Female Priests - News story

Vatican Excommunicates Seven Women ‘Priests’
(Reuters)

Reinforcing its opposition to female priests, the Vatican said Monday it had excommunicated seven women, including a nun, who were ordained in June in a ceremony on a boat in Austria. An Argentine bishop, not recognized by the Holy See, ordained the women in a ceremony witnessed by 300 people.

Comment: Men who fuck 10 year old boys? Fine. Female priests? No way! Is that the message?

Yes, that would be the message. The ‘no women in the clergy’ thing comes from unthinking interpretation of a verse that says ‘women should not speak out in the church, but ask their men questions at home’ I don’t know the exact verse but will find it if you want it. The history behind the verse explains the reason for it - women were forbidden to get formal education so would probably ask questions that were common knowledge. To prevent questions from women who had no other access to the information the curch said to ask their men at home, so that services were uninterrupted. Now that women actually have rights and are allowed to read and write, the verse has no application.

The Vatican has never said that it is fine for priests to fuck 10-year old boys. And MOST priests don’t do that. It is unfortunate that those who do get all the attention and give the church a very bad reputation.

Just another case of an organization have lost sight of it’s original tenets. Yes, it is very sad that they would excommunicate seven women and not defrock child molesting priests.
“Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.”

Unfortunatly, GM, actions speak louder than words. For quite some time it was standard practice to simply move a priest that was accused of molestation, sometimes to a new parish, sometimes for treatment and then to a new parish. They were not kicked out, they were not banned from future work with youth, they were not punished. They were protected. If you protect someone who does wrong you are also guilty of their crime. By protecting priests that abuse children the Catholic church condoned their behavior. I’m sure less than 1% of priests molest children, but you’d think they would have gotten rid of that 1%, not protected them.

catholicism is a big club. i dont know why people dont get that. you have to play by the rules in order to be in the club. btw the women wouldnt “appologize” or “repent” is why they got booted out.

Yes, we wouldn’t want to soil the fine reputation of the Catholic church now would we! LOL!

The verse states this, “A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.”(I timothy 2:11-14). The reason has nothing to do with level of education. The clearly stated reason is; it was the woman who was deceived not the man and the man was created first. This is one of the “gut check” verse in the Bible, some people choose to ignore it, others renouce thier beliefs, some try circumvention, and a few accept it.

I don’t think it’s quite as simple as that. The school system has also been “guilty” of moving teachers suspected of molesting children to different schools. Is the whole school system then guilty of abusing children? I don’t think so. Once a priest is ordained, the church has a responsibility for that person. I don’t for a minute condone the despicable actions of the few priests guilty of indiscretions to those who trust them, but, perhaps some of this moving around of these priests was to better watch over them and their actions. I honestly don’t know. But, I don’t think it is fair to blame the entire organization. More priests do good in this world than do bad. If the church simply tossed out these errant individuals, they would be freeing them unsupervised on an unsuspecting society and going against the forgiveness that they teach. The law is needed as intervention and these cases are coming up to trial in courts. That is a good thing. Priests, like anyone else, should pay for their sins. But we should not condemn an entire institution that does so much good around the world for the mistakes made by a few. As for womens’ roles in the church–yes it is exclusive, it is a boys’ club, but that’s the way the Catholic church is. There are many religions that are similar in beliefs that are more liberal–Anglican for one. People are free to choose whichever they wish, rather than trying to adapt every faith to meet their own needs. There is a lot about the Catholic church that we feel should be changed to keep up with our modern standards, but part of the reason it is still strong is because it is unchanging. People really do want structure and some form of discipline in their lives. I don’t think it would be as strong if the beliefs and “laws” changed every few years to suit the purposes of certain people. And so the current Pope stays steadfast in his resolve not to change what has been for hundreds of years. And most Catholics, especially most young Catholics as seen by the support at the recent World Youth Day in Toronto, support him in this resolve. Sorry for the rant. GM

The only thing unthinking is the responses by the people on this forum. If you are going to make a blanket statement about the history of the catholic church bother to learn it first so you don’t sound like fucking nimrods.

If the bishop isn't recognized by the Holy See they women were technically never ordained. You can't just walk into a church and declare yourself a priest or bishop. The tradition is apostolic, which means each ordination can be directely traced back to the apostles ordaining ministers in the early church. Only to Christian sects can claim this tradition, Roman and Orthodox Catholics. All other Chritian sects chose to break the tradition, therefore they have no claim. So in other words these women were never ordained and that's not why they were excomunicated. They were excommunicated for being lay people who praticed the sacraments. Anybody who does this and is found out is out on their ear.

I never remember the church officially recognizing child molestation as a proper and safe behavior for it's clergy. Yes, there were disgusting people in the church and last time I checked the church put in place a "zero tolerance" plan so that a cover up would never happen again. There is no way to undo the past but the future has been addressed.

This is the same crowd who vehementaly defended Islam, when their leadership refuses to condem the violence and murder that thier followers produce on a daily basis. I was told, and took heat for criticizing them and their leadership, based on the fact that the vast majority of them are good and that only 10% are nuts, be it damned that meant 120,000,000 people who perpetrated murder and hate. Yet you blast the entierty of Catholicism, based on the behaviour of a few of it's tenents (far less than 10%) who's behaviour WAS condemed by the churches leadership.

I bet you guys constantly pat yourselves on the back about how openminded and well rounded you are, huh?

Even if this “archbishop” were a validly consecrated bishop, which at the moment is unclear, he could not ordain women because women cannot be validly ordained. This has been the Church’s teaching since the beginning. Read “Ordinatio Sacerdotalis” if this isn’t clear. Even if women were allowed to be ordained, they would have been ordained by a bishop who is in schism, thus severing them from the Church in the same way as men who are ordained by schismatic bishops. If the priests who abused young boys were culpable of mortal sin in their actions, then they cut themselves off from the Church. Only through the repentance and resolve to avoid the near occasions of sin in the future could these priests be received back into the Church through the sacrament of Penance. In the case of the women in Austria, their actions were a mockery of the sacrament of Holy Orders and a complete denial of the Church’s authority. They were given the opportunity to repent, refused, and excommunication, a formal legal procedure cutting them off from the Church’s sacraments, ensued.

To Neal
animals were created before man so maybe they should be the Boss Yes Eve was decieved but Adam chose to disobey so who was the most wrong?

Whether you or I agree with the reasoning changes nothing with reguard to what is the Christian belief stated by Paul. But to humor you, I will make a mild effort at answering your questions. If your read the first 3 chapters of Genesis, you will see that God set man above animals. Paul was comparing which human was made first, not creature. As for who was more wrong? The question is irrelavent. Paul was stating that men are more fit to lead because they are less likly to be decieved, not because they are less wrong. Both man and woman recieved different punishments for eating the forbidden fruit, also stated in Genesis.

Nope, that’s not the one. I’ll find it and post it.

“NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION”
From 1231 to 1834, six hundred and three years of jolly good fun.
“Is the poker hot enough yet?”

Pat you may want to recheck you zero tolerance statement. The last I heard the Catholic church refused to adopt a zero tolerance policy as they felt preists would be presumed guilty until proven innocent. Not that that sort of thing happens in the real world,nooo.

From pat:

“I never remember the church officially recognizing child molestation as a proper and safe behavior for it's clergy.”

Does anyone really expect the Pope to issue a Bull endorsing the sexual molestation of parish children? Of course not. However, when priests’ transgressions are covered up by relocating them, the Church has, by not addressing the issue, reinforced that it’s okay. Sorry, but that’s the way it is. If you have children that repeatedly misbehave, and rather than punish them, you make excuses to others outside of your family (teachers, police, etc.) and relocate when necessary to get a “fresh start”, then no matter you say to the child in private the behavior has been passively deemed acceptable.

“Yes, there were disgusting people in the church and last time I checked the church put in place a ‘zero tolerance’ plan so that a cover up would never happen again.”

No, they haven’t. That’s sad, considering how long these reports have been coming in.

Personally, I lump all organized religions together. I haven’t seen much good come from any of them. My personal faith as a Gnostic makes the idea of any organized Church repellant.

Yes they have put in a zero tolerance plan, assholes. I have the article discussing the enitre plan in detail. Please do your fucking research before you talk out of your collective asses.

Here is one article regarding zero tolerence for those of you who do not bother to research your statements:

www.archatl.com/ gabulletin/2002/020620a.html

I’ll be pefectly honest with you - I don’t give a shit what policy the church just NOW put into effect. My opinion is that anyone at all in the church who protected or transferred a child molester should be prosecuted and jailed. How can anyone in their right mind follow a church that EVER protected child molesters? If even ONE was protected, that was one too many. Young people are brought up to believe they can trust a priest and go to them in a time of need - just how cops are supposed to be. But heads would fucking roll if there was EVER a coverup to protect a child molesting cop. This whole thing is about damage control so the church can keep its precious billions and not have to pay a big settlement.