Catholic Church in Austria falls apart - sort of

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I love to see religion declining in public sentiment

It's one of the most saddening things that I see in the world today. But conversely, Schoenborn and people like him? I really don't think they're helping. I think it would be hard to deny that Schiller and people like him are, at least in part, trying their best to save the Church and ultimately the world from being consigned to the cold fires of purgation (Granted, I think Schoenborn is too, though I don't understand the positioning of the hierarchy which he represents on these issues at all; assuming bad faith in these situations is incredibly dangerous).

Why would having a married priest suddenly make people start going to Mass and Confession and changing the way they live their lives?

At least part of why I'm not Catholic has to do with these things, actually, as is most of why my mother left the church at a young age.

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This has always struck me as faintly absurd, or at least not the sort of battle even remotely worth fighting (unlike issues such as, say, gay marriage and contraception, where I at least understand why the Holy See cares even if I completely disagree with it). I've never understood why anybody who opposes female priests actually cares about it all that much (whereas, on the other hand, supporting female priests obviously gives an opening to care, namely 'I want something very badly and it's not happening/I feel a vocation and am not allowed to pursue it').

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I might be in a very small minority here, but this actually makes more sense to me than the ban on female priests, in that somebody's decisions about sex and love do at least tangentially have to do with their soul, whereas nobody can control what sex they're born as. I know that if I end up entering an Anglican Holy Order I won't feel comfortable ever marrying or having sex, so even though I don't support a ban I can actually understand the reasoning behind it quite well.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I love to see religion declining in public sentiment

It's one of the most saddening things that I see in the world today. But conversely, Schoenborn and people like him? I really don't think they're helping. Schiller and people like him are, at least in part, trying their best to save the Church and ultimately the world from being consigned to the cold fires of purgation.

Schönborn is just a run of the mill Catholic functionary, and saying what any such would have to be. Not some neocon (by the standards of the church hierarchy. Which are, alas, what they are).

Yes, I realised that it's not Schoenborn's fault as I was typing that, which I edited my post to reflect.

Random note: Does anybody think it might be a good idea to move this thread to Religion & Philosophy?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The problem here is that the Church is supposed to be based the actual teachings of Christ, not political pragmatism. I know there have been plenty of examples over the centuries where this didn’t happen, but in this case, the Church views that it does not have the option of ordaining women because Christ ordained only male disciples.

In my original post there was an explanation of why I don't feel that that makes any sense (namely, there are any number of demographic factoids about the early Church of that nature, and I think it has far more to do with the social environment in which Christ lived and the way the Bible was written/emphasized than with anything inherent about women). It got lost at some point as I was editing it. Basically, I do understand the reasoning but I'm still at a loss as to why anybody thinks that that's somehow a necessary feature of Christ's Church, rather than a quirk of the time and place in which He was incarnated; but then, I'm always reluctant to admit that sex and gender are relevant to much of anything, so maybe this makes more sense to other people.

Of course the Church's actions shouldn't be based on political expedience. I'm not claiming that Jesus' actions were based on political expedience either; I just don't believe that the job of the Church should be an attempt to preserve some kind of microcosm of the religious gender dynamics of two thousand years ago.

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All right, that makes more sense. Thank you.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

BTW, there is a huge difference, doctrinaly, between married priests and female priests. The latter is very problematic, at best, from the dogmatic standpoint: Catholic teachings would have to be seriously affected for that to ever happen.

The former (i.e., married priests) could happen tomorrow without any problem w/ anything Catholic church believes in religiously. Insisting on priestly celibacy is purely a matter of Church organization and governance, not of doctrine.  In fact, there are numerous married Catholic priests right now. For instance, most Greek Catholic priests in Ukraine (the largest Eastern rite church within Catholicicsm) are married, as are some priests who have converted from Anglicanism, and it causes no insurmountable problem within the Church. If tomorrow the pope were to declare that vows of celibacy are no longer required for ordination, at least as long as the man to be ordained is already married, it would, probably, make those already ordained upset and would imply a major change in the canon law, but it would be perfectly consistent with the the Church's teachings.

Most relevant post in this thread easily. The introduction of a female priest would completely change the meaning of the Catholic ritus, and would frankly, just be a ridiculous gesture meaning something like 'we don't really care either.' I certainly would consider leaving the church over such moves. 

Why, exactly, does the Catholic ritus have to be discriminatory to have meaning? Or rather, why is that portion of the Catholic ritus, as opposed to that of some other church, that attracts you to the church and makes you want to be a member connected to the fact that significant portions of the priesthood of my church would be laughed off if they were lucky and excommunicated if they weren't if they tried to express their callings in yours?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

BTW, there is a huge difference, doctrinaly, between married priests and female priests. The latter is very problematic, at best, from the dogmatic standpoint: Catholic teachings would have to be seriously affected for that to ever happen.

The former (i.e., married priests) could happen tomorrow without any problem w/ anything Catholic church believes in religiously. Insisting on priestly celibacy is purely a matter of Church organization and governance, not of doctrine.  In fact, there are numerous married Catholic priests right now. For instance, most Greek Catholic priests in Ukraine (the largest Eastern rite church within Catholicicsm) are married, as are some priests who have converted from Anglicanism, and it causes no insurmountable problem within the Church. If tomorrow the pope were to declare that vows of celibacy are no longer required for ordination, at least as long as the man to be ordained is already married, it would, probably, make those already ordained upset and would imply a major change in the canon law, but it would be perfectly consistent with the the Church's teachings.

Most relevant post in this thread easily. The introduction of a female priest would completely change the meaning of the Catholic ritus, and would frankly, just be a ridiculous gesture meaning something like 'we don't really care either.' I certainly would consider leaving the church over such moves. 

Why, exactly, does the Catholic ritus have to be discriminatory to have meaning? Or rather, why is that portion of the Catholic ritus, as opposed to that of some other church, that attracts you to the church and makes you want to be a member connected to the fact that significant portions of the priesthood of my church would be laughed off if they were lucky and excommunicated if they weren't if they tried to express their callings in yours?

I agree with the point here. And this issue really is a dealbreaker for me, I won't go to a church that isn't completely egalitarian in this regard. But really, I can't have much sympathy for "Catholics" who just whine about it or women who seek ordination and get excommunicated. They can just convert and get ordained in the Episcopal church and the liberal Catholics remind me of Zell Miller whining about how the party left him and similar blue dogs. If the organization doesn't fit you, leave. The same applies of course to the conservative Anglicans Al loves to poke fun at and all that.

I have sympathy on a cultural level. As I think TJ pointed out, Catholicism has a strong cultural component, at least in some ethnic and historic groups, that can make it very emotionally trying for people to up and leave.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

When the priest starts the preparation for communion, he also becomes part of an entire system of semantic fields that invokes the central mystery of christianity: the ressurection. The male gender of the priest is a part of that system, invoking the son and the father. (If I really ahd a lot of time and was in a mood to be quite a bit more lighthearted and/or erudite I'd start a long explanation about the 'fallus' and its meaning to the ritus here, but I suppose you can have your imagination fill that in for you if you want). Start fiddling around with that ritual and it loses a lot of its meaning, just the same as what'd happen if you'd go and change words in a poem by a synonym. And again, I'd like my church to take itself seriously enough to not have solemn introspection replaced by gimmicks.

All right, this makes sense but I can't take it remotely seriously because whenever I read something like this my mind flashes to this woman http://www.gracechurchamherst.org/intro/staff/MBJ.htm and how much I look up to and respect her and how the idea that her performing the sacraments is somehow illegitimate or represents somebody not taking something seriously makes me vaguely sick. But then, I'm not familiar with the precise differences in Catholic liturgy (the last Catholic Mass I heard was in French and I didn't understand very much of it). For all I know there could be significantly less emphasis on the Holy Ghost, Who is not, linguistically speaking, male by default, at least in English, which would make a little more sense even though it would strike me as theologically somewhat strange. (Of course, no person of the Trinity is actually male in any human sense except for the Son during the period of the Incarnation).

You're right, I can certainly imagine the role of the phallus in that semantic interpretation, but I have to say that in years of going to Episcopal/Anglican churches  I've never, at any point, thought 'hey, the invocation of the Resurrection in the form of this ritual could certainly be improved if all of these priests had a penis!'. I have to say that has legit never once occurred to me.

You're also right that it does nevertheless still make a lot more sense than the knee-jerk patriarchalism that in my experience more often motivates this. I should have given you more credit; sorry.