by Sarah N. » November 17th, 2006, 6:52 pm
I wrote this to post earlier, in the first days of the thread, but I lost the file. Then, just a couple days ago I found it, and now this thread started back up, so I thought I would post it. It doesn’t fit particularly well here, but I trust you’ll manage:
As I feel called to the religious life, I would like to put in my personal perspective of female ordination with relation to the religious life. I speak as a Catholic, and dealing exclusively with the Catholic priesthood and the religious life.
In the religious life, a woman takes vows and has a very spousal relationship with Christ. I have felt this myself, though not yet professed (as a religious sister, that is), and never quite no what to say if someone asks if I have a boyfriend. The term boyfriend seems casual, irreverent and modern, to my sensibilities. Yet to call Him a Lover seems too forward for this stage in the game. A religious sister has a profound, intimate, beautiful relationship with Christ that is very different from that which the priest has. Given the choice between being God's beloved and being the instrument through which he works sacraments and continues his ministry on earth is fortunately not a choice one has to make. If one is female, the beloved option is open to one. (Open but not guaranteed; one does not have a right to be a sister.) If one is male, the servant option is open. (But not guaranteed.) Granted I cannot really grasp how a priest (or any man) relates to God, because I am not male. But I would not choose otherwise than to be a sister, even if offered the choice of being a priest.
Women are not kept from having power by an all-male clergy. The priesthood is not about power- priest have relatively little power, especially now when they don’t receive the universal respect that they used to, and many parishes are run by women who plan the liturgy, music, flowers, etc. If you want absolute power and domination, don’t become a priest (or even bishop, cardinal, or pope): become the Mother Superior of a cloistered order of Poor Clares’. You might have to suffer with having no meat, the being woken up in the middle of the night for prayers, longs fasts, kneeling on the floor for hours without support- but in the end, when you look at those faces who practically worship you, and obey your every command (they’ve taken a vow to obey you) down to asking your permission before getting a glass of water: well, by God, that’s power. (This is totally me joking, by the way. Nothing in the world could induce me to become a Mother Superior, and I think most Mother Superiors, the good ones anyway, are very reluctant to take on their office. The responsibility would kill me.)
Women are not kept from service by an all-male clergy. No one will say that Mother Theresa’s service was limited because she couldn’t be ordained. I’m sure she didn’t want to be.
Women are not kept from holiness by an all-male clergy.
Women are not kept from education by an all-male clergy. (When a woman becomes a Dominican she picks a topic of study that she will pursue for the rest of her life.)
In discussions of female clergy, I think it is important to remember that the priesthood is a vocation, that is a call from God (from the Latin vocare, “to call”) and that no one should be a priest except those whom God chooses.
Live in the world as if only God and your soul were in it; then your heart will never be made captive by any earthly thing. ~ St. John of the Cross
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(no ice cap emoticon?????)