I have decided to change my views concerning female priesthood and homosexuality. Let me explain.
First, I have slowly grown to understand the ridiculousness of an all male priesthood. Just to enumerate a few brief reasons that I will flesh out in later posts:
1. The male priesthood is a cultural institution
2. It is heresy to believe that Christ's maleness had anything to do with his redemptive role or role as founder of the Church and of the priesthood
3. It is immoral to deny to someone something that they have the capacity to do naturally just as anyone else does
4. Gender is not fixed, and so to say that Christ, who knows all things, restricted the priesthood to "men" is meaningless
5. There is a long history of Mary spoken of by the saints as "priest" and "priestess"
Second, I have come to understand that natural law's restrictions of homosexual activity don't hold, nor do those in the Bible:
1. The holiness code in Exodus is not universal
2. Romans refers to a different question than the one we are asking now. There Paul is referring to Greek and Roman practices which did not include lifelong fidelity and agape love. Hermeneutics require that we not abstract an answer for a prior question and apply it to a new one. That is what the Church has been doing all along.
3. Natural law is not truly natural, since it not founded on all experience. What is counted as "natural" is just stylized performances of gender and heterosexual normativity.
4. Natural law is not natural because it denies the fact that for persons, homosexuality cannot be wrong. Why? If a dolphin began to have the capacity for speech and negation, we would baptize it right away. It would be considered a person, though not human. As a person, it would also be natural for it to engage in homosexual activity, as it does now, as an impersonal animal. Therefore, its status would be no different than that of human beings now who as persons also practice such activity, which is as natural to them as it is now for a dolphin.
5. Jesus was gay
Markel, SJ
First, I have slowly grown to understand the ridiculousness of an all male priesthood. Just to enumerate a few brief reasons that I will flesh out in later posts:
1. The male priesthood is a cultural institution
2. It is heresy to believe that Christ's maleness had anything to do with his redemptive role or role as founder of the Church and of the priesthood
3. It is immoral to deny to someone something that they have the capacity to do naturally just as anyone else does
4. Gender is not fixed, and so to say that Christ, who knows all things, restricted the priesthood to "men" is meaningless
5. There is a long history of Mary spoken of by the saints as "priest" and "priestess"
Second, I have come to understand that natural law's restrictions of homosexual activity don't hold, nor do those in the Bible:
1. The holiness code in Exodus is not universal
2. Romans refers to a different question than the one we are asking now. There Paul is referring to Greek and Roman practices which did not include lifelong fidelity and agape love. Hermeneutics require that we not abstract an answer for a prior question and apply it to a new one. That is what the Church has been doing all along.
3. Natural law is not truly natural, since it not founded on all experience. What is counted as "natural" is just stylized performances of gender and heterosexual normativity.
4. Natural law is not natural because it denies the fact that for persons, homosexuality cannot be wrong. Why? If a dolphin began to have the capacity for speech and negation, we would baptize it right away. It would be considered a person, though not human. As a person, it would also be natural for it to engage in homosexual activity, as it does now, as an impersonal animal. Therefore, its status would be no different than that of human beings now who as persons also practice such activity, which is as natural to them as it is now for a dolphin.
5. Jesus was gay
Markel, SJ
5 comments:
This is a joke, right? April fools??
Let's hope so. Or the Jesuits are doomed.
Markel,
You brilliant heretic! Point number 6 seems to have been left off of each argument:
6. I'm a woman.
and
6. I'm gay.
Seriously, you had me going until you got to the dolphins.
Now, I'm guessing that you're composing some brilliant sed contra to expose the sloppiness of contemporary theology and the credulity of your readership (and maybe stir up the pot with the Jesuit haters out there a bit). If so, get to it fast, my friend, because we've got to bear with those who are easily scandalized. And they are legion.
And when you do finish your sed contra, hold onto it. You'll need it in Berkeley.
Holy cow, you really had me going there. I was buying it all, until #5.
And then I remembered the date.
Tuppence ;)
Wow, glad I had you going so long, or should I be offended that you have so little confidence in me? Anyway, I figure one day a year we can let the heretical dark corner of our brains out, and what better day than April fools day? You're right Longin, SJ, but if I had written "I'm a woman" that would have given myself away too quickly.
Markel, SJ
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