32. Priest or Priestess

An Argument Against Priestesses

Maybe we should both stop using the phrase, "woman priest"? It seems to me that the modern abhorrence of the word "priestess" is a telling fact. Even our unconscious psyches are uncomfortable with the possibility and this Orwellian word game is somehow an attempt to bypass our revulsion and the theological absurdity. Fr. George Rutler remarked in his Episcopalian days: ". . . and to say 'woman priest' is semantically as androit as saying 'female rooster'." Perhaps we avoid the word priestess because it tears to shreads any conception of this notion as fresh and modern? The word may even be older than "priest". The new Episcopalian priestesses are not so much one with true Catholic priests as they are with their western European and Mesopotamian forebears who rendered sybilline declamations over animal entrails.

Since you like Scripture, even if you insert new meanings into the texts, here is one of my favorites: "But I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and a husband the head of his wife, and God the head of Christ" (1 Corinthians 11:3). Paul addresses himself in the subsequent text to some of the lesser and changeable traditions (like Mass veils), but his theological underpinnings are what constitutes the revealed truth. A woman cannot signify the groom, Christ the head. An even greater scandal erupts if such a priestess were literally married. She who is subject to her husband would then seek the submissiveness of the Church, including her husband, to her. A contradiction would emerge. Your disagreement with the marriage analogy is not ultimately with me, but with St. Paul. If you can cast aside the teachings of popes and apostles, how can you be so sure that you have the mind of Christ regarding women's ordination? No, Luis, you talked before you had it all thought out and now you are covering up. You are wrong and maybe afraid of the consequences in admitting it.