Sister Nathalie Becquart, who serves as an undersecretary for the Church’s ongoing Synod on Synodality, was recently named on the BBC’s list of 100 inspiring and influential women around the world. / Daniel Ibañez/CNA
Rome Newsroom, Dec 13, 2022 / 09:20 am (CNA).
The highest-ranking woman in the general secretariat of the Synod of Bishops has said that the ordination of women as Catholic priests is “not an open question” at this time.
Sister Nathalie Becquart, who serves as an undersecretary for the Church’s ongoing Synod on Synodality, was recently named on the BBC’s list of 100 inspiring and influential women around the world.
In an article published Dec. 13, the French religious sister said that there are many ways for women to serve the Church, but ordination is not an option.
“For the Catholic Church at this moment, from an official point of view, it’s not an open question,” Becquart told the BBC.
Becquart was quoted in a news report that featured the stories of invalid ordinations in the U.S. of Catholic women dressed in liturgical vestments in which one woman reflected: “Excommunication was just part of the journey.”
In response to the subject of the article, Becquart said: “It’s not just a matter of you feeling you are called to priesthood, it’s always a recognition that the Church will call you to be a priest. So your personal feeling or decision is not enough.”
She said: “I think we need to broaden our vision of the Church. There are many, many ways for women to serve the Church.”
The most recent working document for the Synod on Synodality published in October said that many reports submitted to synod organizers asked for discernment on “the possibility for women with adequate training to preach in parish settings and a female diaconate.”
“Much greater diversity of opinion was expressed on the subject of priestly ordination for women, which some reports call for, while others consider a closed issue,” the working document for the Continental Phase of the synod said.
Pope Francis has also addressed the subject of women’s ordination recently in an interview with America Magazine.
When the pope was asked for his response to a woman who feels called to be a priest, Pope Francis replied decisively: “And why can a woman not enter ordained ministry? It is because the Petrine principle has no place for that.”
“The ministerial dimension, we can say, is that of the Petrine church. I am using a category of theologians. The Petrine principle is that of ministry,” the pope said.
Pope Francis added that he believes that the Church should give more space to women in an “administrative” role, noting the appointments he has already made in the governance of the Vatican and the Council for the Economy.
“When a woman enters politics or manages things, generally she does better. Many economists are women, and they are renewing the economy in a constructive way,” the pope added.
Becquart is an example of female administrative leadership within the Church. The French religious sister is the first woman to hold a position at such a high level within the general secretariat of the Synod of Bishops.
Before this, the 53-year-old sister with the Congregation of Xavières was a general coordinator of a pre-synod meeting for the 2018 Synod of Bishops and served as the first female director of the French bishops’ national service for the evangelization of young people and for vocations.
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Pope Francis greets the crowd at his Angelus address on Feb. 19, 2023. / Vatican Media
Vatican City, Feb 19, 2023 / 06:30 am (CNA).
Instead of acting out of self-interest or convenience, the Lord challenges us to love others in excess “without … […]
Statuary sits before imagery of the recently canonized saints in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024 / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
Vatican City, Oct 20, 2024 / 11:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis canonized 14 new saints on Sunday, including a father of eight and Franciscan friars killed in Syria for refusing to renounce their faith and convert to Islam.
In a Mass in St. Peter’s Square on Oct. 20, the pope declared three nineteenth-century founders of religious orders and the eleven “Martyrs of Damascus” as saints to be venerated by the global Catholic Church, commending their lives of sacrifice, missionary zeal, and service to the Church.
“These new saints lived Jesus’ way: service,” Pope Francis said. “They made themselves servants of their brothers and sisters, creative in doing good, steadfast in difficulties, and generous to the end.”
Pope Francis speaks at a Mass and canonization of 14 new saints in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
The newly canonized include St. Giuseppe Allamano, a diocesan priest from Italy who founded the Consolata missionary orders, and St. Marie-Léonie Paradis, a Canadian nun from Montreal known for founding an order dedicated to the service of priests.
Also among the saints are St. Elena Guerra, hailed as an “apostle of the Holy Spirit,” and St. Manuel Ruiz López and his seven Franciscan companions, all martyred in Damascus in 1860 for refusing to renounce their Christian faith.
The final three canonized are siblings, Sts. Francis, Mooti, and Raphael Massabki, lay Maronite Catholics martyred in Syria along with the Franciscans.
Thousands of pilgrims prayed the Litany of the Saints together in St. Peter’s Square before Pope Francis declared the 14 as enrolled among the saints “for the honor of the Blessed Trinity, the exaltation of the Catholic faith and the increase of the Christian life, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul.”
“We confidently ask for their intercession so that we too can follow Christ, follow him in service and become witnesses of hope for the world,” the pope said.
In his homily, Pope Francis highlighted how service embodied the lives of each of the new saints. “When we learn to serve,” he said, “our every gesture of attention and care, every expression of tenderness, every work of mercy becomes a reflection of God’s love. And so we continue Jesus’ work in the world.”
The Gospel for the Mass was chanted in Greek in addition to Latin in honor of the 11 Martyrs of Damascus.
Pilgrims gather in St. Peter’s Square for a Mass and canonization of 14 new saints on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
Father Marwan Dadas, a Franciscan friar from Jerusalem, was among those who attended the canonization. He said that the testimony of the martyrs from the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land is especially meaningful to people who are suffering due to the ongoing war and violence in the region today.
“This is a good message to say that even though we have challenges — and it seems we have death continuously — we still have the light of God that is helping us and guiding us through these difficult periods,” Dadas told CNA.
“It’s an important message for me, and I hope it will be the message for all the people of the Holy Land, not only the Holy Land, but for everybody. It is a message from God saying that He is always with us.”
St. Giuseppe Allamano: A missionary heart
One of the most celebrated figures among the new saints is St. Giuseppe Allamano (1851–1926), an Italian diocesan priest who founded the Consolata Missionaries and the Consolata Missionary Sisters. Allamano, though he spent his entire life in Italy, left a global legacy by training missionaries who carried the Gospel to remote corners of Africa, Asia, and South America.
Allamano told the missionaries in the order he founded in northern Italy in 1901 that they needed to be “first saints, then missionaries.”
The medical miracle that led to Allamano’s canonization involved the healing of a man who was attacked by a jaguar in the Amazon rainforest. In 1996, a man named Sorino Yanomami, a member of the indigenous Yanomami tribe in the Amazon, was mauled by a jaguar and left with life-threatening injuries.
As doctors treated his skull fractures, Consolata missionaries prayed in the hospital with a relic of Allamano, seeking his intercession. Miraculously, Yanomami recovered without any long-term damage, according to the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.
Allamano, whose spiritual director was St. John Bosco, emphasized the importance of holiness in priestly life, telling his priests, “You must not only be holy, but extraordinarily holy.” His influence has endured through the orders he founded, present today in 30 countries across the globe.
St. Marie-Léonie Paradis: “Humble among the humble”
St. Marie-Léonie Paradis (1840–1912), a Canadian religious sister, also took her place among the new saints. She founded the Little Sisters of the Holy Family, an order whose spirituality and charism is the support of priests through both prayer and by taking care of the cooking, cleaning, and laundry in rectories in “humble and joyful service” in imitation of “Christ the Servant.”
During his homily, Pope Francis praised Paradis’ faith and underlined that “those who follow Christ, if they wish to be great, must serve by learning from Him” who made himself “a servant to reach everyone with his love.”
Born in the Acadian region of Quebec, Paradis also spent eight years in New York serving in the St. Vincent de Paul Orphanage in the 1860s and taught French at St. Mary’s Academy in Indiana, before founding her religious order in New Brunswick, Canada.
Paradis’ canonization was supported by the miraculous healing of a newborn in Canada, attributed to her intercession.
St. Elena Guerra: An “apostle of the Holy Spirit”
Among the canonized was St. Elena Guerra (1835–1914), known for her ardent devotion to the Holy Spirit. Guerra, who founded the Oblates of the Holy Spirit, was instrumental in promoting the first-ever novena to the Holy Spirit under Pope Leo XIII in 1895. Her writings and spiritual leadership inspired many, including St. Gemma Galgani, a mystic and saint who was her student.
For much of her 20s, Guerra was bedridden with a serious illness, a challenge that turned out to be transformational for her as she dedicated herself to meditating on Scripture and the writings of the Church Fathers. She felt the call to consecrate herself to God during a pilgrimage to Rome with her father after her recovery and went on to form the religious community dedicated to education.
During her correspondence with Pope Leo XIII, Guerra composed prayers to the Holy Spirit, including a Holy Spirit Chaplet, asking the Lord to “send forth your spirit and renew the world.
“Pentecost is not over,” Guerra wrote. “In fact, it is continually going on in every time and in every place, because the Holy Spirit desired to give himself to all men and all who want him can always receive him, so we do not have to envy the apostles and the first believers; we only have to dispose ourselves like them to receive him well, and he will come to us as he did to them.”
The Martyrs of Damascus: Courageous witnesses of faith
The solemnity of the ceremony was heightened as Pope Francis canonized the Martyrs of Damascus, a group of 11 men killed in 1860 for refusing to renounce their Christian faith and convert to Islam. The martyrs, including eight Franciscan friars and three laymen, were attacked in a church in the Christian quarter of Damascus during a wave of religious violence.
The canonized Franciscan friars include six priests and two professed religious — all missionaries from Spain except for Father Engelbert Kolland, who was from Salzburg, Austria.
Franciscan Father Manuel Ruiz, Father Carmelo Bolta, Father Nicanor Ascanio, Father Nicolás M. Alberca y Torres, Father Pedro Soler, Kolland, Brother Francisco Pinazo Peñalver, and Brother Juan S. Fernández were all declared saints.
The three laymen were brothers — Francis, Abdel Mooti, and Raphael Massabki — known for their deep piety and devotion to the Christian faith. Francis Massabki, the oldest of the brothers, was a father of eight children. Mooti was a father of five who visited the Church of St. Paul daily for prayer and to teach catechism lessons. The youngest brother, Raphael, was single and was known to spend long periods of time praying in the church and helping the friars.
According to witnesses, the brothers were offered the chance to live if they renounced their faith, but they refused. “We are Christians, and we want to live and die as Christians,” Francis Massabki reportedly said. All 11 were brutally killed that night, some beheaded, others stabbed to death.
“They remained faithful servants,” Pope Francis said. “[They] served in martyrdom and in joy.”
A global celebration
The canonization ceremony was attended by pilgrims from around the world, including Catholics from Kenya, Canada, Uganda, Spain, Italy, and the Middle East. More than 1,000 members of the Consolata order traveled to Rome to witness the canonization of their founder.
And bagpipers from Galicia in northern Spain played traditional music at the end of the Mass to honor the Spanish Franciscans canonized among the Damascus martyrs.
Bagpipers play to honor the Spanish Franciscans canonized among the Damascus martyrs at the Vatican on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. Credit: Courtney Mares
“I thank all of you who have come to honor the new saints,” Pope Francis said. “I greet the cardinals, the bishops, the consecrated men and women, especially the Friars Minor and the Maronite faithful, the Consolata Missionaries, the Little Sisters of the Holy Family and the Oblates of the Holy Spirit, as well as the other groups of pilgrims who have come from various places.”
Pope Francis led the crowd in the Angelus prayer at the end of the Mass and asked people to pray in particular for the gift of peace for “populations who are suffering as a result of war – tormented Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, tormented Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar and all the others.”
The pope also greeted a group of Ugandan pilgrims who traveled from Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of the canonization of the Ugandan Martyrs and urged people to pray for missionaries on World Mission Sunday.
“Let us support, with our prayer and our aid, all the missionaries who, often at great sacrifice, bring the shining proclamation of the Gospel to every part of the world,” he said.
“May the Virgin Mary help us to be like her and like the Saints courageous and joyful witnesses of the Gospel.”
Flags of (LtoR) Germany, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Great Britain, USA, and Europe are displayed for a G7 Foreign Ministers Meeting at the City Hall in Muenster, western Germany on November 3, 2022. / Credit: WOLFGANG RATTAY/POOL/AFP via Gett… […]
Not an open issue, although with condition, at this time. Perhaps, further, “from an official point of view”. Nonetheless, a not uncommon diplomatic response weighing possibles v realities that can’t be criticized.
Sr Nathalie correctly lays priesthood aside. She doesn’t mention the diaconate, an ordained order of ecclesial authority in conjunction with the bishop and presbyter. Realistically, it is the diaconate that has been seriously considered since Amazonia. She had previously expressed her views on this more realistic possibility [realistic simply due to proposals for acceptance by some bishops] as shown here when asked.
“It’s still in discernment. It’s rather clear that during the early church we had the experience of the female diaconate. What is very obvious today is that it can’t only be men who can be in ministry. But there are many different ways to be in ministry” (RNS 12.8.21).
It may seem feasible for some as it did for me as a young layman teaching in Africa, knowledgeable of sisters including African who did the priest’s missionary work deep into remote, dangerous areas alone except with Christ. Teaching the Gospels, lecturing [preaching], carrying the Eucharist dispensed during a communion service. In places where there were no priests available.
Since then and ordination the unique specificity of holy orders, female ordination a more pronounced difficulty. Female deacons at the start assisted Paul, the great Apostle himself highly restrictive regarding women in Church, to be silent, heads covered. The women deacons [we don’t have records I’m aware of defining their exact role] whose assistance he happily accepted seems an anomaly. Cardinals Müller, Burke, and others believe holy orders must remain a male institution, as instituted by Christ The favorable response to that position is that Christ did not ordain women.
Nevertheless we’ve arrived at a time when women have received greater, and just recognition for their capacity to contribute to the mission of the Church.
The apostles called for seven MEN of good repute to be ordained deacons and to share in the ministry along with presbyters and episcopoi. I’m certain that if the apostles wanted to include women among their ranks they could have easily found one to include among the seven. But they didn’t.
Let’s face it, we live in a culture that attempts to create its own realities: men can call themselves women; women can call themselves men; men can attempt a marriage of another man and women do likewise. All sorts of permutations of weird notions get promulgated and the populace are easily hoodwinked into normalizing them.
Some of us just happen to subscribe to objective truths and realities.
Atheism is not merely a conscious rejection of an abstract disbelief in the concept of God. Since truth, not some, not a lot, not most, all truth is a reflection of the perfect mind of God, believing that truth changes is to be an atheist.
As a mere layman (sorry, I’m backward) it’s my understanding that the female
“Deacons” rather, assisted women in preparing for Baptism or Confirmation. It’s
so obvious that it would be an offense against modesty for men to do that. It’s so simple, so logical. And the Deacon’s job seems to have been to make sure all
the “dependents” (widows etc, who had no husbands or sons to protect them) were treated equally. When will we put aside all of this nonsense and end this need to satisfy the feminist passion for power. Women have been serving the Church for 2000 years; indeed, while our Lord was still among us. Apparently they were inferior because they didn’t demand parity. It’s time to bring back a bit of humility, and that includes many, many of the prelates (especially in Germany) and clergy too! Our dear Lord, King of kings, did not find serving demeaning.
Dear Father, with all due respect. You say in defense of the Church’s position… “Paul, the great Apostle himself highly restrictive regarding women in Church, to be silent, heads covered.” Without trying to be rude, that utterance by Paul is tantamount to Mafia men when they say of their women… “keep them barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen”.
Women suffered through history as objects, not as equal participants in God’s plan. My Mother not only wore a hat at Mass, rather a veiled hat. Moreover, As a MALE altar server, I was allowed on the altar, but she was not, except when she retrieved the altar linens to be laundered. As I think of those days I find it hard to sleep.
If it comes from paul it must be gospel.
Pray to the Blessed Mother that she will intervene and provide us with a united path to the future.
“For the Catholic Church at this moment, from an official point of view, it’s not an open question,”
.
Sooo, maybe at some future point then? This just doesn’t seem like a “No, that is not possible. Women cannot be priests,” kind of answer.
I am sorry I wasted my time reading such a hodgepodge of gibberish. We can all sleep well tonight knowing that the question of women priests has been answered definitively by the French nun who so inspires the BBC and the overfed prelate in the background of the photo. “For the Catholic Church at this moment, from an official point of view, it’s not an open question.” What a ringing endorsement of Church teaching! Why is the question even being raised again when the answer has been given countless times since the crackpot idea first emerged out of the 1960s? Because Francis and his co-conspirators want to keep the issue alive.
Then the piece ends by quoting more inanities from Francis. Women do “better” in politics and management. Female economists “are renewing the economy in a constructive way.” Asking for evidence to support any of these grand assertions is presumably disrespectful. These are the people who run the Church.
What Sr. Natalie (and Pope Francis) miss is that the Spirit calls Christians to sacred ordination, not the Institutional Church. The Church continues to live in its sin of exclusion, in contradiction to the Spirit’s call to women to ordination. To cite two centuries of this sinfulness as proof of its truth is convoluted. Most biblical scholars acknowledge that Paul’s diminishment of women in the Church were words added by later disciples afraid of rocking the boat of first century cultural norms.
There is agreement that he DID write, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Does the Church believe this?
Faithful Catholic women join the Spirit in groaning at the tragic doctrines expressed in this article.
Of course, you are here not thinking with the mind of the Church.
All this talk of ordaining women to the Order of Deacon is a ruse. Deacons are configured to Christ as servant Who came to serve and not to be served. These progressive feminists in the Church have spent their lifetime exorcising the demon of servitude. Rather, they lust for power in the Church and won’t be satisfied until they can get ordained as priests. And then, that lofty position in the hierarchy will not be enough to satisfy their lust for power and they will insist on being ordained bishop. But they won’t stop until one of them can get elected Pope. Of course, it wouldn’t be long before even that didn’t satisfy. No, the only path to salvation is: sacrifice, servitude, death to self, humility, piety, fear of the Lord, etc. These would not appeal to the feminist types.
One should remember. We don’t pick this profession. Speaking for myself I do believe I speak for the disciples as well….we don’t choose persecution and ministry. The calling comes from He that sent for us. I have no choice when it comes to following Jesus. He created me. Shaped me. I am obedient because I am. I am here. Awake. A servant to the calling. You don’t mess with the creator. Walking to the beat of His/Her/Their drum. I could speak about pronouns here and now. As teachers we might want to consider the value of “going there” so one can appreciate the pull we have at demonstrating the Importance of questioning our identity. If we are all God’s children, we should consider it was Jesus himself that told us to listen understand and obey the HS. If we are told to leave, go West, use OUR talents. If the HS leads us into the desert….we go!. I don’t say “no I’m a lady”. Jesus loved his ladies. Jesus calls ladies into healing the sick. The ladies might be called into service to Minister to another lady.
For that matter….we might also be lead into not revealing our sex so as to walk in obedience. God wants relationship with all of us. All the time. Yes, we might make mistakes. We are human. No crime. Pick up the cross ✝️ and experience all we were meant to experience. The disciples were told to bring their swords.
Keep your eyes up. Not back. Stand. Witness. And praise God we are here!
Maybe it was BECAUSE “Jesus loved his ladies” that HE (the fully Divine nature! and fully human nature, both) did NOT call them to be his apostles? And, most of all, he loved His mother (as if mothers still matter): because she was most like Himself—in her “fiat.”
But, there is a good side point about the use of “talents”….We are reminded, for example, of the legendary and female amazon archers who cut off their right breasts, such that their arrows could more sharply find their targets. But now females are signaled cut off both breasts, in order to transition more completely! Do we see a pattern here?…
Yes, the answer to actively homosexual priests (not the cover-story “pedophiles”) buggering young men has been a huge disaster, but now to lesbianize the Church (reducing it from sacramental incorporation into Christ, now simplistically to a lady “called in service to Minister to another lady”?) doesn’t cut it, either.
The “pattern”? Must everything be unisexualized under cover of the disordering pronoun thingy? “Keep your eyes up. Not back. Stand. Witness. And praise God we are here!”
If the current trajectory of societal convolution continues undisturbed per Newton’s laws of motion, we men, who’s roles have all been replaced and/or made completely redundant, have lost our place altogether.
It is interesting that the word “satan” (the accuser), in Latin, is satana, with a feminine suffix.
Synod on Synodality…what nonsense.
Not an open issue, although with condition, at this time. Perhaps, further, “from an official point of view”. Nonetheless, a not uncommon diplomatic response weighing possibles v realities that can’t be criticized.
Sr Nathalie correctly lays priesthood aside. She doesn’t mention the diaconate, an ordained order of ecclesial authority in conjunction with the bishop and presbyter. Realistically, it is the diaconate that has been seriously considered since Amazonia. She had previously expressed her views on this more realistic possibility [realistic simply due to proposals for acceptance by some bishops] as shown here when asked.
“It’s still in discernment. It’s rather clear that during the early church we had the experience of the female diaconate. What is very obvious today is that it can’t only be men who can be in ministry. But there are many different ways to be in ministry” (RNS 12.8.21).
It may seem feasible for some as it did for me as a young layman teaching in Africa, knowledgeable of sisters including African who did the priest’s missionary work deep into remote, dangerous areas alone except with Christ. Teaching the Gospels, lecturing [preaching], carrying the Eucharist dispensed during a communion service. In places where there were no priests available.
Since then and ordination the unique specificity of holy orders, female ordination a more pronounced difficulty. Female deacons at the start assisted Paul, the great Apostle himself highly restrictive regarding women in Church, to be silent, heads covered. The women deacons [we don’t have records I’m aware of defining their exact role] whose assistance he happily accepted seems an anomaly. Cardinals Müller, Burke, and others believe holy orders must remain a male institution, as instituted by Christ The favorable response to that position is that Christ did not ordain women.
Nevertheless we’ve arrived at a time when women have received greater, and just recognition for their capacity to contribute to the mission of the Church.
The apostles called for seven MEN of good repute to be ordained deacons and to share in the ministry along with presbyters and episcopoi. I’m certain that if the apostles wanted to include women among their ranks they could have easily found one to include among the seven. But they didn’t.
Let’s face it, we live in a culture that attempts to create its own realities: men can call themselves women; women can call themselves men; men can attempt a marriage of another man and women do likewise. All sorts of permutations of weird notions get promulgated and the populace are easily hoodwinked into normalizing them.
Some of us just happen to subscribe to objective truths and realities.
Atheism is not merely a conscious rejection of an abstract disbelief in the concept of God. Since truth, not some, not a lot, not most, all truth is a reflection of the perfect mind of God, believing that truth changes is to be an atheist.
As a mere layman (sorry, I’m backward) it’s my understanding that the female
“Deacons” rather, assisted women in preparing for Baptism or Confirmation. It’s
so obvious that it would be an offense against modesty for men to do that. It’s so simple, so logical. And the Deacon’s job seems to have been to make sure all
the “dependents” (widows etc, who had no husbands or sons to protect them) were treated equally. When will we put aside all of this nonsense and end this need to satisfy the feminist passion for power. Women have been serving the Church for 2000 years; indeed, while our Lord was still among us. Apparently they were inferior because they didn’t demand parity. It’s time to bring back a bit of humility, and that includes many, many of the prelates (especially in Germany) and clergy too! Our dear Lord, King of kings, did not find serving demeaning.
Dear Father, with all due respect. You say in defense of the Church’s position… “Paul, the great Apostle himself highly restrictive regarding women in Church, to be silent, heads covered.” Without trying to be rude, that utterance by Paul is tantamount to Mafia men when they say of their women… “keep them barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen”.
Women suffered through history as objects, not as equal participants in God’s plan. My Mother not only wore a hat at Mass, rather a veiled hat. Moreover, As a MALE altar server, I was allowed on the altar, but she was not, except when she retrieved the altar linens to be laundered. As I think of those days I find it hard to sleep.
If it comes from paul it must be gospel.
Pray to the Blessed Mother that she will intervene and provide us with a united path to the future.
“For the Catholic Church at this moment, from an official point of view, it’s not an open question,”
.
Sooo, maybe at some future point then? This just doesn’t seem like a “No, that is not possible. Women cannot be priests,” kind of answer.
A woman cannot be, in essence, a Father.
I am sorry I wasted my time reading such a hodgepodge of gibberish. We can all sleep well tonight knowing that the question of women priests has been answered definitively by the French nun who so inspires the BBC and the overfed prelate in the background of the photo. “For the Catholic Church at this moment, from an official point of view, it’s not an open question.” What a ringing endorsement of Church teaching! Why is the question even being raised again when the answer has been given countless times since the crackpot idea first emerged out of the 1960s? Because Francis and his co-conspirators want to keep the issue alive.
Then the piece ends by quoting more inanities from Francis. Women do “better” in politics and management. Female economists “are renewing the economy in a constructive way.” Asking for evidence to support any of these grand assertions is presumably disrespectful. These are the people who run the Church.
I might revise you last sentence to read instead, “These are the people run the Church INTO THE GROUND.”
Janet Yellen is an economist; need I say more?
Isn’t there enough real work to do instead of spending all this time and energy (and money) on what exactly?
What Sr. Natalie (and Pope Francis) miss is that the Spirit calls Christians to sacred ordination, not the Institutional Church. The Church continues to live in its sin of exclusion, in contradiction to the Spirit’s call to women to ordination. To cite two centuries of this sinfulness as proof of its truth is convoluted. Most biblical scholars acknowledge that Paul’s diminishment of women in the Church were words added by later disciples afraid of rocking the boat of first century cultural norms.
There is agreement that he DID write, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Does the Church believe this?
Faithful Catholic women join the Spirit in groaning at the tragic doctrines expressed in this article.
Of course, you are here not thinking with the mind of the Church.
All this talk of ordaining women to the Order of Deacon is a ruse. Deacons are configured to Christ as servant Who came to serve and not to be served. These progressive feminists in the Church have spent their lifetime exorcising the demon of servitude. Rather, they lust for power in the Church and won’t be satisfied until they can get ordained as priests. And then, that lofty position in the hierarchy will not be enough to satisfy their lust for power and they will insist on being ordained bishop. But they won’t stop until one of them can get elected Pope. Of course, it wouldn’t be long before even that didn’t satisfy. No, the only path to salvation is: sacrifice, servitude, death to self, humility, piety, fear of the Lord, etc. These would not appeal to the feminist types.
One should remember. We don’t pick this profession. Speaking for myself I do believe I speak for the disciples as well….we don’t choose persecution and ministry. The calling comes from He that sent for us. I have no choice when it comes to following Jesus. He created me. Shaped me. I am obedient because I am. I am here. Awake. A servant to the calling. You don’t mess with the creator. Walking to the beat of His/Her/Their drum. I could speak about pronouns here and now. As teachers we might want to consider the value of “going there” so one can appreciate the pull we have at demonstrating the Importance of questioning our identity. If we are all God’s children, we should consider it was Jesus himself that told us to listen understand and obey the HS. If we are told to leave, go West, use OUR talents. If the HS leads us into the desert….we go!. I don’t say “no I’m a lady”. Jesus loved his ladies. Jesus calls ladies into healing the sick. The ladies might be called into service to Minister to another lady.
For that matter….we might also be lead into not revealing our sex so as to walk in obedience. God wants relationship with all of us. All the time. Yes, we might make mistakes. We are human. No crime. Pick up the cross ✝️ and experience all we were meant to experience. The disciples were told to bring their swords.
Keep your eyes up. Not back. Stand. Witness. And praise God we are here!
Maybe it was BECAUSE “Jesus loved his ladies” that HE (the fully Divine nature! and fully human nature, both) did NOT call them to be his apostles? And, most of all, he loved His mother (as if mothers still matter): because she was most like Himself—in her “fiat.”
But, there is a good side point about the use of “talents”….We are reminded, for example, of the legendary and female amazon archers who cut off their right breasts, such that their arrows could more sharply find their targets. But now females are signaled cut off both breasts, in order to transition more completely! Do we see a pattern here?…
Yes, the answer to actively homosexual priests (not the cover-story “pedophiles”) buggering young men has been a huge disaster, but now to lesbianize the Church (reducing it from sacramental incorporation into Christ, now simplistically to a lady “called in service to Minister to another lady”?) doesn’t cut it, either.
The “pattern”? Must everything be unisexualized under cover of the disordering pronoun thingy? “Keep your eyes up. Not back. Stand. Witness. And praise God we are here!”
“Here?” The new gospel: Entropy is God!
Finally, women can shed their burkas! Well, maybe not.
If rthe church is the bride of Christ then only men can be a priest.
If the current trajectory of societal convolution continues undisturbed per Newton’s laws of motion, we men, who’s roles have all been replaced and/or made completely redundant, have lost our place altogether.
It is interesting that the word “satan” (the accuser), in Latin, is satana, with a feminine suffix.