This entirely relevant, not at all trivial video from the Women’s Ordination Conference will surely rock the Vatican to its foundations.
Sweet, sweet hathos…
She-Bop For Catholic Priestesses
72 Responses to She-Bop For Catholic Priestesses
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David J. White says:
Note from Rod: Oh, I know exactly what “she-bop” meant in the Cyndi Lauper song.
Wow. I thought you were just making a pun on “be-bob”, the name of a particular pop music style, except that the people singing this are women, so “she-”. I guess I need to get out more.
Or not. I tend to be pretty unobservant about the world around me. I’m aware that there is a lot I don’t pick up on, so every now and then I make a conscious effort to try to pay more attention. I generally conclude that, at the end of the day, I’m happier being obtuse. This is one of those times.
[Note from Rod: I was doing that too -- the be-bop thing, given the song's qualities. -- RD]
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Richard M says:
Hello Tumarion,
Finally, the Western debate makes a habit of pointedly ignoring deaconesses. There is no doubt that they existed; and though there is no “official” pan-Orthodox view short another Ecumenical Council, most Orthodox theologians that have studied the matter argue that diaconal ordination for women was a true sacrament, not just installation into a lay order.
I don’t think it’s being ignored. It’s that the evidence points to deaconesses being a different office (one exclusively focused on pastoral needs of women, such as during baptism), one not in orders per se. And I have no idea how you have concluded that “most orthodox theologians” think that they *were* in orders. I suggest Aime Martimort’s “Deaconesses: An Historical Study” for further reading on this.
And if were to resurrect *that* office, you know that this would not still the demands for women’s ordination, but fuel them. It would be an exercise in archaeologism, old fragments of old traditions extracted from the earliest days of the Church, based on scanty evidence, anachronistically rebuilt for Modern Man and Woman. No thanks. We’ve had more than enough of that over the last fifty years already.
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Church Lady says:
Tradition and historical dogma aside, I think women in general are more qualified for the sacramental role of priestess than men are as priests. The fact that women can laugh at themselves and make videos like this only makes the point that they are not as self-centered as men. The early Church made many huge mistakes, and this is only one of them, but an important one. The priesthood itself conceived of as an authoritarian intermediary between the congregant and God is a much bigger problem. But it too has its roots in the problems of the male psyche, which are not helped by excluding women from the sacramental life. In fact, without women in the sacramental life, men have little hope of creating a genuine Church.
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John says:
Good Lord…if anything this makes me even MORE opposed to female ordination, on artistic grounds alone!
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Susan D. says:
Church Lady, women ARE included in the sacramental life. Those of us in traditional liturgical churches (I’m Eastern Orthodox) participate in the sacraments, most notably Baptism and Holy Eucharist. That’s what Liturgy is, the work of the people, including women. The priest is not the only person involved; the central player is God, not the priest. There are also non-sacerdotal ministries in which women participate. We’ve had both women and men as parish elders, as treasurers, musicians, readers, teachers, writers, missionaries, iconographers, you name it. There is something for everyone to do.
It seems to me that those people who are most enthusiastic about ordaining women think of the priesthood as an opportunity for acquiring power in the Church. I remember the fury over JPII’s declaration that he had no authority to allow women’s ordination. It’s very telling that the biggest criticism was that he refused to exercise his power.
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The Wet One says:
On the whole hathos thing, I first came across it on Sully’s blog. The definition, which seems to accord with Sully’s Hathos Alert blog entries is as follows:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hathos
(HAY.thohs; TH as in thin) n. Feelings of pleasure derived from hating someone or something.
—hathotic adj.an effortless blend of hate and pathos. The word may be nearly 17 years old (it was coined by journalist Alex Heard in 1987.
That definition is a bit different than the one Rod suggested above. That probably led to my confusion and question above…
As for Kelly Vlahos, I assumed that was a man, my bad. Eve Tushnet I have apparently completely overlooked. I must see what Eve and Kelly have to say.
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HB says:
Of course ordination to the priesthood is all about power; the medieval Popes ran Europe.
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johan says:
I think it’s amusing that even at this late date, it is still widely thought that men — who are by far the perpetrators of most crime and violence in our society, including in religious organizations — are exclusively qualified to be the priests and ministers of the church of the Prince of Peace. Let women be priests and leaders for the next 2000 years, then in 4000 AD, we’ll compare which 2000-year time segment turned out best.
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Am working on a magazine piece about women Catholic priests; at this writing there are 119 ordained female priests, bishops and deacons with another 20 in the pipeline. What has surprised me is the strong support network these women have built up and how this movement shows no signs of fading.
[Note from Rod: How do you identify them in the story? I ask because a female ordained Catholic priest cannot exist, as a technical matter. I mean, they are not part of the Catholic church. -- RD]
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Gregg Gerasimon says:
The thing is, if you view the priesthood as a ministry to be caring, to be compassionate, to be a good communicator with people, to effusively express love, to dance in a song about women priests with your friends (?!) — I mean, women generally win this hands-down, don’t they? And I’d say that this is how nearly 100% of the mainline protestant denominations view the “priesthood,” even though they usually only have ministers. No wonder that nearly all of them have women “priests.” And more and more of the more traditional protestant and Catholic churches are viewing the priesthood in this way too.
But if you view the priesthood as something different — as the minister of the sacrament, as the chief celebrant of the Eucharist — then you have a different outlook on things. As Orthodox Christians, we generally don’t go to church to hear the sermon or to get touchy-feelies from the priest (if we do, all the better, but many Orthodox priests aren’t that touchy-feely, let alone Oprah-style communicators). The pinnacle of the Divine Liturgy is the celebration and partaking of the Eucharist. This is a huge difference between the Orthodox experience of the priesthood and many of the liberal catholic/protestant views, and I think this might explain why the historic (Orthodox) Christian Church doesn’t have a history of demonstrations and outcries for a female priesthood.
For centuries, Orthodox never really argued at all (yes, not really at all) about a female priesthood. The church fathers didn’t even mention it. It just wasn’t an issue. With the rise of the 20th century, when Orthodox encountered modern Western Christians who asked why we are so backward that we don’t have women priests, we would say that we’ve never done it that way, and leave it at that.
But these days I think we are called to go further — to be able to explain clearly why the Church has never had a female priesthood, and why that it is not what God wants, and why this really doesn’t mean that He likes men better than women. It may make us realize that (gasp) men and women are actually different.
I still like Met. Kallistos Ware’s explanation the best. If you are buying an old home in Oxford, England (or wherever, but Met. Kallistos is from Oxford), and that old home has a large, imposing beam in the attic on which you hit your head every time you walk to the attic, do you simply knock out that beam before you figure out what its purpose is? What if it is holding the home together? What if, without the beam, the house would crumble to the ground?
We must look into and ask (and be able to explain) why Orthodox Christianity has never had a female priesthood and why the church never had a public outcry about it in the past. Indeed, it was never even an issue until the modern age. I highly doubt that the Holy Spirit would wait until the 21st century to decide to make it known that God wants women to be priests. We must first figure out the purpose of the beam and why it is there and what its function is, before we start to knock it out, lest a bunch of bad things happen to the house. And we Orthodox haven’t even hired an architect yet to analyze the situation.
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Richard M: If you read my post carefully, you noticed I capitalized “Orthodox”; this indicates I was referring to the Eastern Orthodox Church, not little-o orthodox Catholicism (or anything else). I would have thought that was evident from the context, actually; but, whatever. Most Eastern Orthodox who’ve studied the issue argue that the ordination of deaconesses was truly sacramental. One book I’d recommend in this regard is this one. In this regard, I must note that Aime Martimort was Catholic, not Eastern Orthodox; and while I’m aware of his book, I’m also aware that it has been vigorously contested.
I agree that if ordination of deaconesses were allowed tomorrow in Catholicism, it would not change the agitation for female priests. That, however, was not my point. If the Catholic and Orthodox Churches can’t sufficiently agree on sacramental theology to determine whether or not deaconesses are truly ordained or not, then how can they come to more substantive agreement on anything?
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Clifford says:
@Church Lady:
Your comments, “women in general are more qualified for the sacramental role of priestess than men are as priests,” and “the fact that women can laugh at themselves and make videos like this only makes the point that they are not as self-centered as men”, are simply regurgitations of thoughtless, narrow-minded sexism, and a naked example of the change of modern feminism from a goal of objective gender equality to that of subjective gender superiority. Do you have any non-biased, empirical evidence for your assertions and your “fact” of female superiority? No.
Were any man to post such insensitive and stereotypical comments concerning women, you would, no doubt, find offense. And you would be right. But you have shown us your true, chauvinist nature.
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Savia says:
Turmarion,
God=Father, Church=Mother, Humanity=Spiritual children.
It’s interesting to note that in Catholic theology, the feminine aspect of God is the church. Christ and the church together form the whole Christ. So those who reject church as mother and bride are going to also reject God as father and husband.
795 Christ and his Church thus together make up the “whole Christ” (Christus totus). The Church is one with Christ. The saints are acutely aware of this unity:
Let us rejoice then and give thanks that we have become not only Christians, but Christ himself. Do you understand and grasp, brethren, God’s grace toward us? Marvel and rejoice: we have become Christ. For if he is the head, we are the members; he and we together are the whole man. . . .
The fullness of Christ then is the head and the members. But what does “head and members” mean? Christ and the Church.
Our redeemer has shown himself to be one person with the holy Church whom he has taken to himself.
Head and members form as it were one and the same mystical person.
A reply of St. Joan of Arc to her judges sums up the faith of the holy doctors and the good sense of the believer: “About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they’re just one thing, and we shouldn’t complicate the matter.”
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HB,
Political arguments will not convince those who love Christ’s Eucharistic presence, just as theological arguments will not convince those who do not.
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Alex,
The entire church is feminine in relation to God, regardless of biological sex.
In Catholic/Orthodox theology, the church is the female aspect of God, or equally human and divine. The church and Christ together make up the whole Christ.
This analogy protects and highlights the complimentarity of masculine and feminine. It’s a sexual balance, as opposed to dominance by one or the other.
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Turmarion,
St. Paul has nothing to do with Catholic reasons for a male-preisthood. His context was different. The comedy is that these people do not know what they want a priest for.
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1) When and how did Our Lord “ordain” ANYONE? When and how did he specify a specific “order” who would have exclusive mandate to serve communion? That in itself is reading a great deal into some very broadly worded remarks by a man preparing for his own death (and made no more specific by the fact that he was wholly God as well as wholly man).
2) Church Lady is a Protestant, so of course she feels free to offer an opinion on why women would make the best priests. I’m Protestant also, and have no problem with women in any sacramental, ministerial or leadership role. But I don’t see any reason the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, or the Church of God in Christ (which is of multiple minds on the matter) MUST have women in any such positions.
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Siarlys Jenkins,
At the last supper Jesus served bread and wine (the first Mass) just as Melchizedek had done with Abraham (Gen 14:18). He said to the disciples “this is the New Covenant in my blood” (Lk 22:20), signifying, among other things, God’s transfer of Priestly duties from the Levites to Jesus who was the “true priest with the others [disciples] being only his ministers” (Aquinas, Hebr. 8.4).
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I will add that this an attack on the Eucharist and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. There are so many churches these people can go to. Instead of trying to destroy things most of them do not believe in to begin with.
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Susan D,
When I helped run two ministries, that too with dealing with teenagers. I did not have the time for a pity-party. The whole thing is there is no clarity to what these women actually want. Blaming St. Paul, or the Pope in white hate, is stupid. Maybe the clowns should keep talking, they are making it easier for others.
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Siarlys Jenkins,
You previously asked how being a priest was like pregnancy. Women bring life, the cross is a sacrifice for sin.
There is a reason why the kind of women attracted to the priesthood, are radical feminists obsessed with death. Reversing roles creates confusion.
Not surprisingly, the Episcopal Church also has a Seminary President, Katharine Ragsdale, who recently stated in a sermon:
Let me hear you say it:
“Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.”
c matt: As I’ve said many times, I don’t have a problem with the all-male priesthood. I neither support nor oppose women’s ordination; nor do I support goofiness, flippancy, or unnecessary irreverence in a religious context. I do assert the following:
1. If you read the relevant Vatican documents, especially Inter Insigniores and Sacerdotalis, the argument is made more from Tradition in the broad sense and from the Twelve having been men. The Pauline forbidding of women ministers is hardly mentioned–Inter Insigniores touches on it briefly, and Ordinatio Sacerdotalis doesn’t mention it at all.
2. To say that the Church is correct in a teaching is not the same as saying that it has (yet) given a theologically plausible or intellectually coherent reason for said teaching. One could follow Tertullian writing of the Resurrection in saying credo quia absurdum est (“I believe because it’s absurd”). Thus, it’s not a contradiction to accept the teaching on male-only ordination while at the same time doubting that the Church has given a plausible reason for this. That, in fact, is my position–I have no problem with the all-male priesthood and if the Church continues thus, fine; but I don’t think it’s given a truly convincing argument as to why this must be so, at least not yet.
3. Neither of the above-mentioned documents are infallible, at least not by the extraordinary Magisterium (i.e. they are not ex cathedra declarations). The CDF asserts that the teaching is infallible from the ordinary Magisterium. Many theologians disagree. Likely it will come down, at some future point, to an actual ex cathedra declaration against women’s ordination, or a change in the practice. Either result is fine by me.
4. This is a can of worms that I don’t want to pursue, but if one takes a totally unbiased look at Church history, there are several doctrines (especially usury and extra ecclasiam nulla salus) that seem to have been understood as infallibly taught by the ordinary Magisterium (e.g. the Medievals considered it doctrine that any interest at all on a loan was wrong) which teachings have been reversed over time. Whether such things are really examples of “change” is a debate I’m not interested in having here; suffice it to say that the arguments for total doctrinal continuity are at best tendentious, requiring Olympic-class mental gymnastics, and at worst totally bogus.
5. Finally, the Western debate makes a habit of pointedly ignoring deaconesses. There is no doubt that they existed; and though there is no “official” pan-Orthodox view short another Ecumenical Council, most Orthodox theologians that have studied the matter argue that diaconal ordination for women was a true sacrament, not just installation into a lay order. That’s a far cry from woman priests (theologically, the Orthodox consider there to be a sharper distinction between the diaconate and the presbyterate than the West historically does); but it is a possible ecumenical concern, and ignoring it, hoping it’ll go away isn’t a productive way of dealing with it.
Frankly, if you look at other churches’ experience, it seems unlikely that opening the Catholic priesthood to married men and women would be a magic cure-all for ministerial and other institutional problems. Given the nature of the hierarchy and the institutional rot sadly apparent in it, if they opened the priesthood to women tomorrow, I’d strongly discourage my daughter from seeking ordination (as I would discourage a son, if I had one, from so doing under the current system). However, not all women who want the rule changed are ditzy flakes, and I’ve known enough priests over the last 24 years to say that your typical Catholic priest is not a walking advertisement for the virtues of the male gender. Thus, while accepting the current teaching, I don’t feel moved to find examples of silliness among women interested in the priesthood and then go on to pour mockery and snark on them. Doesn’t seem a model of Christian behavior to me.