taimatsu | (no subject)

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This is good good good.

Channel 4, right now, 'Dispatches: Women Bishops'. Christina Odone questioning her previously traditionalist outlook. I'm enjoying it. Oh noes, the Bible is not monolithic and literally true! Oh noooo, it contradicts itself!

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I enjoyed the irony of Anne complaining about the women going "we want...we want", to be followed by the Forward in Faith queens saying "we want..."

I couldn't understand why no one was discussing how one tells the difference between a man who genuinely believes he has a vocation and a woman who believes ditto.

Because they're both just saying 'I want, I want..' if we accept Anne's terms.

If you read the verbatim reports of the synod debates about the ordination of women, there is remarkably LITTLE discussion of theology - remarkably little.

But accepting AW's terms................

/ifimust is hauled screaming from the room.

(Yes, she may be a wonderful person but she's held up as some sort of icon of Catholic womanhood - say WHAT?)

I was very pleased when one of the few bits from the synod they showed was the chappie in the red shirt saying exactly what I wanted to say all through (and what even Lucy Winkett didn't put quite clearly enough), that the person at the alter represents Jesus' humanity, not his maleness, and men and women are equally human.

Nodding - the theological arguments aren't my thing - I'd rather tear down most of what we have in terms of priesthood and start again... :)

Which could be why they don't let me teach on the ministry training programs, perhaps?

Perhaps :)

I can't believe I misspelt 'altar'. Aaaaaargh.

Grin - if you would care to tell my students the difference, I would be much obliged. :)

Though to give a reasonable answer to this - what the individual feels is one thing - but in general, vocation has to be accepted and validated by the community - which is where the difference comes in.

Why? Catherine of Sienna's vocation was rejected by her family. As were those of many other saints/martyrs. It seems to me that a 'true vocation' is more likely to be one that has been resisted. At least the people who talk about resisting the call but following in the end speak to me more.

But then my opinion isn't really relevant as I'm an atheist - I just still find these discussions interesting.

Looking back at my catholic upbringing, I'm amazed I never noticed the doublethink inherent in the constant assertion of the importance of authority while also feeding us full of stories about men and women who did good through resisting authority.

The community here is not the family but the church - which did not reject Catherine's vocation, as shown by her acceptance as a tertiary. And it depends what you mean by a "true vocation" - we were talking about vocations to sacerdotal ministry, and as far as I know those are generally ratified by the community in some way, such as ordination (after a long period of training, quite frequently).

And it's not doublethink - at least not from where I'm sitting. It's more (again from where I am, which is an admittedly very very weird place - I describe myself as a virus infesting my host organism) one of those dichtomies which is not - wherein the balance has to be found.

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