Responses to Rome

...The pope insists that the universal priesthood of the faithful and its royal dignity belong to both men and women...

...He reflects that in the Sacrifice instituted in the Upper Room, "there was hidden the ineffable love of his mother...

...This time, however, the pope's determination proved irrepressible...

...Manning's determined effort was, in part, the result of his association with the Metaphysical Society, in which leaders of the British philosophical and scientific world met monthly to discuss world problems...

...Theologians and polemicists would be well advised to await the arrival of a pontiff as strong-willed and as theologically competent as Wojtyla to discover whether "what a pope can do a pope can undo...

...In the common room of the Redemptorist headquarters in Rome, a large marble plaque commemorates the use of the aula by the archbishop of Westminster, Henry Edward Manning (1808-92) and co-conspirators in 1870 in propelling Vatican I to define the infallibility of the pope...

...and that it was encapsulated in the Roman pontiff as successor to Peter who had been admonished by Jesus Christ, "and you once strengthened confirm your brothers" (Lk...

...Citing the 1987 Synod on the Laity that enjoined women to "participate in the life of the church without any discrimination whatever," he listed actual possibilities which were now open to women: teaching theology...

...Based on an ecclesiology that considered the church as a unique societas perfecta in a politico-hierarchical sense, Vatican I declared both the primacy of the pope and the infallibility of the church in defining matters of faith and morals...

...therefore the church does not enjoy the faculty of so doing...

...ministry in the liturgy in ways permitted, including service at the altar...

...Manning's pique and reaction led him to the conviction that if infallibility was possible in the material world, then surely the church, as custodian of doctrinal and moral truth, had the prerogative of infallibility...

...22:23...

...This does not discriminate against women since the priesthood is a service and not a structural domination...

...In an address at Castle Gandolfo in early September, the pope asserted that the commitment of the church to women was rooted in Christ himself who, although not calling women to be apostles, assigned them primary roles as proclaimers of his Resurrection...

...and the blood "is the blood which gave life to the body received from his Virgin Mother...

...The famous Darwinian agnostic, Thomas H. Huxley, had twitted the archbishop with the claim that in the physical sciences, experts achieved infallibility since they were able to repeat their experiments...

...With the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, Pope Pius IX was forced to conclude the council without a discussion of the place of the bishops in the hierarchical structure of the church, thus giving the Vatican bureaucracy a strictly political structure, with the supreme pontiff as the foundation and unique ruler as the Vicar of Christ...

...While this decision presents a definite obstacle to ecumenical relations with the churches of the Reformation, it is consistent with the pope's attitude to the Orthodox communions that he sees as in possession of the same faith and practice as his Roman church...

...He concludes, Mary gave her life to the Son of God so that he might offer himself...

...John Paul says flatly Christ did not choose women among the twelve he selected for priestly ordination...

...For the body which is offered at the Last Supper is that which, as the Son of God, "he had taken from his mother...

...Sixty-two prelates who felt that this teaching, while true, was untimely, boycotted the solemn declaration...

...With this semi-mystical consideration in the background, John Paul has no hesitation in maintaining that the lack of ordination of women to the priesthood is not a discrimination...

...The pope eschews explanations of the choice based on cultural, social, or other circumstances, and indicates that it is the will of God...

...Now, as a result of a papal decision that women cannot be ordained priests, the manner in which this papal charism is to be interpreted is once again under somewhat agitated discussion...

...being pastorally active in a variety of ways, including new forms of care of parishes where priests were lacking, except, of course, where "properly priestly tasks" were concerned...

...Her presence at the institution of the Eucharist can be sensed, he asserts...

...In his 1995 Maundy Thursday letter to priests, the pope revealed a semi-mystical basis for his Mariological concepts...

...By defining the church as the "People of God," Vatican II, without denying the papal prerogative of infallibility, changed the ecclesiology of the papacy by insisting on the collegiality of the bishops with and under the pope in ruling the church and in defining its teachings...

...Vatican scuttlebut seems to think that it was not Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger who inspired the use of the term "infallible" in this instance, and gives him credit for preventing its use in two previous encyclicals, Veritatis splendor and Evangelium vitae...

...participation in pastoral and administrative councils, as well as in diocesan synods...

...Meanwhile, John Paul has been making strenuous efforts not merely to assert the equality of men and women within the church, but has gone out of his way to point out the tremendous progress in the employment of women in almost all of the church's functions...

...working in the church's curias and tribunals...

...Vaticanologists are suggesting that with this papal "no" further agitation on the part of feminists or experts is futile...

...It said that the Roman pontiff is endowed with the charism of infallibility in proclaiming Christian truth on his own (ex sese), not requiring the assent of the church...

...it is a service within the divine plan...

...During the next hundred years, the doctrine was the subject of incessant controversy...