Weird German bishop (tautology?) of Osnabrück, Franz-Josef Bode, is for pretty everything that would tear the Church apart and remake her in the secularist image so hotly desired by the Left.
At katolisch.de we find that Bode, emerging puffed up from the Synod (“walking together”) has said that – I am not making this up
Christus sei “für uns Mensch, nicht Mann geworden”.
Christ became a human being for us, not a man.
Bode was paired up with a woman theologian Dorothea Sattler, who quipped that it is new to emphasize Jesus’ manhood. God could have become a woman, but it was only sociological conditions that … I dunno… forced? God to become a man.
Moreover,
“it was always about the incarnation of God, not about becoming man. The question of gender was of no relevance to theology of salvation in the history of tradition.”
“it was always about the incarnation of God, not about becoming man. The question of gender was of no relevance to theology of salvation in the history of tradition.”This is both a lie and heresy.
This, folks, is what is coming from the German Church. Caput malorum omnium.
This is what has been driving the Germans to force an agenda onto the whole Church through their virtual colonial approach to the people of the Amazon.
Consider the implications.
- God has to bend to sociological conditions that we set. We can constrain God.
- Maleness is irrelevant to Christ’s salvific mission.
- There is nothing particularly male about what He did that wasn’t, necessarily, culturally conditioned.
- No one has paid much attention to Christ’s maleness until recently, but we can put all that aside as not relevant.
- If sex (not gender) is irrelevant, then every aspect of the Church, in effect, can be overhauled, beginning with priesthood.
Once again we find the demonic attack on the priesthood that the Lutherans launched. Protestantism, deep down, is a sustained attack on the priesthood and Mass.
They might has well be dancing around a golden calf in that German synodal process.
Remember: In the history of the world only the Jews referred to God as male and only they had male priesthood. In other highly patriarchal cultures there were also priestesses. Not so with the Jews. That in itself was not unnoticed over the millennia. Moreover, where there is a female priesthood there is, inevitably, temple prostitution.
Where are our LEVITES?
Exodus 32
And the people seeing that Moses delayed to come down from the mount, gathering together against Aaron, said: Arise, make us gods, that may go before us: for as to this Moses, the man that brought us out of the land of Egypt, we know not what has befallen him. [2] And Aaron said to them: Take the golden earrings from the ears of your wives, and your sons and daughters, and bring them to me. [3] And the people did what he had commanded, bringing the earrings to Aaron. [4] And when he had received them, he fashioned them by founders’ work, and made of them a molten calf. And they said: These are thy gods, O Israel, that have brought thee out of the land of Egypt. [5] And when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and made proclamation by a crier’s voice, saying: Tomorrow is the solemnity of the Lord.
[6] And rising in the morning, they offered holocausts, and peace victims, and the people sat down to eat, and drink, and they rose up to play. [In other words, an orgy] [7] And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Go, get thee down: thy people, which thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt, hath sinned. [8] They have quickly strayed from the way which thou didst shew them: and they have made to themselves a molten calf, and have adored it, and sacrificing victims to it, have said: These are thy gods, O Israel, that have brought thee out of the land of Egypt. [9] And again the Lord said to Moses: See that this people is stiffnecked: [10] Let me alone, that my wrath may be kindled against them, and that I may destroy them, and I will make of thee a great nation.
[11] But Moses besought the Lord his God, saying: Why, O Lord, is thy indignation kindled against thy people, whom thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt, with great power, and with a mighty hand? [12] Let not the Egyptians say, I beseech thee: He craftily brought them out, that he might kill them in the mountains, and destroy them from the earth: let thy anger cease, and be appeased upon the wickedness of thy people. [13] Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou sworest by thy own self, saying: I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven: and this whole land that I have spoken of, I will give to your seed, and you shall possess it for ever. [14] And the Lord was appeased from doing the evil which he had spoken against his people. [15] And Moses returned from the mount, carrying the two tables of the testimony in his hand, written on both sides,
[16] And made by the work of God: the writing also of God was graven in the tables. [17] And Josue hearing the noise of the people shouting, said to Moses: The noise of battle is heard in the camp. [Hebrew euphemism for sex in concert with the worship of pagan idols.] [18] But he answered: It is not the cry of men encouraging to fight, nor the shout of men compelling to flee: but I hear the voice of singers. [19] And when he came nigh to the camp, he saw the calf, and the dances: and being very angry, he threw the tables out of his hand, and broke them at the foot of the mount: [20] And laying hold of the calf which they had made, he burnt it, and beat it to powder, which he strowed into water, and gave thereof to the children of Israel to drink.
[And now things get serious. Whereas before all the men were priests, God strips them of priesthood and confers it on the Levites.]
[21] And he said to Aaron: What has this people done to thee, that thou shouldst bring upon them a most heinous sin? [22] And he answered him: Let not my lord be offended: for thou knowest this people, that they are prone to evil. [23] They said to me: Make us gods, that may go before us: for as to this Moses, who brought us forth out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is befallen him. [24] [And now the lamest excuse ever uttered in the Bible.] And I said to them: Which of you hath any gold? and they took and brought it to me: and I cast it into the fire, and this calf came out. [25] And when Moses saw that the people were naked, (for Aaron had stripped them by occasion of the shame of the filth, and had set them naked among their enemies,) [26] Then standing in the gate of the camp, he said: If any man be on the Lord’s side let him join with me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him: [27] [Note well! This is tough.] And he said to them: Thus saith the Lord God of Israel: Put every man his sword upon his thigh: go, and return from gate to gate through the midst of the camp, and let every man kill his brother, and friend, and neighbour. [28] And the sons of Levi did according to the words of Moses, and there were slain that day about three thousand men. [29] And Moses said: You have consecrated your hands this day to the Lord, every man in his son and in his brother, that a blessing may be given to you. [The ordination of the Levites was through an anointing with blood. Their ordination was the bloodbath of the idolatrous.] [30] And when the next day was come, Moses spoke to the people: You have sinned a very great sin: I will go up to the Lord, if by any means I may be able to entreat him for your crime.
[31] And returning to the Lord, he said: I beseech thee: this people hath sinned a heinous sin, and they have made to themselves gods of gold: either forgive them this trespass, [32] Or if thou do not, strike me out of the book that thou hast written. [33] And the Lord answered him: He that hath sinned against me, him will I strike out of my book: [34] But go thou, and lead this people whither I have told thee: my angel shall go before thee. And I in the day of revenge will visit this sin also of theirs. [35] The Lord therefore struck the people for the guilt on occasion of the calf which Aaron had made.
Because of this bloody episode, spiritual adultery by idol worship, God loaded onto the people all the additional laws of the Book of Leviticus. He stripped all the men of their priesthood and gave it to the Levites.
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Karl-dinal Marx.
From a description of The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and Modern Oblivion 2nd Edition – PDF Version, which strongly suggests that Christ’s masculinity is not to be marginalized. The expression “potency under check”, with which Leo Steinberg sums up Christ’s sexuality, should be recalled every time you see a saccharine image of Christ:
Description
Originally published in 1983, Leo Steinberg’s classic work has changed the viewing habits of a generation. After centuries of repression and censorship, the sexual component in thousands of revered icons of Christ is restored to visibility. Steinberg’s evidence resides in the imagery of the overtly sexed Christ, in Infancy and again after death. Steinberg argues that the artists regarded the deliberate exposure of Christ’s genitalia as an affirmation of kinship with the human condition. Christ’s lifelong virginity, understood as potency under check, and the first offer of blood in the circumcision, both required acknowledgment of the genital organ. More than exercises in realism, these unabashed images underscore the crucial theological import of the Incarnation. This revised and greatly expanded edition not only adduces new visual evidence, but deepens the theological argument and engages the controversy aroused by the book’s first publication.
Absolute balderdash.
Here is an older article that is EXACTLY about this topic: the importance of the maleness of Christ (and the femaleness of the Virgin Mary):
https://onepeterfive.com/incarnate-realism-and-the-catholic-priesthood/
I am no theologian or scholar–more like a Marshwiggle. But to my simple mind, the fact the God revealed Himself to us as a male entity ought to be the end of it, What is so difficult about God the Father and God the Son? We cannot comprehend God anyway, so Father, Son and Holy Ghost is just as difficult to understand as, say, god the sexless, powerful entity, creator of all and source of life. I just don’t get the desire to change what God has revealed about Himself. And, as your exemplary scripture shows so powerfully, about the priesthood and about idolatry.
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Also poignant in today’s context is Moses’ instinctive reaction to Aaron:
“What has this people done to thee, that thou shouldst bring upon them a most heinous sin? “
Moses doesn’t blame the sheep; he blames the shepherd.
Circumcision.
“Some women get circumcised too” — the German bishops (probably).
Sadly, this drivel has been propogated by the AMERICAN theological scholarly guild for decades. This is just warmed over feminist theology from the 80’s.
This thesis intrigues me. Is there a source for further reading on it?
Yes, it’s balderdash, but that article was first published in 2000. That’s not exactly “older.” To be fair to the other side here, you would need premodern sources to discredit the idea being proposed. That is not to say that the side of Tradition bears the burden of proof here, only that if you wanted to engage in the task it would entail looking at a much broader historical period.
Uhh.. Christ is the new Adam. Mary is the new Eve. Pretty straightforward.
@ProfKwasniewski has a very good explanation for the all male priesthood, which is much better than what I’m going to say. But I think that when some people point out how obvious it is, we need to address two underlying ideas that are still present and still keep it from being obvious to a lot of other people (including me, at one point in my life).
The average woman (and man) was sold on the idea that women should be priests on the basis of “fairness”. It sold well among Protestants, most of whom didn’t even claim to have priests anyway, because preventing women from being ministers does seem unfair. Treat the priest and the Mass as equivalent to a Protestant minister and service, and Catholics seem “unfair”. Actually, Catholic women already do anything a Protestant minister does that a Catholic, man or woman, is allowed to do. Nothing prevents Catholic women from leading a prayer group, or teaching religion, etc.
But the other half of the equation is the utter degradation of motherhood and the devaluation of the virgin Mary. You can’t get something important wrong about one sex without it also affecting the other sex.
Bearing and taking care of your own children is treated as a very expensive hobby at best and a sign of brainwashing and lack of intelligence and skills at worst. And not only is it NOT an important contribution to the community — it’s actually bad for the community. What previous generations took for granted, the importance of childbearing and child rearing, suddenly became low-value, low-skill labor that is bad for the planet.
So the obvious Catholic reply to the “unfairness” of male-only priesthood with the “unfairness” of female-only motherhood ceased to have the intuitive force it used to have. And since the Protestants lost the Catholic image of Mary, they also lost the female parallel to the fact that Jesus was male. Mary just becomes a good little girl who does what God tells her to do, not an image of woman’s unique calling to co-create with God another human person out of her own flesh.
And the fact that both Jesus and Mary remained virgin, while still raising up the high importance of each sex’s difference, shows that the essence of male and female lies not in sexual intercourse per se, but in fatherhood expressed as giving his body to the point of death to protect those he is responsible for (in Christ’s case, that’s all humanity of course, and he protects them from hell) for the man, and motherhood expressed as giving her body for the creation and nurturing of souls for the woman.
It seems to me no surprise that modernism sees sex only as related to the one thing that is NOT essential to manhood or womanhood. It separates sex not only from procreation, but also from any relevance at all, except as a pleasure, and possibly, as a sign of “luv”.
You need a mystical understanding of the Mystical Body of Christ in order to understand the male priesthood. The relationship between Christ and His Church is said to be spousal. Christ is the Bridegroom and the Church is His Bride. When a husband and a wife enter into the one flesh union it is the man who enters into the woman. Likewise, in conception it is the male sperm that swims up to and enters into the female egg. It seems clear that the act of entering within is a male act. The male is the doer of intimacy. The female is the one who receives this intimacy. This explains why Christ came as a male, and why male terms like Father and Son are used to describe God, and why the Church is called Holy Mother Church.
*
Because of the Hypostatic Union, Christ is One Person in two natures, divine and human. The priest acts In Persona Christi, in the person of Christ. In Holy Orders during the ordination the priest is configured to Christ in a very special way. As such, Holy Orders is in the image and likeness of the Hypostatic Union. The priest is the living icon of Christ. Consecrated women religious are considered to be brides of Christ.
*
The priest acts In Persona Christi during the Consecration. In the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist during the Consecration the Real Presence of Christ enters into and becomes one with the bread and the wine. Transubstantiation at its core is a male act. The Body and Blood in a similar fashion enter into the communicant. The Holy Eucharist is a sacrament that is permeated with Christ’s maleness, and gives us a foreshadowing of the final nuptial union that is described in Revelation.
We had a synod “and this calf came out”!
Don’t blame us!
[LOL. Well done.]
I am reminded me of what I was told a prof said about Scripture study:
It is interesting to see how the French try to twist Scripture to fit their theories . . . and that the Germans don’t even try.
The worm (i.e., German overreach) dieth not.
Pretty much every Catholic theologian points out the complementary relationships of Adam and Eve, God and Israel, Jesus and Mary, Joseph and Mary, the Bridegroom and the Bride….
When I finished reading this to my husband, he struck a pose and said:
“I’m as happy as a little girl! And now we dance.”. And then he danced out the door saying “Auf Wiedersehen” and something about a monkey…..
This doesn’t at all surprise me. A few years ago, a friend of mine who is fluent in German remarked that Germany makes American leftists look like faithful conservative Catholics. This just goes to prove it.
.
On another aspect of this article, I learned something totally new. I never knew that the additional laws in Leviticus were the result of that golden calf episode. This is one of the things I love about this site; there’s always something new to learn. ;D