First, take a look HERE. This is where the Holy See posted the transcript of Pope Francis’ chat with newsies on the flight back to Rome from Rio. From what I can tell, it is the whole thing and in the original languages.
Next, (in my Rod Serling voice) we turn our attention to the odd musings of one Sr. Theresa Kane, former co-mentor of the LCWR and one of the sisters featured in my popular, hit post NUNS GONE WILD.
Sr. Kane supports women in deciding to undergo fake ordinations of women in the Catholic Church as if they were real.
Follow along.
Pope Francis said on the airplane from Rio to Rome (original and my translation):
E, con riferimento all’ordinazione delle donne, la Chiesa ha parlato e dice: “No”. L’ha detto Giovanni Paolo II, ma con una formulazione definitiva. Quella è chiusa, quella porta, ma su questo voglio dirti una cosa. L’ho detto, ma lo ripeto. La Madonna, Maria, era più importante degli Apostoli, dei vescovi e dei diaconi e dei preti. … And, in reference to the ordination of women, the Church has spoken and says: “No”. John Paul II said this, but with a definitive formulation. It is closed, this door, but I want to tell you something about this. I’ve said this, but I’ll repeat it. “La Madonna”, Mary, was more important than the Apostles, than bishops, and than deacons and priests.
Ordination of women? The door is closed. In other words, “Not. Going. To. Happen.”
In the wake of WYD in Rio, Sr. Kane commented on Pope Francis’ airplane remarks to the National Schismatic Reporter, which (as the newspaper of record for heterodoxy) tirelessly stumps for the heresy that women can be ordained priests.
Kane said in NSR:
“John Paul II was definitive, but John Paul II is dead,” said Kane. “You don’t just bury it because John Paul II said it. I wonder what [Francis’] own feeling is.”
Good grief. How many things are wrong with this notion of hers?
What John Paul taught definitively was only definitive while he was alive? When a Pope dies his teaching is zeroed out unless another Pope feels he wants to make it his own?
In Kane’s labyrinthine mind what the Church says about the ordination of women is merely a policy rather than a definitive teaching. Policies can be changed with the stroke of a pen. Exponents of the Magisterium of Nuns sees this issue through the lens of power and this-worldly social justice.
Furthermore, what is Francis’ feeling about this?
What part of “the door is closed” is hard to grasp?
There’s lots of other rubbish in what Kane said over at Fishwrap, but let’s stick with that “feeling” thing for a moment or two longer.
Her ideas sound rather like those of a talking head on MSNBC the other day. HERE.
Remember Melissa Harris Perry of the tampon earrings? She said:
“When does life begin? I submit the answer depends an awful lot on the feeling of the parents. A powerful feeling – but not science,” Harris-Perry said on her show Sunday. “The problem is that many of our policymakers want to base sweeping laws on those feelings.”
There is a creepy similarity in their reasoning. Substitute “parents” with “Pope and bishops” and “science” with “doctrine”.
If feelings change, the status of the fetus changes from human to non-human. If feelings change, the status of the ordination of women “policy” changes from closed door to open door.
Feeeeelings wowowo feeeeeeelings!
What does this “feelings” and “policy” vision lead to?
Picture if you will the fictional Pope Lío I, born entirely from the imagination.
In the minds of these strange sisters and those who support them, Lío is the first “compassionate Pope” ehvvur, … except maybe for John XXIII, who was the first “good Pope” or good “Bishop of Rome”… or… whatever. “Good Pope” John opened the windows and doors of the Church to the world with Vatican II, which as you know was the most important event, like ehvvur, since … I dunno… like before Jesus even though happiness was thwarted by Humanae vitae and, in 2005, the Pope Who Must Not Be Named. In fact, Lío I really is Pope Lío “the Great” because he personally drives a used Fiat 500, pets people’s dogs during audiences, lives in a card-board box in the Vatican gardens and wears canvass sneakers.
Pope Lío I is really truly for justice and equality for all. He feels that it is time to change policy and open the door to women’s ordination.
He overturns the policy of dead, stole and mozzetta wearing Pope John Paul II, who felt in his day that women should not be ordained. Mean ol’ JP2’s teaching isn’t definitive now because he’s… well… definitively dead. So, under wonderful Lío, we have a new policy of justice. Ordination of women is finally here!
Then, one fell day, on a Roman bus in the suburbs on his way to help lay bricks at a mosque, Lío is feeding the poor with his own hands while talking to journalists about the sale of the Pietà to raise money for the distribution of condoms from the center loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica – ’cause he feels it’s time to reverse the policy of the dead, mozzetta-wearing, sedia-riding, Paul VI.
Alas, in spite of the protection detail of nuns on the bus around him, Pope Lío is taken out by women-oppressing Vatican II-hating rad-trad Catholics who shout “TURN BACK THE CLOCK” while carrying banners in favor of Latin and inequality for women and injustice for gays.
Lío, tragically, didn’t have time to change the policy of election of Bishops of Rome by cardinals over to popular election – that was to be the next week’s project. There has to be another conclave. Cardinals, ordained males, many of them even white and straight (perhaps invalidating their votes!), gather in Rome.
Pope LEO XIV is elected!
Before Pope Leo “the Terrible” – surely an anti-Pope because he wears a stole and mozzetta – mounts the sedia gestatoria in his red shoes, he reopens the Papal Apartments in the Apostolic Palace and, at Benedict XVI’s the Pope Who Must Not Be Named’s old desk, with pen in his male white hand – surely a phallic-symbol according to the LCWR – with a resounding BOOM slams the ordination door “policy” in the face of women of every age.
Oh the weeping! Oh the patheos pathos! Oh oh … the horror!
Protests rise up. The agony of women is everywhere in the press. “You CAN’T do THAT!, they cry, “Pope Lío’s policy was definitive!”
“No, wait!” they plead, “It was INFALLIBLE!”
When you get right down to it, the nuns calling for the ordination of women are simply begging for approval from men.
I have to end this here so I can reapply for media credentials for the upcoming LCWR assembly. Since they rejected my application for this year – yes, I’ll try again – I’ll get ready for the upcoming 2020 assembly.
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I would hope that right before they take out Pope Lio, the women-oppressing Vatican II-hating rad-trad Catholics say something in a cool action-hero voice like “let’s dialogue”.
In seriousness, I think it’s strange that Francis’ comment on women’s ordination went so unoticed by the media. Same with his mention of a “masonic” lobby, I would have thought Catholic sites would be more intrigued by his mentioning the masons. These things kind of flew under the radar.
I’m curious — who is the keynote speaker for this year’s LCWR assembly? I’m guessing Barbara Marx Hubbard is going to be a tough act to follow. How much further can one evolve, in the evolutionary now, really?
“What part of “the door is closed” is hard to grasp?”( I know.lol) we could pitch in and get her a hearing aid but doubt it would help.It’s called SELECTIVE hearing.
What’sa matta with you guys?
Haven’t your read Joan Chittister’s (LCWR’s past president) famous quotes:
“The heresy of today is the dogma of tomorrow”
I guess that’s still their policy.
But, Fr. Z…surely, if/when your reaaply for your media credentials for the LCWR whatever it is..
if you explanied your fe-e-e-e-e-e-lings to them, they would understand and see how wrong they were to reject your application. Tell them how you f-e-e-e-l so excluded and how your spirits are crushed and how it fee-e-e-e-ls to be left out of the club and how it fee-e-e-e-ee-ls to have your self-esteem all splattered to bits. Wowowowwowo.
Another great, funny and poignant post.
“Feelings.” That is unfortunately what so many malformed Catholics base “truth” on…sadly. “I sincerely follow my conscience.” Well, your conscience can be “sincerely” incorrect!
“Feeeeelings wowowo feeeeeeelings!”
I remember not too long ago you posted a very appropriate video musical accompaniment with that “feelings” theme. I thought it was Engelbert Humperdinck but all I could find was this from Morris Albert; makes me smile when I think of your posts on “feelings”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-oHYYaw9jA
There is one thing about the feelings though.
The door is closed. We know we cannot have woman priests. Nevertheless… I do not believe there is any part of the Faith which a hypothetical fully-informed Christian would not feel glad about [except perhaps the fact that there is actual sin and derivatives from that fact, such as that I am a sinner, that beyond that I even sinned often, etc.]
We know we cannot have woman priests. We must now find out why it is positively good not to have them.
Behind all these chatter about feelings, I hear a “do admit, Holy Father, that you’d prefer Pope Bl. John Paul / Our Lord not to have burdened us with that” undertone. Which on the long run will be of damage to evangelization.
Btw… I do not follow our Holy Father on the statement that Woman, as such, has a greater role in the Church than the clergy. Our Lady, yes. Mothers? Lay activists, catechists and the like (which can finely be men)? A case could be made, though I will not make one either way in this combox. But women, per se? I don’t think so.
In answering a different question regarding his personal “position” on something or the other, His Holiness the Pope said that his position was that of the Church… that he is “a son of the Church”. If only the good sister would say “I am a daughter of the Church”.
(A note on my latest paragraph: Unless we generally hold the layman, who is served by the clergy with sanctification, leadership and teaching, to be above the cleric. But that is usually not done, and, since in the Church the greatest is to be like the servant of all, there is substantiation to regarding clergy higher even though they serve and the laity is served.)
Sigh. Soon they’ll all figure out that Pope Francis is really Catholic, not their enlightened/progressive/liberal/idiotic idea of a Catholic, and then they’ll turn on him. Won’t be long now.
Actually, all signs point to a growing, flowering love affair with Francis. It seems unlikely to me that they are going to ever throw him under the bus. He made the front page of the NYT today. He is feeding them exactly what they need to hear, and I’m loving every minute of it.
Thank you for this post Fr. Z. I really had a good laugh reading it. The sad bit though is that Sr. Kane actually believes what she says. It’s rather like those who argue the hell will one day be empty because God is sooooo loving that He will change His mind about the permanence of hellfire and He’ll let them all out and thence into heaven.
It is a good thing that Jesus is not dead, but is risen, otherwise his views would be subject to dismissal or revision by Sr. Theresa Kane.
Before everyone goes overboard on the “feeling” thingy, please, a hermeneutical point: my students use the verb “to feel” and the noun “feelings” when they actually, really, truly mean “to think” and “thoughts” or “opinions” or “conclusions.”
Of course, it’s sloppy thinking to use “feel” when one means “think.” Too much of the time my students do think merely with their feelings. But even then they feel that that’s actually a form of thinking. But in this case, Sr. Kane did not mean merely how Francis subjectively feels about women’s ordination. She meant (hopes, wishes, fervently longs for it to be true) that he thinks women may rightly be ordained priests, now that John Paul II is dead. John Paul II had one opinion, thought, conclusion, conviction about the matter. She hopes in her heart of hearts that Francis thinks differently about the matter.
Of course, John Paul (merely confirming Paul VI) conclusively closed the door not by expressing what he thought, concluded, believed, was convinced of but what he said was the mind of Christ himself and the Church over thousands of years. Which is why the door is closed and was closed long before Paul VI. But Sr. Kane is not quite so foolish as to think that mere subjective feelings might open the door. She thinks that Francis’s thoughts about the matter might reopen the door.
It seems to me that it may be insufficient to say “the door is closed”, because these people will simply continue looking for a way to “open” it. Even saying there is no “door” won’t work because they will try to break a hole through the “wall” where they think the door should be.
Better yet, maybe to say with regard to “female orders”: that it est inritus does nusquam esse? (Forgive my lousy, machine-translated Latin.)
For Charles Flynn,
Jesus is easily dealt with. He was so afraid of patriarchal culture that even though he felt that women should be among his 12, he felt it was better to choose only men.
Which, of course, shows that he was not God Incarnate (who would not hesitate for a moment to feel that Patriarchal Culture need to be defied and smashed to smithereens–what a pity that Jesus wasn’t really God–we’d these 19 centuries of Patriarchy would never have happened). But sadly, Jesus was merely a Superprophet, human, and afraid of eeeeeevvvvvviiiiiillllll old men, so he only chose 12 men.
Which solves Charles’s problem neatly. Since Jesus, being afraid of old men culture, was only a man, even though a Great Man,
he’s
dead
now.
So Francis is free to open the door.
It’s really rather simple, when you feel about it.
when the topic comes up-as it does from time to time-i just reply, “The Catholic Church is NOT going to have priestesses” …wrong religion
I somewhat hope that the Holy Father uses these meetings with the press for some “Catechism 101”. He might risk coming across as being condescending, but the media really needs to hear and to learn the fundamental difference between a Sacrament and a policy. The former were instituted by Christ himself, and the Church has no authority to change the matter and the form of a Sacrament. I think that a reasonable person can understand that. Those are the “rules”, like them or not. Policies, on the other hand, can be subject to being liked/disliked. I’m afraid that people view the “no, the door is closed” as a policy statement rather than a matter of faith and morals. Still, a nun would be expected to know the difference.
Grrr….If I hear one more person refers to Catholic Church teaching, doctrine, dogma etc as “policy” I think I’m going to tear my hair out. The BBC & EWTN both did this yesterday when talking about the “interview that won’t die”.
We Americans have changed everything into a policy, subsequently playing into the hands of people who can’t tell right from wrong but go by their “feelings”.
“Btw… I do not follow our Holy Father on the statement that Woman, as such, has a greater role in the Church than the clergy.”
“La Madonna’, Mary, was more important than the Apostles, than bishops, and than deacons and priests.”
Is there a part of the quote not mentioned here? Because in this section of the quote, only the Madonna, not women in general, are mentioned.
@acardinal, I was going to post that but I see that the ground is already well trod.
Instead I post THIS!
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m28ydpl0Ot1qzimwpo1_500.png
This odd journey of mine, I can’t help but recall the evening I spent debating a Catholic nun in RCIA over In Personae Christi as justification for a priesthood of men only. There comes that little moment when you realize the absurdity of life in general…
Thank you again Father Z. It’s heartening to know my feelings are shared.
The Fishwrap also has this opinion piece:
http://ncronline.org/blogs/grace-margins/when-does-our-hope-francis-become-denial
Jamie Manson, “a woman who has discerned a calling to the priesthood for more than 20 years” ain’t buyin’ the MSM take Pope Frances’s remarks.
“In terms of his much-touted use of the word ‘gay,’ I believe he used it not so much as a sign of respect…” Huh? Say what?
And she noticed that “after Francis delivered his now-legendary ‘Who am I to judge?’ line, he immediately reaffirmed the teaching of the catechism.”
But Fr. Z’s piece was much much better.
For Dennis Martin,
Thank you.
“It’s really rather simple, when you feel about it.” might even fit on a mug.
“What part of “the door is closed” is hard to grasp?”
It’s the KNOB – they think there is one, but there ain’t any.
They keep groping (and griping) – “it just has to be there!
He surely has put one on the door!”
Sorry sister, it ain’t there. Jesus’ door has no knob.
With His door you can only knock, patiently wait,
and humbly enter when He chooses to open His door to you.
You can’t barge in.
@Imrahil.
I suggest you take a look at John Wesley’s diary. There are some important things there. Pay attention to the Wesley’s when they talk about their congregation and the composition of it. There is a reason why the priests should be men already married prior to ordination or ordained with the understanding that they are not to marry. It is, as much as can be a neutral account without pro Catholic bias that demonstrates (from a proponent even), the superiority of the Catholic standard.
As for women in particular – why would any woman worth her salt listen to another woman? You think men have a problem with it, the real core of it is how women react to being told they are sinners by another women. They will up and leave, and they will not tolerate it unless they believe they have some say in what is being taught. And that, is precisely why we are seeing the devastation in the Church of England. God in his wisdom has given us the path, we only have to walk through it.
Fr. Z said:
“…former co-mentor of the LCWR and one of the sisters featured in my hit post NUNS GONE WILD.”
Now, Father, calm down, don’t have “a nutty”…just take a deep breath.
I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Thanks for this, Fr. Z.!
Pope Francis:
And, in reference to the ordination of women, the Church has spoken and says: “No”. John Paul II said this, but with a definitive formulation. It is closed, this door….
Sr. Kane:
“You don’t just bury it because John Paul II said it. I wonder what [Francis’] own feeling is.”
The only feeling she needs to worry about is her own as many laugh at her inability to follow an argument.
No women priests? EVER??? Well. I often wonder why any intelligent, creative, wise, joyful, and skilled woman would want to be part of this priesthood. There are myriad opportunities for women to teach, preach, heal, lead, bless, celebrate, and witness to Christ’s love–inside and outside of the Church. Be creative!!
Within the year Pope Francis will institute women Deacons.
The feelings virus is the biggest threat to the life of the Church.
We don’t have any nuns going round ‘on the bus’ in Britain (or at least I don’t think so) and there are people who think they no longer exist here at all. A question was asked in the Daily Mail yesterday ‘Why do you never see nuns in public any more?’ It was explained that because so many had abandoned the habit they are no longer immediately recognisable as such and as a consequence people now think they have vanished. A great pity.
@msokeefe who writes “Within the year Pope Francis will institute women Deacons.”
This nonsense has been dismissed long ago.
The Deaconate is part of Priesthood. In saying that women cannot be priests it also says women cannot be deacons. I am aware that it is reported that in the early days of the Church there were women deacons but it is also clear that their ministration was only in the feeding of the poor and the nursing of the sick. Just like the sort of things that nuns used to do. In fact, some still do those things.
Father, Father, the MSM has picked up the middle of your story and are sending it around as fact…..”Father Z reveals new adaptations of infallibility teaching” :)
Habits, collars, veils… they’re not needed any more than Jesus needed a “uniform.” They certainly don’t guarantee holiness. If we are truly allowing God’s light and love to shine through us, if we carry “the fragrance of Christ” in our being, if we use our eyes, ears, voice, mind, heart, hands, and feet to serve God… people will notice. (And, I praise God for the witness of the “nuns on the bus” and all women religious who are passionately living and preaching the Gospel.)
“I have to end this here so I can reapply for media credentials for the upcoming LCWR assembly. Since they rejected my application for this year. ”
Father, why not simply redefine ‘media credentials’ and say that everyone deserves to have them? So, say if a person is alive then they deserve ‘media credentials’. You got ’em. Go eth therefore and reporteth!!
“Habits, collars, veils… They certainly don’t guarantee holiness. ”
Otter, just who around here ever said that they did? The point that has been made, in other entries on this blog over the years, is that the wearing of distinctive clerical dress can be a sign of witness, and as such Pope John Paul II exhorted priests and religious to wear it. And so he (who had lived unter totalitarian oppression where such dress marked one out for the very active enmity of the State) obviously felt they were needed. But heck, he was only the Pope. Obedience, schmedience.
There’s also the fact that distinctive dress is extremely useful in the event of an emergency where somebody genuinely needs a priest. And of course the use of a simple habit is a genuine means towards achieving poverty and humility, as I think some orders of Friars and Monks have found out over the past thousand + years or so.
Fr. Z, I find it ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS that you actually applied for media credentials from the LCWR. You are a troublemaker. Love it.
I wear street clothes in my ministry, the same ones over and over–so they’re sort of like a habit, I guess. I’ve worked in lay ministry for the Church for 25+ years. I know all about poverty! Not really, I have enough (tho no one’s likely going to be taking up a retirement collection for me someday!)–I am blessed with abundant opportunities for simple living! But I have to giggle at the 48″ tv that the sisters up the road have. I don’t even have a flat screen! How we understand and obey God’s call to poverty in our life is different for everyone. I noticed that when the Pope challenged clergy to drive simpler cars, he was mocked on this blog by both the moderator and a number of contributers. (I used to work with a priest who “gave up” his Cadillac every Lent, to drive an old beater. Then on Easter Monday he’d go in and buy a brand spankin’ new Caddy. Now there’s a witness for you!) The point, again–it’s our virtues that truly indicate our call to love and serve God–not our dress. Habits are great, AND, one’s ministry can also be credible and identifiable when a habit is not worn. Know what I mean, jelly bean??
“The point, again–it’s our virtues that truly indicate our call to love and serve God–not our dress”
And, again: no-one around here ever said that that wasn’t so. However, as a simple matter of obedience, distinctive dress for Catholic Priests and Religious, as has been called for by recent Popes, should be worn. That’s all it is, obedience, definitely not an instant holiness-bestower.
And I think that your length of service in your ministry is extremely creditable and God bless you for that. Old bean. (It’s a Britishism, old-fashioned now but then maybe I am too)
What about the Pope’s remarks on marriage?
I believe that this is necessary to look at the totality of the pastoral care of marriage. And this is a problem. But also – a parenthesis – the Orthodox have a different practice. They follow the theology of ‘ economy , as they call it, and give it a second chance, allow it. But I think this problem – I close the parenthesis – must be studied in the frame of the pastoral care of marriage. And for this, two things: firstly, one of the issues to consult with these eight Council of Cardinals, with whom we will meet the 1, 2 and 3 October, is how to move forward in the pastoral care of marriage, and this problem will be released there. And a second thing: it’s been with me a fortnight ago, the Secretary of the Synod of Bishops, the theme of the next Synod. It was an anthropological theme, but talking and riparlando, going and coming back, we saw this anthropological theme: faith as help planning the person, but in the family, and then go on the pastoral care of marriage. We are on the way to a pastoral care of marriage a little ‘deep. And this is a problem for everyone, because there are so many, right? For example, they say only one: the cardinal Quarracino, my predecessor, said that for him the half of all marriages are void. But saying so, why? Why marry without maturity, marry without realizing that it is for life, or get married because socially you should marry. And in this also enters the pastoral care of marriage. And also the problem of judicial nullity of marriages, that must be revised, because the ecclesiastical tribunals are not enough for this. E ‘complex, the problem of pastoral care of marriage. Thank you.
This is interesting (horrifying?)…
God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
“Within the year Pope Francis will institute women Deacons.”
And your source for this is, what? Private revelation? A telephone comversation with Pope Francis? Your own speculations? In any case, quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur — et sic nego.
I had a Deacon himself comment approvingly that Pope Francis was open to women Deacons.
After our conversation I did some research–admittedly on the Internet— and all I could find were the usual suspect bloggers wishfully thinking this was so.
Say it often enough and it becomes an established fact.
We are on the way to a pastoral care of marriage a little ‘deep. And this is a problem for everyone, because there are so many, right? For example, they say only one: the cardinal Quarracino, my predecessor, said that for him the half of all marriages are void. But saying so, why? Why marry without maturity, marry without realizing that it is for life, or get married because socially you should marry. And in this also enters the pastoral care of marriage. And also the problem of judicial nullity of marriages, that must be revised, because the ecclesiastical tribunals are not enough for this. E ‘complex, the problem of pastoral care of marriage. Thank you.
Lynne says
This is interesting (horrifying?)…
I think there is a good chance that what he has said is true about so many invalid marriages. But there are two problems:
1. The liturgical changes have seriously damaged the cult (incl Catholic matrimony), infecting it with what Francis has called “the culture of the temporary”. And he doesn’t seem at all inclined to rectify this problem.
2. If the pastoral solution to the problem of divorced/remarried Catholics is simply to let each person determine whether or not the first marriage was in fact invalid (cf Germany), it will re-enforce the current situation where personal opinion trumps moral teaching.
Yes, but….the former Pope is not even dead, and yet that doesn’t stop the present one from undoing an important aspect (and thus in principle the whole) of Sumorum Pontificum. That provision being that *all* priests have the right to offer the Old Mass *without* asking permission. Well, according to the current Pope, not if you are FI – at least not anymore. And if that right once extended by one Pope can be taken away for one group of priests by the next Pope if he “feels” like it, that means it can in principle be taken away for any group of priests, and that means in principle it can be taken away for *all* priests – if that’s what the Legislator “feels” like. The principle as it applies here is that what one Pope decrees can be undone by the next Pope – if he “feels” like it. Thus in fact there is some basis for this Nun’s point that it matters what the current Pope’s “feelings” on the issue are – at least if you keep in mind that she’s not viewing male-only priesthood as settled de fide teaching, but merely as current de jure regulations – in other words, something along the lines of clerical celibacy – which could be reversed at any point in time when the Legislator “feels” like it.
otter says,
The point, again–it’s our virtues that truly indicate our call to love and serve God–not our dress. Habits are great, AND, one’s ministry can also be credible and identifiable when a habit is not worn. Know what I mean, jelly bean??
A habit (or cassock) exists not only as a symbol of the wearer, but it is also an indication of poverty. No one has to be concerned about the color of ties, shirts, sweaters, etc. In fact, I was told that some years ago American Dominicans who went to the Angelicum were immediately tonsured and any other clothes were put into a suitcase and locked away.
Good post Fr. Z.! This is one of the reasons why your blog is so popular. You are clergy and you are brilliant, but it’s easy to relate to you like a civilian. It’s nice to have a priest-friend. I enjoy it so much.
How I wish homosexuality had been shown that door. Homosexuality was given a comfy chair on which to sit around and wait for better days. Perhaps these women haven’t considered becoming transgender so they can officially be considered “men” and gain entry that way. That’s a comin! You betcha.
These women are annoying mosquitos that won’t quit. I guess in some circles they gain traction with the low-information Catholics. I don’t know what would deflate their bizarre hopes. If howling at the moon hopelessly is what they live for, I guess nothing would deflate them! What to do. I don’t know. People have been trained by the culture that if they persist ENOUGH and are unhappy ENOUGH and complain loudly ENOUGH, then eventually they will get their way. One must admit this has worked and continues to in many realms, so…hope springs eternal. One of these days, a Pope is going to wear down juuust enough, and open that dang door! I mean if the media backs them, other feminists male and female back them, some priests and Bishops perhaps, then it’s bound to happen. Because…because…I want it! There is no can of Raid big enough to rid us of these pests. Like locusts and frogs, they are here because until Jesus returns and stamps NO on their foreheads.
I wonder if it is more palatable if one must be tough on some issues and not so on others, to pair one with the other? Nobody wants to be tough and say the tough things. But if you must, it is far better to pair one tough thing with one not so tough thing. “Here, I’m going to tell you this that you won’t like but then I’ll tell you that which you will like!”. So at least half of your group is happy, and it’s a good distraction.
Fr. Z, I can’t believe you missed this — notice the wistful liberal upset at quoting a dead Pope, and look at what that PROVES, not implies, but PROVES about the liberal understanding of the role of the Pope in defining and enforcing dogma.
The Pope is either (A) the head custodian or (B) the absolute monarch. The traditional understanding tends very heavily to (A) — his monarchical function serves only to enhance his custodianship. When Paul VI wrote HUMANAE VITAE, so many folks were sad, but then, he DIED and they hoped hoped hoped his successor would go back and see plain as the nose on his face that birth control is wonderful and overturn it … but he didn’t, the old fuddy-duddy.
Then, this same conniving old white male tool of the patriarchy said women couldn’t even be priests. But now he’s dead, and this next guy, who as a Jesuit should be on our side right? Why does this Jesuit side with the old dead guy?
Never a thought to what the Popes explained clearly — this is not me, this is the Church’s teaching, immutable, permanent, and I am but the messenger. No, they think it’s ALL up to the whim of the Pope. When one dies, we’re free to ignore EVERYTHING HE SAID (unless its JP2, in certain cases, at our discretion!) and go and instate our own decrees as binding law on everyone ever always.
I wonder where they got the idea that the Pope could just throw out something normally seen and understood as fixed and permanent … ?