The Catholic Church is moving to excommunicate Catholics who have participated in unsanctioned, and illegal under Canon Law, ordinations of women priests:
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.
This is, obviously, a no-brainer for Catholics, even more so than the equally controversial and hotly debated issue of priestly celibacy, The Church has never ordained women priests in it’s 2000 year history and has always cited a clear doctrinal reason for not doing so:
The Church says it cannot change the rules banning women from the priesthood because Christ chose only men as his apostles. Church law states that only a baptized male can be made a priest.
Proponents of women’s ordination say Christ was only acting according to the social norms of his time.
I don’t consider myself an orthodox doctrinaire Catholic by any means, but that response has always struck me as absurd. Basically, they are saying that God himself was so constrained by the bigotry of the society of the time, that He was unable to pick female disciples even though he wanted to.
The omniscient, omnipotent God, that is.
Yea, doesn’t make sense to me either.
This is what I’ve never understood about some Catholics, mostly American, who seem to treat the Church as if it was a democracy. It’s not, and it never has been. If you’re Catholic, you accept the authority of the Pope and the Magisterium.
Don’t like it ? Well, then there are plenty of varieties of Christianity to choose from my friend.
H/T: James Joyner
If you want priestesses, become an Episcopalian.