Fr Michael Moreton, in a letter from which I recently quoted, also wrote as follows:
"I find it hard to believe that there is any way out of the pickle resulting from the admission of women to Holy Orders in the first place. [Archbishop] Robert Runcie once said to me that the only argument against the ordination of women is tradition. But that is the argument. The tradition has never hitherto needed apology for it rests on Christian anthropology which speaks for itself. The issue is simply between Christian and secular anthropology. At present neither view can prevail over the other. It is difficult to see how both can be provided for. ... In this as in so many ways the Church of England is a microcosm of what is happening in Christendom as a whole. I used to think that most RCs were strongly opposed to the ordination of women: and of course JPII has said that he has no authority to make such a change. But now I suspect that a majority of the clergy and laity could easily be reconciled to it. ... It makes me think that the Christian Churches can survive only with difficulty in a modern democracy. Information technology and rampant capitalism have combined to create a culture that is profoundly hostile to Christianity ...
In the eighteen years since Fr Michael wrote that, I think the circumambient culture has become even more resolutely hostile to Christian Anthroplogy. In fact, vastly more inimical. Gender fluidity ... rigid censorship of dissent ...
How wise we were not even to start sliding down that slippery slope.
5 comments:
Does 'start on the slippery slope' include discussions and commissions on lady deacons? You can start with capital punishment, which doesn't affect many of us, and when you easily get away with that, you think hard about deaconesses with assurances that that would no-how lead to priestesses (think civil partnerships to SSM) and before you know it Pope Francis I/II/III has taken the Catholic Church to where the Anglicans are now.
the "ordination" of women, or, if you want, of clerical trannies, along with many other things along the same line, is the result of the imposition of Marxist egalitarian ideology on the Church. But I seem to remember that someone said, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's"; and not the other way around.
Pope Francis said "that door is closed" regarding women's priestly ordination, affirming the teachings of his predecessors, including St. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. He expanded on this in a November 2016 informal statement on the return flight from his papal visit to Sweden to commemorate the Reformation: "On the ordination of women in the Catholic Church, the final word is clear, it was said by St. John Paul II and this remains."
Father Moreton's comment on the difficulties of Christian churches surviving in a modern democracy ignore the visible weaknesses of these churches - which become more glaringly obvious if people are no longer constrained by blasphemy laws and are able to voice their opinions across multiple media. How are people going to be denied knowledge of everything from doctrinal chaos to pelvic misbehaviour?
Grammatically, in English, one writes either " ... comment ... ignores ..." or "... comments ... ignore ...".
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