Did the Committee on Doctrine read ‘Quest for the Living God’?
As I mentioned last week, I’ve been working through Elizabeth A. Johnson’s Quest for the Living God, recently criticized [PDF] by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine. In a terrific follow-up post, Mollie expanded on a question I raised about the degree to which Johnson’s feminism motivated the committee’s critique. The document accuses Johnson of wanting to “replace” masculine names for God with feminine ones. Johnson never says any such thing. “Are they [the bishops on the committee] doing so much reading between the lines they’re overlooking what the lines themselves say?” Mollie asked. That’s certainly possible. But I wonder whether they’ve read the book at all.
Take, for example, this passage from Quest:
All fruitful metaphors have sufficiently complex grids of meaning at the literal level to allow for extension of thought beyond immediate linkages. That is why God can be seen as a king, rock, mother, savior, gardener, lover, father, liberator, midwife, judge, helper, friend, mother bear, fresh water, fire, thunder, and so on.
And this:
God is not literally a father or a king or a lord but something ever so much greater. Thus is the truth more greatly honored. This is not to say that male metaphors cannot be used to signify the divine. Men, too, are created, redeemed, and sanctified by the gracious love of God, and images taken from their lives can function in as adequate or inadequate a way as do images taken from the lives of women…. If God is a “he” as well as a “she”—and in fact neither—a new possibility can be envisioned of a community that honors the difference but allows women and men to share life in equal measure.
As anyone who has read the book can tell, Johnson has no interest in dumping male images of God in favor of female ones. She wants us to consider both. As did John Paul I, who delivered the following remarks—cited on page 103 of Quest—in 1978:
God is our father. Even more God is our mother. God does not want to hurt us, but only to do good for us, all of us. If children are ill, they have additional claim to be loved by their mother. And we too, if by chance we are sick with badness and are on the wrong track, have yet another claim to be loved by the Lord.
“What is lacking in the whole of this discussion [of female images of God],” according to the Committee on Doctrine, ”is any sense of the essential centrality of divine revelation as the basis of Christian theology…. The standard by which all theological assertions must be judged is that provided by divine revelation, not by unaided human understanding.” Apparently the committee failed to notice that Johnson repeatedly cites scriptural sources of female images of God–Isaiah 49:15, for example. Makes you wonder what else they missed.
Tags: Elizabeth A. Johnson, USCCB
” But I wonder whether they’ve read the book at all.”
They appear to operate under the Sierra Madre theory: “Badges? badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!!!”
Read something without a mandatum or imprimatur?
Perhaps because it really isn’t metaphor to most of them. It’s ontology.
Grant – may be way off on this but it would be helpful to know the exact members of this USCCB committee, their background, educational achievements, degress, etc.
That being said, their critique (echoed by some commentors on the earlier blog) appear to take certain scriptural quotes (example – any reference of God as Father) and “canonize” this as the best, if not only, sanctioned metaphor/analogy when speaking or thinking about God.
It reminds me of the dust up on the question of ordination of women – there was a papal commission and a study done by Biblical experts. The final result (sorry, not at my fingertips but, believe, written by a SJ) explicitly stated that there were no biblical proof that ordination was restricted to males only.
JPII responded by basically racheting up a document that delcared the question settled and that no further study was to be done and that his statement was definitive – thus, he assumed, closing the door on all discussion, thought, etc.
If you look at that document and others that have tried to justify male only ordination – they use language such as: Jesus was a male; so, priests must be male; alter Christus – must be male; or you go down the confusing path of complemenitarty of male and female roles and priesthood can only fit the male. In this process, scripture, early church history, etc. is thrown overboard in order to justify their position.
The same analogy can apply here – the starting point must be that God and metaphors about God must be male. Or, at best, these must be primary and female metaphors merely support this foundational base.
This same type of rigid, closed minded discussion seems to best describe the USCCB committee’s critique.
Follow that link on “Committee on Doctrine,” Bill. You’ll find the members listed there. The committee chair is Cardinal Wuerl.
Thanks, Grant (I could have done that if I wasn’t so helpless)
Here is what the link shows:
Current Membership
Chairman
His Eminence Donald Cardinal Wuerl
Archbishop of Washington
Members:
Most Reverend Leonard P. Blair
Bishop of Toledo
Most Reverend Daniel M. Buechlein, OSB
Archbishop of Indianapolis
Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Archbishop of Los Angeles
Most Reverend William E. Lori
Bishop of Bridgeport
Most Reverend Robert J. McManus
Bishop of Worcester
Most Reverend Kevin C. Rhoades
Bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend
Most Reverend Arthur J. Serratelli
Bishop of Paterson
Most Reverend Allen H. Vigneron
Archbishop of Detroit
Bishop Consultants:
His Eminence Francis Cardinal George, OMI
Archbishop of Chicago
Most Reverend John C. Nienstedt
Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis
Consultants:
Very Reverend Steven C. Boguslawski, O.P
Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Heart
Sr. Sara Butler, MSBT (advocate and outspoken writer against female ordination; feminization of language, etc. – link: http://www.wf-f.org/04-3-Ordination.html (note – much of her analysis is circular in nature) Not a very objective person in terms of evaluating Sr. Johnson’s works)
University of St. Mary of the Lake
Dr. Peter J. Casarella (fluent in Spanish/German but doesn’t even teach in the theology department; member of CTSA but what qualifications does he have for this critique?)
DePaul University
Dr. John C. Cavadini, Ph.D. (seems to be the only person with biblical exegesis expertise esp. medieval and patristic periods – did he have much of a role?)
University of Notre Dame
Reverend John Michael McDermott, S.J. (STD from Greg – he does have expertise in the gospels and theological methodology) Sacred Heart Seminary
What it does not show is the educational/degrees of each bishop. Some I know; others I do not. Suffice it to say that most of these bishops do not spend their time in academic endeavors, research, etc. It also does not state or indicate each member’s opinion, etc. We only have a final, group statement – who wrote that, I wonder?
It is in their best interest to toe the doctrinal line (per their own definition of that)….you have some very conservative bishops in this group:
Am not aware that any of the bishops named above have any advanced degrees in biblical or patristic studies. Not sure but would doubt that any of them have expertise or training in the field of language when it comes to metaphor, analogy, etc. beyond a basic philosophy degree and a MDiv.
Wuerl (STD from Pontifical), Gomez (PhD from Opus Dei), Rhoades (N. American College – not sure what degree he has), Serratelli, Vigneron (PhD from CUA in philosophy), Lori (STD from CUA, EWTN fave, big KC – but no specialties in biblical/scripture, language, etc.) – all orthodox conservatives who are not going to be creative in terms of a theologian and their works.
George as a consultant – he is very outspoken in terms of his own thinking, stance, etc. He likes to say that the “liberal church/agenda” is dead. He sees himself as an intellectual (PhD Philosophy from Tulane; MA from CUA but no specialties in scripture, languages, etc.). Neinstedt leans that same way (STD from the Greg but in moral theology). Wonder if they had major input on this?
In terms of named consultants – all from conservative seminary staffs except for the DePaul professor (don’t know him) and the ND professor (Prof. Kaveny?)
Buechlein – the one board member with experience and educational background to equal Sr. Johnson (former rector of St. Meinrad’s; degree from Sant Anselmo). But he had cancer in 2008/2009; surgery in 2010; and a stroke in 2011. He also spoke out against Obama at ND; and is an advocate of TOB. So, did he have any input?
So, you have a list of bishops – majority have degrees in philosophy or MAs in Theology. Did they have staff who did the actual research, critique, and writing of this statement?
Not sure you had the breath or depth necessary to do an objective and comprehensive analysis of Sr. Johnson’s work?
Apparently the committee failed to notice that Johnson repeatedly cites scriptural sources of female images of God–Isaiah 49:15, for example. Makes you wonder what else they missed.
I’m just repeating myself now, but what really makes me scratch my head is that the statement makes reference to Johnson’s citation of female language for God from scripture, and even gives some of the examples she cites — and it does so on the very same page (13) that it criticizes her for disregarding revelation. So it seems to me you wouldn’t have to have read the book to doubt the accuracy of that claim; you’d just have to read the statement!
I don’t think a bishop needs particular expertise in Johnson’s area of work to evaluate whether this statement is accurate, fair, etc. I’m certainly not an expert, but I know I wouldn’t have felt comfortable signing my name to this critique, based on stuff like this: claims made about what Johnson argues or fails to argue and not backed up with direct quotes.
Over at the Catholic Key blog, Jack Smith ponders the link between winning the CPA book award and being investigated. Makes me wonder how many theology books these guys read. Or if they just look up the award winners and decide, “Hey, let’s go after these people. And besides: it’s only one winner per year.”
Really: does the Doctrine Committee ever condemn a book that is hands-down bad theology? A book that people across the board concede is horrid? It says something when the only time they peep up is when there’s a hint of dispute in their own heads over liberation, feminist, or whatever new theology they don’t understand. Or maybe doing theology is just summarizing the Catechism. Hey, wait: didn’t they put out a Compendium or something?
I guess I’m just cynical, but I’m doubtful they even read the statement written by some consulting underlings before signing off on it, much less bothered to read and assess the book itself as intellectuals. I don’t think their purposes were pedagogical or pastoral or anything beyond the purely superficial PR move it smacks of–reassure the folks who share their ideology that yes, indeed, they’re working to rid the church of “those” bad influences.
Bill, I don’t understand your comment. How does it advancde the conversation when you dismiss solid academic credentials just because you disagree with someone’s point of view?
“…check out the New Age religion section.”
That seems so unfair. I’m reading the book someone lent me. Possibly Sister Johnson didn’t (in the eyes of the Committee) emphasize NEARLY ENOUGH the importance of Revelation “in the qust for the living God” in peoples’ “own particular circumstances.”
I think she did. However, I think the Committee didn’t want her (doesn’t want anyone) to differentiate between the depth of Revelation as a whole (in different cultures) and Revelation’s particular images of God (especially as father/male). The Committee seems to see God’s fatherhood and the depth of Revelation (in its entirety) as synonymous. Possibly the Committee also thought Sister Doctor Johnson wanted to tear down the scriptural wall entirely, on which all our images of a living, revealed God hang, to put up a new one — an alien one — when all she really wanted to do was re-examine those images (on Revelation’s wall) and maybe hang them in a different order, an order suggesting God is more than just iconically male or female.
My only criticism of the book (so far) is that she didn’t use the subjunctive enough; didn’t use “as if” and “seem” enough. She used the indicative too much, which always gets theologians in trouble. Also, the names of God are similes, not metaphors. But these are minor.
God IS a king.He’s the ruler of heaven and earth and because we are made in His image , his laws are written in our hearts. All humans have some sense of ethics when they reach an age of reason, and though morality is relative to a time and culture [societal norms] and therefore more suseptible to change then ethics [core values motivating behaviours ], the fact that all humans have ethical value systems across time and place is a reflection of the flawed but universal nature of man’s desire to conform to the will of the most ethical [loving] King from whom we derive our being and, as beings made in His image, our desire to be ethical.Our morality is flawed and even wrong at times, and some ethical systems are more enlightened [are more inconformity to God's will] then others but all humans have ethics. [Even other primates,we are now learning have a notion of right and wrong [ethics ].Imagine that! If animals know right from wrong then they can choose wrong. Are they then in need of salvation? Did Jesus die for animals too?Just an aside]. Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, the Golden rule, the ten Commandments,the Categotrical Imperative and other ethical values from various cultures and religions all approximate the perfect love of God for His creation and call us to follow in the footsteps of the King who planted His laws [though we sometimes perceive them darkly] in our hearts.[I can't imagine God.Jesus, the man is king].
Kathy – your statement could also apply to those who did this critique. In terms of solid credentials – I listed them and said that they are solid. But, with one or two exceptions none of them have expertise, specialties, or background in biblical exegesis, patristics, or linguistics.
So, what qualifies them? Just because I may have a PhD doesn’t mean I have the expertise to critique a book on medical procedures or advanced calculus? Just because I am a bishop or part of the “magesterium” doesn’t make me qualified to critique a theologian.
“Just because I am a bishop or part of the “magesterium” doesn’t make me qualified to critique a theologian”
I’d also like to know more about the process by which the Committee on Doctrine evaluated the book.
Bill, what you’re highlighting is an interesting situation: it is bishops, not theologians, who are responsible for teaching the faith. Presumably the committee relies on subject matter experts to inform them.
But the key thing is this: bishops are responsible for teaching the faith; and a bishop shouldn’t need to be a career academic in theology to teach the faith. So by what criteria does a bishop judge a theologian’s work? I dunno – but as I say, it’s an interesting situation.
In this particular case, I understand the book is written for a popular audience, so I wouldn’t expect it to incorporate a high degree of ‘technical’ theology. One would hope that any reasonably educated bishop could read it and evaluate it.
I find it a bit odd (actually, I don’t at all) that the entire group of committee members, including consultants, with the exception of one woman whose bias is legend, is composed of males. Isn’t is just possible that, considering their ages, ecclesiastical ranks, position within the hierarchical pecking order and gender, that they might be a bit weak in the ability to relate to what a woman is saying? Is it just possible that a perspective outside of their ken would not be easy for them to grasp, in light of their male ecclesiastical vested-interest bias?
If she was a black woman arguing a position of black theology, would there not be a hue and cry about white bias? Probably not considering the propensity of white ecclesiastical males to think that the sun rises and sets on their ontology!
Not sure you had the breath or depth necessary to do an objective and comprehensive analysis of Sr. Johnson’s work?
Good grief. If correctly interpreting this book requires such esoteric skills and specialized knowledge, then the bishops are quite right to warn that it’s not appropriate for general use. In fact Amazon should require an affidavit before allowing you to download it to your Kindle (as if there were a Kindle edition). The target audience must number in the dozens.
If Beth really is so much smarter than these poor bishops, then would she not have had the greater responsibility to reach out to them in the first place to begin the vaunted “dialog”? That is, if you assume this petty contretemps was not her aim all along.
So what would be the next step for the Sister in defending her work? Is there a next step?
If you “wonder whether they’ve read the book at all,” wouldn’t the grown-up, Christian thing to do be to put that question to them before rushing to broadcast scurrilous accusations?
Re: competence, I think it’s important to keep in mind what the bishops are ostensibly doing here. They’re not responsible for evaluating the overall contribution of this book to theological discourse; they’re just evaluating whether or not it misrepresents or misleads regarding the teachings of the church. That’s their role and responsibility as bishops, and I don’t see any reason to doubt that they’re up to it, regardless of what they’ve studied in the past. Personally I think this critique swings a little wide of that mandate, but ultimately my problem with it is that I don’t think it actually does demonstrate that Johnson has contradicted or misrepresented basic Catholic doctrine.
The important question is not whether the bishops’ theological training is equal to Johnson’s. The key question is: Does the document make sound arguments? Does it support its claims that ‘Quest’ “contaminates the traditional Catholic understanding of God” and “completely undermines the gospel”?
I am a bit confused as to the concern over expertise of the various members of the committee on doctrine in the areas of biblical exegesis, patristics, or linguistics. Elizabeth Johnson is not an “expert” in any of those areas either; she’s a systematic theologian.
I really think that the effort to depict the theologians on the bishop’s committee as a bunch of ignorant hacks is a dead end. Disagree with their assessment, give reasons for your disagreement, and then move on.
“So what would be the next step for the Sister in defending her work? Is there a next step?”
Certainly there is a next step. Scholarship never goes backwards. Every step of progress which a scholar has made has been from clarification to clarification. Certainly visiting again and again the analogical activity of Jesus in the New Testament is a start.
Will the review by the magisterial critics here prevent anyone who wants to read Sr. Johnson’s book from doing so? I doubt it very much. Will the review of her work stifle sales of her book? Will their review of her work stifle critical thinking about Sr. Johnson’s ideas?
The answer to all these questions strikes me as “no.” Moreover, given the range of objections to the official response to the book, I would say that the Church’s reviews of the book have stimulated more critical thinking about Sr. Johnson’s ideas than not.
Without looking at either the merits of the book or the arguments against it, I am reminded of that cynical old saying the PR biz, “No publicity is bad publicity.”
Maybe everyone should take a refresher course in 9th grade English to remind themselves that a “metaphor” is a generic term that describes the phenomenon of trying to describe something important about one thing by comparing to another (generally more concrete or descriptive thing): A “simile” is a form of “metaphor.”
E.g.:
O, my love is like a red, red rose,
That is newly sprung in June.
O, my love is like the melody,
That is sweetly played in tune.
The word “like” makes this metaphor a simile, but if you had said “My love Is a red red rose” you would have been saying basically the same thing.
From wikipedia, which is consistent with my understanding of the matter from Mrs. Hutchison, erstwhile 9th grade English teacher:
Metaphors are comparisons that show how two things that are not alike in most ways are similar in one important way. A metaphor is more forceful (active) than an analogy, because metaphor asserts two things are the same, whereas analogy implies a difference; other rhetorical comparative figures of speech, such as metonymy, parable, simile and synecdoche, are *species of metaphor distinguished by how the comparison is communicated.*
The metaphor category also contains these specialised types:
allegory: An extended metaphor wherein a story illustrates an important attribute of the subject.
catachresis: A mixed metaphor used by design and accident (a rhetorical fault).
parable: An extended metaphor narrated as an anecdote illustrating and teaching a moral lesson.
Unless we are saying that God IS an actual woman (mother) or man (father) or whatever else, then we are speaking metaphorically. When you say “Our Father, who art in heaven . . .” no one understands you to be saying the father of you and your siblings. You are speaking metaphorically — or at least, this is certainly a legitimate way to describe how you are speaking.
Thanks, Barbara. I’ve been wondering if any of the masculinists ever went to ninth grade.
Their reaction to anything written or said or done by women is automatic, knee-jerk.
Those who find metaphor in scripture repulsive should issue a bible with all metaphorical language expunged. The radical feminists who aided Jerome in his translation should continue to be mocked and reviled. Nuns who intrude in areas reserved to priests and bishops should be reprimanded and investigated.
The kingdom of heaven canNOT be like a woman sweeping a floor or adding leaven to flour. No grils aloud.
Assuming that there is life elsewhere in the universe, it would be interesting to know if masculine and feminine are relevant categories anywhere but on Earth. We tend to see the division of beings into male and female as some kind of cosmic principle, but it may not be.
Scriptural metaphors are not limited to masculine vs. feminine. “Your hair is like a flock of goats.”
Gerelyn, another aspect of the “father” image is that it seems to be stuck in time, and continuing to insist that God is “father” above all seems like a principle that limits rather than enlarges God. The image of God as cosmic father came about when the concept of male potency was biologically inaccurate — women are not “merely” vessels who accept and nurture the male deposited seed. To suggest that God is father is to have a view that God only contributes some of what animates us. But that kind of illogic is often the result of pushing a metaphor too far or insisting you aren’t actually using one. It’s easy to find the holes.
It’s kinda hard to get past the fact that Jesus kept calling the Father, “Father.”
They want to limit and control the God they’ve created to their own image and likeness. If Male is God, then the meanest and lowest male is automatically superior to half the population.
F.Y.I.-
Regarding “Our Father in Heaven…” – Christ
http://www.catholic.com/library/Call_No_Man_Father.asp
Gerelyn, you and I had the same thought. Which is that male images of God are more about lifting up earthly men than they are about describing God.
Kathy, if it’s hard for you to get past that “fact,” then I assume you don’t think God can be described as “all knowing and all powerful” because he is “just” a father.
As I said above, this is what comes of trying claim images as literal truth.
Kathy, have you been able to find a page on which Sr. Johnson suggests that we ought not to call the Father “Father”? I haven’t. Judging from the statement, neither did the bishops.
Mollie,
From my understanding of the flow of the conversation on this thread, people had started to express their own opinions as a broadening of the original topic. I was responding not to Johnson but to Barbara. She seemed to understand and responded back. I’m sorry if you didn’t follow.
May I also add that the church went through a process to determine, choose, and determine what scripture was “canonized”. This process and choices aligned with patriarchical structures and language. Yes, lots of scripture has Jesus calling God, Father, but are we limited to that?
There are other scriptural stories, images that did use feminine language for God, the creator, etc. But, our structures have not supported this and the emphasis has been on masculine terms (almost exclusively).
Would suggest that Sr. Johnson is suggesting a re-focus and, possibly, recapturing earlier expressions that over time were lost culturally and in the western church.
A few thoughts:
1) An imprimatur, historically, means very little, like any commentary it is who the imprimatur is from that is important. I am currently writing about a historian who received a number of imprimaturs from many distinguished theologians at the Sorbonne. The result? It was placed on the index fifty years later. Also, we sometimes need to think outside the box a little to avoid groupthink, so reading books that might not receive imprimaturs is simply part of a full intellectual (and faith) life.
2) I don’t think a doctorate in biblical studies is required to review or comment on Johnson’s work, but again the source is important. A woman once reviewed a book of mine, and in her review it became clear that she thought that the Old Testament was written in Greek. Obviously, the source here is weak. I think that anyone with a seminary degree should have the tools to say something intelligent about a theological work. Whether you will get intelligence is another matter.
3) My guess is that the book award and the efforts to extinguish any ember of the women’s ordination movement are likely motivators here. I think it would have been more honest to stick to the main issue at hand (Johnson’s use of female metaphors for God), rather than cover their tracks by questioning the whole book. What they have done here goes outside the bounds of warning the faithful, and is more applicable to a critical academic book review. It also gives the false impression that the Church uniformly condemns all Johnson’s reflections on these topics.
4) I also like Jimmy Mac’s suggestion of adding women (and by extension, liberals) to this committee. If they are saying that the US Church censures this book, let’s get a broad cross-section of the US church involved in the study.
What stands out about the report to me is that it it isn’t consistent, a mark, I think, of its having been done by a committee with a poor editor. But that doesn’t mean that Sr. Johnson herself has been consistent, nor that she says nothing theologically troubling. For instance, if she really does hold a panentheistic view of the relation of God and creatures, then that is clearly not consistent with the teaching of the Church that Creator and creatures are in no way identical.
Panentheism is a 19th century form of pantheism. It combines the old idea that the world is part of God with the new idea that the world is evolving. Result: the world is part of God and God is evolving. It emphasizes the immanence of God in the world, which the Church certainly does too, but the Church does not identify creatures and Creator in any way. There seem to be more than one kind of panentheism, and maybe Sister is just using the term in an odd way, which is always a possibility. ISTM the article doesn’t quote enough of what she says to be sure of just what the issue there is.
It seems clear to me, even with just a cursory reading, that the article is a highly superficial and inconsistent attack. The topic and fairness demand much more depth. But on the surface it looks to me like the book is not wholly without theological problems. But it needs be said that Sister has not been unfair in her criticism of the article.
The attack on Sister’s feminism seem totally unfounded to me. It’s the panentheism point that I think might be most important. The notion is generally associated with Eastern philosophy/religion, and. as I see it, the greatest threat to the power of the bishops in the 21st century is not going to be feminists but Eastern theologians. That will be the next big battlefield in the Church. ( Remember, you heard it first here.) Sister seems open to them, and that’s what really got her into trouble.
But Kathy, you have already judged the bishops’ statement on Johnson’s book to be “accurate.” (Barbara, to my knowledge, has not.) And yet the bishops said Johnson argues for “replacing traditional language and concepts of God”; in fact, she doesn’t. So I’m wondering whether you would still say it’s accurate.
“Would suggest that Sr. Johnson is suggesting a re-focus and, possibly, recapturing earlier expressions that over time were lost culturally and in the western church.”
Yes, this is exactly my read, Bill deH. As I noted in the previous thread, Scripture is hardly bereft of a variety of metaphors for God, including feminine ones, but perhaps these are not reflected in liturgical language or in the Sunday lectionary readings.
What Catholics (and many other Christians) understand about God may be sufficient to salvation, as a bland diet might keep one alive, happy, and healthy, if he knows of nothing else.
Whether it is advisable to assume that those who want to restore the entire feast to the people of God are guilty of pushing some sort of socio-political agenda is, of course, open to debate.
Yes, but I dont think this censure has anything to do with panentheism-it is about women’s ordination.
Remember when they censured Kung? You would think it would have been about abortion, contraception, priestly celibacy, or some other moral issue.
What it really came down to was infallibility – it seems that the Church seldom acts unless it feels that the current structure of authority is threatened.
Jean says, “scripture is hardly bereft of metaphors”–exactly right, and why some seem to need to pretend one particular category (masculine imagery) isn’t figurative is to me the key question–lots of goat metaphors, no reason to fetishize angora.
“But the key thing is this: bishops are responsible for teaching the faith; and a bishop shouldn’t need to be a career academic in theology to teach the faith. So by what criteria does a bishop judge a theologian’s work? I dunno – but as I say, it’s an interesting situation.”
Jim P. ==
Hey, wait. Yes, the bishops are responsible for teaching the faith, but where do they get their subject matter? Where do they get the course content, so to speak? Vatican II seems to give theologians a special charism in this matter. Maybe the function of a bishop-as-teacher is to sift through the competing ideas of the theologians and try to tell which ones best explain the faith. They’re sort of the theological umpires. Yes, that implies that they have to understand the theologians, and that implies that hey be trained in theology and philosophy. I’ll just note that the Church has an ancient tradition of educating priests in both fields, no doubt to qualify them teach competently.
As to the bishops’ criteria for judging, great question. I say they’re in desperate need of a theological epistemology to help them judge what in the claims of the theologians and scripture scholars and philosophers is true, what isn’t, what is helpful and what isn’t, and what is partly wrong but also maybe partly right.
Yes, this is an interesting and highly important topic. But I fear it’s one that the bishops, especially at the Vatican, are not inclined to look at too closely. At least I haven’t noticed them doing so, but wadda I no.
NCR reports today that the Bishops did not follow their own procedure in dealing with disputes between bishops and theologians ( a 1989 document approved by then CDF head, Cardinal Ratzinger,)
Weinandy defended this omission by saying the matter was “urgent”*though adnmitting the book had ben looked at for a year.
He added past discusions with theologians had “come to nothing.”
This is the sad state of affairs we can look forward to when the voices Bishops listen to have only one way, Their way, of doing theology.
“They’re not responsible for evaluating the overall contribution of this book to theological discourse; they’re just evaluating whether or not it misrepresents or misleads regarding the teachings of the church. That’s their role and responsibility as bishops, . . .”
Mollie –
I don’t think we’re justified in thinking that all the bishops are *competent* bishops just because they have the fullness of Holy Orders. The history of the Church shows plainly that some bishops have taught false dogma, and many have been excommunicated as heretics. Conclusion: they were incompetent bishops.
So the office of teacher is not the same thing as the exercise of that office, and the exercise of that office can be either competent or incompetent. The bishops often don’t seem to know that.
I hope that the bishops and others engaged in the Johnson affair are well-read enough in Scripture to recognize the name of Gamaliel. His advice (in Acts 5:1-34) has always struck me as well worth taking. But perhaps there are those who would regard him as a “Commonweal Catholic” — or more historically, a “Commonweal Jew,” since he was (according to some traditions) Paul’s teacher.
Bob – here is the actual link to the NCR srticle:
http://ncronline.org/news/accountability/bishops-ignored-own-guidelines-johnson-critique
Key point:
- Titled “Doctrinal Responsibilities: Approaches to Promoting Cooperation and Resolving Misunderstandings between Bishops and Theologians,” it included an approving appendix letter written by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.
- Speaking in a phone interview April 5, Capuchin Fr. Thomas Weinandy, executive director of the Secretariat for Doctrine at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, confirmed the committee did not follow the guidelines set out in the 1989 document. He cited several reasons, including the urgency of the matter, the widespread use of the book, and the ineffectiveness of other earlier efforts to resolve conflicts.
Geez – urgency of the matter (book published in 2007?); widespread use of the book (okay); earlier efforts to resolve other disputes were ineffective (so, we just ignore an agreed upon process).
Number of questions here:
- process (appears that the agreed upon process was ignored)
- rights of a theologian who publishes (again, religous freedom and rights are compromised in the name of orthodoxy)
- committee make up; credentials, etc.
- issues around use of language, definitions, etc.
What a web we weave!
“A “simile” is a form of “metaphor.””
Barbara –
I’m glad that’s what you were taught. in my day the English teachers INSISTED that a simile is somehow a different sort of predication which tells us something that metaphors don’t. (I had a knock down, drag out argument with my English prof over that one one day.) I’ve never trusted English teachers since. But at least from what you say, they’ve made some progress :-)
Your point about metaphors being relatively concrete analogies is also very important. There are those in English departments who don’t understand that. Sigh.
Oh, how language can mess up communication!!!
I am glad that NCR has remembered “Doctrinal Responsibilities: Approaches to Promoting Cooperation and Resolving Misunderstandings between Bishops and Theologians”. I thought of posting about it earlier this morning but did not want to without providing a link to the document itself. I looked high and low on the internet for one and was unsuccessful. All of the links to it on the USCCB site are dead. Does this mean that the bishops have decided to scrap it as a procedural document? Weinandy’s comments point in this direction. If anyone can find a live link to the document please let me know where it is.
I am not philosophically competent to address the question of panentheism, but haven’t some pretty big guns been associated with the idea? Rahner, Tillich, Teilhard, McFague? Taught by Rahnerians, I was taught that while pantheism (the world is God) is incompatible with Christian orthodoxy, panentheism (God is in the world and transcends it,) can be theologically okey doke. (Note the technical philosophical language..:-) ) Does this mean that God changes? Well, sure, but if we hold that God is present in each human being, then doesn’t the birth of each new human being mean that God exists in a new way? That doesn’t mean necessarily that God IS, (esse’s so to speak) in a new way, but certainly God’s relationships change with the fall of (even) each sparrow. Does God’s intimate connection to each person change God in some essential way? Or is God in Godself unaffected by indwelling in us? As Ann says, I guess it depends what, exactly is meant by panentheism, and what theological freight the concept carries. I’d add that, along with Eastern thought being a challenge to western theological frames, so is evolution. How things will change when and if we ever really engage contemporary biology!
“It’s kinda hard to get past the fact that Jesus kept calling the Father, “Father.””
Kathy, Kathy, Kathy.
NOBODY, NOBODY, NOBODY is denying/rejecting/disagreeing with the Father metaphor. Sr. Johnson says EXPLICITLY, EXPLICITLY, EXPLICITLY that male metaphors DO, DO, DO reveal what God is to some extent, and she DOES, DOES, DOES retain them. Your argument is a STRAW MAN, STRAW MAN, STRAW MAN!!!!!! (Yes, man.)
Forgive the shouting, but your comment has NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING to do with the real issues. And there are some.
Lisa,
John Haught takes up that question, and others, in an article we just posted: http://commonwealmagazine.org/unevolved
I’ll throw up a post mentioning that piece and the report from NCR later on.
Off topic.Grant, would you please start a thread dealing with the article in the Apr. 9 Tablet on “Czechoslavakia’s Secret Church.” It reports that women were validly ordained during the Communist era there. If the article is accurate, then the claim that the Church cannot ordain women has to be rethought. Either this article needs refutation or the Church’s official claim is open to serious question.
Does God change? Yes. Even non-theologians and non-bishops know that. Anyone who reads the Hebrew scriptures sees God changing all the time. One night S/He’s strolling in the garden with Eve and Adam, and the next thing we know, S/He’s sewing fur garments for them and kicking them out.
Tomorrow’s Office of Readings has a perfect example: One minute God says: “How long will this people insult me? How long will they refuse to believe in me despite the signs I have worked among them? I will strike them with pestilence and disown them.”
But a few lines later, after Moses talks Him down, God relents: “I forgive them as you ask. But – as I live, and as the glory of the Lord fills all the earth – of all the men who have seen my glory and the signs that I worked in Egypt and in the wilderness, who have put me to the test ten times already and not obeyed my voice, not one shall see the land I swore to give their fathers.”
Swore? But now retracts the oath? Yet another change by the immutable?
http://www.universalis.com/20110408/readings.htm
“Vatican II seems to give theologians a special charism in this matter.”
Please cite the Vatican II document which “gives theologians a special charism” in this or any other regard. Thanks in advance!
“another aspect of the “father” image is that it seems to be stuck in time, and continuing to insist that God is “father” above all seems like a principle that limits rather than enlarges God.”
Barbara –
Yes, yes, yes. That metaphors reveal something of God but also that they are limited expressions of HIm is central to Aquinas’ theory of predication about God, and Sr. Johnson is thoroughly Thomistic on this point. So I can’t for the life of me figure out why the article criticizes her for it. It’s straight medieval theology. I was taught that while pantheism (the world is God) is incompatible with Christian orthodoxy, panentheism (God is in the world and transcends it,) can be theologically okey doke.
“It reports that women were validly ordained during the Communist era there.”
Um, Pope Benedict himself could pretend to ordain a woman and it would not be valid. Only a “baptized man” can be ordained as a priest. Any emergency conditions in Czechoslovakia under Soviet domination would still not allow for the ordaining of women as priests. It simply cannot be done.
“Does God change? Yes.”
How often these comment threads reinvent the wheel. Are you not aware that issues like this have been discussed for nearly 2,000 years by Christian theologians? Any perception of the perfect God as “changing” is obviously just a foggy notion from our own limited perception that He has changed. Any Bible quote you can cite that seems to depict God as changing his mind about something just means you should try to avoid such fundamentalist understanding of Sacred Scripture.
LOL (Seriously.)
You’re right. It’s metaphorical. God didn’t really kill and skin animals Eve and Adam had just finished naming.
Thanks for the reminder that all that glisters is not gold.
” I was taught that while pantheism (the world is God) is incompatible with Christian orthodoxy, panentheism (God is in the world and transcends it,) can be theologically okey doke. (Note the technical philosophical language..:-) )”
Lisa –
If that is the definition of “panentheism” used in Rahner, etc., then, yes, it is quite compatible with the old philosophical descriptions of God. As I said, there is different meanings of “panentheism”. The word is a rather new one in philosophy (only 19th century, which is pretty short in philosophy-time) so that its fluid meanings are no surprise. And if Sister is using the Rahner definition, I’d say she shouldn’t be in trouble. But apparently hat committee is obviously not reading her in a Rahnerian context. (Or maybe they think Rahner is a heretic too? Could be.)
You continue: “Does this mean that God changes? Well, sure, but if we hold that God is present in each human being, then doesn’t the birth of each new human being mean that God exists in a new way? That doesn’t mean necessarily that God IS, (esse’s so to speak) in a new way, but certainly God’s relationships change with the fall of (even) each sparrow. shouldn’t be in trouble at all.”
Great question. The issue is: does God bear any *real* relations to His creatures? If so, then it would seem that when God creates a new creature He also establishes/creates *within Himself* a real connection to it. This means that God creates a new part of Himself (the relation to the creature). In other words, He changes by addition. And when a creatures goes out of existence, He changes by subtraction.
Thomas wrestled with a similar problem with the question of the likeness of creatures and God. He grants that creatures are like God, and this is a real relation of likeness to Him, but — and this is really weird of Thomas — he says that God is not like His creatures. (Not a typo there.) (I’m inclined to think that is one vast cop-out :-)
To me what all this shows is that our understanding of God is so inadequate that we are bound to run up against some inconsistencies and otherwise unacceptable notions of Him. And it doesn’t surprise me a bit anymore.
“Please cite the Vatican II document which “gives theologians a special charism” in this or any other regard. Thanks in advance!”
P. =-
See Gravissimum Educationis,
11. Faculties of Sacred Sciences
The Church expects much from the zealous endeavors of the faculties of the sacred sciences.(34) For to them she entrusts the very serious responsibility of preparing her own students not only for the priestly ministry, but especially for teaching in the seats of higher ecclesiastical studies or for promoting learning on their own or for undertaking the work of a more rigorous intellectual apostolate. Likewise it is the role of these very faculties to make more penetrating inquiry into the various aspects of the sacred sciences so that an ever deepening understanding of sacred Revelation is obtained, the legacy of Christian wisdom handed down by our forefathers is more fully developed, the dialogue with our separated brethren and with non-Christians is fostered, and answers are given to questions arising from the development of doctrine.(35)
Therefore ecclesiastical faculties should reappraise their own laws so that they can better promote the sacred sciences and those linked with them and, by employing up-to-date methods and aids, lead their students to more penetrating inquiry.
Um, Pope Benedict himself could pretend to ordain a woman and it would not be valid. Only a “baptized man” can be ordained as a priest.
P Flanagan,
How can those of us who are skeptics be sure of this? Is there any test that can be performed on an individual to determine if he or she has been validly ordained? Suppose a man was ordained and unbeknownst to anyone, he was not actually baptized. I assume he would not be a priest, but how would you know? Would the people who attended his masses be less holy? Would the marriages he performed have a higher rate of divorce?
How do we know ordination, when performed on a woman, doesn’t “take”?
Ann, thanks for the link. But I don’t see where the document does anything but exhort theologians to help deepen our understanding of revelation. Your reference to theologians having been given by Vatican II some sort of charism clearly implied theologians therefore somehow have a mystical authority to teach the Church. I don’t see that anywhere in this document, or in your quotation. Even “so that…answers are given to questions arising from the development of doctrine” does not mean that theologians, because of this document, are graced with any sort of special charism or insight into their subjects of study.
Now, if you want to cite Vatican II on the Pope and Bishops, the Magisterium, being specially graced by the Holy Spirit to teach the faithful the fullest truths of the revelation of God in His Church, you could pretty much just paste in the entirety of the Council decrees…in all seriousness, we would certainly not be picking nits about “charisms” when speaking of Vatican II’s understanding of Magisterial authority as we have to do when considering theologians.
“A metaphor is more forceful (active) than an analogy, because metaphor asserts two things are the same, whereas an annalogy ikmplies a difference….”
Barbara,
A metaphor is still an analogy, a comparison, only an implied one. For example, to say “John waddles across campus” implies John advances in steps or walks like a duck. (A duck waddles, walks with short steps that sway the body from side to side.) That is different from saying (as in a simile) “John walks or goes on foot like a duck.” Nothing is implied in the latter analogy or comparison. The comparison between man and duck is explicit, clearly stated, not implied in the verb. Metaphor is, of course, more powerful because it involves something as a consequence, includes by implication, imports, signifies, presupposes, connotes, insinuates, etc. It is more subtle.
In Revelation, similes are used of God in the analogous sense. It’s interesting, most of the names/similes of God in the New Testament are paternal/male; however, most of the actions of God as “Father” seem to imply maternity. God is unconditionally forgiving; is prodigal, wasteful in his forgiveness. In the Prodigal Son, God the Father runs to meet the son; doesn’t stoically wait. These suggest maternal qualities, metaphorical actions implying maternity, though the simile (“Father”) is paternal.
It’s as if Jesus found room for maternity in the word “Father” or expanded the word “Father” to include maternity. I’m sure God has another a”word” for “His mystery” that God hasn’t shared with us. We are still searching. It seems we are analogically left with “Father,” under the protection of Our Father’s motherly love and suffering. However, to drop “Father” altogether would put God at a depth worse than Revelation (i.e., Jesus Christ’s words) can reach. And without Revelation, God’s mystery, the nature of God is at a depth worse than any mortal can reach. St. Thomas Aqunias told us that.
“How do we know ordination, when performed on a woman, doesn’t “take”?”
How do we know that the words of consecration, when performed on an Oreo cookie, doesn’t take? Sacraments require valid matter for validity. The valid matter for the Eucharist is unleavened wheat and grape wine. The valid matter for Holy Orders is a baptized male.
“Is there any test that can be performed on an individual to determine if he or she has been validly ordained?”
In some sort of scientific, materialist way? Of course not, because we are not dealing with the natural order. But if an individual – whether a woman or a non-Catholic – has been ordained outside the manner determined by the Church, then the sacrament of Holy Orders simply has not been performed. Again: the Pope himself could not consecrate an Oreo cookie into the Body of Christ, nor could he ordain a woman as a priest: in both cases, the matter is invalid for the Sacrament.
A table of 64 figures of speech:
http://www.gtft.org/Library/bullinger/TableOfFiguresOfSpeech.htm
Examples of those figures of speech from scriptures:
http://www.gtft.org/Library/bullinger/app6.html
More:
http://www.gtft.org/Library/knoch/FiguresOfSpeech.htm
“Suppose a man was ordained and unbeknownst to anyone, he was not actually baptized. I assume he would not be a priest, but how would you know?”
I guess I have a lot of faith in the vetting of seminarians, including documentation of their baptism, so I cannot see this as an issue. God’s grace can reach in ways other than the Sacraments, so I would imagine those faithful who sincerely believed they were receiving valid sacraments from these theoretical unbaptized males would somehow receive the grace they need.
“Would the people who attended his masses be less holy? Would the marriages he performed have a higher rate of divorce?”
Try checking out those statistics, if possible, for Protestant Churches, which are led by men and women who have not been graced by the Sacrament of Holy Orders. It would seem there is a spectrum of sanctity and effective marriages in those churches. We are bound by the sacraments, but God is not, and His grace will flow where He wills. As I say when explaining to catechumens that one need not be Catholic to get to heaven: if Billy Graham ain’t going to heaven, there’s no hope for me!
Nancy: I am removing your irrelevant posts. If you don’t stop, I’m afraid I’ll have to suspend your account.
Edit: I’m not kidding. Sorry, but I’m getting tired of removing your irrelevant comments.
In some sort of scientific, materialist way?
P Flanagan,
In any way at all. If sacraments have any effect, shouldn’t there be some way to know? Or shouldn’t there be at least some hints, even if there is no conclusive empirical evidence? If there is absolutely no difference between attending a mass said by a validly ordained priest and an invalidly ordained priest, or if there is absolutely no difference between going to confession to a validly ordained priest and an invalidly ordained priest, why does it matter?
And aside from those admittedly very skeptical questions, how do you know the people are right who say what “valid matter” is? Also, mustum may be used in certain circumstances where grape wine would be a problem. How is that known?
“. . . theologians therefore somehow have a mystical authority to teach the Church.”
I didn’t say they have some mystical authority. I said they have a charism, a specific function for the sake of the community, and that is to advance knowledge of God for everyone — and everyone includes the bishops. And the bishops of VII obviously recognized their role.
I don’t think that any one theologian will be *the* theological authority to advise the bishops or popes, nor even that any one bishop will be *the* authority with the charism to teach, though the pope obviously has some special function in that regard.
As I see it, that whole area of theology needs development, and the theologians themselves have an essential role to play in it.
This business that the maleness of the human is a required matter for a valid ordination–what elegant nonsense. It’s why I had to move on.
Back to the matter of “Quest…” According to the NCR the USCCB’s theologian has confirmed that the Committee on doctrine did not follow the USCCB’s own guidelines in handling this matter. If the report of his comments is accurate, the very notion of procedural fairness eludes him. And perhaps it also eludes the committee’s bishops. Or else they just missed the ball.
“If there is absolutely no difference between attending a mass said by a validly ordained priest and an invalidly ordained priest, or if there is absolutely no difference between going to confession to a validly ordained priest and an invalidly ordained priest, why does it matter?”
My opinion, for what its worth, is that it doesn’t. That is-a valid ordination is not some type of magical annointing that make the sacraments “work.” God makes it work. The old ex opere operato.
It is really about church discipline. The Church has a responsibility to assure that that Word is properly preached and the Sacraments are properly administered. Without it, we end up with the Cheeto Eucharist, or some other nonsense.
Back to the subject – the Church also has the responsiblility of proclaiming the gospel, and determining what is orthodox teaching is part of that responsibility. So I am not quibbling with the authority of the Magisterium. It is just how they went about it and what their motivations were that are at issue. In other words, are they being fair to Elizabeth Johnson? If the book is four years old (and that means noone is buying it anymore), why would it hurt the faithful to take some time in fairness and use the proper procedures?
james, I am not trying to be difficult, but either we use the technical definitions of these terms or we don’t, but if it’s the latter, we shouldn’t hold people to a standard we don’t ourselves meet.
An analogy is not the same thing as a simile. An analogy is an analytical tool that draws out a truth about one thing by juxtaposing it against another — “guests are like fish, they both go rotten after three days.” Or: “using a condom is like taking a shower in a raincoat” (Ha ha)
You are trying to make clear an aspect of one thing by setting it up against another, much more obvious or simple thing, or just something you already understand or accept.
A simile (My love is like a red red rose newly sprung in June) is not asserting a truth or principle about love or roses — it’s describing a complex emotion by comparing it to a much more tactile, sensual object (roses).
I fear the grammar police
James C. and Barbara –
As Thomas generally used the terms, things are analogous which are partly alike and partly different. Different instances of words often have analogous meanings, e.g., “The sea was turbulent” and “His emotions were turbulent”. To express an analogy is to point out both a likeness and a difference. Analogies can be more or less concrete. A metaphor expresses a relatively concrete analogy, but emphasizes the likeness.
Thomas had a metaphysical theory of analogy, the analogy of proper proportionality. This theory says that the essence of one being is related to its existence as the essence of another being is related to its existence. (Essence A : Existence A :: Essence B : Existence B) Some beings have “bigger” essences, so they include more being than others — there are different *degrees* of being. For instance, the being of a stone is less being than the being of a crow, the being of a crow is less being than the being of a human, the being of pure spirit is more being than the being of a human. (Each pure spirit is a different degree of being — this is why there is a hierarchy among the pure spirits, says Thomas.)
We’re alike in that we all have essence and existence, but we’re different insofar as our degree or “amount” of being is different. God is the infinite degree of being, and as such we are both a tiny bit like Him, but also infinitely different.
Thomas had a metaphysical theory of analogy….”
Thanks, Ann. I have my three volume SUMMA THEOLOGIAE, St. Thomas’ uncomplete work, in front of me, too, in my office (1947 edition, translated by the English Dominicans, Benziger Bros.). I don’t think what I said “contradicted” any point he made. Trees can be black with a hidden red as well as a bright red. The delightful thing about Thomas is that he gives many people a good insight for what they’ve already worked out in another idiom.
“It is really about church discipline. The Church has a responsibility to assure that that Word is properly preached and the Sacraments are properly administered. Without it, we end up with the Cheeto Eucharist, or some other nonsense.”
Yes, I think this is a good way to look at the matter of the sacraments because exactly what makes a sacrament “work” is a sacred mystery, as is the time of ensoulment or the destination of the souls of unbaptized, unborn infants. The Church makes assumptions based on scholarship and tradition, but nobody actually KNOWS.
(While I know of no Episcopalians who would admit to eating Cheetohs even in strictly secular circumstances (brie and camembert, please!), some over-eager Church Ladies once wanted to put champagne in the communion cup for Christmas Eve. The vicar said no.)
Whether the ordination of women or inclusive language or Scripturally sound feminine metaphors for the Almighty would lead eventually to the Consecration of the Oreos is a debatable point.
“A simile is not asserting a truth….”
I hear you. At times it’s like trying to feel a log’s sensation under a saw. (But it doesn’t have sensation, right?)
Well, the good thing is that we can both put our flowers (of academic discourse) in the same water for discussion — though between two separations of understanding. Right now I have to sponsor someone for Confirmation. I’m off. Thanks for your comment.
Bill deHaas writes,
“Dr. Peter J. Casarella (fluent in Spanish/German but doesn’t even teach in the theology department; member of CTSA but what qualifications does he have for this critique?)
DePaul University.”
Dr. Casarella did teach in the theology department at CUA for fourteen years (about ten of them tenured) and another year at U. of Chicago’s Divinity School; but more to the point, he is fairly well published on trinitarian theology. I think it’s unfair to say Casarella lacks the expertise to speak knowledgeably in this area – whether one agrees with his approach on given questions is, of course, fodder for a separate discussion.
On the whole I am wary of placing too heavy an emphasis on credentialism here, however. The resulting implication might be that no one is qualified to speak on these subjects save for tenured theology professors. And that’s a knife that can cut more ways than one.
Actually, Dennis, I see this more as a matter of logical reasoning than grammar. The point being that using a metaphor is more apt to be descriptive, as in, not intended to be a rigorous analytical tool. We speak in metaphors all the time; I assume our ancestors going far back in time did as well. So, for instance, to draw a conclusion about normative gender roles from the statement “God is father” is to use what was likely intended to be a descriptive metaphor as if it were a rigorous analogy.
And it appears from what I read about the Bishops’ statements that they did the opposite — that is, assumed that Johnson had arrived at an analytical conclusion (with which they disagree) based on her expanded use of metaphors to describe God.
Only a “baptized man” can be ordained as a priest.
Sez who exactly?
Thanks, Barbara – I get it now.
Regarding competencies of bishops and theologians vis-a-vis doctrine, the document I referred to above (but am unable to find on the internet), “Doctrinal Responsibilities: Approaches to Promoting Cooperation and Resolving Misunderstandings between Bishops and Theologians,” has a good discussion of this matter with clear distinctions of how bishops and theologians differ in their “charisms,” each recognized by the Church as valid for what they do respectively.
In the third part of the document the procedure for resolving disagreements between a bishops and theologians is spelled out, and the document clearly says that before any administrative action is to be taken against a theologian there must be a formal dialogue. Formal dialogue is a technical term in the document, with steps and stages to be followed. Evidently this stage was omitted by the Committee on Doctrine. Quite frankly, Fr. Weinanty’s explanation of why this part of the procedure was not followed in the case of Prof. Johnson rings hollow to me.
“The proper matter is male.” OK, but how is that term (male) defined, P.?
(I mean that as a serious question, not some Pope Joan/Yentl joke.)
BTW, my colleague Jack Haught offers a trenchant criticism of Weinanty’s theological perspective in the Commonweal article that appeared today (linked above by Grant).
Mary,
It would be very difficult to avoid the well known joke about what the matter for the sacrament of Holy Orders is after P. Flanagan’s description of what constitutes the sacrament.
Oh, darn, I never know the jokes. If it doesn’t involve a monk and a clone and a bar, I probably haven’t heard it.
What about hermaphrodites? Should sexual (re)assignment (surgery) take into consideration the possibility of ordination sometime for the young tike of Catholic parentage? And if so, should should certain children be assigned female gender to prevent categorical confusion down the road or assigned male so as to maximize the pool of eligible candidate? Is there an actual medical confirmation of gender on the road to ordination to be sure the gender categories remain pristine?
It would seem a statistical certainty that a person not fully male (by whatever categories may be cited to declare that gender status) has been ordained a time or two in the past two millennia. Perhaps even a bishop or two.
William, yes, that’s what I was getting at: Precisely how does the Church define “male”? Presumably it means something more than externally observable gender behaviors, since what counts as walking, hair-styling, talking, dressing, gesturing, moving, throwing, sitting, etc “like a man” are contingent constructions of gender. So, does seminary “vetting” involve some other kind of assessment to determine if the potential priest is of the correct “matter” to matter? If so, of what does that assessment consist and upon what assumptions is it based?
It’s an interesting move, isn’t it? Shift the ground of discussion from men/women to male/female and make biology (not culture) the basis of some ontological argument about the essential character of the male body as the proper matter for ordination. Piffle.
The arguments against women’s ordination become more intellectually embarrassing than they already are when they invite smart-alecky questions about gender (re)assignment. Should we check under that cassock? Take that DNA sample?
Ann Olivier on panentheism:
It seems to me from your comments that you haven’t read Quest. I would hope that everyone commenting realizes–as apparently the bishops do not–that commenting on work you haven’t read, with even the implication that the theologian in question might be making statements contrary to the Catholic faith, can be very, very hurtful and damaging.
In this case, Johnson is indeed using “panentheism” in a highly orthodox sense. I think you’re thinking about “process theology,” which does indeed state that God evolves; Johnson is not a process theologian. Panentheism in the sense Johnson is using it merely means that when we use spatial metaphors for thinking about the relationship between God and creation, we should imagine the world as in some sense ‘within’ God. God is far ‘larger’ and in no sense limited to the world (=pantheism) nor is God utterly separated from creation (what Johnson shorthands as the ‘modern theistic’ understanding–think the sun to our earth). You might think about this idea as akin to Gerard Manley Hopkins’s line “the world is charged with the grandeur of God” — creation is shot through with God. Johnson, following other writers, also uses the metaphor of the pregnant woman and her child to explore this idea.
Aristotle characterizes all analogical forms of reasoning under the heading of metaphora in his Rhetoric. The examples he entertains include metaphors, similes, and analogies, all forms of understanding one thing in terms of another. He understood that they were tools of reasoning.
I get the sense that Johnson is being called out not for what she says but for what she doesn’t say, the negative space around her words. In other words, whatever Johnson actually says in Quest is not at issue so much as what is implied, what is inferred (correctly, I suspect) as a genuine threat to longstanding hegemonic order. Radical challenge dressed in orthodoxy. Her accusers “know” what she means, what she’s really getting at, and they don’t like it. Correct me, please, but I think her verbal cleverness incites the particular tone of the rebuke, e.g., language such as “completely undermines the Gospels.”
@WilliamFG, exactly!
“Should we check under that cassock?” For what? Even what we’re looking for is a matter of choices. And one would think Acts 8 has something to say about making assumptions about what we look for.
“Take that DNA sample?” Again, looking for what? XY and XX are only two possibilities. Given the stats, my guess is some of the “males” reading this blog would be surprised at what a genetics test showed.
So can we accept that it is a reasonable proposition that among several hundred thousand priests and bishops world-wide there are some celebrating mass today who would fail one or more tests (chromosomal, genital) for being biologically male? It stands to reason. If so, on what basis would their ordination be valid? Does God ‘cover’ the good-faith error and fill in what the material lack fails to provide at a sacramental level?
Or perhaps being partly male but not wholly male by every scientific measure is good enough? If so, might a woman desiring ordination get ‘himself’ tested to see if ‘he’ has what it takes?
The idea that these measures taken at this time in the Czech church’s history are not valid because some allegedly celibate male cleric in the hierarchy of the church says that it can’t be so is, at best, laughable.
(This document is open to all readers)
http://www.thetablet.co.uk/article/161042
Czechoslovakia’s secret Church
Christa Pongratz-Lippitt
“Throughout the 41 years of Communist rule in the former Eastern bloc country, an underground network of groups and individuals kept the Catholic faith alive, even to the point of ordaining married men and women. Last week, their achievement was belatedly honoured.”
Re: Jesus’s use of the term “father” as an image of God and the temptation to absolutize (and literalize) that metaphor, thereby excluding any and all other metaphoric language for God among followers of Jesus:
I wonder what Jesus means when he compares himself to a mother hen wishing to gather her chicks under her wings (Matthew 23:7)?
Echoing, as I understand, the first image of God we encounter in the Jewish and Christian scriptures in Genesis, in which the Spirit of God broods over the chaos to birth it into being as a mother hen broods over her nest.
First, a note of appreciation for this thread and the many fine questions and contributions on a range of issues (in particular how to understand metaphors and similes and analogies, something I had a devil of a time explaining when my journalism students asked).
Second, regarding the question of the maleness of priests, I think it is interesting and relevant that with the effort to bar homosexuals from the priesthood — in view of a nuptial vision of priestly ordination — that the topic is shifting away from gender as the determining factor to sexuality, which is very different, and problematic, in my view.
“Only a “baptized man” can be ordained as a priest.
Sez who exactly?”
Sez the Catholic Church:
“Can. 1024 Only a baptised man can validly receive sacred ordination.”
“It seems to me from your comments that you haven’t read Quest. I would hope that everyone commenting realizes–as apparently the bishops do not–that commenting on work you haven’t read, with even the implication that the theologian in question might be making statements contrary to the Catholic faith, can be very, very hurtful and damaging”
Catherine O –
Yes, that could be very hurtful and damaging. That is why I was careful to note that I had not read Quest, that what I was saying was based on the short quotations from it offered in this thread and on the pages from it at Amazon.
Please also note that I said explicitly, “And if Sister is using the Rahner definition, I’d say she shouldn’t be in trouble.”
As to the meaning of “panentheism” I was referring to, I was thinking of the original use of the term by Karl Krause who invented the term and held that creatures are part of God but that God also transcends creation.
” the document clearly says that before any administrative action is to be taken against a theologian there must be a formal dialogue… this part of the procedure was not followed in the case of Prof. Johnson”
What “administrative action” was taken against Sister Elizabeth?
The Tablet article repeats the verdict I have often heard, which is that the Czechoslovak ordinations were valid but not licit. How does that square with canon law?
P. Flanagan
The administrative action is clearly stated at the end of the Committee on Doctrine’s statement on Prof. Johnson’s book.
So which is it: man or male? Both categories have some definitional flexibility. I believe male is too biologically indeterminate at the margins to stand as a criterion for marking who can be validly ordained and who cannot; we could never be entirely certain if the sacrament would ‘take’.
Here’s a thought: Women seeking ordination could choose to identify as a man (with or without surgery), take on a new identity, called “Father,” referred to as he. Perhaps there could be a ceremony that ‘changes’ a woman into a man preparatory to his ordination. I believe that in some cultures biological females can assume a male persona under certain circumstances. And we now have transgendered persons in significant numbers. Perhaps we could achieve an acceptable compromise such that only men can be priests but women can become men as recognition of the authenticity of their call to sacred orders.
The Lord works in mysterious ways, does She not?
“The administrative action is clearly stated at the end of the Committee on Doctrine’s statement on Prof. Johnson’s book.”
The conclusion merely summarizes the critique of Sister Elizabeth’s book. It makes no mention of any sanctions or actions taken by them or required or demanded of her. Again: what administrative action was taken against Sister Elizabeth?
” the document clearly says that before any administrative action is to be taken against a theologian there must be a formal dialogue… this part of the procedure was not followed in the case of Prof. Johnson”
Sounds like if there was no administrative action taken, there need have been no formal dialog.
In regard to administrative action, I think you are over-reacting to a sensible critique of a book that claims to be Catholic but is not.
Administrative action would be the sort of overt, discipinary action taken to strip Hans Kung and similar dissidents of their authority to teach in Catholic seminaries, for example. Not a plain and simple book critique.
“The Tablet article repeats the verdict I have often heard, which is that the Czechoslovak ordinations were valid but not licit. How does that square with canon law?”
Wiki :
“In 1970 Ludmila Javorova attempted ordination as a Catholic priest in Czechoslovakia by a friend of her family, Bishop Felix Davidek (1921–88), himself clandestinely consecrated, due to the communist regime ruling Czechoslovakia being against the Catholic Church, and priests therefore being in short supply; however, an official Vatican statement in February 2000 declared the ordinations invalid while recognizing the severe circumstances under which they occurred.”
By the way, the Tablet article is misleading: “Last week, their achievement was belatedly honoured.” The implication is that the Catholic Church “belatedly honored” the allegedly ordained Czech women. No, a group of dissidents including – no surprise – Hans Kung gathered at a non-Catholic Church to celebrate them.
Good for them fighting the Soviets, but they were never “ordained”.
The CDF statement from 2000 is here, by the way. You will note that they not only declared the women invalidly ordained, but the men as well. Consistent!
David Nickol: Interesting points in that statement on the validity of the sacraments administered by these faux priests, too.
I have to agree with P re the absence of sanctions.
P. Flanagan
I think you are underplaying the seriousness of the administrative action of a public declaration against a Catholic theologian by the Committee on Doctrine. As respected theologians have pointed out, the committee’s “critique” is hardly sensible since it seems not to be based entirely on what Prof. Johnson has written in her book. The bishops have violated their own procedural process for dealing with doctrinal disagreements with theologians. Even Fr. Weinandy their theologian admitted that. So why do you persist in being contrary on this matter?
Whether or not Johnson meant to write the book for this reason, it can and would be used in a dangerous and common project which should, and probably does, concern bishops. Two professors who teach their universities’ equivalent to “Intro to Theology” have told me that this is their practice. It’s not imaginary, and it is a serious problem.
The project is “mature faith.” The idea is that kids come to college with an immature faith and it needs to be developed. So far, I agree. But the way some professors approach the issue is by challenging the students to provide reasons for all of their beliefs. Optimally, we could all do that, but most students are ill-equipped to do so. Effectively, the student is left with very little faith content, and no trust at all in revelation.
The overwhelming sense of the faithful (say, 99.9%) among the world’s billion Catholics is that the Creator ordained two distinct complementary sexes. It’s not accidental, purposeless or deniable.
As for the above comment speculating about the existence of sex elsewhere in the universe: [a] Even if it’s unique to this planet, it’s still part of the Creator’s magnificent plan; [b] if it is unique to this planet, then that makes it all the more precious.
The more I read these comments, the deeper my gratitude that we are led by simple shepherds and not the “smart set”.
Hard to imagine a worse sanction for a theologian than having the bishops announce that her book “completely undermines the Gospel and the faith of those who believe in the Gospel.”
Completely? Really?
Undermines? I.e., places mines beneath, set to detonate at the lightest footfall?
The Gospel? Is it so weak after two millennia that one book by one author can explode it?
The faith of those who believe? Really? Are believers in the Gospel so easily led that one book by one theologian can explode their faith, blow it to smithereens?
Could it be that the bishops are exaggerating? Speaking metaphorically? Employing hyperbole in their denunciation of a woman’s four-year-old book?
Kathy
Thank you for alerting us to this real danger in theology classes at Catholic universities and colleges. I would advise concerned parents to start home schooling their college age children.
Thought I would throw a little Gospel of Thomas into the thread..
114 Simon Peter said to them, “Make Mary leave us, for females don’t deserve life.” Jesus said, “Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven.”
William is this what you are proposing?
The Vatican has already addressed the issue of gender change in January 2003:
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/CatholicTSDecision.html
Alan,
I would advise concerned parents to interview the head of the theology programs of their children’s intended high schools and colleges.
The overwhelming sense of the faithful (say, 99.9%) among the world’s billion Catholics is that the Creator ordained two distinct complementary sexes.
j.a.m.,
I would agree if you had left out the word complementary. There have been a number of discussions here on dotCommonweal about the differences between men and women, and in particular what differences make a man suitable for the priesthood and a woman not. It has never been explained to my satisfaction in what way the sexes are complementary, aside from purely physical reproductive differences. At most we have had people say things like “women tend to be more nurturing.” It seems to me arguments about complementarity have to go beyond what women and men “tend” to do. Men tend to have more upper body strength than women, but I don’t think any of us today would say that a woman should be discriminated against in hiring for a job that required upper body strength just because men “tend” to have more of it. The question would be whether the individual woman applying for the job requiring upper body strength has the necessary upper body strength to do the job. If she does, to refuse her the job based on the fact that she is a woman is unjust discrimination.
Alan,
I wonder about cases where babies are born with ambiguous genitalia and must be assigned a gender.
Thanks as usual to j.a.m. and Kathy for huge (unsubtantiated) generalizations.
@DavidN,
Your posts raise an important question regarding the extent to which it is appropriate to conflate sex (a genetic or biological category, arguably) with gender (a social, cultural, learned category, arguably). The Church seems to adopt a pretty simplistic way of thinking about it–as purely reproductive capacity–and then applies that across the board to endeavors that are irrelevant to that function, eg the priesthood. As an example, the document Alan linked to has the bishops saying, “one’s canonical condition, which is male or female as determined at the moment of birth.” That seems to make sex solely about external genitalia, which seems a little odd.
It’s not like the ordained of either sex are going to use those genitalia in the performance of their duties or anything, right? I mean, the maleness of Catholic clergy in terms of the reproductive functions of that which makes them male “at the moment of birth” has no bearing on sacramental activities (as it does in the sacrament of holy matrimony).
William Fitzgerald
Is that a trick question?
Official duties, right? Then, I’d say no.
David N.
That is a very good question. I doubt that the Vatican would favor assigning a gender at that point, although I do not know for sure. We probably need a bioethicist to weigh in on that one.
It’s not a trick question. I can’t understand the connection between sex and ordination or between gender and ordination and I’ve heard all the arguments. Sure, God created human beings and much of earthly creation in a complementary sexual binary relationship, male and female. How one gets from this undeniable and beautiful mystery to the selection of one sex only for one of the sacraments is more a muddle than a mystery. As I said, it’s not like a priest or a bishop uses that which makes him male in the performance of his clerical duties, right?
Two things: first I hadn’t noticed that the Canon on ordination says “baptized MAN.” Cool! In all the debates about inclusive language, we’re assured that “man” includes women. Open wide the seminary gates! Alas, though, I suspect the Latin indicates the masculine, and is ambiguous as to whether what is meant is biological sex or gender. I have heard apocryphal tales of m-to-f transsexual priests being defrocked (the term being particularly ironic given the context,) because “they can no longer bear the indelible mark.”
But seriously, folks. Notice how the magisterial focus on maleness as a criterion takes us right under the cassock (or into the DNA) to peek. Similarly, much of present magisterial teaching on sex takes us to a microscopic view–”artificial” birth control is bad, “natural” birth control, while identical in its intention to avoid conception, is justifiable. What’s the difference? “Artificial” implies an intentional barrier of some sort that prevents sperm from access to egg. A condom is bad, a physical barrier to the hapless sperm. (NFP seems to do exactly the same thing, using a temporal barrier rather than physical, but that’s a different thread.) The Pill is also bad–blocks ovulation, prevents sperm from getting to egg because there’s no egg, frustrating the poor sperm, depriving sex of its “natural finality” of sperm having at least theoretical access to egg. Can a couple practice oral sex? Apparently it’s fine so long as the man ejaculates into the woman’s vagina when the time comes. Can a man masturbate, (i.e., derive sexual pleasure from touching his penis)? Sure, as long as he doesn’t ejaculate outside his wife’s vagina.
So…my question about both situations: is peeking under the cassock the BEST way to assess who can minister in the Church, or even who images Christ? Is considering the destination of sperm the BEST way to address questions of Christian sexual life? The teachings aren’t questionable because they consider the physical, but because they seem to stop there.
@Alan,
As a matter of practice, historically with ambiguity cases the church probably didn’t even know. Doctors have long been making the call in the delivery room based on their own subjective assessments about appearance, then surgeries get performed if necessary, and done is done. They all look alike in a christening gown.
Unfortunately, some doctors have used cultural gender biases to make the call when the ambiguity is severe, taking into consideration how many kids of what sex the family already has, or deciding that if considered a boy the kid would be teased for having too small a penis or too large a clitoris. In the wake of genetic testing and pre-natal screening they can look for chromosomal information, but–again–what to look for? The bottom line as I see it, admittedly ill-infomed as I am about a whole lot o’ everything, is that sex and gender are far more complicated than the Bishops understand/admit and, even if they were simple, they don’t have anything to do with the sacrament of ordination. Or shouldn’t.
Do we know if any seeker of ordination has been turned down because of ambiguous gender at birth?
“Alas, though, I suspect the Latin indicates the masculine, and is ambiguous as to whether what is meant is biological sex or gender.”
Canon 1024 reads, in Latin: “Sacram ordinationem valide recipit solus vir baptizatus.” The word “vir” is a masculine noun, never used to refer to a woman (mulier). If you want a generic term for “humanity” the term is “homo” as in “homo sapiens”.
It is from the Latin “vir” that we get the words virtue and virtuous. Strictly speaking, only men can be virtuous, manly. To be virtuous is to act like a man.
@William,
You probably learned those smart ideas in a “seminar” ;)
Nuns were told to become “virile women”.
Jerome made it plain: “As long as a woman is for birth and children, she is different from man as body is from soul. But when she wishes to serve Christ more than the world, then she will cease to be a woman, and will be called man.”
See, e.g., From Virile Woman to Woman Christ, by Barbara Newman, U of PA Press, 1995.
http://www.amazon.com/Virile-Woman-WomanChrist-Medieval-Literature/dp/0812215451#_
Gerelyn,
This gets to my proposition about women’s ordination. Women can become honorary men in renouncing their biological destiny and then, as men, seek holy orders. That way we can maintain doctrinal continuity with tradition. Not women priests but priests who were (formerly) women!
Rather than passing physical examinations, ordinands should be polygraphed.
See, e.g., article on NCR about the poll taken of priests in Australia.
“About 40 percent said pre-marital sex was sinful, and just 19.2 percent thought it sinful for married couples to use birth control. Several priests admitted they were in long-term committed relationships with women. One priest said he learned more about God from Alcoholics Anonymous meetings than the Catholic Church.”
They must teach/preach what they don’t believe, or be without a job and without the education to find a job.
Footnote:The Board of CTSA has criticized the Bishops’ Comitte for not following its own procedures, misunderstanding Profesor Johnson and muddlin gthe role of theologians.
See their statemen tat NCR today!
Just up -a Comonweal special from John Haught, S.J.
He notes the insistence of Weinandy on his view of “suffering God’ prevailing and also scores Weinandy and the Bishops (properly I think) for not appreciating evolutionary thought
The intertext (because there’s nothing ‘sub’ about it) is that Weinandy is the motivational force behind this hatchet job against Johnson and the Committee on Doctrine its happy hatchet. In any case, regardless of the theological merits and dangers all around, I’m struck by the hack work involved. It reads like a tenure case gone horribly wrong by failure to respect procedures for due deliberation.
‘Canon 1024 reads, in Latin: “Sacram ordinationem valide recipit solus vir baptizatus.” The word “vir” is a masculine noun, never used to refer to a woman (mulier). If you want a generic term for “humanity” the term is “homo” as in “homo sapiens”.’
Can anybody verify from their own resources, maybe after getting to a library on Monday, that the first published version of this canon had “homo” and following a later papal statement a revised edition read “vir”.
I believe that the person who made this claim to me was citing different editions of Denzinger.
What I find so very typical of my church and its process of condemnation of theologians is that the committee did not invite Sister Elizabeth Johnson to debate with them and ditto many others before her . First she didn’t know it was happening and she never had a chance to face her accusers—what are they afraid of—much like the bishops transferred the preists who abused children around and also imposing the liturgy readings translation changes on us. Only my love of the Eucharist and the people in the pews keeps me in this dysfunctional and sinful, just like me, Church. Lent is such a great time to be praying about all this and finding God in all Things. Sorry I just couldn’t keep reading all the threads in the comments as I’m not a theologian but I find Jesus Christ living in Elizabeth Johnson’s heart and head through reading her books.
“As I said, it’s not like a priest or a bishop uses that which makes him male in the performance of his clerical duties, right?”
I like a good joke on the weekends! Well done, Wm. F.
Sez the Catholic Church:
“Can. 1024 Only a baptised man can validly receive sacred ordination.”
There is NO unfleshed Catholic Church. Are you saying that the pope makes the rules? The “Magisterium” (whatever that means)? Who wrote Canon law? How many women were involved? There is something about laws written by and to the benefit of those who have the most to gain that smacks a little too much of self-serving aggrandizement.
Alan Mitchell: the Vatican and popes have spoken on many things:
• It was OK to own slaves. In 1866 Pope Pius IX declared, “It is not contrary to the natural and divine law for a slave to be sold, bought, exchanged or given.”
• Earning interest on loaning money was wrong. The church condemned usury at the Second Lateran Council in 1139, the Third Lateran Council in 1179, and the Council of Vienne in 1311.
“Never has there been so much knowledge and so little truth.” Fulton J. Sheen
“People reach conclusions when they are tired of thinking.” Mark Twain.
Jimmy Mac
?
Alan – I was responding to this statement of yours:
Alan C. Mitchell 04/08/2011 – 10:42 am The Vatican has already addressed the issue of gender change in January 2003:
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/CatholicTSDecision.html
The point being that the Vatican is as capable of stupidity as anyone else, and has been so for a long, long time.
Jimmy Mac
Thanks for the clarification. I see from it that you understood my earlier posting as not endorsing the Vatican’s statement.
I will admit that I am pretty uncomfortable with gender transformation. More accurately, I am opposed to gender re-assignment surgery as an improper use of medical and psychiatric knowledge. Indeed, I think the medical community should have said “no” when people asked to have perfectly sound and healthy bodily organs repurposed or excised.
If someone wishes to live as a man or as a woman when at another stage in life they were otherwise, I say to each his own. But I can’t see why the medical community should agree to participate in that transformation.
@WmFG,
Based on your characterization of sex reassignment surgery, you’d also prefer the medical community didn’t participate in any form of cosmetic/plastic surgery (other than that required after trauma or to cure a medical condition), right?
Yes, that would be right.
To be clear, Mary, I have no problem with transgender, only transsexuality. Call me old fashioned, or worse.
Is the part that is objectionable to you the permanence of it or is there a larger objection to any alteration of the “normal” body in general? Just trying to understand.
I believe in the integrity of the body and think we should accept what we are given.
Yeah, I do wish Donald Trump would get that exact message re his bad comb-over!
It’s a fascinating (and heart-breaking) issue I won’t pretend to know much about from any position of expertise. I’ve been acquainted with two people who underwent surgical alteration–after years of psychiatric and medical care–both framed their surgeries as last resorts and as corrective, to fix the outside to match the inside, that from very young ages their body wasn’t in any way “right” in terms of who they knew themselves to be. I wish I were better-read in the transgender literature.
Otherwise, I’m fascinated, Wm, by where are the boundaries of the “accept what we are given” notion. What implications does that have for hair dye, make-up and other adornments, push-up bras, high heels, etc… We’ve got bazIllion dollar industries designed around telling our daughters (more than our sons) that their body’s integrity in fact depends on changing it through unending consumption.
Yes, it is a continuum, and if one accepts G or H, there is little to stop going all the way to Y or Z. I think the rejection of our sex as something we must escape from or alter is a bridge too far on any scale. Until our lifetime surgical alteration wasn’t available, of course, except for forms of castration I don’t begin to understand. I have trouble seeing such surgeries as ethical practice of medicine.
Not sure they’d see it as rejecting their sex. But that circles us back to the earlier issue of how we choose to define sex–in neurological, genetic, genital, hormonal, psychological, etc terms. This makes my head hurt. Can we go back to talking about racist Republicans in Mississippi? :)
I do see it as a rejection of physical truth.
I find Johnson’s work not only intellectually stimulating, but also profoundly “devotional” in the best sense of that word: this is a woman who clearly loves God—but she loves the LIVING GOD, not the fossilized idol created by the institutional boys’ club. Maybe this is where the bishops true error is: because they could not recognize their dead diety in the book, they found it heretical.
The day I became a Christian feminist was the day that a young priest said that ordination was a a form of transubstantiation. This turned my world upside down and caused the scales to finally fall away from my eyes. I was told at another time that this arrogant little man is on the “bishop track.” Is it any wonder that these men are incapable of properly reading and discerning truth in a serious work of theology? The only way I survive in the church is to pay as little attention to them as possible. And it’s becoming more possible every day.
So nicely put. Janet. Thanks!
Unfortunately I left this same post on another page dealing with this issue, so forgive me if you see it twice. I was not cheating—just a bit challenged when it comes to blogging/posting. I recant none of it :)
P.S. : Thanks, William. I love the conversation and hope to become more involved. Johnson is superb, in my view. I must admit that I have read some (a lot?) of feminist stuff that doesn’t engage the heart very much—useful insights, but not a lot of inspiration. I have never experienced this reading Johnson’s work. I think she loves God deeply and wth a passion for Truth: another of God’s holy names. Another great feminist theologian, gone too soon: Catherine Mowry LaCugna. Her book on trinitarian theology is outstanding.
William, I think it’s safe to say that there is probably no other group that feels as misunderstood as the transgendered. It’s nearly impossible for anyone to imagine what it feels like if they don’t feel it. I put myself in that group — how does one “know” that one “feels” like what women/men “feel” on the inside? But then, how does any of us know what another person feels? It’s also hard for me to understand how anyone would actually seek the limitations and stereotyped straitjackets that are accorded to women — and part of me thinks that transgendered people (he to she) might have an understanding of a woman’s feelings but not of those outer limitations. To me, it stretches the bounds of what is possible for empathetic understanding, and the worst thing I can imagine is undergoing permanent surgery and not ending up feeling that one has finally found the outer shell that reflects the inner self.
At America’s In All Things” Jimmy Keane has a nice piece “In Praise of Difficult Women,” about our women religius and their declining numbers and the impact of that.
Did someone here say “uppity?”
Meanwhikle ,the old boys club at the top goes blithely on their way of”teaching and governing.”
What apity.
“I do see it as a rejection of physical truth.”
William: by that statement do I take it that you also believe, therefore, that the only proper sexual relations are the standard way between a man and a woman because the “physical truth” of the compatability of body parts indicates that this is the only right way?
Jimmy, that is highly presumptuous and, really, more than a little mean spirited.
I do not also believe that.
Recognizing and accepting the truth of one’s sexual orientation as something natural, inevitable if not also innate, genetically predetermined–I have no idea why people turn out straight, gay, or bi–is quite a different matter from determining that the only way one can be true to oneself is through radical surgery to remove or remake one’s genitalia and to maintain a regiment o of hormones to promote secondary sexual characteristics that would otherwise revert back to a prior state absent those drugs.
No offense to anyone, but in my opinion it’s an entirely reasonable question, given the phrasing WmFG chose. Based on his previously posted arguments on CW regarding his disagreement with traditional Church teachings regarding homosexuality, odds are his answer to jimmymac’s question is no.
I concluded prematurely, sorry.
It’s the artificiality and radical rejection of one’s own physical nature that I find to be different from what I regard as the naturalness of homosexuality. Would anyone want to see a pill developed or surgery devised that turns one straight? (I know, the analogy is imperfect.)
I shoulda had money on it. And waited 2 minutes :)
Not mean-spirited at all. I want to explore people’s thoughts when it comes to the idea of physical truth when it comes to sexuality.
There are many people born with dual and under-developed genitalia. What is their physical truth?
And there are many people who are born with the developing belief that they are in the wrong gendered body. Sex-reassignment surgery is not something that happens cavalierly nor easily. I know 2 people who have gone through it and it took a strong person to leap the psychological, medial and financial hurdles before this was accomplished. No doctor will agree to participate in this surgery unless (s)he knows that the person undergoing it understands the full ramifications and short-comings that will result. They have to convince mental health professionals that they are indeed incapable of being comfortable in a body that does not fit their spirit and (some might say) their soul.
The church can say whatever it wants, as it is to quick to do about so many things. When its stated position flies in the face of medical and psychiatric sciences, then it needs to admit that it must just be wrong. I know that is a strange think to ask this One True Church Established by Christ to do, but it too has to learn sooner or later that the truth will make us all free.
If I may contribute something here?
“The Vatican text defines transsexualism as a psychic disorder of those whose genetic makeup and physical characteristics are unambiguously of one sex but who feel that they belong to the opposite sex.”
We have no evidence that such a condition actually exists. All those diagnosed as “Transsexual” who have ever been tested have had some physical, anatomical, characteristics of the opposite sex, and apparently have had since about the 26th week after conception.
See for example
Male–to–female transsexuals have female neuron numbers in a limbic nucleus. Kruiver et al J Clin Endocrinol Metab (2000) 85:2034–2041
A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality. by Zhou et al Nature (1995) 378:68–70.
“Our study is the first to show a female brain structure in genetically male transsexuals and supports the hypothesis that gender identity develops as a result of an interaction between the developing brain and sex hormones”
White matter microstructure in female to male transsexuals before cross-sex hormonal treatment. A diffusion tensor imaging study. – Rametti et al, J Psychiatr Res. 2010 Jun 8.
CONCLUSIONS: Our results show that the white matter microstructure pattern in untreated FtM transsexuals is closer to the pattern of subjects who share their gender identity (males) than those who share their biological sex (females). Our results provide evidence for an inherent difference in the brain structure of FtM transsexuals.
It was unfortunate timing that the Vatican finally declared that Transsexuality was a psychiatric issue with no biological cause, just as the evidence finally refuting that hypothesis was starting to come in.
If I might also give my own narrative here.
I am not Transsexual. But that’s only because of a technicality, I have a very obvious, even spectacular, externally visible Intersex condition, and such a condition automatically excludes a diagnosis of Transsexuality under both the WHO’s ICD-10 and APA’s DSM-IV-TR diagnostic manuals. Even if all other diagnostic conditions are met.
I had not got the courage to “transition” as it is called. To be true to myself. It was obvious to me that I was a girl, as far back as age 8 or so. By age 10, I’d picked the name “Zoe”, as the name I had wasn’t a girl’s name. I looked, dressed, and was treated as a boy, but I didn’t think like them. They may as well have been an alien species, and with the trusting naivety of an innocent and biologically ignorant child (they weren’t big on Sex Ed in 1968 in the UK), I thought that when that mysterious event called “puberty” happened, and I changed to look like the other girls, this silly mistake would be corrected.
Oddly enough, in a sense, I was sort of correct. It was just a bit delayed. By about 35 years in fact. In the meantime, I tried to play the best game I could with the hand dealt me. To be the best Man any Woman could be, and in a saner world, the kind of man who would have been my helpmeet and the father of my children. It helped that I wasn’t even remotely interested in men. I figured that if I was female, I must be a defective one anyway, wanting a girlfriend to cuddle and not a boyfriend. Sex.. I just didn’t get. Why so much fuss? Besides which, I had completely the wrong instincts, I had to think about what to do next, nothing came naturally as I was told it was supposed to.
It didn’t help that I was not fully anatomically male. At age 20, I went in to have my gallbladder removed – and ended up with a scar from bikini-line to breastbone, where all sorts of anomalous and malformed tissues were removed from my abdomen.
When I was 27, I was diagnosed with “undervirilised male syndrome”. I had normal amounts of male sex hormone, it just hadn’t had much effect.
At age 47… my metabolism went haywire. This time, I had a puberty, of sorts, a female one. After gene tests, MRIs, Ultrasounds, all tests not available when I was 27, I was re-diagnosed with “severe androgenisation of a non-pregnant woman”. Partial 3-beta-hydroxysteroid-dehydrogenase deficiency is probably the cause, that can cause such a “natural sex change”, just as the more common 5-alpha-reductase-2 deficiency or 17-beta-hydroxysteroid-dehydrogenase-3 deficiency can cause a change from female to male.
See http://www.usrf.org/news/010308-guevedoces.html
My brain was always anatomically more female than male though, no matter what my external appearance. Now everything matches. For 47 years though, I was exactly like all other Transsexual women. Anatomically Girl Brain, otherwise anatomically Boy Body.
As with 17BHDD, changes from 3BHDD are not complete. In 5ARD they may be. Anyway, I had to have genital reconstruction, just like Transsexual women (though with a very different pre-operative anatomy from them).
I cannot describe the relief. For the first time, I could urinate without thinking about it. For the first time, I didn’t wake up in the morning wondering WHAT THE HECK is that between my legs? Everything else works too, I get “sex” now, my instincts match my body, and I have to be careful now to keep those under control rather than intellectualise about it.
People like me cause Theologians to have headaches. I’ve written to Bishops, Cardinals, the Vatican, asking for guidance. No reply, not even an acknowledgement. They prefer to think that 5ARD etc do not exist.
Does anyone remember what this post was about? Comments closed.