It's alarming when self-proclaimed experts in theology and Catholicism (many of whom aren't even Catholic) insist that there is a right to ordination of women to the Catholic priesthood.With the recent faux-ordination to the Catholic priesthood of Alice M. Iaquinta of West Bend, the periodic debate begins again.
I'm a 37-year-old practicing Catholic woman with 12 years of Catholic education under my waistband. I have been an active and involved parishioner as an adult.
I have never once felt even slightly discriminated against by the church for being a woman.
As a girl, I was comforted by the abundance of exemplary female role models and saints honored by Catholicism. I knew that I was valued by the church as a girl for the feminine virtues I possess.
I've always had a firm grasp of the sensibility of having specific roles within the church community. Not everyone is suited to be a choir member or lector. Not everyone is suited to be a parish administrator. Not everyone is suited to be a priest. It's that final point that some Americans get hung up on.
And let's remember, the Catholic Church isn't secluded to America. We are a universal church, one in which there is no priest shortage or demand for women's ordination in other parts of the world. To alter the worldwide church to suit the agenda of one portion of the whole isn't prudent or wise.
Iaquinta could face excommunication, and she may be offended as a woman - but that doesn't erase the fact that Jesus was a man.
For sacramental purposes, and particularly during the Eucharistic rite of Mass, the priest is not a "symbol" of Jesus but a literal representation of Jesus. Transubstantiation that turns bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ isn't symbolic; it's a solemn recreation of the Last Supper.
Even if Leonardo DaVinci believed Mary Magdalene was at the table with the apostles, there's no ambiguity that a man was at the center performing the miracle.
Should men ride the donkey and hold the baby in nativity plays? After all, if we are to ignore that Jesus was a man, it's only logical that we should also ignore that Mary, his mother, was a woman.
Men can't give birth. A 4-foot-5-inch man will never be drafted to the NBA. A 95-pound woman won't be a heavyweight boxing champion. I'll never be a swimsuit model. Waa! It must be discrimination.
I think that much of the irritation some women feel about the church's discerned and discriminating position of a male-only priesthood boils down to displaced feminism.
Rather than embrace women's unique role within the church, some complain as though we're roped off to one side while every man has full access to holiness.
I hope they are aware that not every man who applies to a seminary is accepted.
Women are already equal to men in God's eyes and in the Roman Catholic Church's eyes.
We need to understand that equality doesn't mean sameness. In fact, it's our differences and the variety of roles, talents and treasures that bring us to one table to share all we have.
The church has every prerogative and right to be discriminating when it comes to priestly ordination.
If a woman chooses to ignore this, it is she who has excommunicated herself from the church.
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