I love it when the secular press decides to tell the Catholic Church what she must believe. An op-ed today from a Temple University professor saying that the ordination of women as Catholic priests is inevitable. She cites as the basis for her conclusion that traditions change and the Church has changed and thus it will happen or something equally inane.
Tradition!” sings Tevya in “Fiddler on the Roof,” as his three daughters stray further and further from the orthodox customs of their youth. Tradition is the glue that holds a culture, a religion and a people together. Ignoring tradition can cause all kinds of upheaval: revolts, schisms, even wars.
The teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, like those of Judaism and Islam, are based on two sources: Scripture and tradition. The way it has been for centuries is the way it often remains - but not always. Catholicism is a 2,000-year-old work in progress, but this does not mean it is fickle.
The concept of a celibate male priesthood is more traditional than scriptural. The first apostle, Peter, was a married man, for example (Luke 4:38, 39). Yes, Jesus chose 12 Jewish men to be disciples, an obvious symbolic reference to the Twelve Tribes of Israel, but women followed Jesus also - nowhere is it written that he forbade women to become disciples.
What is Tradition?
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Temple University is a public university in Pennsylvania where one can find the Constitution of the Catholic Church , a document that calls for completely changing the Church into a Democracy that votes on doctrine. It is also the home of one of its writers: Leonard Swidler one of the forces behind VOTF. Another force behind that Constitution is Ingrid Shafer who is Andrew Greeley’s biographer.
Temple is not far from WHYY the home of NPR’s Fresh Aire, The gay oriented program that calls priests stupid.
It should not surprise us that this professor wants to change rules that we cannot change, after all we have a rule in this country calling for the separation of Church and state and this public university uses state money to work to overthrow the current structure of our Church. If rules mean nothing there, then why should rules mean anything anywhere.
St. Ignatius Press has a sale on a great book called “Priesthood and Diaconate” on this topic.