Should women be ordained (as priests)?

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I know this is old news at this point, but I just discovered the video, so here you go:

These women want to become Catholic priests against church law. Here's a video that explains why church law is what it is:


I'm Catholic, and I know that obedience to the Church is paramount. Jesus wouldn't let the Church fall into error. Nevertheless, I don't support JPII's declaration forbidding the matter from being discussed (and excommunicating anyone involved with the movement). Partly, that's because it's counterproductive; when an ancient institution or disliked authority figure forbids something, that just makes people want to do it more. But also, I believe that refusing to discuss things is intrinsically damaging. It can be seen as a sign of fear of losing the argument if the matter is actually discussed. Even if that's not the case, just as metals are tested for strength by fire, arguments can only be tested for validity if there is actually someone rationally opposing the argument.

So I'm putting the argument to the test here, for all you WP users. You guys are very rational. Have at it!

I am Lutheran (ELCA), and we've ordained female pastors for quite some time. We have also ordained LGBT pastors since 2006.

I'm OK with it.

Sure...why not?

Why not? I used to be Catholic and now I go to a modern church that's part of a denomination known as Four Square, which is part of the greater denomination of Pentecostal churches. My church has both male and female pastors. The head pastor and his wife are both pastors.

That the Catholic Church is sexist is far from the only issue I have with it, that would probably fill a long scroll if I were to make a list, but it does tie into one of my main issues which is that it's way too hung up on tradition, to the point that it's not at all focused on the point of church, which is to bring you closer to God. Catholic Church pretty much goes out of its way to put a wall up between people and God, and it tries to combine old covenant and new covenant, even though Jesus died so we could have the new covenant. A lack of female priests takes a backseat to that.

There's a specific passage in Colossians that I think is the basis for sexism regarding the clergy in Cathlicism and the more traditional Protestant denominations, and though I don't remember it word for word off by hand, it seems that there's a very specific reason why Paul recommended that the men of that church pull together and take over leadership...of that church. Keep in mind, if you could consider his ministry a travelling church, and he had women on staff, he was definitely not sexist. In fact, he sounds downright progressive for his time.

No, but only really as a point of principle: an organisation that claims its highest leader is literally infallible should not get away with changing its mind without being called on its hypocrisy.

Where I live there's been female priests for a long time, and I think it's pretty great. The church works a bit like a social charity here, so they're the ones caring for all the poor and homeless, and lately their most important feature is offering counseling for everyone, no matter their religious beliefs. So there's a great reason for having female priests, as someone who needs that counseling might not be comfortable opening up to a male priest.
For me personally, I have trust issues with women ('cause of childhood abandonment-stuff) and I've never been religious, but I've never mistrusted a female priest. I don't know why, but I have the greatest respect for those ladies.

AFAIK, the only real obstacle is the Transubstantiation thing, the words "This is my body" or whatever it is translated into. And as I understand it, the thing is, a female body carries too much of different meanings to impersonate Christ in these words.

My own expirience of pregnancy and motherhood reinforces the feeling that "giving your own body to others" means quite a lot more when you are female.

Running a parish, leading, helping, organising and doing all the other stuff should be probably not a problem, at least theologically. There is no fundamental obstacle for anything apart from transsubstatiation to be done by women. I wonder if other Sacraments could be conducted by women... Baptism and marriage can anyway, you don't need a priest for them to be valid. The Communion carries the issue. I wonder how about Penance?

^^ Hmm. But it's not the body of the priest - it's the body of Christ, and the liturgy makes that very clear.

I'm more in line with pre-Roman Celtic Catholicism and the Alte Catholiker Kirche (Old Catholic Church). If you look at the gospels, Christ first reveals his messianic nature to a woman - the Samarian woman at the well. So not merely a woman, but one with mileage and the "wrong" ethnicity. And it's again a woman who discovers the resurrection (empty tomb) - and by some accounts, this woman also had considerable mileage before her conversion. When a woman anoints his feet with nard, he proclaims this as his burial anointing.

Now, why on earth, if women are to be excluded from administering the sacraments, did he choose these women for such sacramental involvement in his own life?

Not to mention, he would not exist, if not for a woman.

I think these things have been minimized in church teaching so often out of a desire to make the church about hierarchy and gender-focused power, rather than about salvation and uplifting and human-focused equality before God. Because the redemptive message couldn't be more clear, in his own actions and by his own outreach.

This isn't something I argue about, though. I've had a lifetime to ponder and pray, and I'm just sharing the results.

According to the Bible, Jesus Christ was the type who went around washing the feet of prostitutes and caring for lepers, criminals and tax collectors. He was not the type who'd get angry about something such as a woman being ordained, or two men kissing. And yet his "followers" usually spend way more time on misogyny and homophobia than on helping the poor. If they spent the time they use trying to prevent equal rights for women and LGBT people on preventing homelessness instead, we'd see far fewer people sleeping rough (and, what's more, they'd feel better about themselves too).

Letting women in is inevitable, anyway: Christianity is in such a state of decline that the Catholic Church will eventually be forced to ordain women as otherwise they'll have trouble finding enough people who want to become priests.

When Jesus instituted the priesthood, at the Last Supper, he chose only men to be present. If any human was truly worthy, surely it would have been his mother, but he did not even include her. Mary Magdalene was also one of Jesus' close disciples and she was not included. It is the position of the Catholic church that Jesus instituted the priesthood to men and it does not have the authority to change something that was instituted directly by Jesus.

I'm a "protestant" (don't like using that term, I prefer evangelical, but that gets mixed up with the movement) and I don't think women should be ministers; but, women can, and do, fulfill a lot of other important roles within the community. Per my faith in the New Testament.

I will not deny that there are many other important roles, that women do much better than men, in the church. It is also based off of my faith in the New Testament that women should be allowed to work in the church, just not as a minister.

Here's something interesting I found online about the subject for those looking for any kind of reference:
http://www.christianbiblereference.org/faq_women.htm