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Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Duchess, I've read all the scriptural texts you and others have brought to fore to argue your point of view. AND I've read all the texts people have brought up to support a non-discriminatory manner of worship and service. All of us think over what we have read and choose how we will apply our study to our lives. And that prayerful thought leads us towards the church home which seems best for us. And we all seem to believe the Holy Spirit is with us.

There probably are churches where women are entirely silent in church -no praying aloud, no amens, no hymn singing, no making announcements, no reading any bits of scripture aloud, churches that enforce covered heads, forbid all gold jewelry (wedding rings?) and distracting ornaments, and that don't invite questions from their female parishioners but refer all teaching questions back to their husbands. Not to mention they somehow differentiate between "teaching" and "prophesying" and determine how one can prophesy in silence to anyone's edification. Or perhaps women only prophesy to women? Is this what your church is like? If not, how do your pastor and elders parse the bits they don't enforce? Or are the unenforced bits to do with cultural differences?

See, if I look at the "plain sense" Bible reading often trumpeted by people who take the Bible "seriously", this is the kind of church I'd expect to see. Yet there are very few churches like this, even though there are many, many churches that seem absolutely sure that their versions of restricting women in their ministries and worship are scripturally correct ones.

Feel free to whop us with your steel-plated Bible and shower us with proof-texts. But don't expect everyone else to approach Bible study in your manner or answer you in our understanding of scripture in the way people in your congregation would.

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Originally posted by duchess:

I don't expect everyone to study the bible in my manner. But I am saddened that people could not stop disrupting the said thread in Kergy to the point that Moo had to close it. Hopefully, after a bit of time, it can be re-opened and the discussion on Scripture, bearing different points of view, can be discussed in this manner again.

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Stopping them from doing the specific good they do as church leaders would be as unloving as making someone sit in the back of the bus or use different restrooms or go to different schools.

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Okay, I guess women can go on using women's restrooms.

I guess.

Carry on.

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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano

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Glad to have the restroom question settled!

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I just wish people could have stuck to the Scriptures and not veered off. . .

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Originally posted by lukacs:
I'll assume the moderators are hovering anyway, and just make it official: if we understand by "Catholicism" the state, or mind, of the universal church, at all times and in all places, it would seem to be contradictory to make a claim to Catholicism and support WO. Takers of a contrary position will need to define what they mean by "Catholic"; I begin to suspect that they really mean they are high in churchmanship, but Protestant in doctrine.

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if by the "the universal church" you mean the Roman Catholic Church, then I guess I depart from the practice of the universal church, and that would not be news to me. But the problem is that there obviously hasn't been one practice on OoW in all times and in all places. There may once have been (though I doubt it).

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Originally posted by lukacs:
Tefelchen, your post is filled with references like "I believe" and "for me." Forgive me, but in what way is this Catholic? As Scotus posts above, the mind of the Church is what determines Catholicity, not our private interpretations of Church history. So, unless the mind of the Church is such that WO is accepted, individual claims to the Catholicity of that act are simply that, individual claims. Of course, this begs the question of "on whose authority is the mind of the church settled?" and this is where the thorny issue of Anglo-Catholics vs. Anglo-Papalists becomes even thornier.

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Originally posted by lukacs:
Tefelchen, your post is filled with references like "I believe" and "for me." Forgive me, but in what way is this Catholic? As Scotus posts above, the mind of the Church is what determines Catholicity, not our private interpretations of Church history. So, unless the mind of the Church is such that WO is accepted, individual claims to the Catholicity of that act are simply that, individual claims. Of course, this begs the question of "on whose authority is the mind of the church settled?" and this is where the thorny issue of Anglo-Catholics vs. Anglo-Papalists becomes even thornier.

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Originally posted by Teufelchen:
For me, Anglo-Catholicism is primarily about maintaining faithfully the belief that the Anglican communion is a whole and living part of the universal Catholic church in exactly the same sense in which the Roman Catholic church is.

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Originally posted by lukacs:
Who said it did?

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Originally posted by Scotus:
But is a decision about whether women should be ordained merely a practical issue within the competence of local autonomy, or is it something more basic, which falls outside that limit? Pope John Paul II certainly insisted it was something outisde the limits even of his authority.

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Originally posted by Teufelchen:
Why is the mind of the church (of England) not adequately expressed by the General Synod, elected by members of the church, which passed the Measure?

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Originally posted by TubaMirum: in reply to Lukacs
You accept its determinations and rulings, don't you?

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Originally posted by lukacs:

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Originally posted by Teufelchen:
Why is the mind of the church (of England) not adequately expressed by the General Synod, elected by members of the church, which passed the Measure?

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It's the (of England) part that is at issue here. Granted, it was ECUSA that started this ball rolling after the Philadelphia ordinations in the early 70s, but the principle is the same. A branch of the church has no business making changes to doctrine or discipline without consulting the wider church.

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Originally posted by lukacs:

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if by the "the universal church" you mean the Roman Catholic Church, then I guess I depart from the practice of the universal church, and that would not be news to me. But the problem is that there obviously hasn't been one practice on OoW in all times and in all places. There may once have been (though I doubt it).

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Where were women priests accepted in the ancient Church, East or West? Feel free to direct me to some page of this thread.

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Originally posted by lukacs:
We have flown far afield of genitalia now, and these are still red herrings.

That may be the finest sentence I have ever typed.

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Originally posted by lukacs:

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Originally posted by TubaMirum:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by lukacs:

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You accept its determinations and rulings, don't you?

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Any more red herrings and we're pickling! No Motu Proprio was issued over the ordination of women priests. As Scotus asserts above, the Holy Father made it clear that such matters were not within his authority to change. MPs are issued over far lesser matters than WO.

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the church has indeed changed its own determinations over the centuries, and the "mind of the Church" is not, in fact, the sole authority that binds Catholics.

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Originally posted by Teufelchen:

Either individual churches make decisions for themselves (and thus Anglican women priests are priests); or all decisions should be wholly in common (in which case many prized Catholic dogmas are invalid); or the Pope is sovereign (in which case Anglican male priests aren't priests either).

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Originally posted by lukacs:

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the church has indeed changed its own determinations over the centuries, and the "mind of the Church" is not, in fact, the sole authority that binds Catholics.

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Lets focus on these then. When you introduce other forms of administration such as the motu proprio, it muddles things. The MP is what it says it is, "of [the Pope's] own accord." It deals with matters of discipline in the Roman church.

How has the church "changed its determinations" over the centuries? I'm not saying it hasn't, I am asking how that process has worked. Largely it has been the work of a council. Bishops come together, and determine how to resolve problems in light of the magisterium. We can put to one side the place of the Bishop of Rome on this matter--some of us believe he is the final arbiter, others, such as many Anglicans and Orthodox, beleive that it is the council that settles matters (the "conciliarist" position). In both instances, however, it is the bishops who settle matters.

This goes to your second point about the "mind of the church." That mind is settled by the stewards of the church: the bishops. The Church is not a democracy; it is a hierarchy. We may chafe at this, but it is in the end the least worst system in order to preserve the deposit of faith and prevent the people from lapsing into error. I see nothing in the current state of the Anglican Communion to persuade me otherwise!

I have to run to a meeting so do not interpret my silence for the next few hours as petulance or surrender.

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Yes, the MP point is the weakest argument, I agree. Which is why you chose it, I'm sure! Still, it points out that (Roman) Catholics are bound in ways other than via "the mind of the Church" as you define it.

As to your other point, it does go to nullify any claims made about what all Catholics believe. So why make them? Why not honestly argue for what "all Bishops have always believed"? Then we'd be getting someplace! We could then point to the numerous - even criminal - errors made by Church councils through the centuries, and be done with it. The old question about who's watching the watchers applies here. In any case, many Catholics do support women's ordination - and have good arguments to justify this support.

So the real question is, I think, why should the Roman Church control the word "catholic"? The meaning of the word is "universal," but you're describing its "mind" as "hierarchical" and in fact quite exclusive. In any case, the Church has been demonstrably wrong in the past, and it might well be wrong on this issue as well. Who can really say?

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Originally posted by lukacs:
*puts on airs*

I'll take #3, with the caveat that the Bonn Agreement rendered Apostolicae Curae irrelevant, thus preserving Anglican orders. Note Msgr Leonard's reception as a priest in the Roman Church, with no "conditional reordination" necessary.

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And Ken, if my claims are nonsensical, why bother to pursue them here? Why not just make your cheap shot on the other thread where the mods can break it up and be done with it?

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Originally posted by JimS:
What's going on?

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Originally posted by TubaMirum:
Now that you mention it, it sure does seem odd that women could be Apostles - and there are some so named in the NT -

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Originally posted by Scotus:
The Holy Spirit's role is of course crucial, and I believe it is the Holy Spirit who safeguards the handing down of the faith from one generation to the next, the same Spirit who inspired the authors of sacred scripture, who guided the fathers of the Ecumenical councils in formulating key expressions of doctrine, and guided the church in so many other ways.

I think we can certainly see the Spirit at work making the church more aware of the equality between the sexes. However, it does not follow that equal means same. The one point that your argument doesn't address is Jesus free and sovereign choice of 12 men as his apostles. I am prepapred to give weight to an argument that says that the early church fathers where guided in some respects by culture rather than the spirit (though would be very cautious about such an approach); I simply cannot believe that Jesus choice of the 12 was culturally conditioned, nor that the evangelists have blatently distorted the truth. It isn't a knockdwon argument by itself, but nor can it simply be trumped by Galatians.

Jesus choice then begs the question 'why only men?' It is unthinkable that Jesus was a chauvinist, and hardly plausible that such a definite choice (not even one woman among the 12, despite his evident affection for his women followers and his reliance on them in other ways) would be arbitrary. We cannot adequately plumb the depths of this mystery, but on the basis of what is revealed in scripture, it seems that it has something to do with the complimentarity of the sexes, and what that signifies about the relationship between Christ and his church.

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Originally posted by Panda:
But I do believe that there was a significant amount of editing of the facts of Jesus' female followers, in order to tally better with the direction the new church was apparently taking - away from female leadership.

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Originally posted by Scotus:
It is not about male supremacy, but male apostleship. Apostle does not = better. Apostleship is a particular office within the body of Christ to which some are called.

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