Tuesday, April 09, 2002

Read this, too

This article is an even better article than Novak's on power and the priesthood. Here are a couple quotes:

The Church will not ordain women because it cannot ordain women. You can't turn orange juice and rice cakes into the body and blood of Christ, you can't baptize in olive, oil and you can't ordain women. When it comes to the sacraments, the matter matters.

Exactly. Most (I know -- not all!) of the people who support the ordination of women would probably see no issue at all with using orange juice and rice cakes in the liturgy.

Feminists see administration of the sacraments as a source of power, probably because they do not understand power. In Greek there are three words translated as power: Kratos, God's mighty arm; Dunamis, the in-filling of the Holy Spirit; and Exousia, authority which flows from obedience to higher authority. The centurion whose servant was ill, explains exousia perfectly, "I am a man under authority, and I have men under me." The centurion understood that his power over his troops did not rest on him physical strength or his great personality, but on the fact that he was obedient to Caesar who ruled the Empire. Spiritual authority flows from obedience to those God has placed in authority.

What we mean by power in everyday life is a far cry from what power means in the Gospel and hence in the Sacrament of Orders.

I would really recommend checking this article out.

No comments: