These ladies, with one exception are ordained Anglican "
Priests". They are standing before the Alter in an Anglican Church in Canada rehearsing the
"Vagina Monologues" to be performed on the evening of St Valentines day.
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Reminds me of a comment C S Lewis wants made, where the ministers of these churches that have surrendered to liberalism now shock their congregations with the extent of their unbelief. May the Catholic Church never surrender to the same folly, it is now the last bastion of truth in the west.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely not "priests," no. There was this thing called the Reformation a few hundred years back, in which "priests" and their unsavoury boss got the boot from large areas of western Europe. Enthusiasts for popes and patriarchs find it annoying, but that's a small price to pay for western civilisation.
ReplyDeleteWestern Civilization Milt? You think the "Vagina Monologues" is a cultural landmark in Western Civilization?
ReplyDeleteOr the Big Gay out?
I'll take the 1812 Overture over those things any day of the week - You know it starts off with "O Lord, save Your people, And bless Your inheritance"
Perhaps you have to be an enthusiast for Patriarchs, Popes and Catholicos and so forth to know that without having to have it pointed out.
Another thing even more worth knowing is that it really is unseemly to use four letter words in a Church, it being a sacred space and all.
If "western civilization" has forgotten that well maybe the reformation hasn't really done it any favours after all.
Psycho Milt is wrong about the pope and patriarchs being removed from "large parts" of w Eur.
ReplyDeleteEngland and parts of some German states. The majooity of German states stayed in the Holy Roman Empire. It was the Fr Revolution that did in the German Holy Roman Empire ,not the reformation.
Indeed England and those Lutheran German states remianed very "patriarchal" unitl our "post modern " days.
While I can't speak for the Protestant reformers of the 16 and 17 c I suspect they would have had these women burned as witches.
England, Scotland, the Netherlands, northern Germany and most of Scandinavia - ie yes a large part of western Europe, not coincidentally the bits where the individual started to count for something against the hierarchy.
ReplyDeleteWhat protestant reformers of previous centuries would have thought of these women is irrelevant - the point is that the reformation made churches responsible to their membership, so it's what the congregations mistered to by these members of the clergy think of their activities that counts. There is no big boss they're accountable to, at least none in corporeal form.
"mistered" instead of "ministered" - surely Freud could infer something from that...
ReplyDeletethe reformation made churches responsible to their membership
ReplyDeleteNot really - it was about the secular leadership increasing their power over the populace by reducing the power of the Church to oppose them in their wielding of it.
Henry VIII became head of his church. Argue with him ,you're dead. Hardly accountability to membership.Trying to pretend the protestant reformation was a broadly democratic movement is tosh.
ReplyDelete...it was about the secular leadership increasing their power over the populace by reducing the power of the Church to oppose them in their wielding of it.
ReplyDeleteThat's what the authoritarian churches would like it to have been about, yes. Only, it wasn't.
Henry VIII became head of his church. Argue with him ,you're dead. Hardly accountability to membership.Trying to pretend the protestant reformation was a broadly democratic movement is tosh.
Pretending the reformation was about what Henry VIII wanted is what's tosh here. He did want his own church and got it, for the time he was around to kill people who disagreed - which wasn't very long. He has little to do with the reformation, which is represented more by the people who cut off Charles I's head and set up colonies in the Americas based on religious freedom. Those people we owe a great debt - bosses of the authoritarian churches we owe thanks for little, unless we happen to like the persistence of authoritarianism in various western countries.
PM keep moving the goal posts,why don't you?
ReplyDeleteNow was it Europe or New England where the "priests" got the boot?
If you meant the Puritans then you should have said so. The Reformation was huge. I don't dispute the growth and spread of democracy as part of the spread of the British Empire, a great thing indeed.
You will find the Puritans where deeply authoritarian and intolerant. Your Popes and patriachs didn't have a monopoly on it.
Americans tend to lump all the colonists interested in religious freedom under the generic term "puritans," but there was actually a range of them, and they were Europeans.
ReplyDeleteThe original point related to female clergy and what they choose to do in church. If the freedom of churches to set their own rules isn't a product of the reformation, I don't know what is.
You talk of priests and their bosses.Yet these women belong to an episcopalian church.Plenty of bosses ,not too much old style reformation.
ReplyDeleteIt is Christ who sets the Rules of the Church, PM.
ReplyDeleteChurches might set their own but no good ever comes of it.
As I recall my history the Reformation bought about the Thirty Years war which reduced the population of some parts of Europe to about 1/3 of what it had been before the war.
Not good
Not good indeed. The opponents of religious freedom in Europe didn't give up without a very expensive fight - one that lasted a lot more than 30 years. As to who makes the rules, pretend it's Christ if you like but I don't recall him saying anything about priests, let alone what sex they should be.
ReplyDeleteThe Twelve Apostles Milt were the first Bishops, men one and all.
ReplyDeleteAnd ever since that time the leadership of the Church has been male.
Theologically the Church is the Bride of Christ and the Priests represent him and are hence male.
I guess I missed the bits where he created bishops and a Bride of Christ...
ReplyDeleteI suspect you missed a lot of bits Milt
ReplyDeleteFor example The Gospel of John 3:26-29
26 And they came unto John, and said unto him, Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou barest witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come to him.
27 John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.
28 Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him.
29 He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled.