So my girl, Josephine (who you all will get a nice intro to next week as a “guest” contributor (that means permanent, but don’t tell her I said that); Josie to the homies, sent along this little bit of information in an email she entitled “yet another reason I no longer attend Catholic Church…”
“VATICAN WILL EXCOMMUNICATE WOMEN PRIESTS The Vatican issued its most explicit decree so far against the ordination of female priests on Thursday, punishing them and the bishops who try to ordain them with automatic excommunication. The decree was written by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and published in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, giving it immediate effect. A Vatican spokesman said the decree made the church’s existing ban on female priests more explicit by clarifying that excommunication would follow all such ordinations. ”
Translation: “We still cannot tollerate, accept, stand in the presense of, or humble ourselves to the innate power of the woman, as sacred as she is.”
Did I stutter? You heard me.
Sacred.
Powerful.
Always have been, always will be.
I would have to agree, this is yet another reason why I too, no longer attend Catholic church…sorry grandma.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24878944/from/ET/
Then don’t be Catholic. Catholics have rules, and those that can’t follow them are Protastant. It seems simple to me. If the Holy Spirit wants women priests, then it will happen. If he doesn’t, well it wont or hasn’t happened.
Heidi
Those that “can’t follow the rules” are Protastant? Rediculous. Absurd. Borderline stupid comment, but I’ll let it stay for now.
Oh and trust, I am not Catholic.
Sure as hell am not Protastant either.
*giggle* Nicely said..
If the holy spirit wanted…so that’s why things happen? the holy spirity wanted slavery then, by that rationale.
The holy spirit wanted Bush’s illegal war.
The holy spirit wanted the quake in China.
The holy spirit wanted Elisabeth Fritzl to be tortured for 24 years.
The holy spirit wanted Dr. King and Malcolm X, JFK and RFK shot and killed…
The holy spirit wanted lynching.
Let me tell you something. The god of the slave owner is not the god of the slave. Yet ANOTHER reason I am not catholic.
It’s called FREE will.
P.S. I guess ththe holy spirit also wanted hundreds of catholic priest to rape and molest children around the world too, right?
This is not the blog for rhetorical religious bullshit.
I am posting this comment from Rebekah. Sorry that it was deleted!
Comment:
I agree 100% that religion has never been good for women. Which is why I, myself am an atheist. However, what I don’t understand is women who insist on forcing change on patriarchal religion and value system. Why not abandon it all together and create your own? Women need to realize the power they have – which is why men did everything they could to supress & control it in the first place – on their terms. All women have to do is set up their own religions and make their own agendas seperately. When churches don’t have any women in the pews, you don’t have a church as women do all of the unpaid grunt work. If women aren’t present and don’t indoctrinate their offspring, men will look elsewhere and the church will eventually disolve. Guess where men want to be? Where the women are. Women, it is easier to take over the world than you think. Women try to play by male rules that apply only to male ideology. Women won’t balance the scales that way. Women need to do things their
own way. Don’t pigeon hole yourselves to these religions that view you as necessary but secondary. Start your own religion. Make it inclusive and be a shining example of it’s faith & doctrine. Folks, no religion/church has that going for it.
Rebekah–I’m going to make a wild guess as to why women do not found alternate religious dynasties. I’ll bet you know it, too, but like me find it unacceptable.
Fundamentally–and I like to go back through evolution for my fundamentals–survival of the species relied on a woman’s (a) attracting a man, and (b) holding a man until the child she bore was of an age to be safe without a man’s protection. We see the sequelae today in the form of women holding onto bad relationships beyond reason, and in the alternative, women cleaving to men regardless of their behavior or baggage and turning on other women who once were or might become significant to him. A divorced woman has no worse enemy than her former husband’s wife, and may have no closer friend than her former husband’s next ex-wife–the same person.
The cooperative dynamic among women creates the illusion of sisterhood, of women bonding for a common end. But sisterhood is a myth. The women on whom one can rely are primarily blood relatives, and then it is not unusual for sisters or cousins to break from each other over a man.
Even a moment’s scrutiny reveals, for example, that the woman slaving in the church basement to organize and operate a potluck dinner is acting not as a sister to the other churchwomen alongside of whom she labors, but as a wife and mother assuring her family’s position within the relative physical safety and economic security of the tribe. Her two imperatives are to hold a man for economic security, and to hold a place in the group where she can depend on a group of men for physical safety.
Male interdynamics, on the other hand, are hierarchical. They will establish a pecking order. No matter how powerfully a woman may oversee other women and keep them in line, as soon as the men appear, her position in the group will be the position achieved by her husband.
The primitive instinct to establish hierarchy well suits men to assume leadership positions in the tribe–women aren’t, in general, poised to fight for them. And then, when they finally look around, power and wealth have already been locked down and there is little left for them. Between the interaction patterns and the strong right arm, man continues to rule.
Now, I know times are different, situations are different, more women live without regular men, more organizations are headed by women (largely, if you look closely, more organizations men don’t care about heading,or than can’t go far without their consent or assistance). Every one of us knows examples that don’t comport with this analysis, but anecdotal evidence cannot convince. Except as a competing analysis, dispute is meaningless (not just here, but generally).
I look forward to hearing your (the readers’) alternate analyses, especially those that give a more optimistic view than mine of women’s future roles.
“If the Holy Spirit wants…”
oh god save me from the priests. honestly. whenever we have great souls come to the earth, bring a message of universal truth, then leave, their so-called disciples inevitably establish a new pecking order and grant themselves the exclusive right to interpret the words of the great soul. of course some MAY have good intentions, but they create this exclusivity in order to maintain their institutional survival and create a new elite i.e., them. worst of all, the basis of their being elite is a matter which cannot in itself be proven and which relies on circular arguments in order to perpetuate itself, and concerns itself with what humanity doesn’t know but feels compelled to know, even second hand.
“it is the will of god.”
“how do you know?”
“the bible says so.”
“what, the bible is the entire word of god?”
“yes.”
“but isn’t god omnipotent, omniscient and ever eternal, way too powerful to ever be comprehended by mere humans?”
“well, it is the will of god that all humanity must know of god is in the bible.”
“so the bible is the word of the will of god because god willed the bible to the the final word on his will, and the bible says this is so?”
“yes.”
“you do realize you went around in a circle there?”
“DIE HEATHEN!!!”
…. sucks to live in a country that’s 80% roman catholic.
If I may, on that survival of the species thing;
evolutionary biology has proven that it is the FEMALE of the species that actually makes a choice in who to mate with. this is in ANY species. You’ll note through the animal kingdom that it is the males who are more ornate, colored, fancy. this is to show off how good their genes are. the female makes the choice on which male she will choose. the male is basically a sperm donor, nothing more, nothing less.
in fact, evolutionary biology will show you that pair bonding occurs because the male of species that do pair bond want to ensure the survival of their genes into the next generation. after all, it’s a wild world out there, and there’s always the chance that the female might find another male who seem to have superior genes, which makes some males possessive of their females, because should the female choose the other male, the first male’s genes will likely not survive into the next generation.
so you see, popular theory is incorrect. it’s not that a woman attracts a guy to ensure the safety of her offspring, it’s actually mutual. they BOTH want their genes to pass into the next generation, AND they want the best genes they can find. in the human world, aside from looks indicating genetic quality, since humans have arguably evolved more, there are more things that appear to indicate good genes, such as breeding, money, status and the like.
the problem is, humanity has an advanced frontal cortex that it often doesn’t put to good use.