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Women in combat


CatherineM

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The Pentagon just announced that they are opening all combat roles to women. My Dad always said that his issue wasn't that the women couldn't handle the job, but he was afraid that other men might not do their jobs properly because they'd be worried about protecting the women. I suppose that's not really an issue anymore. 

My question is, will this bring more pressure on Catholic chaplains since women can't become priests?  They are already catching it in the neck for not doing gay weddings. I wonder if their are any female Catholics serving as chaplains?  I was wondering about the women who've attempted ordination. I think most of them are older, so doing military wouldn't be something they might be interested in. Could happen in the future certainly. That would be weird. 

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Basilisa Marie
16 minutes ago, CatherineM said:

The Pentagon just announced that they are opening all combat roles to women. My Dad always said that his issue wasn't that the women couldn't handle the job, but he was afraid that other men might not do their jobs properly because they'd be worried about protecting the women. I suppose that's not really an issue anymore. 

My question is, will this bring more pressure on Catholic chaplains since women can't become priests?  They are already catching it in the neck for not doing gay weddings. I wonder if their are any female Catholics serving as chaplains?  I was wondering about the women who've attempted ordination. I think most of them are older, so doing military wouldn't be something they might be interested in. Could happen in the future certainly. That would be weird. 

I know there are some female lay Catholics who serve as chaplains for hospitals and head up campus ministries. They're usually heads of departments that cater to multiple faiths. So I wonder if you don't have to be a Catholic priest in order to be a Catholic chaplain. But I'd certainly much rather have Catholic priests be the chaplains in the military, for obvious reasons. 

 

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I think the men wanting to save women thing is still very much an issue, even if that sort of attitude is gone from society as a whole. Men who join the military are more likely to be the "hero type", you know? Some training (at least in certain branches) now involves desensitizing them to women's crying/screams. Obviously, systematically destroying men's protective impulse isn't not shortsighted or predictably going to backfire at all. No sir.

They do have female chaplains for other religions, but the Military Archdiocese is in charge of choosing Catholic chaplains. One of the requirements they set is that the chaplain is a priest (for the obvious reason of giving the forces access to the sacraments) .

Edited by Julie
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Might be semantics, but a non-priest "Catholic chaplain" would be a chaplain who is Catholic. Not a Catholic chaplain.  Catholic chaplain implies becoming a chaplain through the Church.  So I do not see problems arising if women are chaplains in the military.  I do see a problem with military allowing these self-made women priests to be chaplains and calling them priests. 

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I know some female hospital chaplains. I just didn't know about military ones. I didn't know the military archbishop gets to choose them. Hope that remains the same. 

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Just a side note, but the head chaplain of the Canadian Armed Forces is a Catholic priest. 

But that's different than the States. I think there might be female chaplains in Canada and they'll act more like spiritual directors/counsellors and get people to priests when they request it. (FYI, the CAFs are not permitted to ask soldiers what their faith is). 

But if the military archdiocese has more control in the U.S., that's a good thing. 

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all combat roles, it has noting to do with chaplains.    Innocently, when the Israeli army tried this, it didn't work   

this is a very disingenuous, savage, stupid and dangerous idea.

 

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Uh...much swearing was done and frustration expressed upon reading the news from the Pentagon.  I just had to get it out of my system.

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10 minutes ago, chrysostom said:

Uh...much swearing was done and frustration expressed upon reading the news from the Pentagon.  I just had to get it out of my system.

lol. Why are people so upset over this?

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