Guardian, suggesting that in the week commemorating God descending in tongues of flame, playing with fire might be quite an appropriate thing to be doing. Don't expect they will print it though.

Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :

I'm glad Francis is doing this. I hope the RCC listens, especially the hierarchy.

Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on :

The really interesting thing is the second letter. At what point do we draw the line on interaction with other faiths? What is too far beyond the pale? When does the lantern stop shining and, alongside other lanterns, create pools of darkness?

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

I'm pretty sure that IngoB used to argue that a change in Traditional practice in this area did not offend Catholic dogma. He didn't have a lot of time for Jesuits, and saw Pope Francis as an exemplar of their faults. But on this question, I think he saw the possibility of change.

So I believe there may well be scope for both more conservative and more radical folks within Catholicism to look again at whether the beliefs in Holy Tradition (as opposed to Traditional practice) really present a bar to this being reconsidered.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
The really interesting thing is the second letter. At what point do we draw the line on interaction with other faiths? What is too far beyond the pale? When does the lantern stop shining and, alongside other lanterns, create pools of darkness?

Here's the story that went with the second letter. Guardian on meditation

So many Christians seem to carry fear around with them.

Posted by Bibaculus (# 18528) on :

Oh Lor'. Fr Fank Brown. I didn't know he was still going. The parody of him in 'Not The Church Times' (c1980) was priceless (Fr Bown had to be revived with a quart of gin after an incident when he was conducting a traditional rite ceremony in the stone circle at Avebury. He commented, "I have heard of these creatures, what do you call them? 'Women' I think. But I never expected to see one at one of my services". - Or words to the effect).

Pope Francis made, as is his way, some off the cuff remarks. I don't know if it is virtue signalling on his part, or if he just doesn't think before he opens his mouth. I don't really care. But nowt will change.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

1980 to 2016. Maybe the Guardian letter was another spoof, then.

But how terribly, terribly sad.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

The article doesn't say that the Zen meditation group has been banished from the cathedral, simply that a group of evangelical Christians disagrees with them being there.

Christians disagree with each other on all sorts of issues - and if they're all Anglicans it's almost to be expected! I don't think it's all that 'sad', really.

In terms of PR, the Zen group at the cathedral might even attract more participants as a result of the publicity.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

Back to women deacons - the fearful have right on their side in that some anglo-catholics were ok with women deacons and later discovered women becoming priests and, further down the line, bishops.

By then, it was too late to take their lump sum upon resigning their livings.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

More letters.

Guardian again.

All of which* have made the comparison of playing with fire and the action of the Holy Spirit. They were better than mine!

*That's the religious ones. Not the one that compared the Church with Muirfield.

[ 23. May 2016, 15:10: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on :

I don't see what the fuss is about. Even if the RCC wound up with female deacons (which I'm not entirely sure is likely), the RCC has pretty much painted itself into a corner when it comes to female priests by saying it's an infallible doctrine that it can't happen (not using Papal infallibility but using the Universal and Ordinary Magisterium). So even if some theologians might be able to find a loophole (how did JPII know the mind of all bishops in all of Christian history?), there is a whole lot of Vatican I and Vatican II that backs the whole Universal and Ordinary Magisterium stuff up so it would be very damaging to the Church's believability if it backtracked on its most famous assertion of that kind of infallibility.

Posted by Forthview (# 12376) on :

While some people may believe that almost everything a pope says should be treated as infallible, this is not actually the case.

The only time infallibility as been invoked solemnly by the Pontiff was in the 1950 definition of the Assumption.

I thought that the Anglican priests who converted to Rome did so because they believed that the CofE was out of line with what they saw as the historic Catholic Churches and preferred to be in line with traditional Catholic thinking. Should Rome rule in favour of women deacons, priests or bishops then they should be ready to accept that.

Whether Rome will or will not make such a ruling is a different question.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
The only time infallibility as been invoked solemnly by the Pontiff was in the 1950 definition of the Assumption. not make such a ruling is a different question.

Not the immaculate conception?

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:

I thought that the Anglican priests who converted to Rome did so because they believed that the CofE was out of line with what they saw as the historic Catholic Churches and preferred to be in line with traditional Catholic thinking. Should Rome rule in favour of women deacons, priests or bishops then they should be ready to accept that.

I agree but their reasons werediverse - some saw/see it as impossibe for women to be ordained - not valid matter for the sacrament.

If Rome allows their ordination, these priests will say that Rome has become heretical, like the C of E, following the spirit of the age.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Whoooo! The Vatican must be quaking at the thought. Not.

Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:

quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
The only time infallibility as been invoked solemnly by the Pontiff was in the 1950 definition of the Assumption. not make such a ruling is a different question.
Not the immaculate conception?

The IC was defined in 1854, in the bull Ineffabilis Deus. Papal infallibility was decided at Vatican I in 1870, but (in RC terms) the council didn't confer it on the Papacy--it merely recognized what the office had already possessed.

Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
While some people may believe that almost everything a pope says should be treated as infallible, this is not actually the case.

The only time infallibility as been invoked solemnly by the Pontiff was in the 1950 definition of the Assumption.

I thought that the Anglican priests who converted to Rome did so because they believed that the CofE was out of line with what they saw as the historic Catholic Churches and preferred to be in line with traditional Catholic thinking. Should Rome rule in favour of women deacons, priests or bishops then they should be ready to accept that.

Whether Rome will or will not make such a ruling is a different question.

I never claimed that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was an exercise of the Extraordinary Magisterium. Ad Tuendam Fidem clarified that its statement on the impossibility of female priests was merely a recognition of a preexisting infallible truth under the Universal and Ordinary Magisterium, and said that now that JPII had recognized it, belief in it was binding on all the faithful as a matter of faith.

Also, if the Anglican priests who swam the Tiber when the C of E started to ordain women really accepted the fulness of post-Vatican II RCC doctrine, then they also accepted that diaconal ordination is not even in a partial way ordination to the ministerial priesthood and that therefore the impossibility of female priests has nothing to do with the possibility or impossibility of female deacons, which Rome has never definitively ruled upon.

Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I agree but their reasons were diverse - some saw/see it as impossible for women to be ordained - not valid matter for the sacrament.

{Directed at the ideas, not at Leo.}

So...a woman's "matter" was sufficiently ok to carry God for nine months, presumably provide the human DNA, birth God, nurse God, raise God...but isn't good enough for the sacrament.

Good to know.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:

quote:
Originally posted by leo:

quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
The only time infallibility as been invoked solemnly by the Pontiff was in the 1950 definition of the Assumption. not make such a ruling is a different question.
Not the immaculate conception?
The IC was defined in 1854, in the bull Ineffabilis Deus. Papal infallibility was decided at Vatican I in 1870, but (in RC terms) the council didn't confer it on the Papacy--it merely recognized what the office had already possessed.

So the IC decision was infallible in all but name, and retroactively infallible via the 1870 decision. This looks like so much playing with words. Is the IC an infallible pronouncement or not?

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

I'm not an RC, so am happy to be corrected on what is and isn't possible, but I was wondering whether a statement on the following lines could be conceivable (allowing for the odd terminological inexactitude- and whether or not it is likely is another matter):

Brothers and Sisters in Christ, God has given his Church a threefold ordained ministry of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, and in his wisdom has reserved that ministry to persons of the male sex. We reaffirm the Church's consistent teaching that this is so, and that the clergy is inescapably and necessarily male. Nonetheless, it is apparent that from the earliest days women have served Christ and His Church in the honourable and noble ministries of teaching, of the care of the poor and the ministry of charity, and, in later days, of administration. In many respects these ministries have substantially overlapped with the ministry of Deacons and should therefore, We believe, be accorded the same respect and esteem among the faithful that attaches to ministry of the Diaconate.
We therefore now institute an order of (INSERT QUASI-DIACONAL TITLE) to which women, religious ansd secular, who are called to this ministry may be commissioned, under vows, as a recognition of the esteem and respect which attaches to their ministry. And that this esteem and respect may be more easily manifested, We decree that members of this order may adopt distinctive forms of dress and address (INSERT DETAILS OF DRESS AND FORMS OF ADDRESS WHICH ARE NOT QUITE THOSE OF MALE DEACONS BUT NONETHELESS HAVE SOME VISIBLE SIMILARITIES TO THEM.)And We further decree that members of this order may be appointed to any post within the Church to which their abilities and calling commend them, unless such a post requires its holder to be able to exercise specifically priestly or episcopal functions. For let it be said once more that members of the order of NAME are not and, as persons of the female sex, cannot be, members of the clergy, which God in his wisdom has reserved to persons of the male sex. But let their ministry nonetheless be recognised as being, in all other respects, equal in esteem and authority to those of Deacons.

Could that be possible? Might it be possible?

Posted by Forthview (# 12376) on :

Except that deacons are counted as clergy.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Well, yes, that's the point I was trying to get across. Women 'quasi-deacons' would not be deacons because deacons are clergy and clergy are male. But they would be in function (substantially? with necessary exceptions? you'd know) equivalent to deacons and recognised as equivalent to deacons- although it would be ontologically impossible for them actually to be deacons. That's what I was suggesting.

Posted by Forthview (# 12376) on :

Women,of course, can be Eucharistic ministers,they can visit the sick.
What they can't do,as far as I know, is preach in a parish church.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Right, so that is something that deacons can do and lay people can't. Nuns and so on don't ever (regularly) preach, then? I suppose as an Anglican I was taking the existence of lay preaching- as exercised by licensed Readers- for granted.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

And we don't, as far as I know, distinguish between homiletic preaching as part of the liturgy and the reserve of the clergy, and non-homiletic preaching, in the same way that you do. So that would place another restriction on the extent to which the ministry of women could be considered quasi-diaconal. But AIUI there is no objection to they laity, with the Bishop's permission, preaching a sermon which is not liturgically a homily (that is, outside the liturgy and sspecifically outside the Mass). Am I right?

Posted by Forthview (# 12376) on :

I think so but it would probably be called a 'talk' or a 'lecture'.

Posted by Charles Read (# 3963) on :

Regarding Francis Bown, see
here and here for what he is up to now, when not writing to the papers.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

Gosh, he's aged since I last saw him.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Hilarious. What's his background? From my acquaintance with some similar types over the years I would not be surprised to learn that his origins are not nearly so posh as the image that he now projects. Am I right?

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

Trained at St. Stephen's House. Alluded to by A N Wilson in 'Unguarded Hours' but he and i need to avoid a libel case!

According to this, he used to wear a frock coat on his bicycle.

He owns a restaurant buit doesn't allow anyone in who isn't dressed 'elegantly'.

He now attends S. James' Spanish Place as a laymen.

[ 25. May 2016, 17:40: Message edited by: leo ]

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

I think contributors would do well to remember that SoF also needs to avoid a libel case. Suggest we move along from too much personal discussion of Francis Bown.

Barnabas62
Dead Horses Host

Posted by bad man (# 17449) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Well, yes, that's the point I was trying to get across. Women 'quasi-deacons' would not be deacons because deacons are clergy and clergy are male. But they would be in function (substantially? with necessary exceptions? you'd know) equivalent to deacons and recognised as equivalent to deacons- although it would be ontologically impossible for them actually to be deacons. That's what I was suggesting.

This sounds like the Ordinariate's (married) "Ordinary". He can't be a bishop because he's married. But he's the "Ordinary" (as a bishop would be) and he has a mitre and all the trappings of a bishop.

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