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.
The Church is earthly? What about the scripture that says that the Kingdom of God is within you?
mark
Faith is a gift from God. Nothing in what I have posted refutes faith. If anything "faith" in God is necessary to accept His teachings.
So as a Catholic you're using an argument presented by Martin Luther to defend what you practice?
Bump that idea!
Actually NYer used Scripture, but you seem to have skipped over that part.
Isn't there a shrine devoted to St. Charbel in one of our midwestern states (Ohio, perhaps)?
Excellent post NYer. Sums it all up nicely, the whole debate. Well done.
You mean the same scripture I posted earlier in the thread. So now since its Martin Luther that said it, its valid, but when I cite it, it isn't?
Excellent source. Thanks for posting a link.
No, the actual Bible verses, which I post here for you (New International Version). I made no mention of Martin Luther, only of your refusal to consider the Scripture cited. You can give up the Martin Luther strawman any time.
2nd Peter 1:20
20Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation.
Acts 8:29-35 (31 seems the most relevant)
29The Spirit told Philip, "Go to that chariot and stay near it."
30Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. "Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip asked.
31"How can I," he said, "unless someone explains it to me?" So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
32The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture:
"He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before the shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
33In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth."[a]
34The eunuch asked Philip, "Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?" 35Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
By the way, as a Bible believer (interesting that you don't tend to capitalize the word), you do of course cover your hair at church, right?
1 Corinthians 11:6
If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head.
Nonsense...'If' the Pope has been filled with the Holy Spirit, he has no more of a measure of the Holy Spirit than I or other Christians have...And the Pope is no less of a sinner than many other Christians...AND if Paul had trouble with sin, you can be certain the Pope has more trouble...
I was first use 2nd Peter 1:20 in the thread. Sorry to burst your bubble. Then NYer used it in some further justification with the help of Martin Luther. Hence my reply to Nyer about him in reply to me.
And who decides exactly what the "word of God" is for you?
Please don't give me that tired tripe about "the bible"... Catholics reference the bible as much as any one. (We assembled the book after all. Note that yours, if you are Protestant, is lacking 7 books.) If it was that simple, there wouldn't be 3,000 Protestant denominations who can't agree on doctrine - except to say, "Catholics are wrong".
Here we go with that labelling again. Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not a label.
So, you know what is in men's souls? Wow! I thought that was insight reserved only to God.
"And the Pope is no less of a sinner than many other Christians...AND if Paul had trouble with sin, you can be certain the Pope has more trouble..."
Maybe you can be certain of that. But, again you can certainly be wrong.
Why not follow the church of Iscool. How is that any different then following the Church of the Pope?
"Wow! I thought that was insight reserved only to God."
No, that's only reserved for Catholics who believe that those who aren't are going to hell.
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