Women/ordination

[John Ryan]

I generally agree with Selah. It seems to be the best defense of the priesthood is that Christ was male and therefore His image in the Mass should also be a male form—that being said, I should not be opposed to transgender priests. However, there is a lot of baggage that comes along with this. It is not quite clear where the Church officially stands on all of these issues. So, for example then, the theology of gender/sex that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI (then Cardinal Ratzinger) writes in his Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and the World is not particularly clear and it appears to host some inconsistencies. He defends a unity of sex and gender, and proclaims that sex/gender is an ontological quality that will persist in the New Heaven and Earth. However, he also states that masculine and feminine essences are within each human being and thus become a part of the general human essence. It has the flavor of the animus and anima parts of the soul in C.G. Jung. Sometimes he says that women merely have a more natural tendency to express these feminine qualities, but that men should express them as well.

[PhuturePriest]

I generally agree with Selah. It seems to be the best defense of the priesthood is that Christ was male and therefore His image in the Mass should also be a male form—that being said, I should not be opposed to transgender priests. However, there is a lot of baggage that comes along with this. It is not quite clear where the Church officially stands on all of these issues. So, for example then, the theology of gender/sex that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI (then Cardinal Ratzinger) writes in his Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and the World is not particularly clear and it appears to host some inconsistencies. He defends a unity of sex and gender, and proclaims that sex/gender is an ontological quality that will persist in the New Heaven and Earth. However, he also states that masculine and feminine essences are within each human being and thus become a part of the general human essence. It has the flavor of the animus and anima parts of the soul in C.G. Jung. Sometimes he says that women merely have a more natural tendency to express these feminine qualities, but that men should express them as well.

 

The Church, as far as I am aware, teaches that men and women are men and women, regardless of if certain persons are confused on the matter. Transgenderism is seen as a psychological disorder, and men with psychological disorders are not allowed to be ordained.

Edited May 17, 2014 by FuturePriest387

[John Ryan]

The Church, as far as I am aware, teaches that men and women are men and women, regardless of if certain persons are confused on the matter. Transgenderism is seen as a psychological disorder, and men with psychological disorders are not allowed to be ordained.

 

And yet, if the Church does teach that there is a masculine or feminine essence to our souls, it does not seem out of the realm of tradition to come a theological position that male and female souls can be born in the wrong body. A similar gender reassignment often happens when a child is born intersexed. The doctors commonly perform surgery to transform the child into whichever gender it is closest to.

 

P.S. I am using "it" here as a colloquial reference to children in general. I am not disparaging intersexed persons. 

[Selah]

Gonna be a nitpicker; ultimatly, we are genderless, even though we have genders. St. Amma Sarah of the Desert taught this, along with other fathers and mothers. In the Eastern Churches, the soul is referred to as "she".

 

*waits for DATS GNOSTIC posts*

[Basilisa Marie]

Gonna be a nitpicker; ultimatly, we are genderless, even though we have genders. St. Amma Sarah of the Desert taught this, along with other fathers and mothers. In the Eastern Churches, the soul is referred to as "she".

 

*waits for DATS GNOSTIC posts*

 

I feel like we'd have an easier time with this if we had gendered pronouns for things other than sex. 

 

Stupid English. 

[mortify ii]

Man was responsible for the fall, God became man to redeem, and only a man can be ordained to the sacramental priesthood.