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.
He's not the head of you? He's suppose to be according to Scripture. That's the Word of God.
Further clarification: My husband isn't a leader in an organized religion.
Yes, I'm in agreement with the Book of Ephesians. What more do you want?
No, you are placing more reliance on your ability to correctly interpret and understand the Word of God. You are claiming for yourself an infallibility that you are denying to the collective body of bishops who even you must admit hold their authority by apostolic design.
What does that passage have to do with 1 Timothy 2:11-12?
And what reliance upon the Word of God are you placing when you ignore the entire Book of Timothy?
Interesting comment. I am about half way through Harvey Mansfield's book "Manliness" and I came upon his main thrust today, which is similar to yours. Instead of denying nature and insisting on gender neutrality (similar to anti-gravity in its concepts). His logic highlights the irrationality of the radical feminists strategy based on Nitzsche and Marx and offers a balance based on the gifts of men and women. That is how I interpret the scriptures when it says the two shall be as one. I am an engineer by training and I am constantly awed by God's creative abilities and efficiency of design. If He could have done it with one sex He would have. There must be a deeper reason and I think you are close to the answer.
Again, I refer to my first post #9 in this thread.
First one verse and now the entire book? I have given you an alternative interpretation of that verse. Are you calling to question my sincerity when I say that is how I understand that verse?
I think it has a lot to do with it. Don't you?
1 Timothy 2:11-12. Waiting... waiting... waiting... Marajade ignores, ignores, ignores...
Did you read my post #9?
Marajade, would you mind putting a little snippet of a quote in here? I'm not a mind reader.
What? That women shouldn't be priests? Or that men should be married priests?
Post #9It is you who say that the Church is overlooking 1 Timothy. Again, I have shown another interpretation of 1 Timothy 1:3 that in in complete conformity with the discipline of priestly celibacy. You may say that we are incorrect in that reading but not that we are ignoring it unless you are maintaining that I and all Catholics down the ages are insincere and lying when we give that interpretation. Is that your intention?
So the Church cites first timothy when it comes to reason why women can't be priests but it overlooks timothy when it says that priests should be married. Okie dokie.
Marajade, answer the question please. Tell us your interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:11-12 and if you agree with it or not. It's very simple. Not gonna kill ya!
"Again, I have shown another interpretation of 1 Timothy 1:3..."
The Bible I'm reading in relation to that scripture has nothing to do with Priests being celibate.
So, I shouldn't argue with the Pope?
I never said that it did. Priestly celibacy is a matter of extra-biblical apostolic tradition. You are the one that is maintaining that the Bible says priests must be married. I have shown another interpretation of the verse you cited that is consistent with priestly celibacy. Are you questioning my sincerity when I say that this is what I believe the verse means? If not, say that I am wrong if you must but cease claiming that I and the Catholic Church are ignoring St. Paul's teaching in 1 Timothy.
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