Vincent Browne Women's role in church not likely to change with new pope

the culture of deference

Long article

We are about to witness again in the coming months the most lavish imperial splendour surviving in the modern world: the election and inauguration of a new pope of the Roman Catholic Church, whether on the steps of St Peter’s Basilica or within the basilica itself, with rows upon rows of prelates in scarlet red, the golden instruments, and the placing of the pallium, woven from wool from sheep raised by Trappist monks, on the shoulders of the new pontiff.


And not a woman in sight, except among the excited audience restrained behind barriers on St Peter’s Square.


The pope will have been chosen by 137 overeducated and undersensitised elderly men, all chosen by the two previous popes for membership of the College of Cardinals. The prelates, we will be assured, will have been guided by the Holy Spirit in their enclosed election conclave that will outdo a Fianna Fáil selection convention for intrigue and machination.
Again, no woman in sight.
Pockets of obedience
The spectacle will remind the audience of tens of thousands in person, and hundreds of millions on television, of the pontiff’s unfettered authority, distracting from the diminished authority of the pope among the “faithful” and “faithless”, aside from pockets of obedience, notably in Latin America, parts of Asia and the Philippines.


It may have been the contraceptive pill that did most to diminish the authority of the pontiff among the “faithful” for it prompted the revolt of the ranks of previously obedient women to papal stricture, preferring their own autonomous consciences to the dictates of a male celibate priesthood.


But the revelation of complicity by the highest echelons of the church in the buggery, rape and molestation of children caused a collapse of respect and of much of the surviving subservience.
However, the church remains a powerful cultural influence across societies, especially in how it engenders and perpetuates patriarchy and the misogyny it engenders and perpetuates. Aided and abetted of course by other factors.


The depth of that misogyny is most apparent in the manner in which the most strident defenders of the church, against that charge, argue the defence. They speak of how crucial women are in the liturgy, in the increasing role they play in ceremony, even in the administration of Communion, in how intellectually women are now much respected in church academia, in how women were powerful figures in the church especially prior to the Reformation.


A respected Catholic theologian recently told me of how influential women such as Catherine of Siena were within the church in the middle ages. She was nominated patron saint of Italy in 1940 and a doctor of the church in 1970. Pope John Paul II declared her patron saint of Europe in 1999. Catherine of Siena was courageously outspoken but was probably delusional (she believed she had a mystical marriage with Jesus, from whom she believed she received Communion).


Women are excluded of course from the priesthood. This is the office that supposedly has the power to transform bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ, the office that has the moral authority to hand down and, where possible, enforce, the moral precepts of that religion, that has the power to forgive sin or to withhold forgiveness.


The priest is also the person to whom Catholics must go to confess their most intimate thoughts and most shameful deeds.
That women should be excluded from such office signifies more eloquently than almost anything else their inferiority within the orders of humankind. And none of the condescending blather of how important women are in the eyes of the church diminishes that.


The church did not invent patriarchy, nor did any religion. Very probably that arose from the emergence of the phenomenon of private property. Men felt the need to know who their progeny were, so as to be sure their property went to their offspring, hence the need for men to control women, especially the need for men to control women’s sexuality.


Control of women



Or at least patriarchy was stepped up several levels with the emergence of private property. And in the enculturation of society into patriarchy, religion became a crucial device. That explains, I think, how the Bible became the handbook for the control of women.


The new pontiff will be an ideological clone of the two previous popes – as all the electors of the new pope have been created electors by the two previous popes. There is a chance that the new pope might be spared Benedict XVI’s obsession with Islam, although that obsession led him into interesting insights concerning his views on Christianity.


In that speech early in his pontificate in which he denigrated Islam, he argued Islam was merely a religion of the book, whereas Christianity was a religion of the book and of reason, for it was a fusion of the teachings of Christ and of Greek philosophy.
Itself a curious concession for a pontiff.


http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...329979534.html

PopePalpatine

Am I the only one who read this in his voice?

Absoluvely

PopePalpatine wrote: »

Am I the only one who read this in his voice?

you're the only one who read it

the culture of deference

PopePalpatine wrote: »

Am I the only one who read this in his voice?

Not now, thanks.

In my head he took about 5 minutes just to speak the 1st paragraph.

coolhull

the culture of deference wrote: »

Not now, thanks.

In my head he took about 5 minutes just to speak the 1st paragraph.

I bore easily. Sorry, I'm out.

coolhull

Where does Vincent Browne fit into all this?

the culture of deference

coolhull wrote: »

Where does Vincent Browne fit into all this?

Wow .........

senecafalls

the culture of deference wrote: »

Wow .........

C'mon man, perhaps you could be a little more helpful and a little less sarcastic. Your comment served no productive purpose.

Newaglish

If the people voting for the new pope are guided by the holy spirit, does that mean that the vote is always unanimous? And if that's the case, surely just one person could do the voting? Or God could, I don't know, write the winner's name in the sky?

Beruthiel

No change then.
Well, I'm totally shocked to hear that!

SebBerkovich

Hold on to your bonnets ladies, the RCC is coming full steam ahead into the late 19th century.... toot..toot..

Beruthiel

SebBerkovich wrote: »

Hold on to your bonnets ladies, the RCC is coming full steam ahead into the late 19th century.... toot..toot..

My bodice is so tight, I can hardly breath!

Galvasean

Newaglish wrote: »

If the people voting for the new pope are guided by the holy spirit, does that mean that the vote is always unanimous? And if that's the case, surely just one person could do the voting? Or God could, I don't know, write the winner's name in the sky?

This is a long shot: I'll leave out this piece of paper and pencil. When we wake up in the morning hopefully God will have written down what we should do do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVDTpOtfSaI

the culture of deference

Galvasean wrote: »

This is a long shot: I'll leave out this piece of paper and pencil. When we wake up in the morning hopefully God will have written down what we should do do.

Great idea.

FFS catholics ............. they believe anything

Knasher

Newaglish wrote: »

If the people voting for the new pope are guided by the holy spirit, does that mean that the vote is always unanimous?

Makes you wonder, if they are guided by the holy spirit, why does it often take them a couple of days of voting to reach an agreement. Is the holy spirit telling different cardinals different things just to mess with them?

Sarky

Maybe they have to examine each other's testicles to make sure there are no women present.

SebBerkovich

Sarky wrote: »

Maybe they have to examine each other's testicles to make sure there are no women present.

That makes sense, it hasn't been child abuse all these decades, it was simply a boy verification pilot program.

Cabaal

Am I shocked, nope...not any level.

People expect the church to change?

This is the same church that spent century's removing anything positive about women and killing people that tried to believe otherwise when it comes to scriptures and writings, the very basis of original sin for the whole human race is all a women's fault in fairness!

the culture of deference

Knasher wrote: »

Makes you wonder, if they are guided by the holy spirit, why does it often take them a couple of days of voting to reach an agreement. Is the holy spirit telling different cardinals different things just to mess with them?

Delusional people hearing voices from god.

Cabaal wrote: »

Am I shocked, nope...not any level.

People expect the church to change?

This is the same church that spent century's removing anything positive about women and killing people that tried to believe otherwise when it comes to scriptures and writings, the very basis of original sin for the whole human race is all a women's fault in fairness!

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
In the ninth century, Rome and the Vatican were nothing like today's solemn and civilized center of culture and faith. Then the center of the Christian faith was home to bawdy monks, scheming cardinals, cross-dressing saints, intrigue, melodrama, corruption and violence.

"Popes ... killed each other off, hammered each other to death," says Mary Malone, the former nun. "There were 12-year-old popes ... we have knowledge of a 5-year-old archbishop. ... It was a very odd time in history."

FAO FUTURE POPES (memo from conclave)

In order to verify you are a man and not an evil woman Please expose your testicles and sit on this porphyry chair. A collection of cardinals will then kneel around and inspect your testes closely, then verify if you are a man.


[/FONT]

Galvasean

Knasher wrote: »

Makes you wonder, if they are guided by the holy spirit, why does it often take them a couple of days of voting to reach an agreement. Is the holy spirit telling different cardinals different things just to mess with them?

Agents of the devil trying to trick the Cardinals disguised as the Holy Spirit?

Cabaal

Came across this yesterday, I thought it was very fitting when it comes to the church's view of women.

The Church council of Macon in 584 actually seriously debated the question of whether women could be considered fully human. After much argument for and against, the question was decided in favor of women's humanity by a vote of 32 for, 31 against! So only by the narrowest of margins...one single vote, they decided that women could be considered part of humanity.

Of course after that whilst they did consider women part of humanity they still blamed them for so so much,