Not counting women and children

I'm astounded that NCR is willing to publish such a collection of hate filled drivel against men in general, the United States, and its military personnel without considering that with a few careful noun substitutions, the piece would be banned from most college campuses as hate speech.

Let me propose some counter examples for the author to ponder amid her orgy of hate against the Neanderthal sex:

First, one of the most publicized cases of human rights abuse associated with the recent military conflict in Southwest Asia involved the humiliation and torture of Muslim prisoners by a female Army NCO. How could that be possible as the author implies that only men commit atrocities on the battlefield and then at home?

Second, one of the fastest growing segments of violence against children appears to be occurring in the public schools at the hands of predatory female teachers. Curiously these cases seem to be single news cycle events that are quickly buried, rarely prosecuted, and never revisited in the press. Perhaps they too fall in the "out of sight, out of mind" category of bad behavior. No hard facts to back up my hypothesis, but I'd bet a whole dollar that more sexual abuse occurs at the hands of female teachers than Catholic priests, regardless of sexual orientation, and that more public school district administrators have reassigned sexual predators to new jobs involving children than have Catholic bishops. Where are those lawyers when you need them?

Third, American women have been complicit in the termination of more human lives (50 million and counting) than the United States military has in its existence. This inconvenient bit of trivia relegates the tragic loss of 240,000 killed and wounded in Iraq to little more than a rounding error by comparison (I offer this as a counter example to the author's broad brush approach of insulting an entire population for the sins of the few).

On a personal note, professional military officers (men and more recently women) have always taken their roles as "gentlemen" seriously including putting their own men to death in the field for crimes including rape. I can't recall the last time I heard of a leader of a parish justice and peace committee, human rights NGO, or even the UN doing anything remotely close to the same thing. And in a less dramatic example, even the most junior NCO is trained to scrutinize his or her subordinates for small indications that indicate the potential for criminal or self-destructive behavior.

In short, I invite the author to quit blaming the world's woes on men. Lord knows we have enough real problems without the fabricated nonsense. It's more than enough if each of us stops or prevents bad behavior within his or her own sphere of accountability.

"had been written out of church histories."
- That's because there weren't any to write about. Women have never received valid Holy Orders. Yeah, yeah, the usual hetrodox shrills and historical illiterates will try to say otherwise, but they're wrong. There were orders of virgins, widows, and deaconesses, but none of these women were ordained.

There has never been a woman priest or bishop, and there never will be.

Ms. Sotelo claimes, "until recent years, the lives of women as ministers, deacons, priests and bishops in the early church had been written out of church histories". But, as usual with such wild fabrications, she does not offer sources to corroborate her allegation.

Of course there is evidence to suggest that there were deaconesses in the early Church (Catholic Encyclopedia at NewAdvent.org, and 1 Timothy, Chapter 3, suggests that "wives" might be translated as "deaconesses"). However, there is significant debate as to whether or not these women were ordained or whether they were instead holding an office like an acolyte or extraordinary minister of Holy Communion (installed, not ordained, again I cite the Catholic Encyclopedia at NewAdvent.org). The Council of Nicaea, in the 19th canon, states that deaconesses are to be accounted as laypersons and "that they receive no ordination properly so called," (Hefele-LeClercq, Conciles, I, 618).

Further, there is ample evidence that deaconesses did not perform the liturgical functions of deacons but rather served, in the days when worship was segregated and men and women occuped different places in the church building, as liasons between the priest and the laywomen of the parish; instructed and baptized female catechumens (it should be noted that any Catholic may baptize in the case of emergency, so baptism is not, in and of itself, considered a sacrament reserved only to the ordained); and guarded the door and maintained order in the church among the women. At no time, however, was this ministry an "altar ministry". Further, the Church asserted that "the deaconess gives no blessing, she fulfills no function of priest or deacon", (Const. Apost., VIII, 27). Finally, unless Ms. Sotelo is advocating a return to the days of liturgies segregated by gender, there is no longer any need for deaconesses.

There is no credible evidence whatsoever that women ever were ordained as priests or bishops in the Church's history. Such ordinations would not even be valid, as the Church has asserted consistently that she does not have the power or authority to ordain women. It seems as if such assertions are every bit as mythical as the so-called "Pope Joan".

I do agree with Ms. Sotelo that we need to take into account the suffering of women and children and to be aware of that. I also happen wish that the Gospels would have included the number of women and children present at Christ's miracles (though it was quite common in Jewish times not to count them) as it enhances the majesty and power of the Lord. But, inventing and propogating such falsehoods as women serving as "deacons, priests and bishops in the early Church" does nothing to advance the legitimate concerns and issues surrounding women and children. Rather, doing so leads readers to conclude that Ms. Sotelo is merely using those very serious issues as ploys to further her own agenda within the Church. It does a grave disservice to the genuine suffering that women and children (and men) all over the globe are enduring.

Ms. Sotelo makes a very valid (albeit oft-denied by men) connection between cultural failure to accept women as full participants in a society and the perpetuation of physical and specifically sexual violence against them.

Bleats about "different gender roles" being instituted by the Almighty are oddly reminiscent to similar arguments made about dark-skinned people in decades and centuries past. They, too, were kept in subservient roles due to some hypothetical will of the Creator. And, as regards violence, the results were the same.

Abuse and violence committed against dark-skinned people was not taken seriously by society until society as a whole mandated equal status. Sadly, we still suffer from segments of society who don't accept that. And within those segments, violence and abuse of people due to accidents of their birth continues!

Some will regard it as outrageous, even heresy or blasphemy to draw a connection between the Church of Rome's refusal to accept women into its priestly caste and violence against them.

However, if you accept (and I think that logically you must) the connection between marginalization of persons due to accidents of their birth and societal acceptance of violence against them, the connection becomes clear.

A reasonable person probably wouldn't go so far as to say the Church's denial of ordination to the priesthood is in and of itself a form of violence. But that same reasonable person might well admit that the implicit and explicit marginalization of women by the Church contributes to a world where women are apt to suffer undue, and unaccountable, violence.

"...the Church has asserted consistently that she does not have the power or authority to ordain women."

Consistent assertions here mean nothing.

JPII wrote that the church's supposed lack of authority has been constantly preserved and applied by the ordinary and universal magisterium. Yet, a bishop in a Communist country ordained several women to the presbyterate to preserve his people's access to the sacraments.

JPII also used universal language ("constantly preserved and applied") in his Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. Any use of global language invites suspicion and challenge. Neither JPII nor Ratzinger ever responded to the challenges of historians, theologians, biblical scholars, canon lawyers, and other knowledgeable persons.

Canon 749.3 (understandably) places the burden on the proponent(s) of alleged infallible teaching. In addition, this teaching has not been "received" by the Catholic community (see canon 750.1).

If the Church of Rome is Catholic, its ministries --- including its ordained ministries --- must be catholic, as well.

To date, OS remains an unfounded papal assertion, nothing more, nothing less. Consistency here means nothing.

Great reporting ,Nicole Sotelo.
There are statistically many, many cases of returning soldiers murdering girlfriends, mothers, wives after their returns from tour duty.
Violence does beget more violence and it is mostly the women and the children who end up murdered by the males.
A good book about this is The Beast Within written by a male criminologist and psychologist about men who beat and murder the women in their lives.
Yes a few women murder men, a few women predatorize youths, however the overwhelming numbers of women and girls murdered by males far outnumbers what females do.
Sadly rapes and beatings of women by groups of males is far too common both in wartime and in peacetime. Again it is very rare when it is a group of women who beat a man. The fact is it is women who are mostly mordered by males, and often males they know, are husbands, or boyfriends who out of rage, jealousy, anger, post-traumatic syndrome from war duty, kill women.

The comments following this article go a long way to underscore the points of Ms. Sotelo's article rather than refute her.

So, if I were abused and raped by a male, to report it or discuss it would be "male hate" or hatred for the male gender? Hnnnnnnh. In what twisted universe?

If my husband forces me to have an abortion and beats me unless I get it, it is MY responsibility, and to discuss this fact, it is "hatred of the male gender."

Wow!

Thank you Nicole!!! I continue to struggle to stay within my Catholic faith tradition. When my little girl, age 7, told me she wanted to be Priest one day, I just smiled and said," I am sorry sweety, you can be anything else in the world be you can't be a priest". When she looked at me in disbelief and asked why? It stopped me deep in my tracks. I felt the same way growing up-
"WHY can't I be an alter-server?". Does God like boys more than girls??.. But, as a minority, we suck it up and store away the hurt. It is the only way not to live a bitter and angry life -because it can consume us and steal all our joy. That does not mean we should roll over and play dead, there is a third way. As Christains we are calleed to be advacates for ALL the
marginalized. Men who have transformed hearts and who have truly surrendered to God see this as well. I refuse to let my little girl to grow up thinking she is less special to God. I most definitely will not be surprised if she decides she cannot find the acceptance she needs within the Catholic church and decides to leave one day. Since men have been "on top" throughout history, in Religion, politics and culturally, if a man does not have a transformed heart, he will always defend his position of power. As a woman and a MOTHER my heart aches for the helplessness that MOST women (and please don't forget the children!) in war torn countires are facing. We have to be ignorant not to see it. This not a matter of "men vs women" , but a matter of respect to each other and our creator!!

Clint Green leaves out the passage in Romans where Paul asks the congregation to give all the help and support they can to his highly praised deacon, presbyter, Phoebe, deacon of Cenchrae. A real deacon, who is praised for being a wonderful deacon for the church, for all.

Yes there were bishops, an ancient mosiac in an ancient church has Bishop Theodora, female bishop. Female.

Yes women priests because many archeologists and archivists have searched out evidence in church manuals and church apostolic records, papal letters, gravestones, including Otranto church historian, that yes women were priests, deacons and bishops in the church. Lots of evidence.

Jesus chose several women apostles, Junia woman apostle is called outstanding among the apostles, foremost, Junia, woman, and Samaria woman is highly appreciated by Jesus, read all of John 4, Mary Magdalene, Mary Bethany, and others. Women apostles, with apostolic succession.

Jesus said Samaria woman does a better job of apostolizing the public of Samaria, being a public teacher and preacher than the male apostles do.

Pete, it is you who are wrong. Josephine Torjesen has researched this too and written a book about Womenpriests in the church, and she is a religion professor at Harvard University. Yes women were deacons, priests and bishops in the early church. There is lots of research and proof of this. Many other biblical scholars, theologians, historians, archivists, archeologists also confirm that women were deacons, prophets, preachers, teachers, presbyters, priests and bishops in the church.

Theodora was a bishop.
I suggest you do some research, Pete.

There are Seven women apostles in addition to twelve male apostles.

Note, Pete, that the names of the twelve male apostles keep changing in the synoptic gospels. The twelve is a device to give Jewish authenticity and to convert Jews to Christianity, twelve tribes of Isreal.

There are seven women apostles in the New Testament. You are wrong to deny the seven women apostles chosen by Jesus.

womenpriests.org. established by theologian Dr. John Wijngaard has over 200 Catholic theologians resource articles, listed books who support the ordination of women and who also show that women were deacons, priests, prophets, presbyters, bishops in the church.

Nicole has only elaborated on a simple truth, that violence begets violence. Children learn what they see. If they see parents hitting, they learn to hit. If you train someone to be violent, there is a price to be paid. This is how the sins of the parents are spread out to seven generations.

We need to accept that the price of war is not restricted to the battlefield, but is carried deep within every son and daughter that comes back home.