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1. Ooohh! My goodness! Ordaining an Anglican woman as a deacon in a Catholic church building will contaminate the building. Evil "woman-stuff" will seep into the brickwork and later drip out and cause terrible things to happen to obedient, servile Catholic women.
   I'm so glad I know how bad it would be for architecture for a woman-ordination to occur within the building.
   Seriously, how trivial and pathetic. The Vaticania make themselves more and more irrelevant to the church of Jesus of Nazareth and his dedicated followers.

   Posted By: Lois

2. Grech should not have offered in the first place. Now he looks like the bad guy for reneging.
   
   

   Posted By: Fr Paul

3. To Lois: What is really trival and pathetic is your contribution to this blog. No love, no humility, no fidelity. Only mockery and contempt of orthodoxy. The Vatican's decision is consistent with 2000 years of Christianity. The Vatican, in particular the Pope as Successor to St Peter, by refusing to ordain women is being faithful to Jesus of Nazareth and ensuring the Church's survival and relevance into the future. It is those entities ordaining women (the Anglicans and Uniting) that have the terminal problems of decline, irrelevancy and future extinction.

   Posted By: Micahel Bernard

4. Lois: If anything is 'trivial and pathetic', it is the false and heretical theology propagated by the dissenters.
   Our Lord did not ordain women and the Sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church teaches that they are not to be ordained. As I have said before, the reasons behind this are ontological; God simply does not will it. Should I be angry at God because, as a man, He does not allow me to carry and give birth to a child?
   The ultimate example of woman was our Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary whom exemplified the need for servility before Jesus Christ and His Spouse - the Church.
   Feminists, like yourself apparently, conceive of 'power' in ironically masculine terms and believe that the only way a woman can exercise power, agency and autonomy is if she does exactly the same thing as men.
   

   Posted By: Aquino

5. I must be living in the twilight zone! I could have sworn I read media articles about the Vatican wishing to re-establish relations with the Anglican Church! I'm sure this decision will help that cause enormously. What an incredibly wasted opportunity to demonstrate ecumenism between the Catholic and Anglican Church.

   Posted By: Patrick O'Connell

6. Lois: I can see your point but please consider it this way.
   Do you have anything that you consider unacceptable and would never allow to happen under your roof?

   Posted By: LM

7. It's good that this has been nipped in the bud. I'm sure it was all well meant, but it could only cause confusion among the faithful.

   Posted By: Lance Eccles

8. At least they know where we are.

   Posted By: Lydia

9. In our catholic Parish, we had a female Anglican priest preach during an ecumenical service. I do hope
   Jesus wasn't upset! Then again, I did hear strange noises coming from the tabernacle. Could that have been Jesus hitting the roof? None of the Catholic people present were upset or offended in anyway.
   Considering there were female presbyters mentioned in the NT (don't we get the word priest from presbyter) and, at least, one female apostle, Junia (wife of Andronicus?) in Romans 16:7, I don't see what the fuss is about.
   Aquino: Our Lord did not ordain anyone.

   Posted By: Cobber

10. How disgraceful. We call ourselves Christians. Jesus was welcoming and compassionate. He was inclusive. I can not believe that we have turned people away! Let's just ask ourselves honestly What would Jesus do? Would he have turned people away. Would he have been so bigoted?

    Posted By: Bernadette McPhee

11. Aquino, I see no analogy between women's sole ability to bear children and (a few) men's assumed sole ability to preside at Mass, or consecrate the bread and wine. Your claim that there is an "ontological" issue is specious. I accept that the apostles present at the Last Supper were all male. But women were obviously deeply involved in Jesus' ministry and the early Church. It was nearly all women at the Crucifixion. It seems to me the large hearted attitude is to accept women's offer of ministry in whatever form it is offered.
    (And do you yourself understand the difference between servility and service? You can't really require servility of anyone can you?)
    As for you Michel Bernard, no love, no humility, however much fidelity.
    On the politics, the Anglicans are going to dig in on this one, and I doubt (pragmatically speaking) it will do them any harm. See current reports of Williams in Rome. This was another ecumenical opportunity lost.
    Joe Grech is an excellent pastor and leader, and a kind man. He deserves no criticism for a welcome if thwarted attempt to build bridges.

    Posted By: Brian Dethridge

12. PS: I should have referred above, to BISHOP Joe Grech.

    Posted By: Brian Dethridge

13. Lois: Your opening sentence is indicative of your failure to grasp the basic issue.
    If reported correctly, the women were to be ordained to the diaconate. As has been demonstrated elsewhere in these columns, the ordination of women to the diaconate is not a closed issue in the Catholic Church.
    If this comes as a surprise to anyone, please read the report of the American Canon Law Society on this question. I do not wish to go through that "debate" again!
    However, and much more to the point, is that the ordination of even the male candidiates would not have been appropriate as ordinations celebrated according to the Anglican ordinal and with the inadequate intention implied by that ordinal are invalid. "Absolutely null and utterly void" - to borrow a phrase from Apostolicae Curae.
    Patrick O'Connell: The Church, as generous as the recent Apostolic Constitution has been, should avoid even the appearance of accepting that which is invalid.
    Indeed, it is at this stage in Anglican/Catholic ecumenism that nothing must be done to suggest otherwise. If, as reported, large numbers of Anglican pastors are contemplating taking advantage of the offers made, they will have to be re-ordained unless they can present proof to the contrary. Thus, the case by case provisions.
    
    

    Posted By: M. Elliott

14. Good grief, what an argument about nothing and how scandalous!
    There are several places in rural Australia where the Anglicans, the Catholics and even the Uniting Church use the one building for Mass or worship according to an agreed schedule.
    On holidays, I once went to the Catholic Church for Mass only to find that on that particular weekend it was the Anglicans' turn to use it. No fuss or bother, I stayed for their service and then drove to the next town for Mass that evening. It was I who misread the timetable.
    Also, I once attended a Catholic Funeral Mass held in an Anglican Church because the Catholic Church was too small to accommodate the crowd that was expected. He was a well-known and prominent citizen and a practising Catholic. It just so happened that the Anglican Church was the largest venue in town.
    These small, rural communities do that sort of thing and there is no confusion as to what's going on. I think most people are intelligent enough to be able to distinguish between making use of a building and which Church is ordaining the candidates.
    This situation simply smacks of sectarianism to the extreme. As for Christian charity, no wonder others sometimes think that we Catholics are not part of the Christian religion. Their use of our Church in no wise demonstrates a belief in or a leaning towards the ordination of women. In fact, the Catholic Church does not recognise the validity of Anglican orders - regardless of what building the ceremony took place in.
    Get a grip, all you who show no compassion for anyone outside your version of Catholicism!

    Posted By: Fr Brendan

15. Ecumenism is about leading toward unity: and the Pope is precisely gathering in those who hold to the Catholic Faith down through the ages, not those trendies going with the secular world and its whims. Mainstream Anglicanism has proven it is not interested in convergence, because it is they who have diverged from classical Christianity by their strange ordinations and approval of moral irregularities: they prefer honestly to be Protestants, albeit rather different sorts than their founders, but still believing in private judgement, not submission to the Faith once delivered to the saints. The Anglicans who have petitioned to come to Rome would have no truck with pretended ordinations of women, since such matters are a major reason why they have broken with mainstream Anglicanism and have come to seek corporate reunion with the Catholic Church: it is they who would be most deeply scandalized by this embarrassingly asinine debacle of first giving permission on the diocesan level without thinking of the scandal it would cause, and then, having been justly rebuked from above, having to renege on the offer all shamefacedly. Really, one must say Bp Grech is either asleep at the wheel, or now upset with his diocesan bureaucrats for stuffing up and making him look so foolish.

    Posted By: Joshua

16. In my eyes, this raises a further issue. What would be the legality of a Catholic attending a church service conducted by a Anglican female celebrant? In many districts Catholic and Anglican congregations share a common church building for their various services.I imagine there would be some instances where the Anglican celebrant would be a female.

    Posted By: John Tobin

17. What is really extraordinary here is that this proposal to let this simulation of ordination occur in a Catholic Church was ever contemplated.
    This is a scandal that would, and indeed now probably already has, cast the Church's teaching about holy orders, and the invalidty of those in the Anglican church into doubt in the minds of many. It will cause confusion and dismay among the faithful.
    This pretending that there are no differences between us is not ecumenism.

    Posted By: Peter

18. Fr Brendan: The difference here is that the building is specifically consecrated as a Catholic church.

    Posted By: Lance Eccles

19. A response to a few of my predictable and confused detractors is in order:
    ‘Our Lord did not ordain anyone.' - Cobber
    Holy Orders is a sacrament. Do you know what a sacrament is, Cobber? It is an exterior sign of interior grace instituted by Jesus Christ. Therefore, the sacramental process by which a man becomes a deacon, priest or bishop was ordained by Christ.
    I could expand further on this but honestly, I shouldn’t have to it; read your Catechism!
    Brian Dethridge: The analogy I am trying to make derives from Patristic thinking on the nature of the ministerial priesthood. As I have said on other articles, just as God allows women bring forth new life through childbirth, He acts through ordained men to make his son, Jesus Christ, present in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
    Secondly, the presence of women at the Crucifixion does not suggest they were in any sense 'ordained.' Plenty of people observed the sufferings of our Lord - most mocked Him.
    In regards to my claim that female ordination is ontologically impossible, other than dismissing my argument as specious, you have failed to actually engage it. Why is it specious? Adeodatus and I have previously debated with Boutros Neru on this point – Neru eventually gave up.
    The human person is a unity of body and soul, matter and spirit and ultimately the sacraments affect both. Consequently, our bodily sex – male or female – determines our relationship to the sacraments.

    Posted By: Aquino

20. Didn't St Paul ordain female Deacons?

    Posted By: Marie

21. Is this all about the use of the Catholic church premises for the ordination of Anglicans or is it about the women. I think it is more about the fact that women are becoming more involved in the Anglican church and maybe this will spill over into the Catholic church.
    I often wonder just why women were created apart from being sexual objects for men and making babies.

    Posted By: Jan

22. Good job, Vatican. Shame on the local priest or bishop who gave permission.
    Like the Anglicans couldn't find another Protestant sect building in which to conduct the heretical "ordination" service?
    Of course they could have!
    But they wanted to create confusion in Christ's Church!

    Posted By: Jon

23. Those expressing feigned outrage, just think for a moment what a meal the secular media would have made of “women ordained in a Catholic church”. Deluding millions as to the Church’s doctrines. Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.
    And please spare us the tired old anti-Catholic rhetorical nonsense about your imagined female Apostles, priests and deacons. Scripture says nothing of the kind, as anyone with a basic knowledge of Greek, historical or Scripture studies would know.
    

    Posted By: Peter G

24. I agree entirely with Aquino. Our society has lost the ability to read God's creation as "a sacrament": that is a sign that points beyond itself. Masculinity and Femininity bespeak different aspects of God. Understanding who God is in relation to His creation only reinforces the Church's teaching that only Men can be priests.
    Anybody who is interested can read Peter Kreeft's excellent article here:
    www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/sexual-symbolism.htm
    May the Lord have mercy upon the His Church and may we heed the message of His Church and not the misguided spirit of the Age. Aquinas

    Posted By: Aquinas

25. A directive from the Vatican. Hmm, it seems that the usual swarm of roving informers and letter writiers have been at it again. Local church? What local Church?
    As for Aquino's grand claim of the supremacy of ontological arguments against the ordination of women, mere empty language games so to legitimate privilege, and ones which were not practiced by Jesus of Nazareth.

    Posted By: Mark

26. Mark: Like Brian Dethridge, you do not even engage with my ontology claim. Rather than summarily dismiss it as 'grand', why don't you use reason and argument to attack it? I am confident that even if you do, you will not succeed, although at least you will demonstrate a capacity for rational thought. And if you concede the point, perhaps a little humility as well. At this stage, you remind me of an obstinate child, holding his hands to his ears whilst shouting 'I don't want to hear it!'

    Posted By: Aquino

27. I have always understood that the Church is the Body (which includes His Voice) of Christ.
    Jesus said to Peter, "he who hears you hears me, he who rejects you rejects me."
    This is clearly a command to be obedient to whoever sits on the chair of Peter. And if this means no woman priests or preachers, so be it!

    Posted By: anne

28. Aquinas: Thank you for Kreeft's truly enlightening article. It should be compulsory reading for all who would remake their Church according to their own wordly desires.

    Posted By: Peter G

29. Aquino: Please do tell of the ontological basis for the roles of men and women. Then tell of the basis for the ontological basis, because the little trick of ontologists is that want everyone to believe that such designations occur in a reasoning vacuum without any basis whatsoever to actual cultural origins and discursive practices. But please, go ahead. And then justify said ontological hierarchy with reference to the Good news.

    Posted By: Mark

30. Jan: To permit an Anglican ordination, which the Church has defined for us as being invalid, to occur inside a Catholic Church would be a scandal, and a grave miscarriage of justice and charity.
    Charity does not consist in telling people what they want to hear, or telling the emperor, who has no clothes, that he has clothes.
    To be blunt, from a Catholic & sacramental perspective, the ordinations are simulated. Permitting them to be conducted in Catholic Church will convey a message that they are valid.
    This would be the case regardless of the Anglican ordination of women. It is however the case that the ordination of women, even by a valid formula and ordainer would be invalid and simulated.
    As to the references of sharing of 'facilities' in country places (and I understand in various places in the Archdiocese of Brisbane), regardless of the homely and bonhomie feel it may bring, and doubtless very real practical exigencies, will nevertheless also psychologically erode the truth - we are not just flavours of the same substance. IMHO this practice is imprudent at best.

    Posted By: Peter

31. Mark: Basically, it relates to the natural signs that Aquinas refers to because these signs are bound up with our very nature of being – which is the essence of ontology. The human body, which includes everything from our appendages to DNA, is not a mere shell and is intimately united to our soul. We obviously cannot exist without it and thus you could say that it is an ontological impossibility for the human person to be without a body. As Aquinas (the commentator) suggests, this positivistic society of ours fails to take our bodies as ‘signs’ indicative of our nature and purpose. As another has mentioned, Peter Kreeft has written wonderfully on this: http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/sexual-symbolism.htm.
    I am also interested by your reference to ‘cultural origins and discursive practices’ – as if you think the failure of women to be ordained is due to the supposed historical maltreatment and patriarchal dominance of women and that our Lord simply could not transcend this. Priestesses were extremely common in the pagan societies and sects which drifted throughout the Holy Land whilst Christ walked the Earth. In what was an increasingly Hellenised place, it is likely, our Lord encountered them. In addition, many of the heretical and Gnostic sects which emerged merely decades after Christ’s Ascension, featured priestesses and it from these groups that a few irresponsible historians have convinced themselves that the Church once ordained women. My point, Mark, is that the society which surrounded our Lord was rather cosmopolitan and it would not have been ‘too radical’ to have ordained women since priestesses were literally everywhere. But He chose not to. Sacred Scripture, always read the tradition of the Church, gives evidence to the sacramental ordination of the apostles – all of whom were male. That same Sacred Tradition teaches that women are not to be ordained and we are, as Catholics, required to humbly obey it.
    

    Posted By: Aquino

32. It's time the church allows female priest. In my church females preach the gospal and relieve me of my duties when I am away. We do not hear of female clergy involved in child abusive.

    Posted By: Fr Brian

33. Aquino: Where did Jesus ordain anyone? Where did he order that there should be bishops, priests and deacons especially when NO individual in the Church of the New testament era is referred to as being a priest. Read your New Testament!
    How mean and spiteful some of the "orthodox" appear to be.....most unlike Jesus I should think.
    How dare we treat our Anglican brothers and sisters so discourteously. I wonder if Jesus regards their clergy as being "absolutely null and utterly void"....what does it mean anyway?

    Posted By: Cobber

34. Cobber: where did Jesus say that 2+2=4. How dare we discriminate against all of those good people who hold that 2+2=4, or that stars tell our future. Perhaps we shouldn't correct children who pick their noses, or adults who speak out of turn?

    Posted By: Adeodatus

35. Aquino: Your use of body as sign indicative of purposes and nature all needs to be unpacked. Fundamentally though, you assume first principles which are actually hardly first. This is the trick of ontological argumants: they present what has actually been perceived and interpreted from historical cultural context, made into abstract and absolute and then thrust back onto mundane condition wearing the authority of centuries. But its only a trick cuz you still need to justify the first principles. So please do explain the ontological justification for a gender based hierarchy. What is at its base?

    Posted By: Mark

36. Fr Brian: If ever I come to 'your church' be sure I won't be leaving any money on the plate.

    Posted By: Peter

37. Quote from Fr Brian: " In my church females preach the gospel and relieve me of my duties when I am away."
    I guess they do Father, seeing that its 'your' church. And I guess in 'your' church you can do anything you want.
    Tell me one thing. These women preach. (That's what you were ordained for.) Do they also stand at the altar and consecrate the bread and the wine when you are away? That's one of 'your' duties - something you were ordained for. Presumably they ought to - because if you are consistent, it would follow that if they can make Christ present in the proclamation and preaching of the Word - then they can make Him present through the consecration of the bread and the wine. If they don't, you don't have the courage of your convictions/theology.
    Before I walked away from the local parish church a few years ago, numbed and battered by the local priest's 'own' theology which he inflicted on us - a woman urged me to stay saying: "Remember Phil it is hands that were consecrated, not his brain."
    I walked away. My responsibility. And his. At the judgement seat of God it will be sorted out.
    

    Posted By: Phillip Turnbull

38. Aquino: Re your “ontology claim” I still don’t get your argument. What has the performance of a reproductive function by women got to do with an ordained man’s power to consecrate? Lots of men have a reproductive function too. They seem to have an extra option.
    “Ontology” relates to a world of “substances” and “accidents” and “natures”. It has a place in Medieval philosophy, particularly when one wants to identify certain primordial categories of being. And while I concede the female-male distinction is fairly primordial I’m not convinced that it has any liturgical significance - except in the celebration of matrimony, of course.
    Aquinas is perhaps aware there is a gap in your argument here. He says “masculinity and femininity bespeak different aspects of God”. Which perhaps they do, given (say) Isaiah 49:15, and Luke 13:34. He then announces that this reinforces the Church’s teaching that only men can be priests. But where does he get this from? I would have thought it reinforced the opposite view. Perhaps he is influenced by the “idea” that God is a male. Islam is actually much less anthropomorphic about God than Christianity – to its credit.
    But it’s about liturgy. Liturgy is about contact with God. It should as far as possible be inclusive.
    Jesus stands for all men and women. Why don’t we manifest this?

    Posted By: Brian Dethridge

39. Father Brian; How well do you know the catechism of the Catholic church? Have you read it recently? Have you ever read it? Do you understand the authority behind it and the wisdom within it? Do you accept that like the bible, it contains the very Word of God, not just the words of a mere human seeking to create a church in their own feeble image?
    These are sincere questions from a catholic seeking to understand how a man could hold views so contrary to what a priest should believe.

    Posted By: Paul Keen

40. Mark and Brian Dethridge: I am sorry if you do not understand my ontology argument.
    I would suggest you read 'Inter Insigniores' - A Declaration On The Question Of Admission Of Women To The Ministerial Priesthood released by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1976. It addresses many of your questions and briefly examines the Thomistic perspective on sacramental signs representing what they signify by natural resemblance.
    I keep on stressing that our bodies matter when it comes to the sacraments and whilst neither sex is defective (since God produced both) there are natural symbolic differences.
    Ontology deals with the nature of reality or being and it is, in my opinion, perfectly reasonable to deduce that a sex impediment to ordination is an ontological impediment - we can never truly change our sex. Furthermore, God, who is the principle object of all ontology, is the author of the sacraments and God the Son did not choose to confer Holy Orders on to women and thus engendered the sacrament.

    Posted By: Aquino

41. Aquino: The discussion concerning Christs choice for discipleship is not an ontological issue but one of biblical scholarship, historical debate, theological emphases, and historical conjecture, anthropology, Tradition and Authority. Next thing you'll be saying that Christ was Catholic: "hail myself".

    Posted By: Mark

42. As I said, Mark, read 'Inter Insigniores' - it addresses your concerns regarding anthropology, historical conjecture etc.

    Posted By: Aquino

43. We endorse the Apologise to the Women of the Church Petition to All Catholic Men, and the Pope and Bishops.
    Read the Apologise to the Women of the Church Petition
    http://www.PetitionOnline.com/gal328/

    Posted By: Bernadette McPhee

44. Consider this: If every priest had a female deacon, (plus a dog, a cat, and a budgie) we would double our pastoral troops & make some serious inroads into relationships-spirituality. And, of course, both Cardinal Pell and Michael Bernard would be potentially happier & balanced males, according to my 85-year-old dear mother. Mum used to clean the church for free - what a deacon she would have made!

    Posted By: Mike B

45. "Natural symbolic differences" is a euphemism for "Men are more worthy than women" - which is an obsolete stance.

    Posted By: AJ

46. Aquino: The document you recommend has little in the way of ontological argument. So I am left bewildered as to why you base so much emphasis upon ontology. The document itself relies upon "history as understood via the lense of Authority". The claim that the Twelve are somehow emblematic of priesthood would need many posts to unpack. But for now it needs to be stated that "the twelve" are actually to be understood within an "eschatological" perspective, rather than an institutionally initiatory one. This is where "Authority" collides head on with the actual Good News of the Kingdom of God.

    Posted By: mark

47. Brian: I'm not influenced by the idea that God is "male". Male and Female are biological embodiments of masculinity and feminity. As God does not have biology, He cannot be either male or female.
    Rather, we see within God's very nature that He is Unity and Diversity. That is there is oneness or immanence in being as well as differentiation or otherness.
    Furthermore, when we look at God's interaction with His creation we see the same thing. God is "other" than His creation. He comes "from without" to create natural life just as He comes "from without" to create supernatural life. Yet at the same time, God is immanently interested in His creation always upholding it and at times, intervening within it in a supernatural way.
    I hope I don't have to elaborate on the proposition that masculinity represents God's Diversity or otherness. Feminity represents God's Unity or immanence. Although in a world where everything means nothing, explanation may be necessary in future posts.
    We ultimately refer to God as Father because the "Fatherhood" that we know of in our human experience is analogous to God's ultimate Fatherhood. It safegards God's "Otherness".
    Hence to call God "mother" would mean that we have a different god.
    This is ultimately why Priests, who represent God and in fact gods or goddesses in all religions, must be male. Aquinas

    Posted By: Aquinas

48. Mark: Can something as perennially subjective as history ever be understood without the lens of Authority? As the then-Cardinal Ratzinger said to the Pontifical Biblical Commission on the Relationship between Magisterium and exegetes: 'The mere objectivity of the historical method does not exist. It is simply impossible to completely exclude philosophy or hermeneutical foresight.'
    The Good News of which you speak is dependent on its being recorded in Sacred Scripture, which in turn, is dependent on the Sacred Tradition of the Church. Scripture (or history for that matter) does not exist in a vacuum. As a result, ‘Authority’ is what made the Good News known when it assembled the biblical canon!
    As for this long-running ontology debate, the one thing I did not mention was the fact that Jesus Christ was male and since He acts through the person of the priest, it is fitting that men should be His priests. As writer Michael Novak poignantly reminds us: ‘One can “see Christ” in every human being, male or female, but a female cannot represent the male Christ before the community. Not, at least, without jangling symbols beyond their meaning, without communicating something essentially different.’ This is what I mean by ontology.

    Posted By: Aquino

49. Aquino: Jesus was also Jewish. Are you claiming ontological status for his Jewishness? He was also of a certain height and he also spoke Aramaic, but none of these are given ontological status. Why is his maleness given such status? Which leads to a deeper question: Is the Incarnation dependant upon sex and gender or upon full humanity? You and others need to see the ramifications of the emphasis upon sex and gender in its exclusive application to priesthood, it actually directly impacts upon our understanding of Incarnation.
    As for history and "Authority", "Authority" does not function in a vacuum, it too is reliant upon method, human endeavour, rigour, otherwise it becomes a dead ideology.
    The Good News of the Kingdom of God is not confined to Tradition, or to the Gospel texts. It is revealing that you consider the Good News solely within the confines of such "Authority".

    Posted By: Mark

50. Mark: I sense you are under the Cartesian illusion that our souls are little ghosts in the shells we call our bodies and as such, the equal worth of each soul entitle each to the sacraments, including Holy Orders. Boutros Neru, another commentator, has made the same argument.
    What we should really be discussing is the human person which, as I mentioned is a unity of spirit and matter, body and soul. Michael Novak rightfully identifies the fact that height, occupation, language are all mere ‘accidents’ (a property of a substance not essential to its nature) of the human person – they are not essences. Even something as inescapable or ‘essential’ as race is still an accident, since scripture and science tells us we are descended from one common ancestor and race is simply the body’s adaption to local surroundings and genetically transmitted to one’s progeny.
    What is not an accident, however, is sex: man or woman. ‘And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them.’ (Gen 1:27)
    Drawing upon our ontological and natural differences, Pope John Paul II in Mulieris Dignitatem duly notes: ‘It is the Eucharist above all that expresses the redemptive act of Christ the Bridegroom towards the Church the Bride. This is clear and unambiguous when the sacramental ministry of the Eucharist, in which the priest acts "in persona Christi", is performed by a man.’

    Posted By: Aquino

51. Aquino: Questions of representation, symbols, meaning and communication belong to semiotics rather than ontology. Saussure made clear that the relation between a signifier and its signified is arbitrary, a matter of convention; so women can indeed represent God or Christ for those who agree to that relation.

    Posted By: AJ

52. AJ: That is quite a naive reading of how signification works. In particular, convention does not equal arbitrary. Further, "conventional" also does not mean either (a) subject to change or (b) capable of being decided democratically.
    In this instance, it is the will of God as interpreted by the Church (apart from which we simply have no access to God) that women will not be ordained.

    Posted By: Adeodatus

53. This is more than semiotics, AJ. When we are discussing the human person and its essences, we are effectively dealing with matters of ontology.

    Posted By: Aquino

54. Forgive my ignorance, but if 'tradition' is being used as the reason to deny women access to the priesthood, does that mean that all Catholic priests are circumcised Jews??

    Posted By: Christine Thirkell

55. Adeodatus: What on earth does "2+2" have to do with such a serious issue?

    Posted By: Cobber

56. Aquino: There is nothing remotely cartesian in what I said. Please don't erect straw men to argue with, rather deal with what is there, at the very least show how anything that I have said is "cartesian". What I discussed is the very real theological consequences of the emphasis upon "maleness". Can you not see the ramifications of on the one hand emphasizing Christ's maleness in regard to priestly character and function, and then on the other trying to maintain the foundational understanding of Incarnation?

    Posted By: Mark

57. Aquino: You keep referring to the ontological status of sex and gender, but have yet to actually show it. Don't just quote various individuals who employ sex ontologically, if it is so central to your understanding of priesthood show how it is so and (as I have asked previously) what such is based upon? First principles please, not declarations of formula.

    Posted By: Mark

58. Adeodatus: I studied linguistics at university. What is your qualification for calling my understanding of Saussure naive?

    Posted By: AJ

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2. Rudd awating legal advice on ACT same sex union law

   Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the Federal Government is awating legal advice to decide on whether to block the ACT's law on same sex civil unions, while the Australian Greens leader Senator Bob Brown and the Victorian ALP spoke up in support of such legislation.

3. Rudd pledges $42.8m for school chaplains program

   Prime Minister Kevin Rudd committed government support to extend the National School Chaplaincy program, which was due to end in late 2010, by another 12 months.

4. Welfare revamp comes with compulsory income management

   In a major revamp, Families Minister Jenny Macklin would be able to declare any locality as an area of extreme disadvantage under new laws that will open up welfare recipients to compulsory income management, Catholic welfare bodies caution.

5. Human rights commission will restrict religion: Pell

   Sydney's Cardinal George Pell expressed trepidation about the country's proposed human rights commission, telling a gathering of the Australian Christian Lobby that it could expect restrictions on religious people.