Today on Days to Remember we celebrate how on January 27th 1977, the Vatican reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church’s ban on female priest.
In this day and age, why doesn’t the Church allow women to be priests? I know plenty of women who could give a more moving homily and more understanding in this sector of church relief.
If the Church allowed the ordination of women, there could very well be more ordinations that take place.
However, these wouldn’t aid the Church because the ordinations wouldn’t be valid. So, invalid ordinations are not the solution to the “vocations crisis” that we hear so much about.
But isn’t it possible that the Church could come around on this issue?
Actually the laws of the church haven’t really change much in the last century or two, the church is still going by how Jesus when he was alive picked all men apostle not women, being that said the Church does not have the authority to ordain women.
It’s just Roman Catholics, Southern Baptists, Mormons (Latter-day Saints), and the Orthodox Church in America, do not ordain women or allow them to lead congregations.
Other religious groups have taken small steps in the direction of female ordination.
A number of American churches, such as the United Church of Christ (whose members were once called Congregationalists) and the Universalists (who eventually merged with the Unitarians) started ordaining women in the 19th century. But it wasn’t until the decades following World War II that many of the larger and more prominent denominations began to allow women into leadership roles.
In 1956, the United Methodist Church and a part of what would become the Presbyterian Church USA ordained their first women ministers.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Reform Judaism, and the Episcopal Church followed suit in the early 1970s.
In recent years, women have ascended to a number of high-profile jobs in American churches. Many, including the Episcopal Church and the United Methodist Church, now allow women to be bishops and hold other top leadership positions.
In 2006, for instance, the Episcopal Church, for the first time, elected a woman, Katherine Jefferts Schori, to be its presiding bishop, the church’s highest office.
Where there a will, there’s way.
Amen to that!
Written & Designed by JD Mitchell
jdmitchelldesigns@gmail.com
Days to Remember 