We enter here the more controversial section of 'Mulieris Dignitatem'. Is Pope John Paul II's interpretation of the symbol of Bride and Bridegroom correct? Is it as important as he claims it to be? For the basic introductions, go to: http://www.womenpriests.org/church/mulcong4.asp


This is the kind of thing the Pope says:

“Christ is the bridegroom. This expresses the truth about the love of God, who "first loved us" (Cf. 1 John 4:19) and who, with the gift generated by this spousal love for man, has exceeded all human expectations: "He loved them to the end." (John 13:1)”

“The bridegroom - the Son consubstantial with the Father as God - became the son of Mary; he became the "son of man," true man, a male. The symbol of the bridegroom is masculine. This masculine symbol represents the human aspect of the divine love which God has for Israel, for the church and for all people.” (Mulieris Dignitatem § 25)

To do justice to the Pope's thought, read the whole section!

John Wijngaards

Dear friends,

Welcome in! You have landed in one of the new dialogue threads we are creating in what is shaping up to be a new Forum in Circles.  We have named the Forum "Online Congress on 'Mulieris Dignitatem' -- Equal Dignity of Men and Women in Creation."

Its purpose is to serve as an online Congress -- a dedicated space that will be informative, provide academic material and welcome dialogue.  As you may know, in 2008, Rome will be hosting official meetings marking the twentieth anniversary of Pope John Paul II's Mulieris Dignitatem -- his papal Encyclical The Dignity and Vocation of Women.  It is our hope that our on line parallel Congress will ensure that the faithful, journalists, and reporters have an opportunity to hear 'the other side.'

Within the next several days, these dialogue threads specifically devoted to the Congress will be taking shape.  We have divided the encyclical into six sections -- topics which we have identified that merit separate examination and discussion. I will serve as Moderator.  Although some of the new threads might overlap with topics that are already running, our intention is to create special focus that parallels activities that will be running in Rome.

In each section, we will provide a separate page listing readings on our website.  And we will include reviews by a variety  of well-known theologians commenting on each section of the encyclical. Much more to follow! I will keep you posted!

with love and blessings,

~Sophie~

"Spousal love"(?) "brides and bridegrooms"(?) What a ridiculous image of the love of God!  Brides and bridegrooms, spouses, are only just overgrown wounded children still struggling with learning how to love self and other at all!  Brides and bridegrooms will go from dreamy-eyed-come-hither to sullen-and-silent or fussing-and-stomping in about 30 seconds flat.  Spouses will fight as well as flirt over the drop of a hat, and they'll even aim for one another's weaknesses and issues; they generally share the same weaknesses and issues!  Spouses marry to help one another resolve and heal their weaknesses and issues by loving and fighting them out.  That is nothing at all like the love of God!  The love of God is far more like the love of a good mother, watching over her children and knowing they're very slow, but they're learning, than it is like spousal love.
 
The greatest purity of heart, the greatest love on the planet is not spousal love.  The greatest purity of heart, the greatest love on the planet is that of infants and very young children.  It's their children who take parents by the hand and follow them around trying to teach them that it's ok to put down their wounds and their issues and their armor and open up their hearts for a change!  Christ told everyone that unless they became like little children they'd not see the kingdom of God, and that what it takes to see the kingdom of God is purity of heart.  God's love is absolute and divine purity of heart.
 
woman who votes with feet
 

Jesus is not the "bridegroom" of the church and Jesus does not marry we the congregation .  We as men of the congregation, as children, boys and girls, as women of the congreagation are not the "brides" of Jesus or of the priest.
 
This is a distorted ridiculous metaphor.  Jesus stresses the Good Shepherd
                                                                          The Good Steward, Not Burying The Talents in The Ground
                                                                          The Widow and The Lost Coin
                                                                           The Bakerwoman Making the Bread of Life
                                                                           Mother Hen Gathering Her Chicks Under Her Wing
Jesus does not consider himself the "bridegroom" of the church.
 
Jesus is the Son of God, and says we are daughters and sons of God too when we believe in Jesus and God.  Jesus is not our spouse.  Our boy and girl children do not marry Jesus at eucharist.
 
Eucharist is not a pagan nuptial wedding sex ceremony with "bridegroom" Jesus or "bridegroom" priest marrying the men and boys in the congregation at mass.
 
This is a perversion of Christianity no other Christian congregation uses as its metaphor.  Jesus is the Good Shepherd, God is the Good Parent welcoming back the Prodigal Son,  God is the Bakerwoman Making the Bread of Life,  The Good Steward,  The Mother Hen.
 
We must rid the church of these harmful obsessions over wrong metaphors.  Jesus does not claim to marry us at eucharist or be our bridegroom.  He is our Lord, Saviour, and teacher, our divine brother and we are daughters and sons of God too.
 

  God is both male and female as shown in Genesis as God made people women and men in God's image.  The Old and New Testament show us female and male images of God.  Jesus in John 4 says God is Spirit and calls himself Bakerwoman and Widow With the Lost Coin and Mother Hen,  female and male represent God and represent Jesus.
 
Women too must be ordained in the church of Jesus. 
 
Canon laws and Catechism also show us God is both male amd female and ineffable.

ORIGINAL: Hans

“The bridegroom - the Son consubstantial with the Father as God - became the son of Mary; he became the "son of man," true man, a male. The symbol of the bridegroom is masculine. This masculine symbol represents the human aspect of the divine love which God has for Israel, for the church and for all people.” (Mulieris Dignitatem § 25)

 
Based on this reasoning, one would have to conclude that JPII believes God has a masculine nature
 
This is very disturbing. Is this the Catholic view of God?
 
I always believed that God was neither male nor female yet encompasses the nature of both the masculine and feminine. If God is a masculine spirit, a woman would be a less perfect image of God.
 
JPII also mentions women need to be loved in order to return love. This is false. Women can give love freely and unconditionally. Whether it is given to a husband in marriage or to others as a mother, friend or family member, women can give love purely, fully, and faithfully, asking nothing as a prerequisite.  
 
Women do not simply react to love; they initiate it, feed it, nurture it, and give it a living presence. Such love is a reflection of the feminine nature emanating from the image of their Creator. It is the image of God.
 

Dear friends,

During his pontificate, Pope John Paul II made public his acknowledgement that throughout Christian history, Church leadership has frequently been lacking in charity towards women. On an international stage several times during his pontificate he acknowledged that women have been relegated to the margins. He expressed regret while seeking forgiveness for ecclesiastical sins against women.

The twentieth century has posed new challenges for Vatican leadership. However resistant it might be to change, faced with the women's and civil rights movements, the Vatican -- in the awkward position of needing to provide a theological justification for the exclusion of women from sacramental priesthood -- Pope Paul VI and John Paul II began what some say has been a reluctant journey to attempt to correct some of the wrongs against women and to define a positive role for women in the Church. The efforts arose to a large extent out of a need to provide a new and intelligent justification for the exclusion of women from ordination -- a justification that could no longer be grounded in an argument that women were inferior to men. In the past, the exclusion of women from priesthood was based on the claim that we were morally inferior to men. As such, we were considered to be incapable of symbolising Christ -- the embodiment of perfect humanity. Needing to meet head on the civil rights movement which has moved society to affirm the equality of women, the hierarchy has now been travelling some twisting roads in its attempts to find a justification based on other than an 'inferiority' contention. So what do we now see? Officially, women are no longer excluded from priesthood because they are inferior. Instead, a new 'justification' has arrived. Women are now incapable of representing Christ because he was male. The argument is no longer based on inferiority but instead on gender. Because Christ was male, the female body is incapable of representing Christ. Women no longer image Christ?

Yikes. Efforts to bolster this line of argument are made in attempts to assert a literal interpretation of the body of the Groom from the Ephesians' nuptial analogy of Christ's relationship to the Church.

In Mulieris Dignitatem, John Paul II writes:

Christ is the bridegroom. This expresses the truth about the love of God, who "first loved us" (Cf. 1 John 4:19) and who, with the gift generated by this spousal love for man, has exceeded all human expectations: "He loved them to the end." (John 13:1)

The bridegroom - the Son consubstantial with the Father as God - became the son of Mary; he became the "son of man," true man, a male. The symbol of the bridegroom is masculine. This masculine symbol represents the human aspect of the divine love which God has for Israel, for the church and for all people. (Mulieris Dignitatem § 25)

In his article, Nuptial Imagery and the Sacramental Priesthood’ our founder and now Academic Advisor, Dr. John Wijngaards explores these issues. While Rome argues "that a priest should be a man because of the symbolism by which Christ is the Bridegroom and the Church his Bride," Dr. Wijngaards capably refutes the argument when he reminds us that the symbolism of God in the Old Testament and of Christ in the New, as Bridegroom, belongs basically to a Jewish cultural context. It is metaphor -- only a way of speaking. Dr. Wijngaards reminds us that Scripture itself transcends male symbolism many times. Many times does the Bible stress the feminine aspects to God's compassion. God's everlasting fidelity is compared to the never-forgetting love of a mother for her children (Isaiah 49,15). Christ is spoken of as being tender (Hebrews 5, 2) and anxious as a hen wanting to protect her chickens (Matthew 23, 37). Even Paul speaks of himself as a mother (1 Thessalonians 2, 7; Galatians 4, 19).

In the article, Dr. Wijngaares goes on to identify three specific reasons as to why the symbolism of Bridegroom and Bride does not exclude women priests:

1. In Scripture the symbolism of Bridegroom and Bride is never extended to the priesthood of Christ.
   
2. The symbolism of the Bridegroom's feast is hinted at in the eucharistic liturgy, but the overriding symbolism is of Christ as the Mediator of salvation.
   
3. The symbolism of Bride and Bridegroom is itself ambivalent. Every Christian represents both the Bride and the Groom

Dr. Wijngaards' conclusion:

The symbolism of Christ who relates to the Church as a Bridegroom to his Bride does not invalidate the representation of Christ at the Eucharist by a woman priest.

A copy of his article is available here: ‘Nuptial Imagery and the Sacramental Priesthood’. Please enjoy. If you have any questions, as always, let me know.

with love and blessings,

~Sophie~

Our founder and Academic Advisor, Dr. John Wijngaards:


Dr. John Wijngaards

Short biographical-data:

• 1959: ordained a priest as a Mill Hill Missionary.
  
• 1959 - 1963: studies in Rome. Licenciate of Sacred Scripture at the Pontifical Biblical Institute and Doctorate of Divinity at the Gregorian University.
  
• 1963 - 1976: missionary in India. Lecturer at St. John's major Seminary, Hyderabad.
  
• 1976 - 1982: Vicar General of the Mill Hill Missionaries.
  
• 1983 - now: lecturer at the Missionary Institute London, which is affiliated both to the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium and Middlesex University in London. At present, on sabbatical.
  
• 1982 - now: director of Housetop International Centre for Faith Formation in London.

Publications:

• Academic books
  
• Spirituality for a wider audience
  
• Fiction / books & screen plays
  
• Chapters in Books
  
• Booklets and pamphlets
  
• Articles in magazines and newspapers

Personal Profile: John Wijngaards

If wide knowledge of the Catholic community matters, here it is. Ordained a priest in 1959, John Wijngaards graduated at the Biblical Institute and gained a doctorate at the Gregorian University in Rome, worked as a missionary in India for 14 years, and held world-wide responsibilities as the Vicar general of the Mill Hill Missionaries from 1976 - 1982. Then, as the director of Housetop, he designed courses for adult faith formation that are used in all continents. Over the decades he has also become one of the most outspoken campaigners for women priests in the Catholic Church. In 1998 he resigned from his priestly ministry in protest against Rome virtually excommunicating proponents of women priests in Ad Tuendam Fidem.

John maintains that Rome's arguments against the ordination of women are untenable from a scriptural and theological point of view. As a scholar he painstakingly dismantles the traditional objections in his books and through his renowned web site www.womenpriests.org [that's us!] At the same time he believes that it is not so much an academic discussion as the groundswell of a new awareness in the church that will turn the tide. The "Catholic sense" will win through, as it did when slavery and other abuses were finally disowned by the Church.

John is a born communicator. Apart from his scholarly publications, he has 15 popular theological and spiritual books to his name, among them the best selling

• Experiencing Jesus
  
• Inheriting the Master's Cloak
  
• God Within Us
  
• How to make Sense of God.

He wrote scripts for videos and TV programmes, winning awards with Journey to the Centre of Love and Respecting God's Image. His series of articles in The Tablet, the National Catholic Reporter and other publications are keeping the international discussion on women priests alive.

For more information about Dr. Wijngaards, see here: http://www.womenpriests.org/wijnga~1/index.asp

Woman: Always the Bride
- from The Papal No by Deborah Halter

Pope John Paul II wrote this apostolic letter, Mulieris Dignitatem (On the Dignity and Vocation of Women) in response to the 1987 World Synod of Catholic Bishops which highlighted the role of women in the church. That meeting again revealed that women’s concerns about their roles in the church were not limited to Catholics in the United Sates or even in the West, but constituted a world wide issue. Accordingly, Mulieris Dignitatem made a broad sweep of church teachings about women.

In this document, John Paul II made perhaps the strongest statement yet on the worth of women. Referencing Ephesians 5: 22-23, he said that out of reverence to Christ, the exhortation "Wives, be subject to your husbands" was to be carried out not as subjection of wife to husband but as ‘mutual subjection" of spouses to each other. Yet he could not escape his conviction that women’s worth lay in the roles of virgin and mother, after the example of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Motherhood and virginity were "two dimensions of women’s vacation." The exclusion of women from priesthood could no longer be on account of their inferiority, as Aquinas and others had taught, but because of their differences from men, for which Christ himself had excluded them from priesthood.

This logic was unacceptable to many Catholics. Gail Grossman Freyne, a women’s studies researcher at University College Dublin, wrote:

Women do not ask for, they do not want, a ‘special nature’ if their nature excludes them from the possibility of full participation in the life of the church.

- Halter, Deborah, The Papal No: A Comprehensive Guide to the Vatican's Rejection of Women's Ordination, New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2004, p 76.

Christian Anthropology
- from  The Papal No: A Comprehensive Guide to the Vatican's Rejection of Women's Ordination by Deborah Halter.
 
"Christian anthropology" – according to the Vatican – is a creation-based understanding of divinely inspired sex roles in church, society, and the family. The notion had been articulated in Gaudium et Spes (The Church in the Modern World, 1965):

Adam, the first man, was a type of him who was to come, Christ the Lord. [Christ] who is the ‘image of the invisible God’ is himself the perfect man who has restored in the children of Adam that likeness to God which had been disfigured ever since the first sin.

Eve was absent from the equation because she was not the ‘type’ (sex) of Jesus. This Christian (or theological) anthropology would provide the basis for much of John Paul II’s later writings on women’s ordination.

The pope presented his ideas in two fundamental but broad categories: anthropology and biblical history, interconnecting both with the ‘bridegroom/bride’ symbolism that Paul VI had presented so forcefully in Inter Insigniores. According to John Paul II in Mulieris Dignitatem, the image in Ephesians (5:25-32) of Christ as bridegroom expressed the ‘nuptial analogy’:

... the truth about the Church as the bride of Christ, and also indicates how this truth is rooted in biblical reality of the creation of the human being as male and female. In the Church every human being – male or female – is the "Bride," in that he or she accepts the gift of love of Christ the Redeemer, and seeks to respond to it with the gift of his or her own person.

This literal application of the nuptial analogy stressed that both women and men were the ‘bride’ (church.) "In this way, being the ‘bride,’ and thus the ‘feminine’ element" was a "symbol of all that is ‘human’ according to the words of Paul: ‘There is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’" As "bride," or church, males were ‘all that is human" – male and female. But only men could be ‘bridegroom’ (Christ), because the role could be filled only by a male. This duality echoed Augustine and centuries of dualistic thinking: males were complete beings unto themselves, but by themselves, women were incomplete.

- Halter, Deborah,  The Papal No: A Comprehensive Guide to the Vatican's Rejection of Women's Ordination, New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2004, pp 77-78.

continuing from The Papal No:
 
The "great mystery" – in which the bride/church responded to the "gift of love: from the bridegroom/priest – defined the holiness to which the church’s "hierarchical structure is totally ordered." That is, the bridegroom (Jesus/priests) both offered and was the gift; the bride (church), being female, was to receive and respond to the bridegroom.

In this hierarchy, wrote John Paul II, "it is precisely ‘the woman,’ Mary of Nazareth, who is the ‘figure of the Church: – female and passive (receivers.) The man, Jesus, was the figure of the priest, male and active (giver). For this reason, the Catholic Church could never be called ‘he.’ The (active)prest was to the (receptive) church what the bridegroom was to the bride, putting the spiritual community in a literal relationship with biology. The pope did not address the prickly logical consequence of Jesus being a "bridegroom" to his mother, a "bride."

This concretization of the bridegroom/bride metaphor contained an internal contradiction that critics were quick, to point out as did religion writer Peter Steinfels:

Complementarity of the sexes...might be said to require both men and women as priests rather than limit priesthood to one sex. [Instead] of delineating male-female difference, spousal imagery might simply stress an intimacy, union and interdependence in divine–human love that would be incongruous with excluding one sex from priesthood.

According to the concept of complementarity, if men could be both bridegroom (priest) and bride (church member), then women should be both bride and bridegroom. Anything less would break apart the complementarity between male and female. That is, with the altar as an axis for the law of complementarity, Rome violated that law by putting males on both sides of the altar. In its insistence upon natural law and heterosexual complementarity within a ‘nuptial; arrangement, the Vatican had also created and maintained a homosexual one. The only way around this state of affairs was to declare the Church, including its male members, to be a woman.

- Halter, Deborah,  The Papal No: A Comprehensive Guide to the Vatican's Rejection of Women's Ordination, New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2004, pp 78.
 

continuing from The Papal No:
 
At the heart of this difficulty, wrote theologian Richard Viladesau, was the fact that the pope’s argument attempted to draw specific, concrete conclusions from a melange of metaphors. "When any single metaphor becomes so dominant as to be exclusive," he said there is a risk of ‘absolutizing certain aspects" of the human-divine relationship, in which case "the transcendence of God is compromised by anthropomorphism," or assigning human shape and characteristics to the divine. Once it was acknowledged that "the spousal analogy is simply a metaphor," and not the only possible one, the rationale lost its force: "Why should this metaphor, in which there is a sexual element, be determinative for office in the church?"

Two weeks after releasing Mulieris Dignitatem, John Paul II told a group of US bishops that "in dealing with the specific rights of women as women, it was necessary to return again and again to the immutable basis of Christian anthropology" found in the story of Adam and Eve. "Whatever violates the complementarity of women and men," he said, "offends the dignity of both women and men." He frequently referred to Eve as having been created from Adam as a ‘helpmate’ for him, according to the second creation story found in Genesis 2: 18-25, in which woman was created from man’s rib because the man was lonely. The pope virtually ignored Genesis 1: 26-27, in which the two sexes were created together in God’s image. In Mulieris Dignitatem, he maintained that true Christian feminism (which he did not define) derived from both accounts, in which there was no essential contradiction, although his teaching on ordination pointed virtually exclusively to the ‘rib’ account.

- Halter, Deborah, The Papal No: A Comprehensive Guide to the Vatican's Rejection of Women's Ordination, New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2004, pp 78-79.

continuing from The Papal No:
 
John Paul II wrote that woman formed "a life’s companion with whom...the man can unite himself," clearly indicating his conviction that woman’s role was defined by her relationship to man. Further, he observed that woman was "the only creature on earth which God willed for its own sake." This enigmatic claim echoed and was explained by Hans Urs von Balthasar, who said woman "has nothing to represent which she is not herself, while the male must represent the Origin of all life, which he can never be." That is, gender difference:

assigns to the woman, not representation, but being; and to the man the task to represent, making him more, and at the same time less, than himself. As far as he is more, he is the ‘head’ of the woman, and in the Christian context he is the mediator of God’s gifts. As far as he is less, however, he is dependent on woman as nurturing shelter and model of completion.

Balthasar believed that any discussion of essential gender differences would have to "center on Christ as male" and be in the context of the eucharist, where Christ – complete as an individual beyond any sexual connotation – made himself into ‘God’s seed.’ In other words, the male priest (‘complete as an individual’) transcended his gender (‘sexual connotation’) and became the child (‘seed’) of God. Only an all male priesthood could participate ‘in this all-sexuality-transcending male fertility,’ a concept Balthasar admitted was ‘very difficult to formulate’ and could only be ‘hinted at.’ If this truth could be ‘fully brought to light,’ however, ‘the previously latent inferiority of the man in relation to the woman [could] somehow be overcome.

This was an astounding claim to make in the late twentieth century: the male priest could somehow transcend his sex and overcome his inability to be a woman, ‘the privileged place where God is able and willing to be received into this world.’ Balthasar ended his lengthy reflection with a remarkable conclusion about male priesthood:

What little we are able to catch and form into stammering words, show us that this tradition is justified and immune to changes of time and opinion (including opinion at the proper role of the sexes.)

In Mulieris Dignitatem, John Paul II further wrote that God was spirit and possessed "no property typical of the body, neither ‘feminine’ nor ‘masculine.’" According to biblical revelation, "while man’s ‘likeness’ to God is true, the ‘non-likeness’which separates the whole of creation from the Creator is still more essentially true." It is difficult to reconcile this statement with his conviction that maleness-as-likeness to Jesus was more essential to priesthood than humanness-as likeness.

- Halter, Deborah, The Papal No: A Comprehensive Guide to the Vatican's Rejection of Women's Ordination, New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2004, pp 79-80.

ORIGINAL: Sophie

continuing from The Papal No:

In Mulieris Dignitatem, John Paul II further wrote that God was spirit and possessed "no property typical of the body, neither ‘feminine’ nor ‘masculine.’" According to biblical revelation, "while man’s ‘likeness’ to God is true, the ‘non-likeness’which separates the whole of creation from the Creator is still more essentially true." It is difficult to reconcile this statement with his conviction that maleness-as-likeness to Jesus was more essential to priesthood than humanness-as likeness.

-

 
What this seems to be saying is that we can only recognize a man’s ‘likeness’ to God as true, because God became a man and not a woman.
 
This is insulting to women. A woman’s likeness to God is also true and God does not have to be manifest as a woman to prove it.
 
The proof is in the soul. Both male and female are made in the image and likeness of God. We are complete human beings, distinct in our sexuality, each possessing intellect, wisdom and the ability to love and be loved.
 
When we see two people in love, one thing we might instinctively say is “they were made for each other.” We don’t say “well she was made for him but he stands alone as a symbol of both male and female.” In using the masculine form of a word in a generic sense, JPII seems to confuse the limitation of language with the reality of our likeness to God.
 
A woman represents God every bit as much as a man. Whether they stand separately unmarried or together in marriage the reflection of God’s likeness is neither enhanced nor diminished, for both man and woman are equally made in God’s image.
 
And because we are equally made in God’s image, we each have a responsibility to conduct our lives in a way that will honor and glorify that image. We are required to build our character to reflect the Word of God (Jesus Christ). We are required to be perfect as our Creator (who is both Father and Mother) is perfect. There is no distinction for male and female here. The responsibilities are the same because the equality in the creation of man and woman is the same. There is no double standard with God. So if we are to truly reflect God’s likeness, there must be no double standard in the Church either and we can start by including women in sacrament of Holy Orders.
 

The argument is no longer based on inferiority but instead on gender. Because Christ was male, the female body is incapable of representing Christ.

 
This 'new' idea from the Vatican is extremely troubling.  It is a blow to the heart of the very thing that Jesus taught in Matthew 25:  Christ is in the face of every person who suffers -- woman, man and child.  Mother Teresa spoke about this frequently. She saw the face of Christ in every person that she met -- woman, man, rich, poor, hindu, moslem, christian, jew...
 
When it tries to teach that the female body cannot image Christ, the Vatican is sinking to a low level of fundamentalist literalism that lacks the integrity of Christ.  This is not pursuit of the Truth.   Instead, it is the product of defensivemess that is shamefully refusing to acknowledge Truth.  It is a shameful and embarrassing attempt to try to defend an almost 2,000 year old wrong.
 
It is disappointing that there aren't more signs of willingness to step up to the plate to do what's right. It is hurtful to hear critics condemn those who speak up for Truth as being angry, power hungry women who refuse to accept their place.
 
Why the condemnation of the women?  Why aren't questions being asked about those who hold the reigns of power and so staunchly refuse to welcome women in? Why don't they want to share?  Why do they insist that only men can be in God's house? What are they are afraid of? What is it that they don't want to let go of?
 
Who really are the power hungry ones? Why aren't those in power willing to welcome in all God's gifts?  Why are they insisting that some talents must be buried in the ground?
 
Hmmm...speaking of talents buried in the ground.  What was it that Jesus said about that? ....somewhere in Matthew 25...
 
pondering all this,
Therese   

  The fundamental fault with this "not new' "men only priests" put out by the Vatican is that Jesus NEVER taught that only men represent him or that only men image God.
 
The "bridegroom" as Jesus, the "church as bride" is an INVENTION of the Roman hierarchy NOT of Jesus.
 
It can not be upheld and is a bizarre and odd notion faulty and destructive, and must be discarded and shown for the distortion and error that it is.
 
Jesus is not our lover or husband and we as Catholic laity do NOT marry the Son of God, and do NOT marry the priest or marry God as "spouse".. 
 
The boys and girls and men and women of our church are NOT the lovers or "brides" of Jesus.
 
This is a bizarre homoerotic perversion of Christianity NOT taught by Jesus.
 
Jesus teaches the equality of women and men as true Daughters and Sons of God.  Jesus is our Saviour, our Lord, our Divine Brother, One with Our Divine Parent, God, who is both Male AND Female, both sexes image God. 
 
Thus women too image Christ and are Daughters of God too.  None of us "marry" Christ.  None of us are "brides" of God other than Virgin Mary.  Women too are priests and deacons of God and Paul shows many women in this role, women equal to men apostles and warmly praised by Jesus and Paul.  St. Peter also tells us of the new equality in service to God of women.
 
 
No sexual discriminations and no gender restrictions come from Jesus who is NOT our "bridegroom' and we do NOT marry God or our priest, as our priest too is Not "bridegroom" marrying our boys and girls and men or marrying Jesus in the mass.  Ordain women and end this corrupt perversion of what the church really is.

  Jesus and Paul and Peter teach us that Priests are "Humble Servants  OF God".
 
Priests are NOT "bridegrooms"  Jesus washes the feet of his thick headed disciples to show them "Service" and "Humility"  "All Equal"
 
Priests are NOT "brides" of Christ either, marrying him and being Jesus's "Lovers"   This is NOT what Jesus teaches or what Peter or Paul teach.
 
"Humble servant of God"  "Serve one another with humility, all have the same feeling and action, do not rule over anyone."  Jesus taught no one is the dominant leader and Peter confirms this.  All are humble servants of God to be a priest.
 
Women are NOT excluded or silenced or shunned from this role by Jesus or Paul or Peter.
 
No one plays the "bride" or "bridegroom" here.  That is NOT priesthood at all.  The mass is not a sex wedding ceremony.  The body and blood of Jesus is spiritual nourishment from the Son of God and we become daughters and sons of God too,  We do not become the wives of Jesus or God.  My husband and son do not become the wife, or spuse of Jesus or God, they become the son of God through the sacrafice of Jesus and the invitation by God, Jesus is the servant Son  of God not God's  "bridegroom".
 
MOTHERS and married WOMEN are welcomed by Jesus and Chosen by Jesus to be his disciples, apostles, priests, prophets, preachers, anointers, church leaders, missionaries so Jesus does not ever say no to women or exclude or silence women who Jesus invites to Witness his Resurrection to all the Community, to Preach Outloud with his blessing and approval to all the community  (Samaritan woman)  and Paul praises women too for preaching outloud to all the assembly.  Hierachy defies Jesus and Paul and Peter by silencing and restricting and excluding women from being priests and deacons.
 
 
 

  It is the denouncement and belittling and suppression of male-female sexuality by the Vatican, its thorough distaste and disregard for married male-female sexuality that has led to this wierd and errorneous perversion of what priesthood is.
 
  The all male clergy suppress and shun women and devalue the sexuality of women and marriage between men and women.
 
 Jesus never shunned or excluded women and had no disregard or distaste for women and their sexuality, the adultress, the hemorraging woman, the Phoenician mother, the Samaritan woman.
 
   The malew3 clerics  celibrate and value only the otherworldy "perpetual Virgin-Mother paradox" of the woman no earthly woman can ever be as the sole good woman.  The non threat  as Virgin Mary is absolutely unique and unworldly woman .
 
  These male clerics are certainly not "bridegrooms" at all and consider male-female sexuality as  repellant whose only value as mother  is to provide more  male priests for their group.
 
They make this clear demanding women be silent and be mothers.  That's it., women be quiet and be mothers and give us money for our all male clergy club.  No women allowed.

  Excommunications Done By Vatican
 
My church does not excommunicate convicted priest pedophiles who abuse hundreds of children. 
 
My church excommunicates or removes from priesthood priests who marry women or who support marriage of priests to women or who profess love for women.  These priests get excommunicated or removed from priesthood.
 
Clearly the Vatican sees women as beneath contempt and marriage  of men-women as disgusting and vile.  Male-female sexuality is abhorrent to Vatican yet pedophilia by its priests is really to them not so horrible as male-female marriage or love of women by male priests.

Bridegroom NOT the Metaphor for Priesthood.  Good Shepherd is Priest Metaphor    1 Peter 5
 
  "verse 1, chapter 5 " I appeal to you to be shepherds of the flock that God gave to you and to take care of it willingly, as God wants you to, and not unwillingly.  Do your work, not for mere pay, but from a real desire to serve.  Do not try to rule over those who have been put in your care, but be examples to the flock.  And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the glorious crown that will never lose its brightness. 
 
  All of you must put on the apron of humility, to serve one another; for the scripture says "God resists the proud, but shows favour to the humble". 
 
  The Good Shepherd is the priest metaphor, humble service and NOT "bridegroom".  Do not rule over anyone, equality and humble service is the role of priest, again not bridegroom or superior male/inferior woman role either.