More nutty from a bishop. Yes, a German bishop.

At Novena News which leads to Kathpress.at we read:

Bishop of Limburg Georg Bätzing made the observation about the Church’s oppression of women and boycott from ordained office in a New Year’s Eve message.

The prelate admitted that he must “take seriously as a bishop that the exclusion of women from ordination offices is perceived as fundamentally unjust and inappropriate in a social environment that has long equated women and men in their rights”.

I’ll tell you what’s unjust.   Hearing this garbage from a bishop – anywhere.  Hearing nutty stuff from Germany constantly is oppressive.

As far as taking something seriously, alas it is hard to include anything that bishop says or thinks.

From Kathpress there’s more nutty.

Bishop of Limburg, Georg Bätzing, also criticized the fact that women in the Catholic Church are excluded from ordination. He must “take seriously as a bishop that the exclusion of women from ordination offices is perceived as fundamentally unjust and inappropriate in a social environment that has long equated women and men with their rights,” said Bätzing.  [One has the sense that he missed that class on ecclesiology.]

Osnabrück’s bishop Franz-Josef Bode wishes the Catholic Church in Germany to be returned to its origins. He could also imagine greater participation by women and priests with families. The church must go back to where people live, love and suffer.  [To which I respond: Kirchensteuer.]

Germany.

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23 Comments

  1. teomatteo says:

    I would like to see the pope go after this silly bishop the way he would if a little oriental lady grabbed at his arm.

  2. tho says:

    We are One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. Apostolic means our Bishops derive their authority from the Apostles of Jesus, He certainly didn’t have any female apostles. If you want to go liberal like the protestants did, you could wind up with 28,000 different churches. Liberal policies are a disaster, just look at the Anglicans. The women who were around Jesus were quite happy, and except for Martha and Mary, I never remember reading about any of them complaining.

  3. richdel says:

    I wonder if all this seemingly obsessive framing of what happened with Pope Francis slapping the woman’s hand as a matter of needing to recognize the plight of women is intentionally meant to obscure the fact that it was a matter of an Asian person reportedly wanting to implore Francis’ attention to the plight of the Church in China…

  4. Charles E Flynn says:

    For those, including certain German bishops, who missed this:

    Women in the Priesthood?: A Systematic Analysis in the Light of the Order of Creation and Redemption, by Manfred Hauke, Ph.D.

    The basic idea is this: A Catholic priest is a living icon of Jesus Christ, who is both true God and true man. A woman cannot be a living icon of a man, any more than a man can give birth, an event that has eternal consequences.

  5. Suburbanbanshee says:

    Men and women are the same as their rights?

    Ooh, ooh, can I be the Right to Bear Arms?

  6. Gab says:

    Conforming the Church to societal norms and mores is not going to end well, especially when these are constantly changing. Stick to the knitting, prelates, that of an unchanging Church.

  7. Fr_Sotelo says:

    The Bishop of Limburg claims that the Church is perceived as unjust, for not ordaining women. But then what does he propose? Does he recognize that some of this perception could be helped if he would better explain the Church’s reasons for ordaining only men?

    Or does he feel satisfied to complain that there is injustice toward women, and then leave it at that? With people hanging on and needing to hear some resolution? This presenting of “questions,” by the German bishops on a “path of synod”, which teach nothing at all, but complain and purposely leave people with pessimism in their Faith, are not pastoral.

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  9. Gab says:

    So let’s say this Papacy goes ahead with female ordinations (God forbid!), what are they going to do when a transgender rocks up demanding the same?

  10. JonPatrick says:

    This is what happens when the Church is seen as a merely human institution, an NGO with pretty buildings, and its clergy the administrators.

    Perhaps it would be different if we promoted the sacrificial nature of the priesthood and episcopate. I’m thinking of someone like St. Francis de Sales walking barefoot through the snow to evangelize the citizens of Geneva. I wonder how many of today’s feminists would want to emulate him.

  11. Imrahil says:

    The rev’d Fr Sotelo is on to something.

    The problem with the German bishops, even those of places like Schlimmburg, or Rottenburg which its apt English name (in German the nickname would be “Verrottenburg-Stuttgart”), expresses itself in peculiar manners.

    It’s (usually) not the case that they adhere to heresy; maybe because that’s bad tactics, but – as the diocesan of one very prominent (though compared to the embodiment of the idea of progressive bishop, Franz Kamphaus of Limburg, still conservative) bishop, also from filial affection – I give them the benefit of the doubt here: they are still Catholic enough for that.

    Which makes the thing all the more uneasy. So, they now heavily flirt with the idea of women priests (a thing which I, admittedly, would have thought unthinkable a barely couple of years ago), but they (most of the time) don’t openly espouse it, because it’s still to heretical for that . The greater danger however still comes from the things that are not so easily proven utterly impossible: presently, women deacons, an end of priestly (“compulsory” – but that means all specific priestly) celibacy, and the blessing of homosexual couples with the footnote that what is blessed is their togetherness but not precisely the counternatural acts.

    (Though in the case of women deacons, which would totally contradict Sacramental theology but would have no practical effect on the Church compared to the lady pastoral assistants we already have now, I’m almost enclined to say “why even bother any-more”. After all, the Church on her – apart from dogmatising – very highest authority now teaches a counterscriptural near-but-not-quite-heresy in the matter of capital punishment.)

    (Of course, an end to priestly celibacy would be unmitigated desaster, not so much because it would be heretical [it’s precisely so much of a danger because it is not heretical and hence possible], but because it would give the progressives the supply of priests to enshrine their outlook into the Church for all forseeable future. As long as the celibacy is in place and the dispensations are only given those who verily embody what the progressists don’t like – to wit, converts who have come to eschew a Protestant preachership because they thing Catholicism is true – the so-called “biological solution” is at work at least in producing a trend, though admittedly in a slower manner than we would like.)

    Hence, we have to deal with more-or-less goodwilling bishops who think that to really bring back Christianity and the Catholic Church to glory (one of Cardinal Marx’s favorite quotes is that of Cdl. Lustiger about “Christianity in Europe has not yet passed out of its children’s shoes”) and, in order to achieve that, throw all sorts of (perceived) ballast overboard.

    (If we were talking about evil-minded underminers, things would be much easier.)

    — That was a bit of an aside, however. So, Bp Bätzing says he must take seriously as a bishop that the exclusion of women from ordination offices is perceived as fundamentally unjust and inappropriate in a social environment that has long equated women and men in their rights.

    We observe impartially that this is quite right as far as it goes: the exclusion of women from ordination offices really is perceived as fundamentally unjust; our social environment really has long equated women and men in their rights; and a bishop really does have to have take that seriously.

    The curious thing now is, in decent discussions either a) the bishop should not have said anything on the matter at all, or b) the next sentence should have been “hence we have to have women priests with all that implies” (which would be heretical), or c) the next sentence should have been “but even so, modern man just has to bear that our Lord wanted things otherwise”. But what do we hear? None of the above.

    (Sometimes we hear something that sounds like b with the cowardly excuse that this is a world-Church matter and only the Pope can decide.)

    I can only conclude that the bishop knows c to be true (which it is) but is not saying it because then he’d give the impression of a conservative hard-liner, who, no matter how much he pays lipservice to women-priesthood by saying he regrets that state of affairs, in his hard he gloats about it (which indeed would be wrong). The question I just can’t understand is, why then say anything at all?

    But then, I also can’t understand the whole “synodal way”, not even under progressist principles.

  12. Mariana2 says:

    “…wishes the Catholic Church in Germany to be returned to its origins.”

    That’s what my former co-religionists, i.e. Lutherans, always said. Back to the first century, when everything was still on the rails! Funny to hear a Catholic bishop say it.

  13. Suburbanbanshee says:

    The Catholic Church in Germany should be returned to its origins?

    Hahaha! Enjoy St. Boniface in your faces!

  14. jcariveau says:

    Ordination is not an office. Being pastor, ordinary, or pope are offices. Being a deacon or priest is an ontological change. This is like saying being a Christian or a human being is an office. It isn’t. Human, Christian, and priest are ontological steps of conformity to the image of Christ.

  15. JustaSinner says:

    So, this Bishop doesn’t like the Plan of God and His Natural Order…new profession is in order, in my humble opinion.

  16. ajf1984 says:

    While we’re on the subject of things that are “fundamentally unjust and inappropriate,” my 7- and 8-year olds would make *fantastic* priests. When the celebrate their play-Masses (ad Orientem, if you please), they exhibit more reverence than I’ve seen in some parishes! I object to the agism of the Catholic Church, that would exclude these boys from the priesthood until age 25. Children’s Ordination Now! And don’t get me started on the age restriction for bishops. My 11 year old can preach a fine sermon a la Abp. Sheen, but he has to wait until he’s 35 to be consecrated a bishop! Ridiculous! /snark

  17. Leonius says:

    a social environment that has long equated women and men in their rights”.

    It seems the Bishop has forgotten a fundamental aspect of his role.

    Bishops are supposed to shape the social environment not be shaped by it.

    Weak men seeking the esteem of the world have no place in the clergy. You cannot serve two masters.

  18. iamlucky13 says:

    I can’t be sure my good intentions are not misplaced in this case, but regardless, in charity I think it should be noted there is a possible interpretation of Bishop Bätzing’s words as a mere neutral observation about how others view the Church. I will emphasize the important part:

    “The prelate admitted that he must ‘take seriously as a bishop that the exclusion of women from ordination offices is perceived as fundamentally unjust and inappropriate in a social environment that has long equated women and men in their rights’.”

    The question is whether he agrees with that perception, or is merely noting that it will be difficult for the Church to evangelize secular society or even to catechize some of its own members because of this perception.

  19. Imrahil says:

    Dear iamlucky13,

    good observation. See for that my comment above which was a bit long and hence has just come out of the moderation queue (thanks).

    In brief: the problem is not what the bishop says (which we both found to be quite right as far as it went), but what he leaves unsaid, and why he leaves it unsaid.

    Of course, one cannot with certainty ascribe motives to other people, but at least the odds are that the bishops does “note that it will be difficult”, etc., as you write; but he also in his heart agrees with the perception (hence does not stick to Church teaching, emotionally); but he also knows that a change here is impossible, without, however, saying so because those who do say so are those of the opposite camp and he doesn’t want to be mistaken by the public as belonging to them.

    (What then does he wish for? A solemn change of doctrine by Papal fiat, not unlike the matter of capital punishment or, arguably, Communion for the divorced-and-remarried [arguments which have popped up in the discussions]? Perhaps, but we shouldn’t be too quick to assume that people have a plan at all, even a wrong one. The “synodal way”, after all, is more or less explicitly designed to be much ado about nothing, except for the raising of unfilfillable hopes.)

  20. The Cobbler says:

    Suburbanbanshee,

    Methinks some clergy should be the right to remain silent!

  21. Amerikaner says:

    They would be nowhere without Kirchensteuer.

  22. Leonius says:

    Since it’s based on a false understanding of the principle of equality and diversity clearly they would ordain anyone.

    Except they can’t because they cannot do what God does not allow.

    So what we will have is mock ordinations, fake priestesses and invalid, false sacraments and thousands more souls going to hell that could have been saved.

  23. HvonBlumenthal says:

    Father,

    This may be a subject for another thread, but I have long thought it was immoral for secular governments for force people to give money to religious causes, even (as in Germany) their own religion. Charity which is forced is not charity.

    Once you have paid, you have no control. You cannot withhold it in protest at abuse, for example.

    I therefore think that the Kichensteuer should be abolished

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