Letters

Women priests

Ken Bayliss

Contents - Dec 2009 - Buy a copy now Editorial: Benedict XVI: When God entered human history - Pope Benedict XVI Ut Unum Sint: Benedict XVI eases way for Anglicans wishing to 'cross the Tiber' - Michael Gilchrist News: The Church Around the World Marriage: A Biblical defence of marriage: Africans take the lead - Babette Francis Victoria: Abortion evil: pro-life forces need to be united - John Morrissey Episcopacy: Church leadership responsibilities: an American case study - Phil Lawler Events: Melbourne - The Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite (1962 Missal) How to get Vatican II back on track: a bishop's prescription - Bishop R. Walker Nickless (Sioux City, Iowa) Foundations of Faith: The Eucharist: what the Old and New Testaments tell us - Br Barry Coldrey Vatican II: Yves Congar, Vatican II, ecumenism: finding the right balance - Andrew Kania Saints: Saint Damien of Molokai: Robert Louis Stevenson's prediction fulfilled Letters: New religion - Peter Donald Letters: Stewardship - Peter Finlayson Letters: Greens and Church - Kevin Cains Letters: Climate change - A.R. (Tony) Grieve Letters: Lost opportunity - Maureen Federico Letters: Saint Damien of Molokai - Arnold Jago Letters: Women priests - Ken Bayliss Letters: Complementarity - Kathleen Wood Books: 111 QUESTIONS ON ISLAM: Samir Khalil Samir SJ on Islam and the West - Michael E Daniel (reviewer) Books: THE MASS AND THE SAINTS, by Thomas Crean OP - Br Barry Coldrey (reviewer) Books: IMAGES OF HOPE, EUROPE TODAY AND TOMORROW, by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - Br Barry Coldrey (reviewer) Books: This month's selection from AD Books Reflection: The sacrament of Christian marriage: a nuptial Mass homily - Fr Glen Tattersall

Fifteen years is too long for feminists and their fellow travellers to continue disobeying the definitive judgment of Pope John Paul II in 1994 that the Church has no authority to allow the ordination of women.

Like the Catholic Church the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches restrict the priesthood to male candidates. They are the only three Christian Churches with priesthood as one of the seven sacraments. Furthermore the Code of Canon Law requires a candidate to the priesthood to be 'vir' (Latin for man).

That the Anglican Church now chooses to ordain men and women as priests and bishops may be in tune with the modern world but their practice cannot change the sacrament of priesthood as established by Christ.

KEN BAYLISS
Holland Park West, Qld

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 22 No 11 (December 2009 - January 2010), p. 15