Some very unfortunately misguided women are getting excommunicated for claiming to be "priests." So what's the big deal? Given today's very misinformed media there'll be a very large number of very misguided people who'll be led to think the Pope and Magisterium is being very mean.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL2986418520080529?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&sp=true
(Well, they weren't taken to the stake!)
Vatican says will excommunicate women priests
By Phil Stewart
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican issued its most explicit decree so far against the ordination of women 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 women priests more explicit by clarifying that excommunication would follow all such ordinations.
Excommunication forbids those affected from receiving the sacraments or sharing in acts of public worship.
Okay, so what's the big deal? Well. Welcome to counterpoint time with no less than the former editor Thomas Reese, SJ, who was rather quickly canned from his job from the Jesuit-run America magazine. Rest assured, Reese isn't the same kind of Jesuit as Pope Benedict's friend, another American Jesuit named Fr. Joseph Fessio. Far from it. So, I guess we can smell the whiff of some sour grapes in Reese's rather snooty "assessment."
Rev. Tom Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University, said he thought the decree was meant to send a warning to the growing number of Catholics who favor admitting women to the priesthood.
"I think the reason they're doing this is that they've realized there is more and more support among Catholics for ordaining women, and they want to make clear that this is a no-no," Reese said.
Does he really think the Vatican's that scared?  Or is that what he's trying to create; an image of a scared Vatican in order to create a straw stampede towards achieving what could in the long become a very real ugly reality if this occurs?
If wishes were horses, the people this ex-editor's cheekily supporting would ride them like a thoroughbred in the Belmont Stakes! Put your money on the Pope's horse. It hasn't lost in 2,000 races. 
No wonder Reese got fired. He wouldn't even make a good bookie. 
There's more to this, but I just wanted to give you the best "newsy" stuff.
Last edited on Fri May 30th, 2008 03:50 pm by Steven Barrett
____________________
For anybody interested in reading commentary from a Catholic's socially conservative/fiscally liberal viewpoint, go to my new blog at http://www.politicsramble.com/ .
|
