According to a flyer that arrived in yesterday's mail, Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB will be giving a "Special Lecture" entitled "Ecology, Theology and Feminism: Concurrence or Conflict?" at (where else?) St. Bernard's School of Theology and Ministry on June 25.
This isn't up on their web site yet and the flyer says we'll have to wait until April 15 to register.
For those planning ahead, the time is listed as 2:00 PM and the cost is $20.00.
15 comments:
The legendary Pope Joan II coming to Rochester? The woman who is a promoter of Call-to-Action, writes for the National Catholic "Dissenter", and actively supports the ordination of women to the priesthood?
I wish I could say I'm shocked, but I'm not. I am appalled though.
~Dr. K
Thanks for the heads up Mike! I'll mark it on my calendar. I love Sr. Joan. Voice of Faithful in Long Island is sponsoring a discussion at the end of October that includes lectures by Sr. Joan and Fr. Thomas Reese. I'm making a special trip to hear both speak.
"I love Sr. Joan."
Yikes..
"Voice of Faithful in Long Island is sponsoring a discussion"
Dissident organization.
Tmac,
Sr. Joan does seem to draw a bunch of folks, doesn't she? Unfortunately, most of them seem have ear problems.
St. Paul could easily have been writing about today when he prophesied, "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths." (2 Tim 4:3-4)
That passage does ring especially true for many modern Catholics. Good find.
~Dr. K
Don't we have more than enough Sr. Joans for one diocese already?
What, was Fr. Curran busy or something?
Only in the DOR.
You know, I'd like to see female priests. But the type of female priest we'd get would be highly liberal. Female conservative Catholic priests, prolly not gonna happen.
but, Spiritually, there is no difference between a man and a woman. Male only priests is the result of male only priests.
Anon. 5:52,
Priests need to be male because Christ is male.
Christ is male because God the Father is masculine.
Before you say "Ridiculous!" or "Preposterous!" (or worse), you should spend an hour or so listening to Boston College's Prof. Peter Kreeft explain it much better than I ever could.
See here.
Anon,
Adding to Mike's comments about priests being male...
Priests act in the place of Christ (who is clearly a man as Mike pointed out). Also, Christ is the bridegroom and his spouse, his bride, is the Church. The male priesthood has nothing to do with one gender being more spiritual.
And the logical conclusion to Nerina's comment is that having a woman acting in persona Christi as the Bridegroom with the Church (as the Bride of Christ) would be to set up a lesbian marriage...
I, for one, have always found the arguments above about Christ being male, etc as the reason for a male priesthood to be unsatisfactory in many ways. Primarily, there is no logic to it. Also, I don't think logic can ever be successfully used to argue the matter.
That being said, I believe the reason the priesthood is limited to men is simply because the Church tells me it is. It's a simple matter of being a mystery within God's design that has no logic other than God designed it that way.
It is NOT a statement that men are somehow better than women. Men and women are simply different - not one better then another. Think of it as akin (clearly not the same) to the Father being a separate person but fully God, the Son being a separate person but fully God and the Spirit being a separate person but fully God. It's a mystery, but it is the way it is.
Perhaps since NO ONE has a RIGHT to be a priest it is God's way to teach us something about Him and ourselves? About creation and relationship. About being separate yet interdependent on each other for life - eternal and corporeal. About the Trinity? No man can be a mother and give birth - why? I don't know. It's part of the design. No woman has the RIGHT to be a mother - it is a gift from God. Yet we are one in participating in God's creation. So, a priest confects the sacrament in union with the whole Church as God's special instrument. Is it that different?
I am a man - but have no calling to be a priest. Perhaps it rings hollow for me to say the limitation of the priesthood to men is God GIVEN - but I can only conclude that it is. I try to find the lesson there and go on.
Anon. 11:23,
First of all, I have to disagree with your assertion that there is no logic to the Church's position that the priesthood has been reserved to males by God. Prof. Kreeft does an excellent job of laying out the arguments, both logical and otherwise, and I believe he makes a strong case for the male priesthood.
Secondly, I have to agree that logical arguments are totally lost on those who prefer to elevate their feelings over their reason and run their lives accordingly. God gave us an intellect and a will for a purpose, and part of that purpose was for them to serve as a check on our lower instincts and feelings. Some people, sadly, have never learned this lesson.
The remainder of your comment reads a lot like a summary of Kreeft's talk and I have to agree with pretty much all you said.
Mike,
I just listened to Peter Kreeft's lecture on priestesses. It was phenomenal. I've listened to a few other lectures of his. He is great. And I appreciate his love of Lewis. I think perhaps I'll send a copy to our parish priest and bishop clark.
-Ben
Ben,
Peter Kreeft is a remarkable teacher. I simply don't see how anyone can honestly refute arguments so clearly and logically laid out.
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