Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl - The Cleric and the
“Women Priest” Are Automatically Excommunicated
Nancy Frazier O’Brien, WASHINGTON (CNS) — The Vatican’s decision to declare the attempted ordination of women a major church crime reflects “the seriousness with which it holds offenses against the sacrament of holy orders” and is not a sign of disrespect toward women, Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl of Washington said July 15.
Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl Holding No Punches
In such an act, the Vatican said, the cleric and the woman involved are automatically excommunicated, and the cleric can also be dismissed from the priesthood.
But, the archbishop said, “the Catholic Church through its long and constant teaching holds that ordination has been, from the beginning, reserved to men, a fact which cannot be changed despite changing times.”
The Vatican action drew a sharp response from Erin Saiz Hanna, executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference, “the decision “appalling, offensive and a wake-up call for all Catholics around the world. . . The idea that a woman seeking to spread the message of God somehow ‘defiles’ the Eucharist reveals an antiquated, backwards church that still views women as ‘unclean’ and unholy,” she said in a news release.
Women have always been ordained. It is Satan and evilness that forces the Church to say that it will not change.
Romans 16 (New Living Translation)
Paul Greets His Friends
1 I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a deacon in the church in Cenchrea.
2 Welcome her in the Lord as one who is worthy of honor among God’s people. Help her in whatever she needs, for she has been helpful to many, and especially to me.
3 Give my greetings to Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in the ministry of Christ Jesus.
4 In fact, they once risked their lives for me. I am thankful to them, and so are all the Gentile churches.
5 Also give my greetings to the church that meets in their home.
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_22051994_ordinatio-sacerdotalis_en.html
“Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.
Invoking an abundance of divine assistance upon you, venerable brothers, and upon all the faithful, I impart my apostolic blessing.
From the Vatican, on May 22, the Solemnity of Pentecost, in the year 1994, the sixteenth of my Pontificate.”
For anyone who believes that women should be priests – do you not think this is insulting to Jesus? If this was the way it was meant to be would Jesus have not appointed his own Mother as head of the Church and in fact made Her the first priest?
This obviously was not what Jesus wanted and therefore he appointed Peter.
As a Catholic woman, brought up in an era that was post Vatican II, I am not offended that women aren’t allowed to be priests.
Can we not for once, instead of yielding to modernism, stick and abide with the traditions of our one TRUE Catholic faith and understand that Jesus knew what he was doing when he appointed Peter?
Do we want to stay as the one true Catholic Church which has held the same traditions for over 2000 years? or do we become (with no disrespect to any of them) one of the 33,000 Anglican denominations with different rules and regulations?
Women have their own role in the church as Nuns and Sisters.
Many other faiths keep their traditions and have their rules ie the Jewish faith, and they are not slandered for this.
So please, look further than this modernistic approach and keep in line with what John Paul II stated in 1994.
I personally find it extremely sad having read the post which states that satan and hell forces the church to say it will not change’.
All I have to say in reply to that comment is from Matthew 16:18 – “And I say to thee, thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
There were women in the early Church, such as Phoebe, who assisted the clergy. Phoebe aided the local church in Cenchreae and was called a “deaconess” by Paul (Rom. 16:1). Such women, in certain ages of the early Church, assisted in the baptism of women, which was necessary because baptism often was performed without benefit of clothing.
Although the Catholic Encyclopedia recounts that there is some historical evidence that deaconesses were charged with their ministry in a manner resembling the ordination of deacons, it is certain that there was a fundamental difference in the rites. The First Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) made it clear that “deaconesses” did not receive sacramental ordination. If there was a special liturgical rite for deaconesses, it likely resembled the modern non-sacramental installation ceremonies that charge extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion with their responsibilities
According to Ephesians 4:11-13 that apostles, pastors, teachers (i.e. priests) are gifts of the Spirit. I do not find that the gifts of the Spirit are determined by gender. However it is clothed in smooth theological language, this ban against women in the priesthood is but a form of prejudice against women. It has no place in a church. Women in the Catholic church should consider leaving it in protest.
I left the Church 15 years ago because I began believing secular society and what they said (and continue to say) about the Church.
Additionally, I must admit that as a Catholic attending public school (in the 70′s-80′s) we seem to be the most at risk group that easily falls away from the Faith.
I lacked a deep attachment to the Eucharist, to Christ, to Sacred Scripture and also to His Church.
Needless to say, as a result of that, I easily developed a semi-radical feminist, pro-contraception, pro-choice (I wouldn’t have an abortion but I wouldn’t deny another woman her choice) mentality.
As for your topic here, concerning the ordination of women….
Humility is the opposite of pride and it is pride that wounds the women who are attempting to ordain themselves.
These women could easily use their gifts in ways that add to the Body of the Church but they choose to set themselves at conflict with Papal authority.
They easily could become Protestant but where would the fight be in that?
Please look at the theology of the “ordained” women in Protestantism and project into the future where they are guiding those who are all to willing to follow them.
Female Protestant priestess are rewriting prayer turning God the Father into God the Mother, one priestess is saying that “abortion is a blessing”, and of course Protestants now have female noncelibate gay partnered “bishops”.
Satan used Eve’s pride to conquer Adam and draw them both away from their love & kinship with God.
I applaud the response of Erin Saiz Hanna that “the decision is appalling and a wake up call for all Catholics around the world”. Let us not be blinded to the fact that for 500 years, during the rise of Christianity, women were ordained and served as priests, bishops, prophets, and were persecuted along with the men of the church. It took a papal epistle in the year 495 to ban a practice that had existed since the time of Christ. In that year, Pope Gelasius issued an official church edict demanding that churches cease the practice of ordaining women and condemning the bishops who ordained them. A practice so widespread, apparently, that the pope deemed it necessary to issue on official papal proclamation!
Now 1500 years later, it’s time to recognize the crucial leadership role women played in the formation of the early church; to lay bare the church’s prejudice against women; to ask for their forgiveness; and, to reinstate their position of equal partnership in the church.