New Dublin Archbishop favours women deacons etc.

Sadly the nervous order hierarchy will fall in line with these heretical views.
I would be interested in how the traditional Orders / Priests would react to such a situation?
Obviously, we know the SSPX response!

I don't personally have a problem with female deacons. The primitive Church had them. I see no reason in principle to oppose them.

This comment is a fruit of Vatican 2 (modernism/liberalism) in its purest sense.
We have personal opinion and pulling ancient practices out of context for a heterodoxical conspiracy (revolutionary equality).

No offence intended Maolsheachlann.

I don't want to offend the good Maolsheachlann either, but I sympathise, johnmurphy.

This argument for female deacons smacks of the Vatican II passion for Ressourcement - the French liberal theology of allegedly "returning to the sources" and scrapping long centuries of Catholic tradition. The parallels with Lutheranism and Calvinism are apparent.

But Ressourcement at Vatican II was at least arguably a stealthy means of liberalising/Protestantising the Church, giving it positions eminently suited to progressive/rational modernity.

Female deacons appears entirely sensible to progressive/rational modernity, as do married clergy which Ressourcement also easily argues for.

But IMHO Ressourcement and "and pulling ancient practices out of context" too easily work to sabotage the undoubtedly Holy Spirit guided development of Catholic tradition over 1,500 years or more since these early times.

I would have completely agreed with Mal many years ago.


But struggling with these issues, I've come to trust in the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the Church's development as it relates to this issue, clerical celibacy and so much else.

br]
I guess that, to me, this discussion hinges on a few questions:

1) What authority and respect should be accorded Vatican II?

Cato
As much as any other council but as we know it is popularly regarded as a super council that nullified much of catholic life and the teachings of previous councils and popes prior to the 1960s. The then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger criticised this view of Vatican II in his famous Ratzinger report in the 1980s.

Vatican II was a well meaning serious attempt to deal with a secularising world. It failed in the West but was more successful in the developing world. There is an unfortunate tendency to either demonise Vatican II as an evil Masonic plot or exalt it as a second Pentecost . Like most things in life it's a mixture of success, mediocrity and failures.





r]2) If we accept the principle of doctrinal development, why should it have stopped in the 1960s?


Cato

Doctrinal development can be misused too to justify a complete 100% change which basically implies they back then were wrong and we now in a more enlightened era are right. Choosing to argue, as in the death penalty, that the church prefers to emphasise mercy as John Paul II did is more preferable that to claim the death penalty is /Was always wrong. That's doctrinal development without repudiating the the previous teaching.












3) Is it possible to view issues within the life of the Church on their own merits, rather than as part of a wider narrative such as liberalism vs. tradition? Perhaps the answer to that is "no"... I'm just asking the question.



Cato
It should be Maolsheachlann. The faith is broader and richer than narrow limited political categories. This is a terrible limiting and secularising trap that we christians regard as normal. Sadly.








br]
As I say, I don't feel any investment in the question of female deacons myself. If they once existed to meet a specific need perhaps they are legitimate to meet a new need-- the paucity (in Europe especially) of ordained ministers for functions which a deacon can perform, such as funerals. But if Holy Mother Church declares against them, I would probably be quite pleased.[/quote]





Cato

I would rather see lay men and women delegated to witness weddings for example, perform baptisms etc than clericalise women by making them part of a clergy club. I agree with Pope Francis that clericalism of all shades has caused enormous harm.

We do face an enormous problem with declining and aging clergy. That may involve radical disciplinary changes but I cannot envisage female ordination given the solemn statement of John Paul II in the 1990s on women's ordination.