Just saw a young woman on the news who represents the Womens’ Ordination Conference. She is on her way to Rome to the Vatican. Geraldo Rivera’s brother Craig asked her if she is going to Rome “to send up a pink puff of smoke” during the Conclave to choose the new pope. She smiled and said well, sort of, but “The mission is to promote awareness that God calls women, too. And that God is not somehow rendered powerless by anatomy.”
I liked that last line… God is not rendered powerless by anatomy.
As a woman priest and bishop, (Independent Catholic — not recognized by Rome of course), I do know what she means — God calls women, too. There are thousands and thousands of female clergy in the world, their Call to service cannot be disputed. They are leading their congregations, their “flocks” just as male priests, pastors, ministers and rabbis do.
But there are no female clergy in the Roman Catholic Church, not even deacons.
As for married priests / clergy … In Judaism marriage is required to be a Rabbi. There are women Rabbis today. St Peter — the first “Pope” — was married because the Bible mentions his mother-in-law.
Also saw a news headline today that there’s a cardinal who proposes allowing women to become ordained deacons. Here’s a link to that article:
http://americamagazine.org/issue/kasper-proposes-women-deacons
Cardinal Kasper Proposes Women Deacons
SIGNS OF THE TIMES
March 11, 2013From CNS, Staff and other sources
A diaconate for women should be considered as a new role for women in the church. Cardinal Walter Kasper made this proposal during a study day discussing how to involve more women in church life, convened as part of the spring assembly of the German Bishops Conference in the city of Trier, in western Germany, on Feb. 21. Kasper spoke of a “deaconess†role that would be different from the classic deacon but could include pastoral, charitable, catechetical and special liturgical functions. The deaconess would not be designated through the sacrament of orders, but by a blessing. Many women already perform the functions of a deacon, he argued, so as a practical matter the possibility cannot be ignored. Cardinal Kasper noted that the female diaconate was foreseen in the church in the third and fourth centuries. Regarding the ordination of women, however, the cardinal said, “I do not think you could change anything in the fact that women cannot be ordained priests; it is the unbroken tradition of the Eastern Church as well as the West.â€
