OK, so I’m driving home from choir practice at sunset, singing along to a rock and roll station, and feeling generally at peace with myself. Since you folks are used to me by now, albeit under a different name, I’ll even admit I was doing a bit of praying. Then an ad comes on the radio, with a couple of Fathers talking about having a Vocation and a Calling and urging people to call the diocesan office about a fulfilling career. There’s just one slight problem. While I have at times felt the beginning of a Calling and have considered the priesthood, for me, it’s not an option. You see, I’m female. I checked – I just had a bath and I knew I’d be starting this thread, and nothing has changed since last time I checked. So you see, no matter how strong or how genuine this Calling is, unless God, Himself tells the Pope to make an exception, I’m out of it.
One other small point of order. Throughout this ad, they kept referring to the diocese of my city without naming the denomination. I’ve been assuming throughout that these two fellows were Catholic, but I’m very aware that there is another diocese in my city, the Episcopal Diocese, the one I’m a member of. While Catholics are a lot more common than Episcopalians around here, and I suspect more common than any other form of Christianity or religion in general, there are at least two dioceses here, and possibly more (I’m not sure what other religions call their regional administrative offices).
This rant is mild, because I’m still feeling pretty mellow and I’ve got a touch of stomach flu, but I wanted to get this grumble out of my system. With all due respect to Tomndebb, who I respect, Guinastasia, who I like, and a certain man I once loved dearly indeed, this is why I cannot be Catholic. If I ever do get a true Calling to serve God as a priest, I would like to be able to answer it.
CJ, maybe you should consider a denomonation that does ordain women. If you really feel called, follow that call and see where it leads you. If God wants you in the clergy He’ll lead you to the appropriate congregation.
Well, if one of the prerequisites for being a Catholic priest is being a man, then it would follow that if you’re a woman, you can’t have a calling to be a Catholic priest. So, wouldn’t the Catholic answer be that God doesn’t want you to be a priest?
Diogenes old friend, I don’t have to consider a denomination which ordains women – I’m already a member of one which does. I’m Episcopalian, and have been all my life. If I wouldn’t convert for what I thought was True Love a decade ago, I certainly won’t now.
Captain Amazing, you make a very good point, and I’m pretty sure that is the Catholic answer. As for me, I’ll assume God knows what He’s doing, and He might even clue me in on it one of these days.
Captain Amazing, that’s essentially what I was told the one time I managed to bring my situation up to a vocation director. That and “you should look into becoming a sister”.
I did go through a serious discernment process to learn whether I had a calling to the sisterhood. Turns out (pretty clearly, actually) that I don’t. Which was both good and bad. I mean, I wanted it and I didn’t want it.
But there is still the calling to serve within me. I remain Catholic - partly because I can’t imagine leaving, partly for other reasons. I do wonder if I’d be a priest now if I happened to be born male instead of female. Instead, I find myself pulling away from the Catholic church, but not actually leaving.
Do I think a discernment process would lead me to the Catholic priesthood? I will never know.
I didn’t get the idea that Siege’s rant was mainly about the Catholic church not allowing women to be priests, but the fact that the ad in question didn’t identify the the specific diocese as “The Catholic Diocese of East of West of Anywhere”. That’s why the first post I typed out, I didn’t post. Yes, the ad could be much clearer and likely should be. But whether or not the Catholic Church allows women to be priests is another matter entirely.
Oh…sorry. I should have paid better attention. You’re right, the ad probably should have better identified which religion it was representing. But, Episcopalians do ordain women as priests, right?
Actually, CJ-I don’t really consider myself a good Catholic anymore. I mean, I think I’ll always be one by virtue of having grown up in the faith-“You can take the girl out of the Catholic church but you can’t take the Catholic church out of the girl!”-however, my beliefs are really more suited to the Unitarian Universalist movement.
I think you’d like Dr. Brett-he once went into a rant about misogyny in the church and how John Paul II has forbidden even discussing women priests. He’s a devout Catholic, a bleeding heart leftist and a liberation theologist.
If you’re not a pedophile, I don’t see much reason to become a priest. If all you want to do is beat the crap out of kids, you could always become a nun.
Siege, three questions, do you consider yourself Spiritual? If so, what makes you Spiritual and what makes you wish to adhere to typical religious mores?
I am most curious on a personal level. (Besides, as a religious figure, you should be open to such questions. I hope? [in earnest])
No need tro apologize to me. I am in complete disagreement with JP II on this issue. I find the logic flawed and the refusal to discuss it paranoid.
(OTOH, I don’t get many phone calls from the Vatican asking me to vet their encyclicals, bulls, and pastoral letters, so it is not as though they seem to care what I think.)
And it’s the flip side of this that I’m sure a lot of us wonder about: would a process of honest, prayerful discernment on the part of the Roman Catholic Church lead it to the conclusion that women, too, could have a valid calling to the priesthood?
But prayerful reflection and discernment on this issue clearly isn’t taking place, because J.P.II has forbidden it outright.
To me, it seemed to be about equal parts of both - the ad’s lack of specificity as to gender and denomination alike. They don’t say they’re just speaking to men, or just to Catholics, in encouraging listeners to consider a “fulfilling career” if they discern a calling or vocation in such a direction.
The Catholic Church has for some time recognized that non-Catholics are Christians as well. But the absence of denominational specificity in their ad, when (as CJ points out) they’re not the only diocesan game in town, hearkens back to the days when they didn’t. And if the RCC believes that God does not call women to the priesthood, then they should have the courage of their convictions, and shouldn’t fudge past that in ads heard by a wider audience.
I understand how one can be fed up with the Catholic Church, but that really wasn’t fair at all. It’s like saying all Baptists are foot-washing, child-beating rednecks. (I saw your retraction, so I am trying very hard to be polite here…thank you for taking back what you said).
My cousin’s in seminary to become a priest. And he is not a pedophile. We had some long talks last year about his decision because I was doubtful that it was what he really wanted. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t becoming a priest to please his mother or to escape some great truth that he didn’t want to face. And it took a lot of convincing on his part to me (not that he had to convince me, but he wanted me to understand his decision). In the end, I did understand and I may still be critical of the Church, but not of my cousin’s decision. I will always be critical of the Church because of the experience that one of my best friends had, but it’s not my place to judge my cousin for the choices he makes regarding his vocation. And I truly feel that he’s happy.
Siege, I understand how you feel, though. I’ve considered Catholicism and while I realize that many of the followers are progressive, I can’t follow a religion that doesn’t seem to respect women. I was raised Lutheran, which is fairly liberal, but became a member of the Episcopal Church last year because it just felt right. I’ve even thought about a calling to the priesthood. I’m glad to be a member of a church that will support that calling should it ever become a reality.
This was my initial break with the Catholic church. I really felt like a hypocrit to be a feminist and belong to a religion that wouldn’t ordain women. Having tired of being a “cafeteria Catholic” I didn’t move to a new Christian church - I didn’t want to get into new pick and choose Dogma and I’d decided I was tired of being told what to believe and began exploring it for myself. I ended up a UU (welcome Guin, you’ll find a lot of us recovering Catholics).
I wonder if the Catholic church realizes how many of us they’ve lost? Do they care? Or is it really a numbers game - “We will loose some American/European women - and maybe a few men, but we will keep the Latin countries - switch policies and we might lose South America to the Baptists.”
CJ - my mother is an Episcopal priest. She got The Call when she was 50 - after living a pretty secular life (at least outwardly) for as long as we all knew her.
She went to EDS is Cambridge, MA - lived in the dorm, got her Masters in Theology, and is now one of the most respected priests (regardless of gender) in her state (NH). She says she got wonderful support and counseling from her community when it finally became clear to her that this was truly her vocation.
Don’t let your frustration with Catholicism blind you to a potential blessing of being Called to serve in your way. I completely agree with you on that topic, btw, and I would hazard a guess that most Catholics of my acquaintance do too (my former husband and his entire family, as an example).
Women shouldn’t be in the priesthood, you can’t serve God by rejecting his word, I’m with the Pope on this one, which isn’t normally the case. I’m not even a Catholic.
Women are, as Tertullian said, the doorway to the devil. Silly, weakminded creatures unfit to teach, too easily led astray by the influence of satan.
With women in positions of power we get atrocities like this.
Women are also more self-obsessed, more likely to follow their own whims ahead of obeying God, as you would like to. There are ways for women to serve God, being a priest isn’t one of them.