I agree with Joanne on this one. A catholic scholar by the way.
j
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Dennis
Martin
Sent: Friday, December 24, 1999 11:52 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Faith and history
What you enunciate here about the origins of the clergy is a
protestant view. It is a perfectly legitimate view if one is not
committed to the Catholic magisterium. But it was condemned by the
Council of Trent. If it makes more sense to you than the Council of
Trent's dogmatic statement, fine. But have the intellectual honesty
to admit that you have rejected a fundamental priniciple of Catholic
teaching, not merely one among many options available to Catholics.
Dennis Martin
>>> <[log in to unmask]> 12/24 9:47 AM >>>
>If the Church was unjustly captive to culture for 1900 years and
only
>realized this after being prompted by post-Christian modern
culture,
>then the Church does not transcend culture and the
>Kulturprotestantismus of the 19thc was correct and historic
Catholic
>claims about the nature of the Church were incorrect all these
>centuries. This may indeed be true, but then one has become a
>Protestant.
One need not be a protestant to believe that the church is an
institution
bound to history and its vagaries. It is indeed a matter of faith
over
which the pope reigns that the church transcends history but I don't
think
that is a question that need concern a scholar. From that mundane
point of
view, the sources do not support the argument.
In the Pauline and deutero-Pauline letters (which are earlier than
the
Gospels) there are not ordained priests in evidence and sacraments as
we
understand them are only present in the interpretation of the
believer. The
clergy include apostles (both male and female). In case Junia is
not
acceptable, I would further point out that what Jesus chose twelve
men to do
was go forth with the news and he also chose Mary Magdalene and the
Samaritan woman for the same task. But Junia is acceptable by every
objective standard. Then there are deacons (both male and female)
and
presbyters (both male and female). Finally there are widows (an
ambiguous
category, I admit) who are exclusively female and bishops who are
exclusively male (and must be married). The condition that they be
the
husbands of one wife fits in with the official practices of the Roman
Empire
and (I think) contemporary Judaism.
The harsh fact is that the development of the clergy as a sacramental
body
and the development or ordination took place somewhere in the
obscure
century or so between the New Testament authors and the Apostolic
Constitutions, etc. We just don't know what arguments may have
occurred
except for the snippets already cited in the Apocrypha) and we don't
know
what the variations among various churches may have been.
Catholics (and other folk) are naturally welcome to believe anything
they
want to about what may or may not have happened or what the scripture
means
in its deeper interpretations, and so forth. But this is religious
truth,
not historical evidence.
Jo Ann
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