Women Priests

On the last post, KJ left the following comment: so do you think there will not/should not be women priests?

I think the answer is worthy of a post on it's own, rather than just a response in the comment box. I will try not to get too long winded here, and I will assume a basic knowledge of the Gospels. If there are questions or the need for clarification, please leave a comment. Also, please note that I am writing this as a faithful, practicing Roman Catholic. I fully embrace all of the Church's teachings because I have thought about them, prayed about them, compared them to other teachings and, quite frankly, I find them to be the best.

So here goes:

Yes, KJ, I do.

The Roman Catholic Church will never have women priests. There may be a group of Catholics who break away from the Pope and they may have women priests, but they will no longer be members of the Catholic Church, even though everything else about them may still be/seem Catholic.

That takes care of the "will they be" part of the question. Now for the "should they be" part.

I believe women should not be priests, just as the Church teaches. I do not believe that this teaching is in any way anti-woman. In fact, the best form of feminism I have ever found has been in the Catholic Church. It is important to note what Genesis tells us, that men and women are made in the image and likeness of God, so that our dignity is equal, but that He created man and woman, so that we are different. Society, and secular feminism, likes to tell us that equality means being the same. Women need to have the same access to the same jobs at the same wage to be equal. To a point I agree with that thinking, but I cannot look past the fact that we women are NOT the same as men and our differences are what gloriously enhance each other. Also, while it is one thing to be able to have the same job, vocations are a different matter that has nothing to do with equality as the world sees it. A man or a woman can be president, but only a woman can mother and only a man can father. Being president is a job, being a wife and mother is a vocation. All of this is because of the very nature of who we are.

That said, a woman could never be a priest because she cannot father. Christ gave us Holy Mother Church and the Blessed Virgin Mary to nurture, love, support and guide us in feminine ways. He established the priesthood to give us fathers to do the same in masculine ways.

Further, when Christ established the Church he did not make any women priests. There were 13 men at the Last Supper on Holy Thursday. It was those men whose feet He washed and with whom He celebrated the first Mass. It was those men He later breathed on and gave the Great Commission to, telling them to forgive sins and baptize. There were no women. Yet, when we study Scripture and have a basic knowledge of Jewish culture in Jesus' time, we see that all of Christ's interactions with women were radical - from the woman at the well to Mary and Martha. If God wanted to ordain women He would have done it then, along with the men. Christ didn't need to wait 2,000 years for society to catch up with His thinking. His thinking was changing society 2,000 years ago.


This post has become rather long. I'll stop here unless there you want/need more.
This link is about women priests in the Anglican Church, which you might find interesting: http://gkupsidedown.blogspot.com/2008/01/wimmin-priests.html
Here is a Catholic website that addresses the issue in more detail: http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2002/0201sbs.asp