Catholic priorities

The BBQ Pit
61

[QUOTE=yBeayf]
Weellll, not exactly. According to the Catholic theory of holy orders, the ability to confer orders is an innate quality of a bishop; thus, even a defrocked bishop has the power to (illicitly) ordain clergy.*

The reason why the women were not ordained as Catholic priests is because according to Catholic theology, orders can only be received by men, not as a matter of discipline, but because of the nature of holy orders themselves. Trying to ordain a woman has no more effect than trying to ordain a cat – “woman in holy orders” is simply a logical impossibility.

  • Yes, this does seem to make Catholic holy orders a sort of “magic” – if you’ve had the right ritual performed on you by the right person, you can perform the right ritual on someone else and make them a cleric. This “Augustinian” view of holy orders is one big problem the Eastern Christians, who follow Cyprian’s view on the matter, have with the Latins.
    [/QUOTE]

Of course, most Anglicans, including the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Shori, Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, would disagree with this. :wink:

62

[QUOTE=gigi]
IIRC, not exactly; there are sins so grave that you in effect excommunicate yourself (e.g., procuring or aiding in procuring an abortion). “latae sententiae” excommuncation.
[/QUOTE]
That is true, but isn’t it only if the sin is not properly confessed and repented?

63

[QUOTE=Carol Stream]

[Quote=Siege]
Siege
I’ve got to agree with Don’t Call Me Shirley. Recently, some women in my city were ordained as Catholic priests. Their ordination was ruled invalid and they have been excommunicated, as is the Catholic Church’s privilege.
[/quote]

This whole statement is factually incorrect.

The women were not ordained as Catholic priests, because anyone who claimed to have “ordained” them, did not have the authority to do so.

The “ordination” was not “ruled invalid”, it wasn’t valid to begin with.

The women and whomever “ordained” them, excommunicated themselves from the Church, of their own volition, not by any action of the Church.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t really feel like quibbling over semantics today, although I do concede that my use of the word “ordained” is a shorthand term for what actually occurred. It seemed reasonable under the circumstances. Here’s a link to one of the first newspaper articles on this event (there were several). Note that the headline itself reads, “Defying church, 12 Catholic women to be ordained here”. The article and I are fully aware that the ritual performed, whatever you want to call it, was not in accordance with Vatican policy and that the Catholic heirarchy strongly disapproved of it. Personally, I think the women are a bunch of fools for even trying it, given the Catholic Church’s policy on women priests. In my opinion, if they were set on ordination, they’d be more than welcome to join the Episcopal Church which, as Polycarp noted, not only has women priests but now has a woman as its head in the American branch.

By the way, this related article makes some interesting points regarding excommunication and self-excommunication which may be relevant to this discussion. I was wrong when I said they’d been excommunicated, by the way.

My point is that while there is no doubt that the women in this story openly defied the Catholic Church’s teachings and I have no problem with them being discplined, the priests who had sexual relations with boys, girls, and, in at least one case, a married women also defied the Catholic Church’s teachings, only this time on celibacy. Unlike the would-be priests, I can’t believe that when they did so, they did so out of a desire to serve God and their church. Their sin was every bit as willful and knowing as the women’s and did active harm to people. Still not only did they face the prospect of excommunication, they weren’t even removed from the priesthood. Yes, I believe God forgives sin. On the other hand, I don’t believe He removes the consequences of sin and the consequences the Catholic Church inflicted on the married men who tried to become priests are far graver than the ones the church inflicted on the priests who molested children. I’m afraid I don’t put a woman who wants to become a priest in the same category as a kiddy-diddler (I’d better not – I’ve considered the priesthood), and I do think the consequences of being the latter should be greater than the consequences of being the former. Given that some of the priests who were caught molesting children in one parish went on to do so again in others, I’m also not quite as sanguine about their repentence.

64

[QUOTE=Don’t Call Me Shirley]
Hmm, Catholic priests molest boys, church officially covers it up and facilitates further molestations by moving them to new churches with fresh meat and without warning parents about it.

This practice is pitted.

Who_me complains that the OP is “Catholic bashing.” Boo-hoo.

They deserved to be bashed for their behavior. Do you disagree?

No, what I’m saying is what I said. I think my mistake was in assuming that anyone with the intelligence to actually sign on to a web page would be able to understand a simple, short post, with a little bit of sarcasm. But apparently, between a moron demanding cites for things I never said, people defending the church for protecting the priests because the priests didn’t actually break any church rules, and now you putting words in my mouth, I was giving you too much credit.

Sorry I didn’t write what you think I should write. It must be very frustrating for you to come to a message board with so many people writing things that you have not approved in advance.
[/QUOTE]

Yes but your reason for pitting them is that their priorities are all screwed up. Its not just that they should be pitted for abetting child molesters (which they shold). You are pitting them for abetting child molesters and then enforcing rules regarding the ordination of priests. You might as well say:

I pit the Catholic church for abetting child molesters and then prohibiting people from getting abortions.

As far as meaning what you said, you already said it was hyperbole, I think who_me made a reasonable reading of your post.

Of all the forms of Christianity out there, I think popes in recent decades have done more good than harm (although this pope is really getting close to the tipping point) the same can’t be said for Pat Robertson (or for televangelists generally) or those guys that picket the funerals or the Christian identity folks.

The Catholic church will some day (perhaps even as soon as a century or two from now) embrace priestly marriage, just you wait.

65

[QUOTE=Don’t Call Me Shirley]
It’s from a movie. Or maybe I saw it on TV. I can’t remember exactly where. I’m thinking Danny Devito though.
[/QUOTE]

Danny Devito’s character was referring to Gregory Hines’ character’s behaviour in Renaissance Man.

66

[QUOTE=Bricker]
Accepting as correct that the statement is properly read as: “Despite molesting little boys, the Church promotes you,” the problem I identified still exists. You have to show that the bishop doing the promoting knew that the priest being promoted was a molester; otherwise it’s simply a statement of two events, one which followed the other but which have no logical connection.
[/QUOTE]

I thought there was at least one Priest that was promoted despite his superiors receiveng several complaints that the priest had molested young boys.

67

Just picking up on the “magic” thing from yBeayf’s post: No, it’s not magic, it’s legitimate transmission of authority. The Apostolic Succession is a belief among certain churches (all of whom of course consider that they themselves possess it) that the authority to teach officially, to perform (most of) the sacraments, and to ordain others to do likewise, derives from Jesus Christ commissioning the Apostles (see Matthew 28:18-20 and John 20:19-23). Essentially, Jesus empowered them by laying hands on them, and instructed them to do likewise.

The Apostles created bishops, presbyters (elders/priests), and deacons in each place they went, with the bishops having power to continue the process by laying hands on and commissioning others for those three jobs – and the bishops so created having the same power. In that way, every bishop in the Apostolic Succession has the transmitted authority of Jesus to continue the process – and, ceteris paribus, no one else does. Although a bunch of Baptists can get together, elect a seminarian as their pastor, and lay hands on him, he has only their authority as a Baptist congregation to be their minister. In contrast, a Nestorian, Oriental Orthodox (Coptic/Jacobite), Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, Old Catholic, Anglican, or Swedish/Finnish/ELCA Lutheran bishop, priest, or deacon has the authority originally given by Christ to the apostles (to the extent his own ordination bestowed that power, in the case of a priest or deacon).

To understand this more clearly, contemplate a gathering of ten men, who are discussing a heinous crime. “Lock him up for at least ten years, preferably more like twenty,” one of them says. He has no authority to do the locking up. But if a judge, empowered by the Constitution and statutes and by election or appointment to the bench, says at the conclusion of a trial, “Lock him up for at least ten years, preferably more like twenty,” he is handing down a sentence in accord with law, and he has the authority to do so.

I can’t make Siege or Skammer a priest; I don’t have the authority. But I know bishops who do and can.

68

The “magic” part comes from the Augustianian view of orders. Under the Cyprianic view, which the Orthodox hold to, apostolic succession is meaningless outside the Church. If a bishop leaves the Church, he’s not a bishop anymore, and has no more power to ordain clergy than a layman has. So it’s not enough to merely have gone through the ritual of ordination by someone linked back in that way to the apostles; the ordination must be performed in the context of the Church.

The Latins believe that ordination produces an indelible mark on the soul of the ordained, and that that persists even if the man leaves the Church. A bishop who left the Church would still have the power to ordain clergy, although it would be illicit and a serious sin to do so. The reason the Catholics don’t accept Anglican and Lutheran orders is because the reformers changed the form of ordination, i.e. they stopped doing the proper ritual, from the Latin perspective.

This is why the Latin view can seem “magic” to the Orthodox – rather than having the ability to perform sacraments tied into being a part of the living, unified Church, it’s merely a matter of having a particular ritual performed on oneself and then doing the right things to make the sacraments happen.

69

[QUOTE=col_10022]
I thought there was at least one Priest that was promoted despite his superiors receiveng several complaints that the priest had molested young boys.
[/QUOTE]

It may well be – but that case, if it exists, has not yet been cited here.

70

[QUOTE=Siege]
I don’t really feel like quibbling over semantics today, although I do concede that my use of the word “ordained” is a shorthand term for what actually occurred. It seemed reasonable under the circumstances. Here’s a link to one of the first newspaper articles on this event (there were several). Note that the headline itself reads, “Defying church, 12 Catholic women to be ordained here”. The article and I are fully aware that the ritual performed, whatever you want to call it, was not in accordance with Vatican policy and that the Catholic heirarchy strongly disapproved of it.
[/QUOTE]

It’s not a quibble over semantics. Under Canon Law, the women in question were simply not ordained, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette notwithstanding.

Ms. Patricia Fresen, Gisela Forster and Ida Raming are not consecrated bishops, and cannot ordinate anyone, even a cat.

71

[QUOTE=Carol Stream]
It’s not a quibble over semantics. Under Canon Law, the women in question were simply not ordained, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette notwithstanding.

Ms. Patricia Fresen, Gisela Forster and Ida Raming are not consecrated bishops, and cannot ordinate anyone, even a cat.
[/QUOTE]

According to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, you are of course correct.

According to the beliefs of others, including those participating in the ordination, it is not necessarily so.

May I observe that this is the Straight Dope Message Board, not the Forum Internetale Pontificale, and that the teachings of Rome are not held to be inviolate truth by the majority of members here?

The intent is not to belittle your beliefs, the fact that we are in the Pit notwithstanding, but to respectfully disagree.

They were ordained, IMO and in the opinions of the ordinand and candidates, as Bishops in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. In my rather limited knowledge of women, I have never seen one with a birthmark that says Non potes me ordinare – it’s merely one more example of the Vatican’s veiled misogyny in my view.

And here, I believe, we must agree to disagree.

By the way, what is your opinion of Pennsylvania’s Sen. Rick Santorum? Your failing to see a distinction between ordaining women and ordaining cats puts me strangely in mind of the good Senator’s incapacity to distinguish between the loving relationship between two men or two women and a perverse desire for sex with a dog.

72

[QUOTE=Carol Stream]
It’s not a quibble over semantics. Under Canon Law, the women in question were simply not ordained, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette notwithstanding.

Ms. Patricia Fresen, Gisela Forster and Ida Raming are not consecrated bishops, and cannot ordinate anyone, even a cat.
[/QUOTE]

Would you prefer I said they “underwent a ceremony which presumably closely resembled the Catholic rite of ordination and, as a result of which, they and those participating in the ceremony believed they had become priests with the duties, rights, and privileges thereof but which was invalid under Catholic canon law”? I admit I tend to be long-winded, but even I balk at using 45 words where one would suffice – excuse me – convey the meaning adequately to the non-Catholic lay person.

73

[QUOTE=Polycarp]
According to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, you are of course correct.

According to the beliefs of others, including those participating in the ordination, it is not necessarily so.
[/QUOTE]

But since the question is whether or not they were ordained as Catholic priests, isn’t the Catholic Church’s opinion the one that matters here?

74

Actually, I really should apologize. I’ve participated in hijacking this thread away from the original issue which I took to be that the Catholic Church has penalized men who’ve attempted to become priests* more harshly than it has men who’ve molested children.

*I will avoid the use of the dreaded “o” word.

Captain Amazing, you’re entirely right. The opinion of the Catholic Church should be the one which matters. It’s just that some of us outsiders question their opinions on the two matters under discussion.

75

[QUOTE=Polycarp]
According to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, you are of course correct.

According to the beliefs of others, including those participating in the ordination, it is not necessarily so.
[/QUOTE]

Do Catholics get to determine “what is so” in any of the Protestant, Jewish, or Muslim religions? No? How is this any different?

76

[QUOTE=PunditLisa]
The church has screwed up royally by protecting priests who preyed on young children, no doubt about it.

U.S. Congress has screwed up royally as well by not protecting its pages from lecherous congressmen.

I’m not abandoning catholicism any more than I’m renouncing my U.S. citizenship. Why? Because I remain devoted to the principles even while I remain disenchanted with the leadership.
[/QUOTE]
I think this was an excelent analogy. Church membership has much in common with national citizenship, in that it marks you as part of a group and subject to the authority and rules of that group.

At one time, US law mandated the loss of citizenship for various activities such as voting in a foreign election, serving in a foreign military, or obtaining citizenship with a foreign country. Even after the Supreme Court struck down laws which forcibly revoked citizenship in these cases, there was a period in which the State Department and the courts took these acts as prima facia evidence that a person had voluntarily renounced their US citizenship.

Of course, convicted murderers and child molesters did (and do) retain full citizenship, and in most cases suffer only a temporary punishment (incarceration). It would be ridiculous to claim that this demonstrates that the US held these to be lesser crimes than voting in an election in Canada, even though denial of citizenship is, arguably, a more severe punishment than incarceration.

The reason, of course, is that if you believe (as the US government did) that national loyalty can only be given to (at most) one sovereign entity at a time, then an action that conveys loyalty to another nation carries an implicit denial of loyalty to the US that even more heinous crimes lack.

The same is true of illicit ordination with regard to church membership.

I think the claim the OP makes, that the church treats breaches of canon law more seriously than many cases of grave sin, is true and worthy of condemnation. But the case described doesn’t support this claim, and the OP hasn’t added anything new or valuable to this already old conversation.

77

[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
Pedophila, on the other hand, is a specific act, not an ongoing state of being.
[/QUOTE]

Prove it.

I, on the other hand, have no problem proving that it’s an ongoing lifelong irrepressible state of being.

Your dog, it won’t bark.

Cartooniverse

78

[QUOTE=Cartooniverse]
Prove it.

I, on the other hand, have no problem proving that it’s an ongoing lifelong irrepressible state of being.

Your dog, it won’t bark.

Cartooniverse
[/QUOTE]
Meaning that a person is not constantly committing the act of peophilia…each instance is discrete. Once you have taken a vow of marriage, you are in an ongoing act of “being married.”

79

[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
Meaning that a person is not constantly committing the act of peophilia…each instance is discrete. Once you have taken a vow of marriage, you are in an ongoing act of “being married.”
[/QUOTE]

The point being, I think, that pedophilia is not the act, but the mental condition that causes sexual attraction to children. The act is child molestation, or statutory rape, or whatever particular legal label any particular jurisdiction places upon it. Pedophilia is not a physical act…it is a recognized and codified paraphilia in the psychiatric/psychological arena.

80

[QUOTE=jayjay]
The point being, I think, that pedophilia is not the act, but the mental condition that causes sexual attraction to children. The act is child molestation, or statutory rape, or whatever particular legal label any particular jurisdiction places upon it. Pedophilia is not a physical act…it is a recognized and codified paraphilia in the psychiatric/psychological arena.
[/QUOTE]
The problem is, is it being a pedophile that goes against Catholic teachings, or is it the actual act of molesting a child that’s looked down on? Considering that lustful thoughts aren’t enough to get one excommunicated, I would imagine (I could easily be wrong) that having lustful thoughts towards children isn’t enough either. So it comes down to the first problem.