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.
Is this a familiar scene to you???
No, you're quoting the Epistle to the Hebrews, not the Epistle to the Catholics, and the "priest" who "standeth daily" ministering those "sacrifices which can never take away sins" was a Jewish priest in the Jewish temple. Since the temple was destroyed in AD 70, that's a "familiar scene" to nobody living on earth today.
The only sacrifice a Catholic priest offers is the re-presentation of the one sacrifice of Calvary, which is the only sacrifice which was ever efficacious to take away sins. That's why that same Epistle to the Hebrews says, in its last chapter, "we have an altar from which those who serve the [Jewish] tabernacle have no right to eat".
You would be well served to actually start to understand the Bible, instead of just using it as a handy source for Catholic-bashing one-liners.
This thread was about the ordination of women. Marajade hijacked it into an anti-Catholic diatribe about married priests. But thanks for the effort at historical revisionism.
You are a little bit right...Hebrews is to the Hebrews...But if you are going to take it that far, there wasn't a born again Christian anywhere before Matthew 27...But you have no problem applying those verses to your church...
The fact is, God didn't leave his words to us to expire in 70 AD...You can finds tons of stuff in Hebrews that applies to Christians...
What you don't get is that the Temple will be rebuilt 'again'...By the Jews...And the Jews will sacrifice to God, again...
I realize you guys think you have become God's chosen people and replaced His beloved...If you are saved, and ONLY if you are saved, you have been adopted into the family...But God's not done with his beloved...
The only sacrifice a Catholic priest offers is the re-presentation of the one sacrifice of Calvary,
I don't see where it makes any difference what you call your sacrifice, it's still a sacrifice...You use real blood and real meat, according to you guys...
And the scripture in Hebrews is picking out the Hebrews 'as an example'...Do not sacrifice meat and blood as they do...Do you sacrifice meat and blood???
which is the only sacrifice which was ever efficacious to take away sins.
Well then you've got a lot of confused Catholics...Some say that baptism take away sins...I've read on FR that grace takes away sin...Doing good works takes away sin...confession to a Priest takes away sin...
That's why that same Epistle to the Hebrews says, in its last chapter, "we have an altar from which those who serve the [Jewish] tabernacle have no right to eat".
What, we're back to knawing on Jesus again???
You would be well served to actually start to understand the Bible, instead of just using it as a handy source for Catholic-bashing one-liners.
One liner??? How about this one liner:::
Mat 16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
You find a one liner and build a religon on it...
Obviously; those Catholic bishops back in AD 400 put it in the Bible for a reason.
But that doesn't change the fact that the verse you quoted has nothing to do with a condemnation of Catholic doctrine, practice, or anything else Catholic -- even though you'd like to misuse it and twist it into that.
It's a rejection of Jewish ceremonial practice.
What you don't get is that the Temple will be rebuilt 'again'...By the Jews...And the Jews will sacrifice to God, again.
I doubt it, but that's still completely irrelevant to my point that Hebrews is not condemning the Mass, but Jewish temple ritual under the Old Covenant.
Do not sacrifice meat and blood as they do...Do you sacrifice meat and blood???
We sacrifice the living, glorified flesh and the living, glorified blood of a living and glorified divine person who has a living, glorified human body and a living glorified human soul.
The Jews sacrificed dead animals.
I can see a difference, can you?
Well then you've got a lot of confused Catholics...Some say that baptism take away sins...I've read on FR that grace takes away sin...Doing good works takes away sin...confession to a Priest takes away sin...
Don't you understand the distinction between an instrumental and a meritorious cause? It seems to me that's pretty basic; the difference between a paycheck (the instrumental cause) and a job (the meritorious cause).
What, we're back to knawing on Jesus again???
In other words, you pick and choose what Bible verses you believe? Your defense against my citation in Hebrews is that you don't like it, therefore, you'll dismiss it?
OTOH, we Catholics actually read John 6 and believe it when it says "my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink." We don't explain it away as symbol and metaphor like you do -- when Jesus had every opportunity to do exactly that and did no such thing. And when he switches verbs from phago (dine) to trogo (munch, gnaw), we believe him there, too.
Imagine the gall of these Catholics -- to read Jesus' words in the Bible and believe them!
The Husband of but one wife. That means he's never been the husband of more than one wife. Not that his wife is dead.
"How does celibacy which is a legitimate sanctioned life for any Christian single ( priest or not) compare in any way to polygamy..."
Huh? Where did I compare it to polygamy?
Oh please, don't hide behind your gender.
The Husband of but one wife. That means he's never been the husband of more than one wife. Not that his wife is dead.
Paul says a bishop must be "the husband of one wife," and "must manage his own household well, keeping his children submissive and respectful in every way; for if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he care for God’s Church?" (1 Tim. 3:2, 4–5).
Do you interpret this to mean that only a man who has demonstrably looked after a family is fit to care for God’s Church; whereas an unmarried man is somehow untried or unproven?
The very basis of the disagreement, it appears.
But that's so much easier than answering why she doesn't hold herself to the same standard as 1 Timothy 2:11-12 and 1 Corinthians 14:34. I've been waiting on answer on that since Saturday night.
LOL! Did I mess that up! I meant waiting on an answer to that since Saturday night.
Well yes, that's what is says.
Is this forum a church?
And you certainly ain't my husband.
There you again Marajade. Avoiding answering me. How does that answer my questions regarding 1 Timothy 2:11-12 and the other one from 1 Corinthians 14:34? I don't need to be your husband for you to answer that, nor do you need to get your husband to answer it for you as you suggested earlier.
Say what?
If my above post don't answer it for you then you don't know how to read the Bible.
LOL, Marajade! I have never seen anyone quite as stubborn about not answering a question. How does "you aren't my husband" translate to "you don't know how to read the Bible" when you won't answer about what your personal opinion is on those passages. Do you or do you NOT agree with those passages as being the literal truth?
I don't have a personal opinion. I read the Bible and understand what it means.
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