DeDia

Yesterday I was watching "Sixy minutes", an American news program and there was this intervue with an America catholic clergyman who very self assuredly declared. "Ther will be changes, women will ecventually be ordained and the celibacy has got to go sooner or later or won't be able to recruit any more enough priests". However he didn't mention the other major issues, like birthcontrol or same sex marriage as liable to doctrinal change. What is your opinion about this?

John A. Broussard

While the Catholic Church prides itself on being immutable, changes have occurred on a vast scale over the centuries (especially lately) and will continue to do so, sometimes in a disguised fashion. An annulment can in reality be a divorce, meat can be eaten on Friday, Limbo has disappeared as a real place. The fiat against birth control allowed the rhythm method to sneak in. Vatican II was earth-shattering, with Catholics of my acquaintance virtually in tears over the change.

I would guess that the ordination of women is not far away, especially with large 3rd world countries gaining influence in the Vatican. Africans, for example, give women enormous economic control. Even Moslems, and certainly Hindus, allow women to achieve high government positions--even as far as becoming heads of nations--Pakistan, Indonesia, India. As recruitment of Catholics from the developed countries falls, the Church will have to accomodate to its new constituents just as it has done for centuries.

Chili

Infallible is not the same as immutable John. Infallible means to have the flexibility to change without jeopardizing its function as a religion wherein heaven is its ultimate destiny. It is having a living faith that can change to incorporate and overshadow all minor mythologies. Voodoo and Zen are good examples here.

In case you have not noticed, John, politics is not the same as priesthood. I would say that women ordination will never be, or at least not until long after Judaism sets the trent in this. Do you think that they ever will?

Evoken

Yes and it must be infallible to help keep the flock "on the line" and to avoid them to get lost. It can change and it will continue to change but it will never change into something else.

Wallener

It's already happened. Judaism has had female rabbis for decades.

Chili

That's a surprise to me but it is understandable. Do you mean in the full capacity as Rabbi?

Wallener

Yep. They are still low in number, but the influx of females into the seminaries is increasing rapidly. Of the 8 synagogues near me, only 1 has a female head rabbi, but two others have female assistant rabbis. Judaism is not monolithic, though, and it is a safe bet Haredi will accept female rabbis about as soon as Bob Jones accepts that Catholics are Christians.

Toto

The Conservative and Reform branches of Judaism allow women to be full-fledged rabbis. I don't think that the Orthodox have gone along with that new fangled notion - yet.

From this source With the political alliance of American evangelicals and Catholics, Bob Jones will probably accept Catholics as fellow Christians any day now.

Wallener

It's important to recognize that "consensus" in a Judaic stream is considerably less binding than the same even in Catholicism. The Orthodox situation is decidely mixed: a number of females have indeed gone through Orthodox seminaries and some have indeed been ordained as Orthodox rabbis. Oddly enough, this is easier to do in Israel than in the US(!). The level of acceptance in Orthodox communities is...variable, to put it mildly. I'm guessing about 20 years before Ortho fully crosses over, and I'm sure a few will get left behind.

Haredim are too busy recreating the utopia of a 19th century Polish shtetl to mess with such modern issues, they are a lost cause on this.

Stop scaring the children.

John A. Broussard

Of course, that's why I used the word "immutable." The church simply maintains that much of its dogma reflects "natural law," and is therefore not subject to change.

My point was that what was a violation of "natural law" yesterday, suddenly becomes allowed today.

So, while it is still considered unnatural for women to be priests, keep your eye on the stage.

Infallibility is another subject, entirely.