some musings

I have just finished reading a blog where it seems that some women are organizing a boycott of Mass this weekend to show the Vatican that they (the Vatican) stand on the wrong side of the issue concerning women's ordination. They have also found some priests who are sympathetic to their claims and support their cause. But, as the Vatican has pointed out many times over these last forty years, the Church has no authority to change the teaching concerning women's ordination to the priesthood. It has been declared infallible by Pope John Paul II in his document ordinatio sacerdotalis. The deeper issue is one of the difference between what is authority adn what is power. The argument about the so called ban on women's ordination is one of power, and that women are being excluded from this power. But authority, esepcially the authority of the priest, is not about power but about service. A priest is a servant of Christ, and he has no power whatsoever outside of Jesus Christ. Yes, there are have been examples of priests who have abused their position and have lorded over the parishioners a power that is founded in submission of the other, but a true priest is one who will place himself under the submission of Jesus Christ and will seek to bring others to a deeper relationship with Christ through the celebration and reception of the sacraments.

A priest must also be male because the Mass is the wedding banquet between Christ and his Church. It is a Catholic priest who celebrates the Mass that stands in persona Christi so that the image of the man Jesus Christ marrying his bride, the Church, is one where for obvious reasons cannot be imaged by a woman, otherwise the Church's teaching on homosexual marriage must change. By the way, it is no surprise that if you ask those who support homosexual marriage, they would tell you that they also support a woman's right to be ordained a Catholic priest. And those who support women's ordination also overwhelmingly support homosexual marriage. Change one and you will in effect change the other.