Wednesday, May 9, 2007

I read, recently, an article with a bit of a different take than most on the ordination of women. In most cases, the position is simply: "The Church has never ordained women, Christ didn't ordain women, and Ordinatio Sacerdotalis says the Church can't, so there" essentially.

Though these points are also mentioned in this article as well, the main focus is that this denies true femininity, forcing women into a masculine role.
Those who want to ordain women to the priesthood manifest a failure to recognize the dignity of women, said an expert in moral theology and women's issues.

At the conference, de Solenni used St. Thomas' arguments to analyze the issue of the ordination of women to the priesthood in light of the natural complementarity between the sexes.
...
"Woman will never be the bridegroom, in any form. The temptation to force upon women a masculine paradigm arises from our confused notions of power and authority which, in turn, devalue her vocation as a bride, clearly illustrated by Mary," de Solenni said.

Ordaining a woman, she said, "would be, in essence, to show complete disregard for the reality she is as a woman, as a bride."
...
"No doubt," continued de Solenni, "women need a voice in the Church, but it must be an authentic voice and not their voice made to sound like a man's."

Women, she stated, have a unique role in the Church and in society and that role should not be forced into masculine paradigms. "To do so," she said, "runs the risk of losing what is truly feminine -- not the femininity of fashion, but the varied femininity of women saints, whose personalities and strengths span just as far as those of men saints … if not more."
I'm sure this article would anger many feminists, and those goofy ordain women groups, but it really is true. Women are not men, and so have a different role in the Church. Why not?

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