The liberals who afflict the Church, pulling Her into fragments and splintering Her unity, attack many facets of Her being. She ought to be One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. Dissent wrenches one into many. Lowering the liturgy to the level of a mere performance removes the holiness of the Mass and replaces it with profanity. By turning their back on the unifying effects of Latin and Gregorian Chant, they make the Church local, not catholic, not universal. And, by incorrectly assuming that every person has a right to be a priest, they spit in the faces of God and His saints, falsely believing that intuition trumps apostolic succession.
Women will never be ordained. The matter is settled. To debate this further is as pointless as saying, “I think the sun should rise in the West, not the East.” A local theologian remarked, “It is what it is.” How right she was. A man is called to do one of several things: get married (to a woman) and have children, become a priest, become a lay brother, monk, or friar, become a deacon, or live a single life. Each of these things celebrates masculinity in a distinct way, each raising virtue from an ideal to an act, a perpetual “yes” to God’s will. When a man discerns a call to the ordained priesthood, and perseveres in the face of potentially corrupt administrations, he has discovered the call to be Christ to others – to mimic in absolute sanctity He who chose to become Man and dwell amongst us.
This is the thing which liberals do not profess. Or, if they profess it, they don’t do so publicly. Our Lord was a man. He was the first priest, the High Priest of all eternity, and remains so to this day. He called the apostles to follow Him in that same capacity on Earth. His other disciples were active in ministry in ways which the liberals tend to muddy. They preached, they evangelized the Gentiles and the Jews, they bore witness to Christ through living holy lives. They discerned their callings. The Apostles discerned theirs. The people who were not ordained as priests followed in humility those who were, i.e. the Apostles. They did not envy them, they did not demand “equal” rights.
In demanding “equality,” those who advocate for women’s ordination castrate our priests. It is their manhood, their masculinity, that entitles them to follow in the footsteps of Christ, leading to the altar of sacrifice. Our Lord was a man, His Apostles, the first priests and bishops, were men, and men are stilled called to be the priests of Our Lord’s Holy Catholic Church. Nothing has changed in 2,000 years – the Church is timeless. Political agendas aren’t. These dissenting notions are all we see right now, but compared to the eternity of God, that everlasting Truth which gave us the Truth of the Church, these error-ridden nuisances will be as so many mosquitoes that plague us for a season, then die off.
A man is called to the priesthood by God. This is a genuine vocation. A woman is called to minister in her own unique ways, including motherhood, married life, religious life, and single life. Each is imperative for the success and well-being of the Church. It is when certain erring women try to change this that problems arise. They undoubtedly love the Church in their own way. However, love can easily turn into poison when motives turn from rendering praise and honor to God to rendering praise and honor to His creation, i.e. men and women. If we were to hold up solid examples of the priesthood and religious life, and point to them saying, “This is what it means to be a priest, to be a nun, to be a religious sister or brother,” then we would not be in the mess that we find ourselves in. When purposes and vocations are blurred by the heresy of relativism, there seems to be no need for an all-male priesthood. “Anybody can read from the Sacramentary.”
However, not just “anyone” can consecrate bread and wine into the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. This is the job of a man and a man alone. By having women taking the place of Jesus, we are not only castrating our priests, but the High Priest Himself, Jesus Christ. What a crime it is to say to God, “I am what I am, and you are not what you are.” He is who is. “I am who am.” Who are we to put restrictions on God, putting Him into our convenient little boxes of political bickering? We are no one. We don’t deserve what He has done for us. It is for this reason that we praise Him. He has ransomed us with His blood, shed upon the cross on Calvary.
I shutter to think of the damage that has been done by priests who succumb to the numbness of liberal ideology. Priests are special. They have authority from God. This authority cannot be trumped by a lay administrator. It is impossible. To permit our priests to be shackled by such an oppressive, backwards system is something which, I pray, will not be held against us. For we are powerless to affect change ourselves – we need the Holy Spirit. When He gives us the strength, the grace, the fortitude to address these things (perhaps under the form of a new bishop), He will have spoken, and spoken plainly. The only people who will be held accountable for their sins are the transgressors themselves. I am not making a judgment against them or their souls – I am not God, and I’m not on that side of the confessional screen. I am merely stating that unrepentant sin does not go unpunished.
We must pray, dear friends, that our clergy finds their masculinity something to be valued, something linking them in a tangible way to Our Lord. Let us pray, also, that our bishops and higher leadership discover the wealth of Tradition found in the true nature of the Sacraments. Priesthood is a manly business. It is not for the weak or timid of heart, nor is it for those who cannot bear their own sufferings, let alone the sufferings of their flock. A priest must beat off the wolves that attack the sheep of his parish, defending the Church, not compromising it.
The priest pictured here (and in dozens of other places across the internet) is standing boldly in the face of enemy sniper fire. The wounded, dying soldier is clinging to his cassock, drawing near to the priest, Christ’s ambassador to the suffering. As this wounded man clings to the priest’s cassock, let us cling to our noble priests, our priests who stand erect under fire, who are refuges for the exiled and shelters for the wounded. Let us cling likewise to the Blessed Sacrament, present and yet unadored in our tabernacles.
|God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission; I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I have a part in a great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.
?Cardinal John Henry Newman
For me it is enough that the Church says only men can be priests. I do not fully understand why – women can preach, teach, be doctors (of the Church) and minister. Yet, the Church says only men can be priests. Most arguments I hear for this restriction leave me cold, yet it is IMHO the will of God. We know God made mankind in His image and likeness, "male and female he made them." Perhaps this is the answer. We image God and God is a trinity of 3 separate persons, but one God. The father is not the Son, yet both are God – full and complete. A man is not a woman, and vice versa – yet each is a person and fully "in the image of God," yet separate – with separate roles. In procreation we participate in creation where the male perhaps images the father and the woman the Son through whom proceeds the Child in the image of the Spirit? At the Altar the male images the Son sacrificed. Do mothers then image the Father to whom expiation is offered – as the person who has brought forth life? Are the non-ordained men and non-mothers the image of the Spirit. I don't know. These are musings. But the Church teaches only men can be priests – I accept that and seek to find the message God has embedded in that reality – and I think it must hark back to the Trinity and the nature of God.
It is a mystery. Deo gratias!
If only all Catholics approached the faith with such a disposition! That is what we are called to do – if we have questions or doubts, find God in them without forsaking the teaching of His Church.
May God bless you for your humility and genuine zeal for Our Lord's mystical body.
Sorry – forgot one last thing:
Technically women can't preach – but that's a whole other issue.
Wasn't trying to be technical 🙂
You know what I meant.
Pax
lol yes indeed. Just covering bases so the liturgy Nazi's in our midst wouldn't drag us from our houses.
My gosh you fellows speak truth and write well!!!
We try our best, Bernie. Just imagine if we had pulpits instead of cluttered desks.
Women CAN preach, just not during the Mass (to be very technical, Gen). But the Church does not forbid a woman from preaching after, say, the rosary group comes together to pray, or at some other type of prayer service.
You are correct, anon.
~Dr. K
Seeing as how we were discussing the priesthood, I thought it would have been implied that we were talking about the Mass. Women cannot preach licitly at Mass. Sure, maybe on Mother's Day a woman can say something after Mass. But it's not so much "can they" as it is "ought they." Lay preaching, whether it's a man or a woman, undermines the sanctity of the Mass.