Fr. Christopher Smith shares his insights on this matter at the Chant Cafe. The entire article is very articulate, and certainly deserves your perusal. Here, though, is the closing paragraph.
When we look at the women in the New Testament, we get an idea of what women’s participation in the life of the Church and the liturgy should look like. As equal members of the Body of Christ, they had no need of ordination to worship God, or to do the amazing things that they did. And those things were often more remarkable, and had more staying power, than what the Twelve did. The constant close attention of the women in the Gospel to Christ and to others, serving them and in doing so, serving Christ. It is entirely correct to say that a woman’s place in the Church is one of subordination, just as all disciples freely subordinate themselves to love God and all people. A woman’s place in the Church is to follow Christ, lavish her love without cost upon Him, serve the needs of the poor and the defenseless: in other words, a subordination to the law of love. In doing so, women can find that they are not indeed slaves to an outmoded patriarchal system drunk on abuses of power and justice, but friends of Christ. And there can be no greater freedom and noble role in the Church and world than that!
Tags: Joan, Liturgy, Nancy, Orthodoxy at Work, Spiritus Christi, St. Mary's Downtown, Vocations
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I read this earlier today…excellent piece!
I’ll note, that no where in this piece do I see “priest” or “pastor” as a role for women. Take note Joanie, Bruney, Goodie, and co.
Actually, anonymous-124151, that is not true. In dioceses with good bishops, ordinations have skyrocketed.
Men have done far more damage in our church then any group of women.
Since this is a vague charge with no conclusion, I’m going to move on.
Why is everyone so afraid to have a woman in a position of leadership ( NOTE i did not say pastor)?
That’s begging the question. People have laid out specific arguments. If they are wrong, engage their points and show where rather than ascribing irrational emotions (fear in this case) to them.
We are getting very arrogant is a time where we should be getting more humble.
Again, begging the question and I can’t think there is a bit of projection in there as well.
Remember friends, the entire country has a priest shortage– its not just the DOR.
That’s misleading because not only does the DOR have a priest shortage, they are second to last in vocations. That doesn’t happen by accident. Meanwhile, if you look at certain other diocese, we see recovery. What are they doing different? And we’ve already have evidnence that there is much in the priest shortage that is contrived. Fr. Longenecker is on record as saying he was actually told point-blank on several occasions by diocesan leadership in England that they wanted priest shortages precisely so they could do an end-run around the male-only priesthood teaching and appoint females as lay administrators.
People act like a new bishop will have ordinations by the hundreds– Not going to happen no matter how you look at it.
Perhaps not, but I bet the DOR could crawl out of the basement they are currently in a relatively short amount of time.
Anonymous-124151
You may be right in saying that men have done more damage in our church than any group of women.
However:
No priests = no sacraments
Yes, there has been a priest shortage everywhere, but it is worse in Rochester than in almost every other diocese in the United States. That doesn’t just happen. Also, there are signs that the priest shortage is being reduced elsewhere. No one thinks that we will immediately have hundreds of priests after a new bishop arrives, but a new bishop means a new approach to vocations and chances are things will get better than they have been. Whatever the approach was in Rochester the past 30 years, it hasn’t worked well. It isn’t arrogance to state reality.
You may be right in saying that men have done more damage in our church than any group of women.
Well, ok yeah. But the hierarchy is all male, so when they screw up, it does do massive damage. To get a fair comparison, you would have to look at denominations with female leadership. Take “Bishop” Schori–hers is the very epitome of chaos and destruction as whole chunks of Christianity have been disposed of over there.