Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Happy Catholic notes that "... it has been infallibly decided by the Church that women cannot become priests."<

I wonder what jcecil3 will say about this! Happy Catholic has the declaration here. The highlights:
Dubium: Whether the teaching that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women, which is presented in the Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis to be held definitively, is to be understood as belonging to the deposit of faith.

Responsum: In the affirmative.

This teaching requires definitive assent, since, founded on the written Word of God and from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium (cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 25, 2).
Perhaps Mr. Cecil will argue that the Second Vatican Council, an ecumenical council that decided no new doctrine, yet remains infallible as a council of the Church, is not, in fact, infallible.

The Church is the body of Christ and the People of God. One can't minimize the one because one is enamored of the other. The more Catholics come to understand this, the better off the Church will be.