46 Comments

• jacersagain | Jan 12, 2013, 05:35 AM EST

  God go with eiriamach and her rebellious search. I hope she will have time left in her life to learn what I have learned - that the greatest, most beautiful victory gained by any rebellious or doubting person of God, like I was once, and by all, including self-satisfying atheists and agonistics, is not in rebellion but in submission to the hardness of the Truth of the Loving Christ for both men and women in the roles He (as the Son, His Father in Heaven as Father of all and as the Holy Spirit of Wisdom for all) delegated to each one of us, female and male. The rewards are... erm, out of this world. The other great beautiful recognition I’ve found, and what we all should find is… that no human being’s soul is female or male; thus the need for equality does not exist between anyone of us humans. (I’m out on this topic of ordained women for now, until the next time, if God spares me life to be around tomorrow or next week. If not, there will always plenty of other Catholics around).

• jacersagain | Jan 12, 2013, 05:34 AM EST

  (…more) I totally agree with the last line of the song in Antoinette’s article above… “We want our Church back”. It’s what the original followers of Christ would have shouted and sung for on the global media outlets we know today. The “church” that eiriamach declares herself to be within is not the Church we true Christens want back: in fact her kind of Christian Church never existed at all; it was invented like all the other RCC-protesting churches and well she might bother her rebellious barmy to wake up her rebel self and her gorgeously misled by others “priest-rector” to that un-gorgeous fact. It’s only when you, yourself alone, un-hindered by all kinds of media-speaks out there, keep knocking on the door, through questioning, through inter-personal dialogue and debate and especially through trusting prayer for wisdom to know the differences, that the door will be opened eventually as to why we want our Church back (it was never lost; it’s still there as Christ has promised but it has been certainly been robbed by neo-Christians and false prophets, as warned of by Jesus Himself).

• jacersagain | Jan 12, 2013, 05:21 AM EST

  (…more) Far from being delusional in my faith in the RCC as falsely alleged by eiriamach, my once-shaky dismissive attitude to faith in the RCC or any church has been exceptionally well re-confirmed during my own lone sojourns to the known tombs of the original Apostles, thanks be to the inspiration of the person of Holy Spirit of Wisdom in God’s Holy Trinity (St. Patrick’s Shamrock, anyone? Three separate leaves in one plant, three different embodiments of God in One Entity). Like I said before, I encourage eiramach and others like her to continue to challenge, to question and seek the Truth like I did at much exploring pain. Yes, I re-hashed and re-examined my beliefs and I’ll tell you, in truth it’s painful but hugely worth it. I travelled and I spoke with people in various places of our world. (more…)

• jacersagain | Jan 12, 2013, 05:17 AM EST

  Trust this jacers’ saying that below; it fekkin' happened to him, much to his un-pleasuring of pleasure. These edicts, moral guidance advices etc., issued by Rome and its Bishops are always only issued after deep research by its eminently qualified theologians and others of its members, of the ordained and lay kind, males and females, trained and dedicated questioning studious people in religious, science and secular fields and especially after deep prayerful consideration by the RCC’s various Congregations, Bishops, Cardinals and Pope and their trust in guidance by the Holy Spirit. Contrary to what eiriamach says, the RCC is the world-leader in Ecumenism, with assistance of Greek and other Orthodox Christian Churches in drawing people of differing faiths, that most Protestant churches wouldn’t dare to rub shoulders with, all alongside each other together in prayer to our One God. (More…)

• jacersagain | Jan 12, 2013, 05:14 AM EST

  “Sorry” but, given what I’ve said below, I have to herald that I think our dear (now I’m thinking, not so-“learned”) eiriamach and people like her need to re-hash, re-examine their views of the RCC, particularly her seriously-erroneous belief that it is non-Christian in its faith and in its work, or in its religious edicts and spiritual and moral guidance to all over the world. (So you don’t like or agree them?? That’s ok, I once didn’t either. So… oh oh oh … Ok, imagine you met St. Paul on the road to, erm, to wherever. What would your rebellious dismissive conversation with him be like? G’wan, g’wan!... Imagine it. Feel it like real. Feel it like you know all about everything. Have a good row with him about your ooops-a-daisy thinking. The converted Paul would demolish any arguments or doubts you might have and yet leave you feeling you’ve won the argument and comfortingly tell you that your doubts are worthless. That’s how deep the love of Christ works).

• jacersagain | Jan 12, 2013, 05:05 AM EST

  I believe that the miracle of Transubstantiation also occurs in Greek and other Eastern Orthodox Churches in communion with the See (Seat) of St. Peter in Rome, and in the Coptic Church in Egypt and other countries, and in the Jewish Messianic Churches, in all of which I would be privileged to accept our Christ’s invitation to commune, to be one, with Him. The true power of the True Presence of the transubstantiated Body and Blood of Christ in the consecrated Holy Eucharist has been remarkably exampled in many miracles many times - in Lourdes, for this one example, where, statistically provable, most of the miracles that happened there occurred during the processions of the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist passing by those on the sidelines of the procession who were healed of their afflictions, while fewer of the miracles in Lourdes happened through bathing or washing in the miraculous waters that St. Bernadette found while hand-digging dry earth.

• jacersagain | Jan 11, 2013, 09:40 PM EST

  On some life-experiencing occasions, I subsume myself hand-on-heart to being in communion with members of Protestant Christian churches holding Communion Services when having bread and wine during a meal at home, in a restaurant or out on a picnic in the fresh air of Irish green parklands or its soft-rippling waved lakes and sandy high-wind-waved beaches. I remember Christ’s words in those moments… and silently ask for a spiritual communion with Christ whilst knowing full-well that Transubstantiation has not taken place, that I am not eating the transubstantiated Holy Body of Christ or drinking His Holy Blood, just simply doing something in remembering. I strongly believe however (after much doubting), that I am eating and drinking the Holy Body and Blood of our Christ where the bread and wine is miraculously consecrated by an original line of ordained Priest of Christ, be he a Priest, Bishop, Cardinal or Pope.

• jacersagain | Jan 11, 2013, 09:36 PM EST

  eiriamach confirms that she is a rebellious member of an anti-Roman Catholic Church church (yes, read that again, no mistypo on the double word). Yet, she proclaims, from her few decades of her life experiences, to have all the knowledge needed to tell the RCC - with its 2000-yr old experience and knowledge of its millions of theologians, priests, nuns, miracles and indeed the miracles of its lay-person saints in all that time - what it should do or be doing today. Let’s get Popemess eiriamach’s head sorted out around that. Clearly, she is an RCC-protestant person (no harm in that; as a member of the RCC, I and a not a few other Catholics have protest issues too, none of them anti-sacred). She’s one of the of members (male and female) of thousands of various Protestant Churches in committing the great singular grave mistake of accepting and believing her female “priest-rector” has apostolic succession to perform the miracle of Transubstantiation, delegated, by our Christ alone, to men only (which is the “why” the RCC, Greek and other Orthodox Christian Churches have their hands tied on the issue, unable to change it, despite popular demands by, and respect for, women, something of a choice that, as a modern post-Vatican II Catholic layman, I sincerely regret but have to live with, in its choice to be with unpalatable modern-day “mores”, vis-a-vis Christ’s singular choice of Apostolic delegation at that last supper (how painful that must have been for Him!) he had with them alone. He could have included women in the charge He gave to perform the miracle of “My Body, My Blood” that he gave to His male Apostles if He chose to… but He didn’t. Why? - We’ll never know - but we must truthfully honourably respect and trust in that choice forever, as faithful followers of our Messiah, our Christ.

• Smyrnian | Jan 10, 2013, 12:23 PM EST

  You think maybe its anti-Christian to kill defenseless babies during abortion? Ya think?

• eiriamach | Jan 10, 2013, 10:28 AM EST

  Jacers, you ask (again, and others also ask again and again!) "why would you and your fellow-non-Catholics take so much time to disparagingly comment on matters that don’t concern you?" And I reply, again and again, that the religious institution that will not deal with criticism and that is not open to improving itself (ecclesia semper reformandum) is a dying institution. Not only is it death-driven, but it continues to oppress many with its misguided, UnChrist-like assertions of moral authority. And I say again that you suffer from a common Catholic delusion -- that the Roman Church IS Christianity-- even when we other Christians find the pope's actions and speeches deplorably anti-Christian. In this world, where so many youth are alienated from pursuing a life of the spirit and working with others to improve justice and charity in our communities, Christians are either the Body of Christ working in concert, or a pack of warring factions -- and you would have us the latter! Your replies signal close-mindedness to the insights of other Christians, so I see little hope of Catholics ever cooperating to help prepare for the Kingdom of God on this earth. I am compelled to conclude that you, not I, are the renegade from Christianity, and Christians may never succeed in summoning you to follow the message of the Gospel, which NEVER excludes or tries to drive anyone out of the community of the faithful-- the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic" (yes, the female priest-rector of my church is ordained in apostolic succession) Church.

• jacersagain | Jan 09, 2013, 07:27 PM EST

  (…more) My son went on to say that women, after a great struggle to achieve equality and a right to enter university, were eventually allowed to do so and to graduate, much to the disgruntlement of the colleges’ all-male hierarchies’ displeasure. College-graduating men continued to wear their traditional quarter-segmented berets but women’s berets had a flat board on top… signifying the college hierarchies’ displeasure (symbolising a pat-down on the top of the women’s’ heads and their saying … “Congratulations on your graduation. But! - thus far you shall go and no further!”…. My son also explained that male graduates later discarded the beret to show they could continue to grow tall while women were restricted to being flat-topped. (“Hmmpph!” on that, I’d say!). I wonder how male graduates in America feel about being equated with women wearing their flat-capped berets on their graduation days. Oh, and perhaps I should, in equality and fairness, ask if eiriamach discarded her flat-top cap in line with modern Irish men’s mores (Don’t answer eiriamach! .. you shud know I’m TDP on that!... ah sure sorry… I couldn’t resist it… och ón, no… I couldn’t).

• jacersagain | Jan 09, 2013, 07:24 PM EST

  eiriamach Part Trois - Flat-capped…. I didn’t go to university. I qualified in a specific non-academic professional field, which was not catered for by universities at the time (but now is). But sons of mine did graduate academically from university in Ireland. As most Americans know of the custom of graduation in America, black gowns and flat-capped berets are worn for that wonderful moment celebrating graduation. My sons, like their fellow male graduates, wore only a gown, nothing on their heads. Female fellow-graduates wore a gown and a flat-capped beret. I (iggerant me!) asked my eldest son “Why the difference between the men & women grads dress codes?” He explained that in the earliest days of university colleges, men were the only people in them and that they graduated wearing black gowns and rounded berets (similar to bishop and papal berets except they were elaborately braided into four segments, just like the rounded cap you see (if you bother to notice) beneath the American flat-capped berets). (More…)

• jacersagain | Jan 09, 2013, 07:22 PM EST

  eiriamach Part Ducks - In a coincidental aside related to Antoinette’s article above, a TV programme on Irish TV last Monday night, “Hector Goes… Holy” (which you can google for and watch on RTE Player, part of a TV series in which “Hector Goes... (amongst the pigeons of various hues, so to say)”; next week he’ll be amongst Irish Gypsies (the Traveller Community)), explored the topic of modern thinking amongst Irish priests (Hector is a non-practising baptised Irish Catholic, a Gaelgóir, from Co. Meath). In it, the Bishop of Meath, one of the modernist Bishops of Ireland that I have great respect for, clearly says to Hector that we will never see women priests or married priests (the latter I would disagree with since it is Canon Law, which can be changed, as opposed to Traditional Apostolic Law which can’t be intrinsically changed by humans, including any Pope of the future). Back to flat-caps… (humorous).

• jacersagain | Jan 09, 2013, 07:17 PM EST

  (…more) Like I’ve always said, I respect your ‘learned’ opinions (for that is what they are: opinions, however learned or formed) but I do feel they are not always right or justified within the core of the Catholic Church’s mission for and behalf of Christ and most are certainly rebelliously against Apostolic, Catholic, fully-Christian teaching, which would raise the question as whether you are a Catholic at all, and if you’re not a Catholic, why would you and your fellow-non-Catholics take so much time to disparagingly comment on matters that don’t concern you. But if you are so rebellious, yet capable of great interesting debate on Catholic matters, there must have been a level of some depth of Catholic studies you reached to be so able as to write and argue as well as you do on ICentral (probably elsewhere too) on Catholic matters. Do you, or would you comment on other sites – Protestant, Jewish, Islamic sites in the same rebellious vein? Anything positive you have to say on any such site? There’s none apparent on ICentral.

• jacersagain | Jan 09, 2013, 07:13 PM EST

  eiriamach Part a h-Aon - Apologies to eiriamach, Jan 07, 07.23am. I did forget that post of Apr 30 2011 and I now remember it well for the chuckle it gave me … your saying “… don’t spend a life time working for second place” (i.e. flat-capped; I’ll come back to that)... it still gives me a laugh, not of the disparaging kind, just the notion of the rebellious first-grader young girl asking an innocent question that her class-mates in their innocence laughed at and how she must have felt back then. Maybe your posts, regularly containing extracts from various Vatican II papers, the Bible and other ‘edicts’ (for want of a word) and your clearly feminist anti-Catholic rants led me, and I suppose many others, to believe that you might be a disenchanted or disenfranchised ex-Catholic nun: so, apologies on that again. However, I would think many thousands of novice-nuns, nuns, abbesses, Head-abbesses and Head-nuns (including many now deceased but now also confirmed Holy Saints of the Church would fiercely take issue with you on your insinuation that they are or were being “second-best” in their Catholic vocational lives. (More…)

• jacersagain | Jan 09, 2013, 06:58 PM EST

  Here's something to bring a tear to Smyrnian's eyes... A Catholic's response to The Commentator. The Commentator asks why the Catholic Church is not keeping up with the times. Is s/he so ignorant as to ask such a question?? Does s/he not know that God does not have any ‘time’ - old, new or future? That God is eternal, with no ‘time’ limits or a daily diary, a daily newspaper, a website or a Facebook or Twitter a/c or the latest Adele or One Direction fan page, never mind the latest phone gadget to keep in contact with the Pope? I am one of those who know ‘time’ does not exist, though I know my body does have a limit of human existence. Commentator obviously believes that there’s really, really, really such a thing as 24-hr clock, a 356 day year (how scientists it wrong!... they had to add another bit of "time" to their 'clock' – leap year correction, anyone?) and that there’s no such thing as timelessness. Idiot. Doesn’t s/he know that “Time” was invented by mankind to bring some order to mankind’s world? Does s/he not know that the moon is drifting away from planet earth and that that will change the planet s/he knows for future mankind? What universe is Commentator living within? When will s/he recognise that s/he is infinitely smaller than a speck of sand in all the huge deserts or droplets of water in all the clouds on a small planet within a universe bigger than the self-centred, knows-it-all, speck of his/her lone world? There is no “time” or “times” at all for God to “keep up” with. The core of the Catholic Church and its apostolic teachings doesn’t have any “time” or “times” to “keep up with” either. Get with it, and its truth, please.

• Smyrnian | Jan 09, 2013, 07:59 AM EST

  We haven't had an anti-Catholic headline from Irish Central in a day or two! What's going on? There is sure be one shortly. Their search engines are digging in obscure places even now! Our usual anti-Catholic posters must be in a frenzy, starving for some material! Surely there must be SOMETHING!

• Smyrnian | Jan 07, 2013, 06:33 PM EST

  Cillowen - are you really that low, vile, disrespectful, uneducated and intolerant? Is it possible? I suppose so judging by your last comment. You are a disgrace.

• Will Hamilton | Jan 07, 2013, 04:21 PM EST

  Excellent! I'd always had an idea that when the Vatican iceberg might start to break up it might likely start to splinter in the New World. Them pesky independent over confident Yankees with their new newfangled ideas! The sinister Virgins will slowly come to realise it's the Vatican that's broken away and been left behind. Good riddance!

• The Commentator | Jan 07, 2013, 03:39 PM EST

  HA HA - If that was true she would have inspired him long ago. Unfortunately the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy are not inspired or inspiring; they are self serving, self righteous zealots who do not serve God or live by God's word, they have their own set of rules and maintain they don't answer to anybody. If they were truly men of God, they would have stopped the child abuse instead of perpetuating it by refuting the parents of the raped children, threatening them, moving the priests to new territory to repeat their crimes, denying the abuse when it was publicly exposed, not offering help to the victims, and even further to forcing the victims to court to obtain money because many were damaged to the point that they experienced mental health and physical problems that reduced or prevented them from working or leading productive lives. Although some non victims took advantage of the opportunity to cash in, there are many thousands who took their own lives or died long before the courts could act. I find it hard to believe that God inspired the Popes in days gone by to promote killing and plunder. The marching orders came from the Pope, not God. Put women in charge and the deceitfulness, dishonesty, and degradation of the church will disappear. Time to march for god and goodness, and not continue with the pedophiles and their protectors. The pedophile priests should be sent to prison, identified as child molesters and put in the general population. I'm sure they would enjoy it there.

• SeamusMor | Jan 07, 2013, 02:08 PM EST

  The Catholic Church gets its "marching orders" from above, not as the result of popular opinion. If God wanted women as priests, the the Holy Spirit would inspire the Pope to make that change.

• The Commentator | Jan 07, 2013, 11:14 AM EST

  Why is the Catholic Church not keeping up with the times? Why would anyone believe the scriptures verbatim as written by men who enjoyed superiority over women and children and interpreted the written word as they understood it at the time. Just read the accounts of World War 1 or World War 2 as written by the different nations involved and in some cases it would seem the same war was an entirely different war. I haven't read the accounts of the religious wars but I suspect the writings are very different for the opposing sides. So I believe it is for the different faiths who have used the same stories for the basis of their religion, but ended up with very different policies for their faith. It is not the word of God that has put in place the differing "rules" for the various religions; it is the hierarchy of each faith who have made the rules to suit their interests. Although the Taliban have very strict rules in regard to females and are openly anti female to keep them subservient, the Catholic Church has more deviously kept the females in the church subservient through the development of the nuns. Where in God's word does it actually say the Roman Catholic Church shall make women nuns and their sole purpose is to serve the church in a subservient role? It is the men of the church who enjoy their privileged status and do not want to admit that women are equal. It is time for the parishioners of the Catholic Church around the world to stand up and hold the Vatican and the church hierarchy accountable and insist on equality for women in the church!!!

• cillowen | Jan 07, 2013, 10:26 AM EST

  the altar is ideal for changing her baby's diaper - brilliant.

• eiriamach | Jan 07, 2013, 08:22 AM EST

  From the Vatican II encyclical Gaudiam et Spes (1965): 9. Where they have not yet won it, women claim for themselves an equality with men before the law and in fact.... 28. Respect and love ought to be extended also to those who think or act differently than we do in social, political and *even religious matters*. In fact, the more deeply we come to understand their ways of thinking through such courtesy and love, the more easily will we be able to enter into dialogue with them.... every type of discrimination, whether social or cultural, whether based on sex, race, color, social condition, language or religion, is to be overcome and eradicated as contrary to God's intent. For in truth it must still be regretted that fundamental personal rights are still not being universally honored." Gaudiam et Spes also quotes Psalm 8: "What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals, that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than heavenly beings, and crowned them with glory and honor." To refuse to accept the God-given equal dignity of all humanity-- worse yet to pretend to accept it while excluding some by appeal to spurious "precious differences" of socially constructed gender roles-- is the corporate sin of Catholicism. There's nothing to do about it but finally to repent and change this sinful past.

• eiriamach | Jan 07, 2013, 07:25 AM EST

  Apr 30, 2011, 07:51 PM EDT Jacersagain, Eiriamach has known from an early age that obedience just isn't her cup of tea and, besides, she is a perennial renegade from authority. There's never been any nun material in that combination. Where'd you get such a weird idea? 'Reminds me of a first-grade story of my own. The nun was telling us how wonderful it was to be a priest, that it was the most blessed calling of all, that priests had the highest place in heaven, right next to God himself. Now, I knew very little about priests, but at the age of 6, I'd already learned the Great American Virtue of Competitiveness, and of course I wanted to be the best, so I raised my hand and asked, "Sister, how do I become a priest?" Well, the other children in the class were all giggling and mocking me because I didn't know the first thing, obviously, about priests, and it was a Catholic school. But I paid them no attention because my eyes were riveted on the face of that nun. It took her a few moments to recover her wits when she realized what she had done. Then she said ever so gently, "My dear, you can't be a priest--but you CAN be a nun! Nuns are close to God too!" I could not have put my thoughts into words at that age, but I knew then . . . second place is just fine if that's where you end up, but you don't spend a lifetime working for second place. So, Jacers, there was never any chance of my entering a convent.

• eiriamach | Jan 07, 2013, 07:23 AM EST

  Jacers, how many times have you and others leaped to the absurd conclusion that "it seems you have finally exposed yourself as a former Catholic (nun?) who is now a follower of the Episcopal Churches"? That kind of thinking says a great deal about you--all of it delusional. You are apparently oblivious to the harm done to the self-image of girls and women by archaic -- indeed pre-Christian and pagan -- attitudes toward women enforced within and advocated politically by the Catholic Church. More than a half-century ago, I went through the shock that all young girls experience in Catholicism, and more than a year ago I finally recounted that story for you so that you would STOP leaping to the conclusion that I must have been a nun once. I could never have been an RC nun, and I'll try to recap that story here to remind you of why. I do hope you'll give some thought to the unspoken part of that experience and develop some respect for women who take seriously the Gospel message of equal human worth.

• stanJames | Jan 07, 2013, 02:24 AM EST

  With all the horrible things the german pope has done, you can be sure that he has filled the curia with like minded people. He is an absolutist sexist, gay hating etc etc etc. ............the church has he has most likely configured it will burn itself at the stake before letting women be equal............Find a new church or split off to a real church. in France for example only 5 % of the people go to church any more........the cry for Ireland has to be FREEDOM FROM ROME.

• KMcSinger | Jan 06, 2013, 09:29 PM EST

  God love them, the geekiest video ever! Still, it probably strikes the fear of God into the Catholic hierarchy : )

• Gearoid4 | Jan 06, 2013, 09:00 PM EST

  Jacers beautifully defends the traditional Faith of the Church in relation the nature of the priesthood and and it is superfluous to add anything else.

• pilib04 | Jan 06, 2013, 07:42 PM EST

  Of course women should be priests, bishops, cardinals and even pope. Anything less is an outrage.

• jacersagain | Jan 06, 2013, 05:55 PM EST

  There must be a lesson, for us all to learn and know about, in that fact about Mary. Christian Churches since the time of Christ, including those founded by the original Apostles and by St. Paul and all their followers, have never designated or consecrated women as priests or bishops. Instead, women were, and still are in the RCC, Greek and other Orthodox Christian Churches, revered for the special role they have in our human lives, being followers of Christ like Mary Magdalene, not ones who try to take up the roles given to men alone, by Our Saviour. So, I have to say “sorry about that priestess thing” … like gay “marriage” it will never be a fact of life, however you dress it up or wing and sing it. Instead, cherish the love of God and spread news of that… and you will be Apostles FOR the Risen Christ. Peace be with all.

• bunchesofun | Jan 06, 2013, 05:48 PM EST

  This is the most ridiculous thing I've heard lately. "Don't listen to St. Paul". ??? So they don't believe in the Bible? How can they call themselves Catholic. Stop trying to change our church and just go somewhere that DOES ordain women and we'll both be happy.

• jacersagain | Jan 06, 2013, 05:43 PM EST

  (…more) While Mary did speak and preach to the locals about the Risen Christ, she never performed the miracle of the Holy Eucharist as every priest does at Mass each single day (350,000 Masses every day: that equates to 6 Masses every hour, 1 Mass every ten minutes of yours and my life, in every place on earth, by every race and nationality, using every language all around the world. Swallow that fact). She later spent her time alone in that cave in the beautiful Sainte Baume mountain range for 30 years. Local tradition has it that she was visited by angels each day and elevated by them (yep, physically lifted up, to those who don’t know the meaning, by spiritual beings) to a place above her cave and fed by them with the Body & Blood of her (and our) Christ and that she survived on that feeding alone for 30 years. (Not unusual; a bed-ridden nun in Germany also lived by this feeding).The place on top of the mountain above the cave that she was elevated to daily is today marked by a small church. The locals will tell you that Mary never ever aspired or pretended to be a priestess.

• jacersagain | Jan 06, 2013, 05:37 PM EST

  I enjoyed the video and song; it sounded like someone plagiarised the music of another quietly-bounce-able song that I heard some years ago (was it “Cherish the Love”?). >> I had the privilege to visit St. Mary Magdalene’s cave in the mountain range of Sainte Baume, not far from Marseilles in the south of France some years ago. I alsohad the privilegeto speak with the locals. The local people who live there are fierce defenders of Mary’s legacy in the area. They would tell you that the common perception of Mary being the “Apostle (messenger) OF the Apostles” is totally incorrect. They would tell you she was the Apostle (messenger) TO the Christ-appointed male Apostles after she discovered the empty tomb and saw the Risen Christ, that she was never a priest “per se”. (More…)

• jacersagain | Jan 06, 2013, 05:09 PM EST

  No, eiriamach… watch what you say… women as “Eucharistic Ministers” is totally correct but your determined inference that women were sanctioned by our Messiah, our Christ, to be Eucharistic Priests ordained to execute the daily miracle of the Holy Eucharist is completely off the wall of history. You should well know that…. Our Christ did, however, tell everyone of us to go tell everyone of the Good News. Thanks for the personally enlightening post btw... I stand to be corrected by you but it seems you have finally exposed yourself as a former Catholic (nun?) who is now a follower of the Episcopal Churches. Keep up your questioning eiramach, keep challenging… some day you will find and recognise the truth. On this 6th day of January, the day that our fellow non-Catholic and Orthodox Christians celebrate the visit of the Wise Men (not of the wise women, and certainly not of the angry equality-chasing women) to the temporary home of Mary and Joseph, may I wish you a very happy and holy new year in your search for truth. Right now, as I type this, I have candles burning around my home’s little Chrismas ‘crib’ – a remembrance of whatever happened in Bet Lehem all those years ago. Yours in Sincerity, Jacers with xx).

• eiriamach | Jan 06, 2013, 03:11 PM EST

  We know that early Christian communities had women Eucharistic ministers (priests) based on their understanding of Jesus' intentions, and the pope's opinion on a matter of tradition and discipline is neither infallible nor based in scripture. From its founding after the War of Independence, the Episcopal Church in the USA has been careful to maintain apostolic succession in ordinations. Since 2006 Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has served as the first female Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, USA. Her role makes her also the first female primate in the Anglican Communion. Other female Anglican bishops include Bishop Barbara Harris, consecrated as bishop in 1989 and serving Massachusetts Episcopal Diocese; Bishop Penny Jamieson, New Zealand, since 1990; Bishop Victoria Matthews, suffragen bishop since 1994; Bishop Kay Goldsworthy of Perth, Australia, since 2008; Bishop Nerva Aguilera, Cuba, 2007; and Bishop Ellinah Wamukoya, Swaziland, 2012. Neither the Church of Ireland nor the Scottish Episcopal Church has yet elected a woman bishop. The General Synod of the C of E has again refused to sanction the ordination of women, but it will occur, probably soon. Whatever you think Jesus was, he was not narrow-minded; neither is ECUSA.

• PiperMac52 | Jan 06, 2013, 03:04 PM EST

  When will the "progressives" get it? The Catholic church will NEVER ordain women or it will cease to be the Catholic church at least as established by Christ. It is doctrine and doctrine can NOT change even if the Pope wanted it to. The difference between the Catholic church and the numerous Protestant denominations(established by men after the "reformation")is that the sacred traditions encoded in doctrine, the findings of the magesterium dating back 2000 years are immutable. I would suggest that those wishing to be ordained join a progressive protestant church which has embraced all of the debasements of the culture. Women have always played a crucial role in the life of the church. In fact many women Saints were an inspiration during times of turbulence over the centuries in holding true to the faith when heresies and oppression were the rule. Sadly, progressives have subverted and ignored the separate but distinct roles between men and women. They want a sexless society where there is no difference. God however did create each sex differently in his wisdom as much as the cultural relativists may choose to ignore it.

• Madeliene | Jan 06, 2013, 02:57 PM EST

  NO NO NO!

• Nicomax | Jan 06, 2013, 01:20 PM EST

  Didn't we recently learn of the possibility that Jesus had a 'wife', or at least some close followers other than just men? If any of that is true then why not move ahead in current times to include the other 50% of the population in preaching the message of Jesus? What could actually go wrong, and just the opposite may occur, such as a more positive image of the church.

• cillowen | Jan 06, 2013, 01:09 PM EST

  call them the Israeli wunderkind Madelines who served jesus

• joan1954 | Jan 06, 2013, 11:55 AM EST

  it will never happen so forget about it. FRankly if Catholic women want to be priests then join the Episcopal church and it has a priesthood open to women. But, if one looks at the Angliscan church they have women priests but not bishops. Frankly I would never want their job. Male Anglican priests have mentioned that there are times it is difficult to juggle church and family.

• patrickesq | Jan 06, 2013, 11:13 AM EST

  As one Pope noted:'to err is human...'. The infallible Church hierarchy pays little heed to Alexander's dictum. Instead they prefer to interpret scant biblical evidence to support the notion that only males can be ordained to minister to the spiritual needs of the faithful. Despite the growing shortages of male vocations and a dwindling number of male priests, many of whom are geriatrics, the As one Pope once noted:'to err is human...' But the infallible Church hierarchy pays little heed to this dictum.Based on scant biblical evidence they prefer to believe that women have been ordained by God to play a secondary role in His/Her Church. This testicular belief persists despite the widespread decline of male vocations in the Western world. As a result geriatric priests and male deacons are pressed into service to fill the void. As one Pope noted: 'to err is human...' The Church hierarchy pays little heed to this dictum when speaking about doctrinal matters. Despite a widespread decline in the Western world of male vocations and the need to keep geriatric priests in pronged service, augmented by newly recruited male deacons, The Church Fathers continue to exclude females from the priesthood. This testicular prejudice saps the strength of a Church that is increasingly deemed irrelevant . A Church that cannot admit error, or reform itself, is destined to become a relic of itself. Can there be Divine forgiveness for unwarranted gender discrimination? Church Fathers prefer to exclude women from their ranks, and deny them equal rights to fully participate in God's Church. Will they receive Divine forgiveness for their errors ?

• katieherk | Jan 06, 2013, 10:50 AM EST

  It'll never happen!

• Carroll09 | Jan 06, 2013, 10:08 AM EST

  So, they claim to be Catholic? Yet these "Catholics" are, via this song, would advise their flock not to listen to St. Paul - hmmm...doesn't sound very Catholic to me. Either you believe, as actual Catholics do, that Scripture is the inspired Word of God, or you don't - there is no in between where one can decide what they like and forget about what they don't like. "Some Pope in a hat" is in their way - so as "Catholics" they appear not to accept the authority of the Pope and they certainly do not seem to have any respect for him. Whatever one thinks of the Catholic Church, these two things alone are most certainly not hallmarks of Catholics. They have set themselves up against the Catholic Church and have cut themselves off - they think they know better than St Paul, the Pope, and, ultimately, Christ. One must ask, then, why they even want to be associated with the Catholic Church...there is an agenda there, and methinks it is not a spiritual one...

• casualMBA | Jan 05, 2013, 09:35 PM EST

  Reachin' on that lead ("One of the oldest..." a bit, Antoinette, no? Thought I noticed a few dedicated nuns (they are women) along the way - not to mention Church history - and they belonged to organizations. As to the lyrics' rationale, yawn.

• MaxTiger | Jan 05, 2013, 09:02 AM EST

  So as a Catholic you can forget about St.Paul and follow some YouTube video? FAIL