Fear of Dissent

The fear of dissent is once again evident in the Catholic church. Now, they've banned a nun from teaching because she believes women should be ordained into the priesthood, which goes against current teachings of the church.

From about 1980 to 2000, the number of priests, including seminarians, steadily decreased. While the Vatican, in the release of the new "yearbook" for 2000-2007, says this trend is finally starting to reverse, the numbers are nowhere near what they used to be and most of the increase has been within Asia and Africa. In Mexico, some fear that the Catholic church will collapse due to lack of priests. And the biggest reason young men are not going into the priesthood in Mexico is the requirement to be celibate. So there is a need for priests and allowing a woman to become a priest would most certainly ease the crisis of not enough priests to keep all the Catholic churches open.

Women have never been equal to men in the Catholic church. The Catholic church claims that Jesus never chose a woman to be an apostle. (Of course, this ignores two important points: women in the time of Jesus were mere possessions of their husbands and Mary Magdalene is, by many, considered an apostle/disciple.) According to Catholicism, women will never be priests because no one, including the pope, has the authority to change who can receive a sacrament or the "substance" of the sacrament. Since Jesus didn't do it 2000 years ago, no one will ever do it. Well, Jesus didn't build web sites 2000 years ago either, but Catholicism and the Vatican have. There's no evidence that Jesus smoked tobacco 2000 years ago, but there's no prohibition against priests smoking. Jesus didn't marry 2000 years ago (according to Catholic teaching), so priests will never be able to marry either. (Of course, the Catholic church allows Orthodox Catholic priests to be married.)  So those who are waiting for that to change before going into the priesthood better not hold their breath.

This, however, is not a debate about whether the Catholic church is right/wrong to deny women ordination. That is the teaching of their faith and they are free to teach whatever they want. The issue here is the attempt to silence someone who dares to dissent. Who dares to speak something that causes others to think. Yes, it might turn away some who believe in the equality of the genders from Catholicism. (On the other hand, it might attract those who still believe in male supremacy— and I believe the numbers are far higher than one might think.) But censorship will also turn people away from Catholicism. So will trying to silence a teacher who obviously loves her job. After all, she's been teaching for more than 40 years.

Change comes slowly to the Catholic church. I remember when the mass was still said in Latin and the priest had his back towards the congregation at all times. I remember when confessions were behind closed doors and nuns wore habits that covered them from head to toe. Vatican II shows that the Catholic church can change and it was the dissenters that got the process of change started.

There's no chance, according to Catholic teaching, that dissent will ever change the issue of women being ordained. So why the need to silence those who dissent? It seems that in this case, it's merely as a form of punishment by taking away the chance to do what this woman obviously loves doing: teaching. Of course, by trying to silence her, they gave her a much larger audience to speak to and made sure her message was heard by many far outside the diocese of Cincinnati. And hopefully, this little article will help her cause.

I love karma.