Cardinal's comments on women's ordination clarified

Oh, what an ecclesial 'twist of the arm' will do ... or is it 'a slap on the wrist'?  Not surprising.

At least, he can save his seat "because it was the press who took what he said out of context".

How would it be possible to recover the lost trust in the Hierarchy when the expression of a theological reality is being blamed on the misinterpretation or misunderstanding of the press? Have we heard that before?

I pray for Bishop Policarpo and for our church.

I never thought he said he was in favour of women priests. I thought he said there was no theological objection to the ordination of women.
The clarification is not a clarification.
For me it is a confirmation that there is no theological objection to the ordination of women.
There is simply a tradition of nearly 2000 years that has been defended, sometimes speciously, by an entrrenched male hierarchy.
More open-minded research needs to be done on the origin and development of the sacrament of Holy Orders.

Anyone who bothered to fully contextualize the comments by reading the original 7 page interview in the Portuguese LEGAL magazine in its entirety (instead of relying on sensationalized sound-bytes from Rome OR Kansas City!!) would have come to the same conclusion.

About 15 years ago I was a participant in a summertime creativity and spiritual conference in which various arts were taught and there were also spiritual study groups and talks.  It was sponsored by the Episcopal church.  In a concelebrated Eucharistic Celebration there were five women Episcopal Priests and two men.  During the sessions I learned that of the five women priests, four of the five described themselves as "recovering Catholics".  My thoughts at the time were "Ab esse ad posse valet illatio."  I don't always think in Latin, but it seemed most appropriate at the time, perhaps it was even an inspiration!  Loosely translated it can mean,  "What is can be." or  " What is or has been done can be done."  or "What exists, to the possibility of existence is not that much of a jump." 

Cardinal Jose Policarpo's inderstanding of the issue is stated very clearly.  The problem is tradition or perhaps interpretation of tradition.

Episcopal Church in Maryland to Convert to Catholicism
 http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/07/01/episcopal-church-in-maryland-converts-to-catholicism/#ixzz1Qxcu60IF


I wonder if the 100 members in this congregation would identify themselves as "revovering Episcopalians"?

Re: ''Nothing in the Church ever needs to be settled in any present moment.  Change is best that works itself out across generations, not within them.''

Apparently this line of reasoning has been applied to the CLERGY SEX ABUSE SCANDAL. Should we be satisfied with the results, Mr. Smith?

I like the cardinal's saying that theologically, there is no fundamental obstacle to the ordination of women but that we are dealing with a tradition.  To that I would say that if the male-dominated traditions in the Church don't flex, the Church will ever more lose touch with an evolving world which actually really needs the Church's perspective (not just the perspectives of, say, a conservative Curia).  Please read about Vatican II to see how some conservative cardinals responded to some of the liberating sections of the documents of the Council.  I don't think of the conservative cardinals then as "bad," but rather, as with the Jewish Sanhedrin during the life of Jesus, "stuck" in an outdated worldview.

David, would you have said the same thing to African Americans back in the 60s - during the height of the civil rights movement?  ''Yes, it is immoral to treat African Americans as second class human beings. Yes, change is needed. But civil rights for black Americans is too politicized right now. Wait a few generations. It's better that way.''  It's never ''better'' to wait to right a moral wrong.  It has been my observation, as one who ''came of age'' in the 60s, that change only came about after extremists pushed the issues - so we had bombings, and we had cities in flames, and we had innocent people arrested and dragged to jail for daring to say that they are fully equal to whites, and we had students who were protesting a war shot and killed by men armed by their own government.  All of it unnecessary. Just as the reformation was unnecessary - had Rome had the humility and self-honesty to admit its wrongs and work to correct them, rather than seeking heresy trials of those who pointed out that the emperor had no clothes. Waiting ''generations'' does not help. The reformation happened because people were fed up with corrupt and immoral leadership in the church. The time was right for Luther and other reformers - they did not mean to start new ''religions'' - and they didn't. They merely wished that the Catholic church would do a course correction. The sinfullness of the RCC's leadership blew it up into a permanent division within christianity - one religion, but now with many different expressions.

It is unlikely that Catholic women will start burning down churches or throwing bombs into papal conclaves. However, they are deserting the church - and if the young women especially continue to desert the Catholic church, there will be no children to populate the church in the future and the breach will continue through the generations. There are some young women and men who eagerly embrace the retro views of Rome and the neo-conservative Catholics (some on this board) - seeking a kind of certifude and safety that doesn't exist in human beings or human institutions, and many will discover this someday as they mature, and experience life as it is, not as they imagine it to be.  But, everyobjective and scientifically conducted study of religious practice and beliefs shows that the majority of the young adult Catholic cohort, men and women, disagree with official church teaching on all the ''hot button'' issues and many are leaving. And unlike previous generations, fewer of them will be returning when it is time to baptize their first child. The number of marriages in Boston during the last decade stayed fairly level - but the number occurring in the Catholic church has dropped dramatically - this is true throughout the nation. Parishes wouldn't function without the free labor and underpaid labor of women (always true - for a long time it was the religious sisters who provided it - sisters whom the bishops refuse to help support in their old age, while we continue to support pedophile priests in ''retirement.''). Families almost always follow the religious lead of the female head of household. Lost the women and you lose the families.  It's time now for the church to acknowledge what Rome's handpicked commission of theologians concluded in the 1970s - there is nothing supported by the scriptures that would be a reason to continue to deny a sacrament on the basis if gender.  The time to change is now - not in a few generations. The church should be a moral leader - not constantly trying to preserve its own prejudices (and trying to blame God for this sin) - before finally being dragged kicking and screaming into ''developing'' its ''unchanging'' teachings.