We must offer women who have had an abortion hope and encouragement and avoid judging their internal guilt

It was St. Augustine, Father and Doctor of the Church, who said, "Interficere errorem, diligere errantem" - Kill the error, love the one who errs.  I have actually taken that as the motto for this Blog.  Gaudium et Spes of the Second Vatican Council put it this way: "..it is necessary to distinguish between error, which always merits repudiation, and the person in error, who never loses the dignity of being a person even when he is flawed by false or inadequate religious notions. God alone is the judge and searcher of hearts, for that reason He forbids us to make judgments about the internal guilt of anyone." (No. 28).

This teaching isn't always understood by some.  In an article on abortion which may be found at LifeSiteNews, Stacy Trasancos, who writes a column for The Catholic Free Press, writes, "It's a faulty question to ask whether or not a woman suffers mental anguish after she kills her own child.  Of course she does, a woman with her sanity and dignity intact doesn't do that in the first place....a woman  who kills her child in the womb is suffering mentally and will suffer mentally afterwards.  Something is terribly wrong in her soul and in her life." See here.

But here we encounter an immediate problem.  To say that there is something "terribly wrong" in the soul of a woman who has had an abortion and that her sanity and dignity are not intact is to make a judgment about her internal guilt and her motives.  The very thing which the teaching of the Church forbids.


Pope John Paul II, in his wonderful Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae, explains that many factors influence the decision which a woman makes when she is burdened with an untimely pregnancy.  He writes, "As well as the mother, there are often other people too who decide upon the death of the child in the womb. In the first place, the father of the child may be to blame, not only when he directly pressures the woman to have an abortion, but also when he indirectly encourages such a decision on her part by leaving her alone to face the problems of pregnancy...Nor can one overlook the pressures which sometimes come from the wider family circle and from friends. Sometimes the woman is subjected to such strong pressure that she feels psychologically forced to have an abortion: certainly in this case the moral responsibility lies particularly with those who have directly or indirectly obliged her to have an abortion. (EV, No. 59)

The Holy Father also places responsibility for the tragedy of abortion on, "doctors and nurses...when they place at the service of death skills which were acquired for promotion of life," and on "legislators who have promoted and approved abortion laws," and, "to the extent that they have a say in the matter, on the administrators of the health-care centers were abortions are performed” (EV, No. 59).

It is always a tragedy when a woman makes the decision to have an abortion.  But this decision to have an abortion is made in the context of multiple personal and societal pressures in what Pope John Paul II so aptly termed the "culture of death." Although the responsibility for the abortion decision is not entirely, nor perhaps even primarily hers, she must bear its burdensome consequences almost entirely alone for the rest of her life. So perhaps it's best to avoid questioning her sanity and dignity?

Perhaps instead, we should follow the lead of Pope John Paul II, whose pastoral outreach to women who have had an abortion is a model of tenderness and compassion [rightly understood] as well as being hopeful:

"I would like to say a special word to women who have had an abortion. The Church is aware of the many factors which may have influenced your decision, and she does not doubt that in many cases I was a painful and even shattering decision. The wound in your heart may not yet have healed. Certainly what happened was and remains terribly wrong. But do not give in to discouragement and do not lose hope. Try rather to understand what happened and face it honestly. If you have not already done so, give yourselves over with humility and trust to repentance. The Father of mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation." (EV, No. 99).

Notice how the Holy Father does not condone sin or error?  He rightly stresses that an abortion is, objectively speaking, a grave wrong even as he offers hope and encouragement by reminding women who have had an abortion that forgiveness and peace may be theirs in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. 

One would think that Stacy Trasancos would understand this better than most.  For she has herself admitted, at the website Catholic Online, that she got pregnant in college, has had an abortion, that she's taken drugs and worked as a stripper, that she's been divorced, and that her seven children are from three different men.

The same Good God Who forgave Stacy her sins offers His Mercy to every woman who has had an abortion.  Perhaps instead of questioning the souls of such women or their dignity and sanity, Stacy could follow Pope John Paul II's lead?  As should we all.

Kill the error, love the one who errs.  Hate the sin, love the sinner.

Read More

Clark University: Promoting a Theology of Violence

At their website, the Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute has an excellent article refuting the lies of those who promote the anti-Catholic production The Vagina Monologues, a pornographic play which encourages violence against women.  Entitled, "The Vagina Monologues Facts vs. Fallacies," the article refutes the top ten common claims made by V-Day organizers and supporters:

1) Claim: "The play empowers/liberates women."

False: The Vagina Monologues is a lie. It does not empower women with its message that: women's identity and image are wrapped up in their sexual organs. True empowerment lies in the heart and the mind. Consider these images from the play:

•"The Woman Who Loved To Make Vaginas Happy" is a monologue about a successful tax attorney who leaves her career to become a lesbian dominatrix prostitute, specializing in the use of sexual "props," i.e. whips, handcuffs and ropes. Liberating or ironically violent?

•"The Vagina Workshop" describes a woman who attends an orgasm workshop and participates in a group masturbation session. The workshop leader tells the woman her sexual organs are "the essence of me, both the doorbell to my house and the house itself." This mindset is exactly what the early suffragettes were fighting against.

•Reclaiming C**t” invites the audience to participate in cult-like chanting of an explicit word to describe a woman's private parts. And this exercise empowers women because?


2) Claim: "The play raises awareness about violence against women."

False: The play offers women little more than encouragement to view themselves as a single body part and become obsessed with their sexuality and sexual behavior. It does not provide healthy or practical information about how to protect themselves against violence and/or recover from a violent experience.

•The opening monologue states that playwright Eve Ensler's biggest anxiety was not about adequately and responsibly addressing violence against women. She wrote this play because she “was worried about [her] own vagina” as far as “what we think about vaginas and even more worried that we don't think about them.” How about worrying that laws setting punishments for sexual offenders are not strong enough? Or that most women are unfamiliar with basic self-defense techniques?

•Questions raised throughout the play make a mockery of meaningful ways to address and learn about violence against women. They include, “If your vagina got dressed, what would it wear?,” “If your vagina could talk, what would it say?,” and “What does a vagina smell like?"

3) Claim: "The play is not anti-male."

False: Men are only mentioned in a negative way throughout the play as adulterers, abusers, weirdos, and rapists. Consider the following examples:

•The cheating husband who “forced” his wife to shave her vagina in the monologue “Hair.”

•Andy Leftkov, who in “The Flood,” calls his date “a stinky weird girl.”

•Supporters of the play will often ask, “What about Bob?” Bob is featured in “Because He Like To Look At It.” “It” meaning a woman's vagina. What we learn is that Bob is ordinary, boring, and unappealing, that is, until the woman character discovers his one redeeming quality: a perverted obsession with women's private parts.

4) Claim: "If you don't want to see the play, you don't have to."

False: Advertisements, promotional materials, and other events surrounding the play around campus are equally offensive and degrading.

•Roger Williams University was flooded with signs that read, "My Vagina is Huggable," "My Vagina is Flirty," and "My Vagina is Regal."

•University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill allowed tee shirts that read "I Heart My Vagina."

•Boise State University distributed vagina lollipops.

•Florida State University had an orgasm workshop.

•Arizona State University constructed a 40-foot inflatable vagina on campus.

5) Claim: "The play is not pornographic"

False: It includes extremely graphic descriptions of women's sexual experiences.

•One monologue has an explicit depiction of two lesbians having sex. “She's inside me. I'm inside me.” And it gets much, much worse.

•“The Vagina Workshop” describes one woman's experience with masturbation. “I bounced and landed, landed and bounced. I came into my own muscles and blood cells and then I just slid into my vagina.”

6) Claim: "Opponents of the play are anti-feminist."

False: Those who oppose the play are pro-woman. We reject the effort to convince women to think of themselves as sexual objects. And we object to this play as a way to bring meaningful attention to the serious issue of violence against women. In addition, the early suffragettes—the original feminists—fought hard for equal rights and treatment under the law for women. They fought against the very notion that a woman is reducible to a single body part. By opposing this play, we honor their efforts.

7) Claim: "The play does not venerate child rape."

False: The child rape that occurs in “The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could” is presented as a sympathetic and spiritually redeeming experience for the young girl who is violated. She describes the rape as “surprising, unexpected, politically incorrect salvation” that “transformed my sorry-ass coochi snorcher and raised it up into a kind of heaven.” The monologue describes how a 24-year-old woman plies a 16-year-old girl (she is 13 in the original version) with vodka and then sexually violates her. And in the original version, this monologue ended with the line: “If it was rape, it was a good rape.”

8) Claim: "Funds raised by the play are ending violence against women."

While some of the funds are being sent to community programs and organizations that help victims of violence, the play itself does not effectively address this issue, its cause or any meaningful solutions. Rather, it encourages the very attitude that often leads to sexual violence: treating women as objects. According to V-Day organizers, groups who have also received proceeds from the play include Equality Now, Feminist.com, gay and lesbian centers, Planned Parenthood, and Girls, Inc.—groups with specific political agendas that reach way beyond violence against women.

We hope the V-Day marketing ploy and the lunacy of the play will be exposed. We also hope women, men, professors, and administrators will reject this demeaning portrayal of women. Until then, our approach is to inform, equip, and support reasonable students who are offended.

9) Claim: "The play is based on real women's stories."

False: In her book, Eve Ensler states, “Some of the monologues are close to verbatim interviews, some are composite interviews, and with some I just began with the seed of an interview and had a good time.” The "V-Day" website provides no evidence these interviews actually occurred or that any of the women mentioned exist.

10) Claim: "Opponents of the play are against free speech."

False: Opposing the play and advocating censorship are two very different things. We do not propose violating the First Amendment. In the free marketplace of ideas, the best idea will win out.

V-Day Unveiled was created to offer positive approaches that students can use to offer alternatives and/or express their disapproval of the play being performed on campus and with school funds. (See here).

But Jeremy Levine, a student who writes for Clark University's student newspaper The Scarlet, is quite content with the pornographic agitprop which encourages violence against women.  For Jeremy, true empowerment does not lie in the heart and mind.  For Jeremy, a woman's identity is wrapped up in her sexual organs.  He writes, "The vagina is much more than a body part, its the essence of what it is to be female, the epitome of feminine empowerment, and every single one is unique, not just on a biological level."

And this at a time when a student was sexually assaulted on Clark's campus.


Jeremy's review of The Vagina Monologues is so disturbing that it reads like the transcript of a serial rapist who is fixated on women's vaginas: "The performances themselves were fabulous. Stage productions often rely on acting, but not this one. Sure, the lines were memorized, and agonizing hours went into rehearsal, but the feeling was sincere. The people on stage really cared about vaginas, and really understood how the women they were portraying felt. This made [it] much easier to connect to the message....I learned about angry vaginas, young vaginas, old vaginas, neglected vaginas, adored vaginas, mysterious vaginas, overeager vaginas, and shy vaginas. One woman described her vagina as being “better than the grand canyon,” while another stated that hers “stays closed, and [she] doesn’t go down there.”..I always knew that sexuality was complicated, but this brought it to a whole new level... Every person on stage had a completely different take on her vagina and her interactions involving it...Vaginas are complicated, but their complications go beyond the physical. Each individual woman (and each individual man) has his or her own relationship with particular vaginas, and vaginas in general. These are not relationships to oversimplify, neglect, or generalize. They are the epitome of understanding one’s sexuality, and the beginning of trying to understand that of other people." (See here).

What Jeremy (and Clark University) is advancing is a theology from Hell. It is most ironic that his article is entitled "Peace, love and Vagina Monologues," for this pornographic play has nothing to do with love.  It is, rather, representative of today's cruel demand for sex without love, for a licentiousness in sex which has wrought a heartless society in which individuals do not care for anyone but themselves. The fruit of this demonic theology is the slaughter through abortion and euthanasia of human beings created in the Imago Dei. It is a theology of violence which is rooted in hatred of truth. For at the heart of immorality is falsity, the hatred of truth. Fr. Vincent Miceli explains: "...violence entered creation from the rebellion of Lucifer. This rebellion arose from the heart of pride. But the sin of pride is the offspring of the vice known as hatred of truth. Hatred of truth is the result of the creature's attempt to rearrange God's hierarchy of beings and values into an order which the creature prefers to the plan of God. This attempt immediately produces the violence of disorder, the chaos of falsity and immorality. For hatred of truth is really hatred of God who creates all things wisely and governs them lovingly. Lucifer, the Morning Star, was instantly deformed into the Prince of Darkness because he attempted to live a lie. He wanted to dethrone God and become God himself..." ( Essay entitled The Taproot of Violence).

At one university, the student Knights of Columbus group issued an open letter deploring the, "..performance of trash that demeans women and only serves to degrade the dignity of the human person...The Monologues will not further the mission of our University. A woman is a person, not an object. God blessed humanity with the gift of sex as a way of celebrating the love between spouses and of bringing new life into His world...."

This is the essence of the new anti-Christian sex education in preparation for the Moloch State. As George Kendall explains in Witness for the Truth, this sex education "radically separates sex from the very idea of the covenanted love of man and woman. Sex becomes merely a self-centered appetite to be satisfied and not a gift of self to another. As a result, what this kind of education produces is the lonely, autonomous individual. This is the ultimate in alienation. The autonomous individual is alienated even from his own body, which becomes to him only a thing, too - a thing to be used as a means to his autonomous pleasure. The end result is depersonalization which, if it lasts into eternity without being healed, means eternal loss.

Few have put it as eloquently as Randy Engel did: 'Is it any wonder that the state must wage war against the family? For the state requires not individuals who dream, and think, and pray, but rather what has come to be called 'the mass man' - rootless, unaffirmed, a reactor - a mere reed blowing in the wind - a thing to be manipulated, to be used, to be disposed of, but never, never, to be loved, for the giant has no heart. And since the modern state has no heart, that which men previously have done out of love, must now be done out of fear, and hatred, and brute force.' So clearly, contemporary sex education, 'Catholic' or otherwise, is a profound attack on human dignity and on the human person.." (Witness for the Truth, pp. 399-400. citing Randy Engel "The Family Under Siege," Wanderer, March 6, 1980).

And now I would add, satanic. The United States, like the other Termite Nations of the West, is fast-becoming a Moloch State which claims total jurisdiction over man. It is becoming a demon-state which rejects God's Commandments and His plan for the human family. This demon-state (and make no mistake about it, our leaders increasingly have recourse to demons) denies that there is any transcendent, higher-than-human voice or authority that cares for man. R.J. Rushdoony explains that:

"The Moloch State simply represents the supreme effort of man to command the future, to predestine the world, and to be as God. Lesser efforts, divination, spirit-questing, magic and witchcraft are equally anathema to God. All represent efforts to have the future on other than God's terms, to have a future apart from and in defiance of God. They are assertions that the world is not of God but of brute factuality, and that man can somehow master the world and the future by going directly to the raw materials thereof."

Clark University has succumbed to hatred of truth.  For this reason, the institution is now succumbing to a lust for violence.  Our Lord warned the Pharisees that men who reject God's plan for their salvation will imitate Satan's deeds.  Enter the Moloch State and he who will rule it with hatred and violence in his own name. (John 5: 43).

Read More

For some Clark University students, I am "delusional" for seeing the connection between destructive pornography and violence against women

The Most Rev. John D'Arcy, Bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend, in a statement which may be found here, asks, "What is wrong with the text of this play [The Vagina Monologues]? It distorts the beautiful gift of human sexuality, clouding its richness so it becomes merely the seeking of pleasure. Sexuality in the Catholic tradition is always related to the gift of self to another. 'Sexuality is an enrichment of the whole person — body, emotions and soul — and it manifests its inmost meaning in leading the person to the gift of self in love.' (Familiaris Consortio, Pope John Paul II).

In contrast, the play in question reduces sexuality to a particular organ of a woman’s body separate from the person of the woman, from her soul and her spirit. It alienates woman from man whom God has entrusted to her as friend and companion. It separates sexuality and the human body from love. How opposite from our tradition which says, 'A woman’s dignity is closely connected with the love which she receives by the very reason of her femininity. It is likewise connected with the love she gives in return.' (On the Dignity of Women,  Pope John Paul II).

While some will find it hard to believe, it is true that this play depicts in an approving way a sexual relationship between an adult woman and an adolescent girl, a minor. Such an action, which is a crime in both civil and church law, is also considered a serious sin in Christian moral teaching. The play also contains explicit depictions of masturbation and lesbian sex, portrayed in a positive light.

In this first encyclical letter, Pope Benedict XVI, theologian and pastor, speaks to this cultural phenomenon with striking clarity. 'Nowadays Christianity of the past is often criticized as having been opposed to the body; and it is quite true that tendencies of this sort have always existed. Yet the contemporary way of exalting the body is deceptive. Eros, reduced to pure 'sex,' has become a commodity, a mere ‘thing’ to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity. This is hardly man’s great 'yes’ to the body and his sexuality as the purely material part of himself to be used and exploited at will. Nor does he see it as an arena for the exercise of his freedom, but as mere object that he attempts, as he pleases, to make both enjoyable and harmless. Here we are actually dealing with a debasement of the human body: no longer is it integrated into our overall existential freedom; no longer is it a vital expression of our whole being, but it is more or less relegated to the purely biological sphere. The apparent exaltation of the body can quickly turn into a hatred of bodiliness. Christian faith, on the other hand, has always considered man a unity in duality, a reality in which spirit and matter compenetrate, and in which each is brought to a new nobility.' (Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict XVI, Dec. 25, 2005).

Bishop D'Arcy then cites Pope John Paul II in his classic work "Love and Responsibility": 'Art has a right and a duty, for the sake of realism, to reproduce the human body, and the love of man and woman, as they are in reality, to speak the whole truth about them. The human body is an authentic part of the truth about man, just as its sensual and sexual aspects are an authentic part of the truth about human love. But it would be wrong to let this part obscure the whole — and this is what often happens in art … Pornography is a marked tendency to accentuate the sexual element when reproducing the human body or human love in a work of art, with the object of inducing the reader or viewer to believe that sexual values are the only real values of the person, and that love is nothing more than the experience, individual or shared, of those values alone.' And then His Excellency adds, "Such an analysis brings clarity. The play [The Vagina Monologues],...does not portray the whole truth about human sexuality; and by this separation, it violates the truth about the body, the truth about the gift of sexuality, the truth about love, and the truth about man and woman."

As I mentioned in my last Blog post, Women for Faith and Family, a highly respected association of Catholic women led by serious scholars, has said that: "Vagina Monologues is destructive, pornographic, deforming agit-prop deliberately and cynically aimed at young women - in particular at young Catholic women - a form of victimization that it is perilous to ignore. It contradicts at the deepest level the truth of creation; it is profoundly anti-Catholic, anti-God; and a contemptible assault on the very nature of the human person."  The play, as WFF correctly notes, "..actually contributes to violence against women, while claiming to be fighting it."

But many of the students at Clark University don't see it that way.  I received an email from an individual calling himself Carson Stevens.  In this email, Carson asserted that, "The implication that Clark University creates an atmosphere that is partially responsible for the sexual assault is incorrect."  On what does he base his argument?  Well it's simple according to Carson: "Clark's production of Vagina Monologues does not include that scene which you described."  But there is far more than just one offensive scene.  As Bishop D'Arcy noted, "The play also contains explicit depictions of masturbation and lesbian sex, portrayed in a positive light."  The whole play, as Bishop D'Arcy said, "reduces sexuality to a particular organ of a woman's body."

So much for the "they deleted the one lesbian rape scene" argument.

Then Carson writes, "As for the guilt of Clark, no Clark community member has been linked to the crime (with the exception of the survivor, herself)."  Translation: You cannot put Clark Students or faculty at the scene of the crime as actual participants, therefore we bear no responsibility for this crime even though we have been  fostering an atmosphere where women are demeaned and others are encouraged to view women as objects to be used and exploited at will.

If productions do not influence human behavior, what is the point of the television commercial?

Another Clark Student (I traced his IP address to Clark University), calling himself "Sigma," berated me for my post on The Vagina Monologues and wrote, "Dude, your views aren't even accepted by 99.9 percent of Christians."  In other words, because I believe women are created in the Imago Dei (in the Image and Likeness of God) and should not be reduced to being mere sexual objects to be exploited and used, I am out of touch with reality.  Sigma added, "You need to get off your delusional Christian agenda and leave Clark alone."

According to the City of Worcester, in 2011, detectives investigated approximately 280 sexual assault cases in which 41 fell within the definition of forcible rape as defined in the UCR. "The remainder of the cases did not meet the strict definition....It is anticipated that the reported number of forcible rapes as defined by the UCR will increase when the FBI changes the UCR definition of rape."


280 sexual assault cases.  In one year.  In one city. That number is an obscenity. But it would appear that some Clark Students do not have a problem with sexual assault and violence against women in general.  Hence the cavalier attitude toward a pornographic play which contributes to violence against women.

You can be sure that if these same individuals had a wife, a daughter or a sister who was raped or in some way sexually assaulted, they wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the legitimate concerns expressed here. They would be too busy trying to comfort their loved one.  They would be in tears.

This is part of the problem. Until this sort of violence hits close to home, it is easy for some to just wave the hand and dismiss the concerns of those who see the connection between destructive pornography and sexual assault  Such people forget that every woman who is sexually assaulted is a person with hopes and dreams. A person who wants to feel safe.

For some Clark University students, I am "delusional" for seeing the connection between destructive pornography and violence against women.

Yes, clearly I am the delusional one.  Which is why we read here that:  "All pornography soft, hard, and even 'neutral' sex-education materials, desensitize the viewer and allow him to become conditioned to sexual acts, violent and nonviolent, as an integral part of human behavior. This conclusion has been reached in 26 separate studies."

Read More

Obama Justice Department wants to eliminate the ministerial exception...

The Becket Fund explains that, "Next week the U.S. Supreme Court will hear argument in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC. The case involves the scope of the ministerial exception from federal employment discrimination laws, or so we thought until the Obama administration’s Justice Department filed a brief contending that the ministerial exception ought not exist. The ministerial exception is rooted in the nation’s constitutional commitment to religious liberty, in the form of permitting religious institutions to select their clergy and govern themselves internally free of governmental edicts. See, e.g., Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese v. Milivojevic, 426 U.S. 696 (1976). The case involves the discharge of a teacher at a religious school who taught a full secular curriculum, but was also a minister (employed as a 'called teacher' — one who has committed to the faith), regularly held prayer and worship services for students, and taught religion classes daily. The Sixth Circuit ruled that the teacher was not a ministerial employee and thus the ministerial exception was inapplicable. The issue presented to the Supreme Court was limited to the scope of the exception, but that has not deterred the DOJ from contending that the exception ought to be junked. The DOJ’s brief is here. In essence the DOJ thinks that the ministerial exception is not constitutionally required or, if it is, it should be limited to people who perform “exclusively religious functions and whose claims concern their entitlement to occupy or retain their ecclesiastical office.


If the ministerial exception were to be scrapped altogether, the Roman Catholic church could not limit its priesthood to men, the Jewish rabbinate must be opened to women, Islamic clerics could not be limited by sex or ethnicity, and, presumably, non-Catholics could become priests, Anglicans could become rabbis, born-again Christians could become imams, or at least have a legal right to seek the job free of religious discrimination. Perhaps because the DOJ knows, at bottom, that this is nonsense (and contrary to the First Amendment) it offers its fallback position. But even that shrinkage of the ministerial exception would have a profound impact on employment by religious organizations of people — like the teacher at issue in Hosanna-Tabor — who combine secular and religious duties as a profession of the faith. The DOJ brief is an indication of an underlying hostility to religious autonomy on the part of the Obama administration." (See here).

This is nothing less than a satanic attack on the Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of Christ.  As Fr. Vincent Miceli explained in his essay entitled "Woman and the Priesthood,": "Applying a priori concepts to the Church - like democracy, civil rights, equality, power-structure, etc. - is an attack on her very essence.  Such ideas mutilate her sacramental nature, her power, glory, beauty.  They destroy her supernatural truth; they dissolve her transcendence before men's eyes, for they politicize her.  Yet the truth is that the Church, in her essence, sacraments and structure, depends upon God's eternal Will, not on man's capricious desires."

The Church is viewed by the egalitarians as archaic because it will not go against the Lord Jesus and ordain women to the ministerial priesthood.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  It was Pope Pius XII who recalled that, "The Church has no power over the substance of the sacraments, that is to say, over what Christ the Lord, as the sources of Revelation bear witness, determined should be maintained in the sacramental sign." (Apostolic Constitution Sacramentum Ordinis). 

This is the teaching of the Council of Trent: "In the Church there has always existed this power, that in the administration of the sacraments, provided that their substance remains unaltered, she can lay down or modify what she considers more fitting either for the benefit of those who receive them or for respect towards those same sacraments, according to varying circumstances, times or places." (Council of Trent, Session 21, chap. 2: Denziger-Schonmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum 1728).

The practice of not ordaining women to the ministerial priesthood has a normative character.  This norm is based upon the example of the Lord Jesus and has an unbroken tradition throughout the history of the Church.  Which is why Pope John Paul II, in his Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, nos. 2-4, wrote: "In the Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem, I myself wrote in this regard: 'In calling only men as his Apostles, Christ acted in a completely free and sovereign manner. In doing so, he exercised the same freedom with which, in all his behavior, he emphasized the dignity and the vocation of women, without conforming to the prevailing customs and to the traditions sanctioned by the legislation of the time.'


In fact the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles attest that this call was made in accordance with God's eternal plan; Christ chose those whom he willed (cf. Mk 3:13-14; Jn 6:70), and he did so in union with the Father, "through the Holy Spirit" (Acts 1:2), after having spent the night in prayer (cf. Lk 6:12). Therefore, in granting admission to the ministerial priesthood,(6) the Church has always acknowledged as a perennial norm her Lord's way of acting in choosing the twelve men whom he made the foundation of his Church (cf. Rv 21:14). These men did not in fact receive only a function which could thereafter be exercised by any member of the Church; rather they were specifically and intimately associated in the mission of the Incarnate Word himself (cf. Mt 10:1, 7-8; 28:16-20; Mk 3:13-16; 16:14-15). The Apostles did the same when they chose fellow workers who would succeed them in their ministry. Also included in this choice were those who, throughout the time of the Church, would carry on the Apostles' mission of representing Christ the Lord and Redeemer.

Furthermore, the fact that the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, received neither the mission proper to the Apostles nor the ministerial priesthood clearly shows that the non-admission of women to priestly ordination cannot mean that women are of lesser dignity, nor can it be construed as discrimination against them. Rather, it is to be seen as the faithful observance of a plan to be ascribed to the wisdom of the Lord of the universe.

The presence and the role of women in the life and mission of the Church, although not linked to the ministerial priesthood, remain absolutely necessary and irreplaceable. As the Declaration Inter Insigniores points out, 'the Church desires that Christian women should become fully aware of the greatness of their mission: today their role is of capital importance both for the renewal and humanization of society and for the rediscovery by believers of the true face of the Church.'

The New Testament and the whole history of the Church give ample evidence of the presence in the Church of women, true disciples, witnesses to Christ in the family and in society, as well as in total consecration to the service of God and of the Gospel. 'By defending the dignity of women and their vocation, the Church has shown honor and gratitude for those women who-faithful to the Gospel-have shared in every age in the apostolic mission of the whole People of God. They are the holy martyrs, virgins and mothers of families, who bravely bore witness to their faith and passed on the Church's faith and tradition by bringing up their children in the spirit of the Gospel.'

Moreover, it is to the holiness of the faithful that the hierarchical structure of the Church is totally ordered. For this reason, the Declaration Inter Insigniores recalls: 'the only better gift, which can and must be desired, is love (cf. 1 Cor 12 and 13). The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven are not the ministers but the saints.'

Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church's judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.

Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful."

The Church has no authority to ordain women.  But the egalitarians, in their hatred for God's plan, want to use the State to force the Church to conform to their view of "equality."  And this with Barack Obama's blessing.

Read More

The National "Catholic" Reporter sets itself against the teaching of the Catholic Church

An editorial in the National "Catholic" Reporter entitled "Ordination ban not infallibly taught" (May 23rd edition), referring to Pope John Paul II's infallible teaching in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, No. 4, asserts that, "At issue fundamentally is whether John Paul, in his 1994 apostolic letter, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (“Priestly Ordination”), intended to (or actually did) lay out an infallible teaching when he said, 'I declare that the church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the church’s faithful.'"

Then the editorial says that, "John Paul did not formally pronounce the teaching ex cathedra (speaking from the chair of Peter) or say he was teaching infallibly in his declaration. It is also notable that he said only that it was a 'judgment' that is 'to be definitively held' - not a matter of  'divine faith' that must be 'believed.' For any serious Catholic or student of Catholic teaching, the issue of the words employed in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is not of minor import."  (See here).

More word games.  Notice the wording in this editorial?  "..he said only that it was a 'judgment' that is 'to be definitively held.'" 


Only?  This is a cheap attempt to downplay the wording of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, No. 4.  Canon Law, specifically Canon 750, states that: “each and everything set forth definitively by the Magisterium of the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals must be firmly accepted and held; namely, those things required for the holy keeping and faithful exposition of the deposit of faith; therefore, anyone who rejects propositions which are to be held definitively sets himself against the teaching of the Catholic Church.”

In its editorial, the National "Catholic" Reporter is in effect setting itself against the teaching of the Church by treating the ordination of women as “an open question.” Deliberate nonassent is a grave matter. This situation is all the more serious since the judgment of Pope John Paul II (and he invoked his supreme authority in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis) is to be “definitively held by all.”

Because nonassent is serious in and of itself, and because deliberate nonassent interferes with communion in the Church and serves to polarize people, it is a grave matter. Pope Pius XII, in Humani generis, explains that once a pope makes a point of settling a matter which is disputed among theologians, it can no longer be treated as an open question.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a Responsum ad Dubium in 1995 which read:

"Dubium: Whether the teaching that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women, which is presented in the Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis to be held definitively, is to be understood as belonging to the deposit of faith.


Responsum: In the affirmative.

This teaching requires definitive assent, since, founded on the written Word of God, and from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium (cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium 25, 2). Thus, in the present circumstances, the Roman Pontiff, exercising his proper office of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32), has handed on this same teaching by a formal declaration, explicitly stating what is to be held always, everywhere, and by all, as belonging to the deposit of the faith.

The Sovereign Pontiff John Paul II, at the Audience granted to the undersigned Cardinal Prefect, approved this Reply, adopted in the ordinary session of this Congregation, and ordered it to be published.

Rome, from the offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on the Feast of the Apostles SS. Simon and Jude, October 28, 1995.

Joseph Card. Ratzinger
Prefect

Tarcisio Bertone
Archbishop Emeritus of Vercelli"

No serious Catholic or student of Catholic teaching would dismiss a teaching of the Church which is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful.  The National "Catholic" Reporter is setting itself against the teaching of the Catholic Church.  And the U.S. Bishops need to address this most grave matter.

Read More