Posted on 07/08/2006 9:23:38 AM PDT by WestTexasWend
By coincidence, a potentially historic speech about women that received little media fanfare was made two weeks before America's Episcopal Church elected Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori as its leader, the first female to head a branch of the international Anglican Communion.
The speaker was Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican's top official on relations with non-Catholic Christians, addressing a private session with the Church of England's bishops and certain women priests.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the 77 million Anglicans, invited Kasper to discuss the English church's projected move to allow women bishops. To date, only the United States, Canada and New Zealand have female Anglican bishops.
Official Catholic and Anglican negotiators have spent four decades working toward shared Communion and full recognition of each other's clergy and doctrine. Mincing no words, Kasper said that goal of restoring full relations "would realistically no longer exist" if Anglicanism's mother church in England consecrates women bishops.
"The shared partaking of the one Lord's table, which we long for so earnestly, would disappear into the far and ultimately unreachable distance. Instead of moving towards one another, we would coexist alongside one another," Kasper warned, though some cooperation would continue.
In the New Testament and throughout church history, Kasper explained, bishops have been "the sign and the instrument of unity" for local dioceses and Christianity worldwide. Thus, women bishops would be far more damaging than England's women priests.
This centrality of bishops also explains why within world Anglicanism there's far more upset about U.S. Episcopalians' consecration of an openly gay bishop than earlier ordinations of gay priests. But Kasper didn't repeat Rome's equally fervent opposition to gay clergy.
The cardinal said women bishops should be elevated only after "overwhelming consensus" is reached with Catholicism and like-minded Eastern Orthodoxy.
Anglicans cannot assume Catholicism will someday drop objections to female priests and bishops, Kasper said. "The Catholic Church is convinced that she has no right to do so."
Why? Casual Western onlookers might suppose Catholicism's stance is simple gender prejudice, but Kasper cited theological convictions that some Anglicans share.
The Vatican first explained its opposition to women priests in 1975 after then-Archbishop of Canterbury Donald Coggan notified Pope Paul VI that Anglicans overall saw "no fundamental objections in principle" to female clergy. That year, the Anglican Church of Canada authorized women priests, followed by U.S. Episcopalians in 1976.
Pope Paul's 1975 reply to Coggan said the gender ban honors "the example recorded in the Sacred Scriptures of Christ choosing his apostles only from among men; the constant practice of the church, which has imitated Christ in choosing only men; and her living teaching authority which has consistently held" this fits "God's plan for his church."
That established basic points which were elaborated in a 1976 declaration from the Vatican's doctrine office and a 1994 apostolic letter from Pope John Paul II.
Before Paul's 1975 letter, Rome's Pontifical Biblical Commission reportedly voted 12-5 to advise privately, "It does not seem that the New Testament by itself alone will permit us to settle in a clear way" whether to permit female priests.
The commission examined numerous Bible passages. Yes, Jesus' 12 apostles were male, it said, and there's no New Testament evidence of women serving explicit priestly functions. However, women filled leadership posts and enjoyed high status. One was even considered an "apostle" if Junio or Junias (Romans 16:7) was female.
Protestants who forbid women clergy don't usually cite Jesus' choice of male apostles but rather 1 Timothy 2:12 ("I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent"). The Pontifical Commission said this scripture perhaps referred "only to certain concrete situations and abuses," not all women anytime and everywhere.
How unlike the liberal protestant congregations that ordain women and homosexuals to the clergy and that no longer even believe or teach that Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, was resurrected.
(And please note: I am not Catholic).
John 3:16?
You sure do keep a thread lively, marajade. I haven't seen this much back and forth since that Schiavo thread 9 days ago. You were lightning rod there too. ;)
What about Peter? We know he had a mother-in-law, but no mention is made of his wife. In any case, there were married bishops up into the 5th century but as a matter of practice, they were usually elderly men who refrained from sexual relations or widowers.
That's not the scripture says. Where is what you are saying in scripture?
And where does it say that you are free to interpret it privately?
John 1:1?
Where have you been? Communion is now given under both kinds.
You did it again Marajade. You won't answer my question about women not teaching in church and being in submission. So.. by your silence you have answered quite clearly that you DON'T agree with it.
Instead of getting hung up on words, test the fruit. The fruit of liberal protestantism is dead and rotting. Within a few generations many liberal Christian denominations, led by women, lesbians, and gays, will cease to exist. Do you disagree?
This isn't a TV game show. Marajade isn't Kent Jennings. If you're looking for entertainment, Hollywood has everything your peculiar tastes might desire.
People have shown you where JESUS CHRIST Himself said so. You ignore those references. You choose to worship at the First Church of Marajade. You are not interested in answers, just arguing. Have a lovely evening.
Where am I interpreting it privately? Explain the conflict between the book of Timothy when the Pope says no women in leadership but doesn't adhere to Timothy when it says priests should be married and not forbidden to marry?
"Communion is now given under both kinds."
Why both? And why not every Sunday?
I've read it again and posted what I believe. Am I missing something here? If so, post it.
For someone who claims to follow the Bible alone this will just not do. While holding the bread our Lord said "This is my body", not "This is my Word." Likewise, while holding the cup he said "This is by blood," period, full stop. As for it being his sacrifice on the cross, this is exactly what Catholic believe is happening at the Mass, that the one sacrifice of our Lord on the cross is being made present to us under the appearance of the bread and wine. You are not slipping into Catholic belief, are you? :)
"People have shown you where JESUS CHRIST Himself said so."
Where the Pope has said so. I'm quoting direct scripture.
You don't even have a clue.
And where does it explicitly say that priests "should be married and not forbidden to marry"? This is your private interpretation. I do not read it that way nor has the Church in its two thousand years of history.
The Book of John says that the bread is the word of life and that the blood is drink of life and you'll never thirst again.
That's what God says, even before the last supper.
I just can't swallow that priests should be unmarried and again against scripture, forbidden to marry.
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