Women Clergy
The Roman Catholic Church does not ordain women to any of the orders and has officially declared that it does not have authority to ordain women as priests or bishops. Ordaining women as deacons, however, appears to remain a possibility, but not in any sacramental sense of the diaconate. Many Orthodox, Old Catholic, Anglican and Protestant churches ordain women, but in many cases, only to the office of deaconess. Whether the Catholic Church historically ordained, or simply "set apart", women as deaconesses is a matter of theological and historical investigation.
Various branches of the Orthodox churches, including the Greek Orthodox, currently ordain woman as deaconesses. Some churches are internally divided on whether the Scriptures permit the ordination of women. When one considers the relative size of the churches (1.1 billion Roman Catholics, 300 million Orthodox, 590 million Anglicans and Protestants), it is a minority of Christian churches that ordain women. Protestants constitute about 27 percent of Christians worldwide, and most that ordain women have only done so within the past century.
In some traditions women may theoretically be ordained to the same orders as men. In others women are restricted from certain offices. The Church of England (in the Anglican Communion), for example, does not permit the consecration of women as bishops, though the Episcopal Church USA (the United States denomination that is part of the Anglican Communion) does. Similarly, in some Protestant denominations, women may serve as assistant pastors but not as pastors in charge of congregations. In some denominations, women can be ordained to be an elder or deacon. Some denominations allow for the ordination of women for certain religious orders. Within certain traditions, there is a diversity of theology and practice regarding ordination of women.
The RCC, in accordance with its understanding of the theological tradition on the issue, and the definitive clarification found in the encyclical letter written by John Paul II in 1994 officially teaches that it has no authority to ordain women as priests and thus there is no possibility of female priests at any time in the future. (source wikipedia)
So according to the Roman Church and right wing Anglicans, women must know their limits. Harry Enfield wraps this theory up in a wonderfully ironic package of daftness and he manages to do this in just over two minutes.
The following clip places the whole anti-women issue into the category it deserves... the ridiculous.
So now let us get serious and hear from someone who makes great sense!
Bishop Wright advocates for the full participation of women in the life of the Church. Citing the examples of Junia as an apostle and Phoebe as a deacon in Romans 16, and the commissioning of Mary Magdelene as the first person to announce the resurrection of Jesus in John 20, he believes that the biblical evidence supporting women in leadership is overwhelming. Part of an interview by Dr. Tod Bolsinger, Senior Pastor of San Clemente Presbyterian Church, at the Pastors Retreat of the Los Ranchos Presbytery held at the Serra Retreat Center in Malibu, CA. Bishop N.T. Wright is the Bishop of Durham in the Church of England.
As most of the Church of England argue and the Roman Catholic Church condemn - other churches continue to move forward as they always have - quietly and steadily - while the rest of the global Church looks on!
Before everyone thinks there are no women bishops in the world - read on. There are hundreds. What everyone means is that there are no women bishops in the Church of England and no women priests at all in the Roman Church! Women have been ordained as priests and consecrated as bishops throughout the history of Christendom - since the birth of the early Church. The Church of England caught up 17 years ago but my oh my - are the big guns of our world's mainstream religions in trouble! They fight over women, gay priests, freemasons, married clergy - well anything they can think of really - while the Children of God desperate for Christian leadership have to get whatever energies are left over from their feuding clergy to minister to their spiritual and physical needs.
"Lutheran Woman Bishop Jeruma-Grinberga Succeeds Jagucki in Great Britain
- An Encouraging Sign to Other Churches!"
LONDON, United Kingdom/GENEVA, 29 January 2009 (LWI) - At her consecration on 17 January as the new bishop of the Lutheran Church in Great Britain, Bishop Jana Jeruma-Grinberga, the first woman to head the church, said the cultural and language diversities of the Lutheran Church were important contributions to the sharing of the faith.
"We are diverse in our cultural origins, diverse in our languages and diverse in the ways in which we 'do' church," said Jeruma-Grinberga, addressing congregation members including Lutheran leaders from different parts of the world, during her consecration in St Anne's Lutheran Church, London. That shows that the people there are united much more deeply by their shared faith, by a shared delight in the grace of God and by a desire to witness to the gospel in this land, she added.
Jeruma-Grinberga succeeds Bishop Walter A. Jagucki who had led the church since 2000.
Jeruma-Grinberga was born in London in 1953 to parents who were refugees from Latvia. She was ordained in 1997 in the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church in Great Britain and served its London parish. She was the senior pastor of St Anne's Lutheran Church in London until July 2008. She is a director of the Lutheran Council of Great Britain, which represents 10 national Lutheran churches that have congregations or chaplaincies in Britain.
Further to this, men who do funny signs to one another, wear daft clothing and participate in cult-like ceremonies (no... not Roman Catholic priests; Freemasons) are they really a concern to the global Church of God?
There are two remaining bastions of misogyny. The Mainstream Church denominations and Freemasonry. The worrying (if not slightly sinister) aspect of this is that some clergy are also Freemasons. But do these high profile men still have a great influence over the world?
You'd better believe they do.