4-1. Women 'Priests' a Heresy...

 

4-1. Women 'Priests' a Heresy...

 

“Already We hear you clamor for the ordination of woman. No woman shall stand in My House to represent Me! How dare you bring in this heresy to My House! I shall go among you and I shall sling you out from My temples!”

- The Bayside Prophecies

Jesus, December 27, 1975

 

“In the Holy Sacrifice that I left with you, I did not ask for women to be upon the altar, nor try to be a high priestess. They carry this on in the churches of satan; therefore, it shall not be carried on in My Church.

“When I had the Last Supper with the Apostles, My Mother was not present. If I had it in My power from the Eternal Father to make a priestess, I would surely have chosen My Mother; but, no, there were no women present at the first Dedication.”

- The Bayside Prophecies

Jesus, October 2, 1987

 

 

Understanding the Church's teaching

 

According to a poll cited in Newsweek (April 1, 2002), 64% of Catholics in the United States support the ordination of women, despite a definitive ruling from the Church to the contrary. From this poll it is apparent that Catholics are: (1) abysmally ignorant of their Faith and/or (2) in open rebellion to the Vicar of Christ's Church, Pope John Paul II.

 

Concerning a male-only priesthood, the Church declared in 1976 that "the fact of conferring priestly ordination only on men, it is a question of an unbroken tradition throughout the history of the Church, universal in the East and in the West, and alert to repress abuses immediately. This norm, based on Christ's example, has been and is still observed because it is considered to conform to God's plan for his Church" (Declaration on the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood, CDF, October 15, 1976, #4). The same document goes on to say that "The Catholic Church has never felt that priestly or episcopal ordination can be validly conferred on women. A few heretical sects in the first centuries, especially Gnostic ones, entrusted the exercise of the priestly ministry to women: this innovation was immediately noted and condemned by the Fathers, who considered it as unacceptable in the Church." (#1)

 

As noted by Fr. Vincent Miceli, S.J. in his book, Women Priests and Other Fantasies: "The only begotten Son of the Father took on a physical particular human nature from Mary. That nature is male. He chose, ordained and sent out as his successors in the priesthood Apostles, all men. The Catholic Church, following the will and example of her Divine Founder, in a constant, clear, irreversible tradition, has chosen only men successors to these Apostles; every priest and bishop chosen by her for 2,000 years has been a man, representing and serving mankind before God." (Miceli, p. 9)

 

 

Ordination is not a right

 

Those clamoring for women’s ordination not only err regarding Church doctrine, they also fail to understand that ordination is a gift, not a right. The 1976 Vatican document is clear: "The priesthood is not conferred for the honor or advantage of the recipient, but for the service of God and the Church; it is the object of a specific and totally gratuitous vocation: "You did not choose me, no, I chose you, and I commissioned you. . . " (Jn 15:16; cf. Heb 5:4)." (Declaration, #6)

 

Fr. Miceli likewise refutes the error of considering ordination as a “right”:

 

"Changing God's plan to call woman priest and bishop can never be a matter of personal rights, human justice and equality. No one has any rights before God. And no one has a right to be a priest. The priesthood is not a profession left to one's option; it is a vocation freely bestowed by God and ratified by His Church." (Miceli, p. 10)

 

 

Liberation?

 

A common element can be seen in many of those agitating for women’s ordination. There are those in the Church striving for change and revolution because they themselves are troubled people. Within themselves, there is a revolution going on: an interior revolution of rage, power-seeking, a rejection of the cross of Christ, a contempt for God-given authority.

 

The lie put forward is that denying women ordination is based on discrimination, not doctrine. As Fr. Miceli points out, "... the non-ordination of women to the priesthood has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with an 'inferiority' man or women can imagine or concoct, no matter how plausible or pleasing the face of this falsehood may appear." (Miceli, p. 3)

 

More can be understood of the women’s ordination debate from the words of Robert Bork, "The radical feminist branch of modern liberalism ... sees all male-female interactions, including marriage, as power relationships--a view that does not do a lot of good for marriages and families." (Robert H. Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline, p. 29)

 

The radical feminists grasping for power in the Church also has an explanation. Stanley Rothman (professor of government at Smith College) and his colleagues, “in a series of studies of student and adult radicals, found that 'rather than exhibiting the liberating themes, both radical adults and students exhibit marked narcissism and enhanced needs for power.' (American Elites, chapter 8). They also showed a higher fear of power than traditionals or nonradicals." (Bork, p. 25)

 

One theologian who has received an excommunication for holding to the error of women’s ordination (among other heretical beliefs), Father Tissa Balasuriya of Sri Lanka, who wrote a book in 1990 titled, Mary and Human Liberation, in which he called for the ordination of women. The Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) investigated his writings and found them heretical. They forwarded to him a profession of faith in November 1995, in which he was asked to confirm his beliefs in: the necessity of baptism for salvation, the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the bodily Assumption of Mary to heaven, original sin, etc. The media reported that the statement included a sentence stating that: "The Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women." He declined to sign the declaration, and instead signed a different text. The CDF asked again in June 1996 that he sign the original statement; he refused. The Congregation decided to excommunicate him, but did not act on that ruling because Father Balasuriya had appealed his case to Pope John Paul II. On January 2, 1997, Pope John Paul II upheld the excommunication.

 

 

Not even Our Lady was chosen

 

The fact that no women have been ordained for 2,000 years in the Catholic Church, as well as the fact that none of the Apostles chosen by Christ were women, should make anyone think. The 1976 Vatican declaration states, "Jesus Christ did not call any woman to become part of the Twelve. If he acted in this way, it was not in order to conform to the customs of his time, for his attitude towards women was quite different from that of his milieu, and he deliberately and courageously broke with it." (Declaration, #3) Pope Innocent III wrote at the beginning of the thirteenth century, "Although the Blessed Virgin Mary surpassed in dignity and in excellence all the Apostles, nevertheless it was not to her but to them that the Lord entrusted the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven". [Pope Innocent III, "Epist.," December 11, 1210 to the Bishops of Valencia and Burgos] (Declaration, #2)

 

Tragically, those clamoring for women’s ordination lack any understanding of the complementary roles played by both men and women in the Mystical Body the Christ, the Church: "... the difference of the sexes assigns men and women their places, their graces, their vocations within the Mystical Body. And these are not interchangeable but complementary in the fulfillment of God's plan for the salvation of the human family." (Miceli, p. 16)

 

Some agitators even go so far as to claim that Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, was somehow compelled by the culture of the day to exclude women from His band of Apostles. Jean Galot dispels this error: "It seems that this way of reasoning is not in conformity with the mentality of Jesus. He made no concessions to the prejudices of His contemporaries about the inferiority of women, and He openly and clearly fought against these prejudices, recognizing woman's equality with man on many occasions. Thus He overcame all the conditionings of the environment in which He lived. If Christ reserved the priestly ministry to men, it cannot, therefore, be as a result of these prejudices, but by virtue of a divine plan which desired for the Church the cooperation of men and women in different functions." (L'Osservatore Romano, December 8, 1973)

 

The Church preaches the Gospel in season and out of season; the Church will triumph over all obstacles, maintaining fidelity to its divine Founder. As Fr. Miceli writes, "... it should be remembered that the Church is not called upon to comply with any age in its fashionable prejudices; she is called upon to be faithful to the deposit of the truth possessed by her in her teachings and living traditions. It is not a question of progressive adaptation or reactionary obstinacy to ordain or refuse to ordain women. It is simply a question of obedience or disobedience to God's ordinances revealed in Scripture and the living traditions." (Miceli, p. 18)

 

 

Pagan influences

 

The 1976 Vatican declaration states that "In the Hellenistic world, the cult of a number of pagan divinities was entrusted to priestesses." (Declaration, #3) Calls for women’s ordination indicate that many have conformed themselves to pagan ways of thinking. Fr. Miceli observes that once the sense of the sacred begins to disappear, it is a sure sign of the faithful becoming paganized: "The moment the sense of the sacred diminishes in a people, it is a sure sign that the faithful are becoming secularized, materialized, paganized. For then they have lost an awareness of the presence of God and of His kingdom that descends from above." (Miceli, p. 23)

 

The godless one-world forces are now setting their sights against the Church’s doctrinal position regarding the all-male priesthood. As reported by Zenit.org on March 12, 2002, "The European Parliament on Tuesday is poised to debate a report that condemns the Catholic Church for its moral principles and its position on women priests. The document, written by Spanish Socialist María Izquierdo Rojo, was approved last October by the Women´s Rights Commission and analyzed subsequently by the Citizens´ Liberties and Rights Commission", which are both organs of the European Parliament.

 

 

 

Women "priests": recent history...

 

 

1975 November 30: Pope Paul VI expressed concern that the Church of England was considering female ordination. He wrote a letter to the (Anglican) Archbishop of Canterbury which outlined the Roman Catholic Church teaching. The Church of England finally approved the ordination of women in 1992. Pope Paul VI's letter stated that the Church: "...holds that it is not admissible to ordain women to the priesthood, for very fundamental reasons. These reasons include: the example recorded in the Sacred Scriptures of Christ choosing his Apostles only from among men; the constant practice of the Church, which has imitated Christ in choosing only men; and her living teaching authority which has consistently held that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is in accordance with God's plan for his Church."

 

1976 October 15: The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a statement "on the question of admission of women to the ministerial priesthood." Pope Paul VI "approved this Declaration, confirmed it and ordered its publication." The author noted that a few heretical sects in the first centuries did ordain women, but that this was condemned by the Church Fathers at the time. The Church has consistently maintained the "type of [all-male] ordained ministry willed by the Lord Jesus Christ and carefully maintained by the Apostles." The document also states, "This practice of the Church therefore has a normative character: in the fact of conferring priestly ordination only on men, it is a question of an unbroken tradition throughout the history of the Church, universal in the East and in the West, and alert to repress abuses immediately. This norm, based on Christ's example, has been and is still observed because it is considered to conform to God's plan for his Church."

 

1988 August 15: Pope John Paul II issued an apostolic letter "Mulieris Dignitatem," in which he states: "In calling only men as his Apostles, Christ acted in a completely free and sovereign manner. In doing so, he exercised the same freedom with which, in all his behavior, he emphasized the dignity and the vocation of women, without conforming to the prevailing customs and to the traditions sanctioned by the legislation of the time."

 

1994 May 22: Pope John Paul II issued an "Apostolic Letter on Reserving Priestly Ordination to Men Alone" (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis). The Holy Father declared: "Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church's judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force. Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Luke 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful."

 

1995 October 28: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a statement which said: "... that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women... This teaching requires definitive assent, since, founded on the written Word of God, and from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church., it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium...Thus, in the present circumstances, the Roman Pontiff, exercising his proper office of confirming the brethren (cf. Luke 22:32), has handed on this same teaching by a formal declaration, explicitly stating what is to be held always, everywhere, and by all, as belonging to the deposit of the faith." The following doubt (dubium) was proposed to the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, with the reply (responsum): "Dubium: Whether the teaching that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women, which is presented in the Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis to be held definitively, is to be understood as belonging to the deposit of faith. Responsum: In the affirmative."

 

1997 January 2: Father Tissa Balasuriya of Sri Lanka wrote a book in 1990 titled, "Mary and Human Liberation," in which he called for the ordination of women. The Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) investigated his writings and found them heretical. They forwarded to him a profession of faith in November 1995, in which he was asked to confirm his beliefs in: the necessity of baptism for salvation, the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the bodily Assumption of Mary to heaven, original sin, etc. The media reported that the statement included a sentence stating that: "The Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women." He declined to sign the declaration, and instead signed a different text. The CDF asked again in June 1996 that he sign the original statement; he refused. The Congregation decided to excommunicate him, but did not act on that ruling because Father Balasuriya had appealed his case to Pope John Paul II. On January 2, 1997, Pope John Paul II upheld the excommunication.

 

1997 January 24: A Roman Catholic spokesperson, Bishop Angelo Scola, head of the Lateran University at the Vatican, confirmed the stance of the Church: "The Church does not have the power to modify the practice, uninterrupted for 2000 years, of calling only men to the ministering priesthood, in that this was wanted directly by Jesus."

 

1997: The Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a book which includes a collection of recent Church pronouncements on the female ordination question, along with contemporary scholarly essays supporting their position.

 

1998 May 21: The Pope told a group of bishops from Michigan and Ohio that U.S. bishops must explain to the membership that, in order to be faithful to Christ, the Church cannot ordain women to the priesthood. "The 'genius' of women must be ever more a vital strength of the church of the next millennium, just as it was in the first communities of Christ's disciples... As bishops, you must explain to the faithful why the Church does not have the authority to ordain women to the ministerial priesthood, at the same time making clear why this is not a question of the equality of persons or of their God-given rights... Ordination to the ministerial priesthood can never be claimed by anyone as a right... The priesthood of Holy Orders must be understood theologically, as one form of service in and for the Church... There are many forms of such service, as there are many gifts given by the same Spirit... Christian communities more readily confer a ministerial responsibility on women the further they move away from a sacramental understanding of the Church, the Eucharist and the priesthood."

 

1998 June 30: The Pope issued an Apostolic Letter: "In Order to Defend the Faith." In it, he implemented a number of changes in the Church's canon law. He said that the changes were needed to "defend the faith of the Catholic Church from errors that arise on the part of some faithful..." One change would require that candidates for the office of bishop, theologian or papal collaborator recite a loyalty oath, expressing belief in "divinely revealed truths," and belief in all teachings on faith and morals that have been "definitively proposed by the Church." Some "definite truths" include: the legitimacy of papal elections, the validity of the canonizations of saints, the invalidity of ordinations within the Anglican faith community, the ban on female priests, etc. Candidates must also promise to "adhere with religious submission of will and intellect" to teachings announced by the Pope and college of bishops. Existing prelate, parish priests, theology teachers and religious superiors are also required to follow the oath. This is apparently in response by statements by Roman Catholic theologians who dissent with the Pope on many predominately sexually related topics such as female ordination, married priesthood, artificial methods of birth control, pre-marital sex, etc. Individuals in authority are now subject to many possible punishments, from warnings to excommunication.

 

1999 August 18: Roman Catholic bishops in Australia had commissioned a study into the role of women in the Church, titled: "Woman and Man: One in Christ Jesus.” At the presentation of the report, Cardinal Edward Clancy of Canberra called for careful consideration of the report's recommendations on how the roles of women in the Church could be strengthened. But he rejected a suggestion that ordination of women be discussed: "Far from seeing (women's ordination) as inevitable, I would think the final word has been spoken by this Pope and that no future Pope will reverse it."

 

 

 

“When I had the Last Supper with the Apostles, My Mother was not present. If I had it in My power from the Eternal Father to make a priestess, I would surely have chosen My Mother; but, no, there were no women present at the first Dedication.”

- The Bayside Prophecies

Jesus, October 2, 1987

 

 

 

 

 

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