Responding to Dulles on ordaining women
Avery Dulles on women and the priesthood (from 1996)
According to the Apostle Paul, all who saw the Risen Lord and shared that witness had the title of Apostle. Mary Magdalene was first, Junua and Priscilla were specifically mentioned by Paul and that witnesses came in married pairs, so half were women. Priscilla co-founded the Roman community (Paul did not mention Cephas) and was regarded by history as a Presbyter. When her husband was tasked with pastoring another gathering, she did not accompany him, leaving her as sole bishop in her own right.
The Mass is modeled after both Seder and Shabbat, which are home centered, not assembly centered. Women certainly can say the blessing now. If the source of the tradition evolved, so can we.
I will not argue that tradition excluded, but a traditional error is still an error. Theological reasoning must consider the fact that there is no natural difference between male and female souls. Male jealousy of procreation is envy, not reasoning. Magisterial simply means from the throne. The throne can and will change its mind.
Later Avery Cardinal Dulles was good to raise the issue, but his loyalty beat out both his fortitude and live for his sister's. Presbyter Priscilla undoubtedly had a few words with him in Heaven.
I will address Dulles' 10 points:
I will address Dulles' 10 points:
1. Arguing from authority proves nothing. Jesus did not make up the rituals of bread and wine. They pre-existed in Seder and Shabbat. His sacrifice added new meaning to these practices, transforming his flesh and blood into real food.
2. St. Priscilla cannot be defrocked almost 20 centuries later.
3. Victor's justice goes both ways. In 1922, the superior Oecumenical Patriarch and the Great Synod recognized Anglican orders, which makes them an Autocephalus Great Church competent to regulate its own orders within Catholicism. Rome is only the Western Patriarchy. New Rome has been over all since Constantine. Arguing toward a predetermined result is good Scholasticism, nut not good reason.
4. The divine order in marriage is a social phenomenon, not an essential. In modern marriage, gay or straight, parties are equal and the old analogy falls. To claim the past shows God's will is superstition. So is the Charleton Heston version of the Ten Commandments. We now know that all of the Torah was consolidated during the Exile.
5. The perpetual virginity of Mary was an artifact of the idealization of asexual idealism in the classical church. That it is based in make believe is demonstrated by the pious musings of St. Jerome regarding the Holy Family. The Latin Church traded Marcus Aurelius for Christ.
6. Women can preside at Seder and Shabbat, which prefigures the Mass. The symbolism around the required maleness of the priest is artifice. It was made up by men, not Christ. Mary Magdalene is also always considered the first Apostle and higher than the Twelve (who all had wives, as did Jesus).
7. Birth envy is no reason mot to ordain women.
8. Politics and Superstition. Since New Rome recognizes Canterbury, the argument on the East is shredded. Change will come to all in a global world. With God, all things are possible, especially ordaining women.
9. Arguing from authority is a surrender to illogic. Again, the primacy of Peter is in New Rome. While the Latin Patriarch can say mot now, he can never say never. As we say in American Government, one Congress can not bind another.
10. We do not need the clergy to do our thinking for us. Authority does not make error true. The sky is still blue. Also, our baptism is equal to the baptism of the clergy. They have no monopoly on either grace or truth. Like any government, they only have the authority we give them. Their money comes from us as well. It always has. That the authority of the Church has changed with time is evident in its journey from Gregory XV whining about democracy and Garibaldi to Poo No no on infallibility, the doctrinal oppression of Pius X in opposition to the spectre of modernism to the persecution of John Courtland Murray for proposing the freedom of conscience adopted (incompletely and grudgingly by some, including St. John Paul) at Vatican II in Dignitatis Humanae. The female deaconate is the next step. It cannot and will not be the last.
On the summary points, we reserve the right to think for ourselves, even as we surrendered it previously; official teaching can change as officials change; growth always is painful, which does not make it less necessary; and it is not the laity who should be worried once it has become woke.
2. St. Priscilla cannot be defrocked almost 20 centuries later.
3. Victor's justice goes both ways. In 1922, the superior Oecumenical Patriarch and the Great Synod recognized Anglican orders, which makes them an Autocephalus Great Church competent to regulate its own orders within Catholicism. Rome is only the Western Patriarchy. New Rome has been over all since Constantine. Arguing toward a predetermined result is good Scholasticism, nut not good reason.
4. The divine order in marriage is a social phenomenon, not an essential. In modern marriage, gay or straight, parties are equal and the old analogy falls. To claim the past shows God's will is superstition. So is the Charleton Heston version of the Ten Commandments. We now know that all of the Torah was consolidated during the Exile.
5. The perpetual virginity of Mary was an artifact of the idealization of asexual idealism in the classical church. That it is based in make believe is demonstrated by the pious musings of St. Jerome regarding the Holy Family. The Latin Church traded Marcus Aurelius for Christ.
6. Women can preside at Seder and Shabbat, which prefigures the Mass. The symbolism around the required maleness of the priest is artifice. It was made up by men, not Christ. Mary Magdalene is also always considered the first Apostle and higher than the Twelve (who all had wives, as did Jesus).
7. Birth envy is no reason mot to ordain women.
8. Politics and Superstition. Since New Rome recognizes Canterbury, the argument on the East is shredded. Change will come to all in a global world. With God, all things are possible, especially ordaining women.
9. Arguing from authority is a surrender to illogic. Again, the primacy of Peter is in New Rome. While the Latin Patriarch can say mot now, he can never say never. As we say in American Government, one Congress can not bind another.
10. We do not need the clergy to do our thinking for us. Authority does not make error true. The sky is still blue. Also, our baptism is equal to the baptism of the clergy. They have no monopoly on either grace or truth. Like any government, they only have the authority we give them. Their money comes from us as well. It always has. That the authority of the Church has changed with time is evident in its journey from Gregory XV whining about democracy and Garibaldi to Poo No no on infallibility, the doctrinal oppression of Pius X in opposition to the spectre of modernism to the persecution of John Courtland Murray for proposing the freedom of conscience adopted (incompletely and grudgingly by some, including St. John Paul) at Vatican II in Dignitatis Humanae. The female deaconate is the next step. It cannot and will not be the last.
On the summary points, we reserve the right to think for ourselves, even as we surrendered it previously; official teaching can change as officials change; growth always is painful, which does not make it less necessary; and it is not the laity who should be worried once it has become woke.
posted by Michael Bindner at 11:52 PM
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