Saturday, July 28, 2007

Woman Ordination and More Horrible News Reporting

I was going through my blogroll and stopped in at a blog I like to visit. That is the Aussie blog The BOB CATHOLIC Show He had this post with pictures and all of some women ordination service with very Catholic overtones. This is of course wrong where ever it occurs but part of me thought at first read that well at least it is happeng far away in Australia and not here. Well I was wrong. This is occuring in Santa Barbara California!!!! Also is that a regular Catholic Church in that picture? It doesn't give a name but this should be investigated.

Go to his blog for the whole post. Let me point out the reporting in the article is horrible. Reading it you would think this is some legitmate or tolerated group in Catholcism. The report claims that some legitimate real Bishops have been involved secretly!!! Let us pray for those men's souls that is not true.

I converted to Catholicism while I was in college. At that time campus ministry was full of people that were going against Church teaching and arguing for woman ordination. I mean arguing all the time. At retreats, at workshops, at student gatherings, and often liturgies this topic was constantly brought up. It almost felt like someone trying to indoctrinate me with Mao's little red book. This was in pretty conservative Louisiana. I hate to think what it was like elsewhere. Hopefully it is not like that today.

Peter Kreeft wrote an excellent article in Crisis magazine years ago about the whole issue of woman ordination to the priesthood and how it is a impossibility. I am sad to say I have never been able to find a copy of that on the Web. However in his new book The Philosophy of Jesus he hits on this a tad.

HE says:
Alone among the ancient gods, the Jewish God was always "He," never "She" (or "It" or "They" or Hermaphrodite). For "She" symbolized something immanent, while "He" was transcendent. "She" was the Womb of all things, the cosmic Mother, but "He" was other than Mother Earth. He created the earth, and He came into it from without, as a man comes into a woman. he impregnated nonbeing with being, darkness with light, dead matter with life, history with miracles, minds with revelations, His chosen people with prophets, and souls with salvation. He was transcendent.

That is why only Judaism, of all ancient religions, had no goddesses and no priestesses. For priests are representatives and symbols of gods. Priests mediate not only Man to God but also God to Man. Women can represent Man to God as well as men can, for women are equally human, valuable, good, and pious. But women cannot represent this God to Man, for Gos is not our Mother but our Father. Earth is our Mother
.

I might try to hit on this subject again in a more detailed apologetics way.

Update-

Thankfully this did not take a place at a Catholic Church. See comment 1 and after that visit his blog. He has a interesting post on the early Church Fathers.

3 comments:

Timothy said...

>"is that a regular Catholic Church in that picture?"

Nope, private retreat center run by former nuns.

"The real story of La Casa de Maria is that of a group of courageous women who, ahead of their time in 1970, determined to meet the needs of the times in fearless fashion. In service to these needs, The Sisters of The Immaculate Heart gave up their official ties to the Roman Catholic Church to become a lay community."

http://www.lacasademaria.org/aboutus.html

The walls in the newspaper photo match the walls in this photo taken at the same location:

http://woc.smugmug.com/photos/57419439-M-3.jpg

God bless..

James H said...

Thanks update. By the way thanks for your latest post on your blog about an Apologia for the early fathers. Informative

Aunty Belle said...

http://www.crisismagazine.com/march2002/feature4.htm