Vatican reveals plan to welcome disaffected Anglicans

I agree that unity does depend on the will for unity, but I would disagree that unity depends on orthodoxy.

"...it is Rome paving ways for unity."

I'm skeptical. Time will tell.

I suspect it is Rome en route to major ecclesial heartburn as these new Catholics begin to be confronted with the requirements of orthotoxy.

To Rome I say, "Don't bite off more than you can chew."

To these prospective converts, I say, "Be careful what you wish for. It just may come true."

There you go skewing what was said again. You left out the parameters of what the keynote speaker said. She was saying there are many ways to go forward and listed a whole variety but then said some of the ways on the list would NOT work and some may be ways to think about. At no time did she say that was the way to go.

I firmly believe that the Pope is, according to the will of Our Lord, the successor of that historical Peter upon whom Jesus said He would build His Church. But with some tongue in cheek, I fear that the historical Peter, whom you say correctly, concerning the Traditional Anglicans, "They have knocked, and Peter has answered the door" - that Peter would have been shown the door today since he was married and that is taboo two thousand years later (all be the taboo has gone on for centuries past). And that trouble maker St. Paul who boldly proclaimed: "Let the Bishop (Elder?) be a man of one wife" would be in deep trouble too. Even though he said he would prefer that the Bishop be unmarried, this would not persuade many in authority today.

"The Anglicans...are accepting the fullness of the entire Catholic Faith."

I'll believe it when I see it, i.e., their supposed acceptance of all Roman teaching and practice.

"...whether we like it or not and whether we understand it or not"?
That sounds to me more like a requirement for cult membership.
Primacy of conscience is OK only as long as the conscience fully conforms to your way of seeing things, right?
The Magisterium has been wrong in the past and will be wrong in the future. That's why the Church has changed its position on so many things (read Rome Has Spoken, 1998, for a taste). No matter how much/hard we pray, we are all imnperfect human beings with imperfect understanding. The Spririt is never wrong, but our understanding of the Spirit's message is often wrong.

Baaah, baaah, do I hear sheep? Blind faith can only take you so far as the next cliff.

If my memory serves me correctly, thought not the the official list, Mary was sent from the garden to announce the resurrection to the guys cowering if fear.

Your analogy between age difference, on the one hand, and gender difference, on the other, is fatally flawed. Among other things, in the examples you give, we treat children and adolescents according to the circumstances of their situation. On the other hand, we (men) should be treating women with vocations to the presbyterate as fellow adults responding to God's call to serve their Christian communities in positions of religious and spiritual leadership.

(And, God forbid: I trust you did not have in mind equating adult women in some way with kids! Please confirm. Thanks.)

Where is the (Catholic) Church going with this reunification? Whether people "come back" or not is not really the issue- whether now we revisit married clergy in the R.C. Church or not because of the proposed unification should not excite hopefuls that we will some day have the option of married priests. I believe the deeper issue is the loss of catholics to the faith en masse. I cannot speak outside of NYC; however being a devout catholic I have seen the disappearance of catholics during Sunday mass. I travel throughout the Brooklyn and Queens diocese and am amazaed at the number of cathoics that have left the pews for every other reason than what we have been brought up to do once a week: i.e. go to mass. So if you think that doctrinal arguments will be used to pursuade those that left the church will some day bring them back, you're out of your mind. The mere fact that we are welcoming our Anglican bretheren back is great. But look at this simple fact: We are losing generations of Catholics due to poor examples on a large scale of what it means to lead a Christ-like life. Until this is fixed, many parishes will continue to close, the behavior of living a catholic-christian life will soon fade, and what we rememeber as the church in America will be transformed into something that we as of yet have not fathomed. Keep the doctrinal intelegentia for seminary or priestly dialgue and debate. Our brothers and sisters who are leaving the faith do not hear nor read such items. And although, and I realize you are addressing a separate issue, no one in the higher up echelon is openly speaking of 'what to do' with the condition I have briefly set in this page.
Succinctly, we can debate about women priests, celibacy, married clergy and the like- tell me what doctrine exists that will motivate or pursuade our fellow catholics to return to the fold? none! What we need are examples of the faith in our leadership- not calculated leaders who appear only intersted (due to their lack of visible zealous life) in the bottom line= $.

Terry Donahue, if JPII had said that the moon is made of green cheese, would you have accepted his statement as an infallible teaching and part of the deposit of faith?

Of course not! In all charity, however, would you have at least given the pope the opportunity to make his case? I would hope so.

The fact is, educated and informed Catholics have challenged JPII and now his successor for more than fifteen years to make their case that the Catholic Church has no authority to ordain women to the presbyterate (please note I did not use the word 'priesthood' since you became a priest --- just like the rest of us, no more, no less --- at your baptism).

Cardinal Ratzinger, of course, stated that JPII's teaching in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis simply acknowledged what "has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium," i.e., the third mode of infallible teaching. In other words, Ratzinger made clear that OS was not an "ex cathedra" statement, much less a definitive teaching of the world's bishops assembled at a general/ecumenical council of the church.

When I used the word 'challenged' above, I meant just that! Canon 749.3 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law provides that no doctrine is understood as infallibly defined unless it is "manifestly evident." In other words, the burden rightly falls on the pope or the world's bishops to clearly establish that a teaching is infallible. Implicit in this requirement is acknowledgement of the ancient practice of reception, i.e., the matter of whether or not the faithful have received a particular teaching as infallible in nature. Indeed, this requirement is found in canon 750.1 which states that a teaching can be presumed to be infallible when it "is manifested by the common adherence of the Christian faithful." Both canons, of course, implicitly acknowledge Vatican II's teaching on the "sense of the faithful," that is, the belief that the Holy Spirit works among all the Christian faithful and, in so doing, protects the church from serious doctrinal error. Just as we can learn from the official teachers of the church, so they can learn from us! (Whether they do, in fact, devote the time and effort to learn from the rest of us is, of course, another matter altogether.)

Contrary to Ratzinger's assertion, there is nothing in "the written Word of God" to support the idea that the church has no authority to ordain women to the presbyterate. Indeed, the Pontifical Biblical Commission determined many years ago that sacred scripture cannot be used to support or oppose women's ordination.

Likewise, we need to be extremely leery of so-called "universals" employed in written and oral communication. For example, Ratzinger wrote that OS reflects teaching that "from the beginning [has been] constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church." What is the basis for this global statement? In light of the fact that an East European bishop ordained several women to the presbyterate during Communist rule, can we conclude --- even on the basis of this rather recent example --- that women have never been ordained in the entire history of the church? If an independently conducted secret poll were taken of each and every Catholic bishop today, could we reasonably expect universal agreement on this issue? I doubt it.

In late 1995, Francis A. Sullivan, a leading theological authority on the magisterium, demonstrated how appeals to longstanding tradition of the past might not suffice as proof that a doctrine has been taught infallibly by the ordinary and universal magisterium (THE TABLET, 23/30 December 1995, p. 1646). According to Sullivan, "What has to be clearly established is that the tradition has remained constant, and that even today the universal body of Catholic bishops is teaching the same doctrine as definitively to be held."

Sullivan outlined three Vatican documents that suggest the different ways it can be established that a doctrine is taught by the ordinary and universal magisterium:

1. Papal consultation with all the world's bishops, as suggested by JPII in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae (March 1995),

2. The universal and constant consensus of Catholic theologians, as suggested by Pius IX in his Tuas Libenter (1863), and

3. Canon 750.1 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, which states that when a doctrine is proposed as divinely revealed by the ordinary and universal magisterium, this is "manifested by the common adherence of Christ's faithful."

"The CDF," wrote Sullivan, "has not invoked any of these criteria in support of its assertion that the doctrine excluding women from the priesthood [i.e., presbyterate] has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal magisterium." We know, of course, that Ratzinger essentially asserted that JPII's assertion reflected the teaching of the ordinary and universal magisterium. In other words, the CDF head merely asserted what his ecclesiastical superior asserted! One assertion + one assertion = 2 assertions, nothing more, nothing less. Whatever "arguments" used by Ratzinger have been clearly disputed (and refuted) by biblical scholars, historians, theologians, and others. And, of course, we have the widespread rejection of OS by the faithful.

"The Catholic Church will never ordain women to the priesthood..."

Please --- wake up and smell the coffee! The "Catholic Church" has already ordained women not only to the presbyterate but also to the episcopate! At some point, the Church of Rome may perhaps do likewise as increasing numbers of Catholics see the folly and sin of preserving a male-only sacrament of orders.

"Never say never."

Hmmm... Just like there is no such thing as a married priest. Period?

"There's no such thing as a female priest."

Wrong.

The Church of Rome does not recognize the ordination of women to the presbyterate and episcopate.

On the other hand, every baptized woman is a true priest according to St. Paul. (Every baptized male is also a priest according to Paul.)

Now you know. Question answered.