The statement that change for women will never happen.
The Catholic family is the main focus in this segment.
I don’t remember her name, but let’s call her Mary. She was the wife of the man whose brother was a priest. Mary sat beside me.
Her parish would be surprised at the things that Mary said. She told me that she didn’t believe that God would create a devil and hell. She said that it was just was not consistent with a loving God. She said that she loves her children so much and that she knows that God has a greater capacity to love than she does. She thought that God would be more forgiving.
This is surprising. Particularly because of the statements that the Catholic church has made in recent years. In July 2007 they restated their belief when the Vatican reaffirmed that the Roman Catholic Church is the only path to salvation. I believe they said that others have an incomplete faith.
Then in July 2010, they made the statement that ordaining women priests was as grave a sin as pedophilia.
Mary was speaking her thoughts to me and I wondered as she spoke if she would say those words to another Catholic. I also wondered what else Mary was thinking.
The Vatican said that women’s ordination as priests was not up for discussion. I would have thought the devil and hell weren’t either, but here we were discussing it.
I am willing to concede something. I am willing to concede that the Vatican will never allow women to be ordained as priests.
What I am not willing to concede – is that women will be ordained as priests , coming out of the Catholic church. What they will begin to call themselves is as yet unknown.
The secrets in their hearts will become known, and in this way they will quickly bow with their faces touching the ground, worship God, and confess that God is truly among you. (1 Corinthians 14:25 GWT 1995)
Create in me a new song filled with hope, and rejoicing, and acknowledging that God is among us, and let us be a witness to all, sure of this knowledge.
- Change will happen, with their blessing or without it.
bWe Baptist Women for Equality's Blog 
Why would women coming from (or coming out of) a tradition that interposes a male human intermediary – i.e., the “priesthood” – between the people of God and God want to continue the tradition of interposing a human intermediary between the people of God and God when they leave the Vatican’s authority?
Though it arose early in church history, the long-held Roman Catholic concept and practice of the “priesthood” was a distortion of, and change from, the early church.
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The same reason they belong to those churches in the first place. I belong to a Baptist church but I believe my church is wrong is their teaching. Of the 115 Baptist churches in this area, none are supportive of women as deacons – don’t even mention as pastors. But there are Baptist women who believe that women should be able to preach and serve fully, and they choose to do this in the Baptist faith. (however, many have become Methodists). The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (Baptist) supports women who do. Baptist General Convention of Texas says they do, but there are only a handful of BGCT churches that do, so where does that leave them? I wish that more equality – minded denominations would be stronger in starting new churches. But they are not. Methodists have only one to a city. Thank you so much for your response. You make very good points.
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I probably should be a little clearer. If they don’t like a man standing between them and God, why do they think that a woman should do the same with respect to the congregation? Don’t they understand that the same religious concept that places an “ordained” man between the Body of Christ and Christ/God Himself is the same one that says that only a “male” can do it?
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Very good point. It does seem contradictory, doesn’t it?
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Equally to the point, if Baptists disagree with Catholics because they don’t like a man standing between them and God, why do they treat their pastor as if he did? And why do they insist that a husband stands between his wife and God?
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Some believe that he does. Read below how I responded to one pastor. In fact, the whole conversation is good, and I might use it as a blog soon. It is on my website, I am sure, but lots of people do not read the letters posted on my website. Whoa, boy! Aaron, tell me it is not so. You really believe that God has given you, a pastor, the leadership of His church to the extent that a member who submits to your leadership may be more important, have more influence, receive greater rewards in Heaven, etc. That is so arrogant, and unlike Christ that it takes my breath away. I go on to tell him that the order is this: God, the husband, the pastor, the wife.
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