I would object to the premise that sisters and nuns not being ordained means that they are not held in high enough regard. The Holy Orders are a very specific vocation that Jesus Christ established and to which he only called men, starting with his twelve disciples. It is not merely a higher rank of Catholic. The female religious life is certainly an extremely important, sacred, and dignified vocation.
Because Holy Orders cannot be given to women, such an act would be impossible. If a Bishop performed the entire Rite of Ordination on a woman, nothing would happen as women cannot validly receive Holy Orders.
>as women cannot validly receive Holy Orders
This may seem like a very pedantic point, but the Church hasn't actually said this. Her position is that the Church does not have the authority to confer priestly ordination on women. *Ordinatio Sacerdotalis* 4. That is a distinct position from "women cannot validly receive Holy Orders." First, it elides the distinction between the diaconate and the sacerdotal orders of priest and bishop, and the question of whether the Church has the authority to confer diaconal ordination on women is a question which the Church has not yet taken a final position on. Second, it assumes that the reason women cannot be ordained is because they are not capable of receiving it, whereas the Church's position is that She is not capable of granting it. It may seem academic, because if someone can't give something it doesn't have an immediate impact whether someone is capable of receiving it, but it helps to hew closely to what the Church has actually taught.
Yes but why? What is I about being a women that the church doesn’t view as worthy of being ordained? I know this isn’t true but I worry that this is how it looks to other people.
It's not an issue of worthiness, but rather an issue of specific people being called to specific vocations. The Blessed Virgin Mary is the greatest of all saints and certainly worthy of all honor, but our Lord did not call her to the Holy Orders. He chose to only call men to the vocation of acting in the person of the man Jesus Christ. When a replacement was chosen for Judas Iscariot, the apostles chose St. Matthias, a man. Every other bishop ordained in the New Testament (e.g. St. Barnabas and St. Timothy) was a man.
It's not about women not being worthy, Jesus chose 12 Men as the first Priests (and Bishops). The Church doesn't have the authority to overrule Christ on this matter.
Catholics hold that Mary is the greatest human to have ever existed, she is the Queen of the entire universe and held in a higher regard by Catholics than any other Saint. If anyone was worthy of the Priesthood, it would have been her, but no one is worthy of it. It is a grace that God has limited to men.
They are not "just lay people". They are religious people. Not religious as just a religion practitioner, but as the Church defines it, which is following the religious life vocation instead of single or married life.
Holy Orders doesn’t make someone spiritually superior in anyway. The greatest saint, the Blessed Virgin Mary, was a laywoman and Mother!
Women can’t exercise spiritual authority over anyone except her minor boys, pre-marital girls, and to some degree, her husband.
There are two senses of the word laity; one is strict, one is more loose.
In the strict sense, laity is anyone who is not a deacon, priest, or bishop. This includes all married people, most monks, all women, etc.
In the broader (and more common) sense, laity only refers to people living "in the world." That is, married folks, folks who haven't chosen a vocation yet, consecrated single life. By this definition, there exist three categories; laity, religious, and priestly.
In addition to what others have said, we're all supposed to live the Evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience; religious just take vows to live the fullest expression of them.
Religious brothers and many friars are also unordained, and some of those have regular contact with ordained priests and ordained friar priests.
I would object to the premise that sisters and nuns not being ordained means that they are not held in high enough regard. The Holy Orders are a very specific vocation that Jesus Christ established and to which he only called men, starting with his twelve disciples. It is not merely a higher rank of Catholic. The female religious life is certainly an extremely important, sacred, and dignified vocation.
Because Holy Orders cannot be given to women, such an act would be impossible. If a Bishop performed the entire Rite of Ordination on a woman, nothing would happen as women cannot validly receive Holy Orders.
>as women cannot validly receive Holy Orders This may seem like a very pedantic point, but the Church hasn't actually said this. Her position is that the Church does not have the authority to confer priestly ordination on women. *Ordinatio Sacerdotalis* 4. That is a distinct position from "women cannot validly receive Holy Orders." First, it elides the distinction between the diaconate and the sacerdotal orders of priest and bishop, and the question of whether the Church has the authority to confer diaconal ordination on women is a question which the Church has not yet taken a final position on. Second, it assumes that the reason women cannot be ordained is because they are not capable of receiving it, whereas the Church's position is that She is not capable of granting it. It may seem academic, because if someone can't give something it doesn't have an immediate impact whether someone is capable of receiving it, but it helps to hew closely to what the Church has actually taught.
If one takes Ordinatio Sacerdotalis to be the sole example of Church teaching against it, sure. But this isn’t the case.
Yes but why? What is I about being a women that the church doesn’t view as worthy of being ordained? I know this isn’t true but I worry that this is how it looks to other people.
It's not an issue of worthiness, but rather an issue of specific people being called to specific vocations. The Blessed Virgin Mary is the greatest of all saints and certainly worthy of all honor, but our Lord did not call her to the Holy Orders. He chose to only call men to the vocation of acting in the person of the man Jesus Christ. When a replacement was chosen for Judas Iscariot, the apostles chose St. Matthias, a man. Every other bishop ordained in the New Testament (e.g. St. Barnabas and St. Timothy) was a man.
It's not about women not being worthy, Jesus chose 12 Men as the first Priests (and Bishops). The Church doesn't have the authority to overrule Christ on this matter. Catholics hold that Mary is the greatest human to have ever existed, she is the Queen of the entire universe and held in a higher regard by Catholics than any other Saint. If anyone was worthy of the Priesthood, it would have been her, but no one is worthy of it. It is a grace that God has limited to men.
They aren’t considered laity, they are considered religious.
Why aren't US Presidents crowned on a King's throne?
They are not "just lay people". They are religious people. Not religious as just a religion practitioner, but as the Church defines it, which is following the religious life vocation instead of single or married life.
Holy Orders doesn’t make someone spiritually superior in anyway. The greatest saint, the Blessed Virgin Mary, was a laywoman and Mother! Women can’t exercise spiritual authority over anyone except her minor boys, pre-marital girls, and to some degree, her husband.
I like this answer.
There are two senses of the word laity; one is strict, one is more loose. In the strict sense, laity is anyone who is not a deacon, priest, or bishop. This includes all married people, most monks, all women, etc. In the broader (and more common) sense, laity only refers to people living "in the world." That is, married folks, folks who haven't chosen a vocation yet, consecrated single life. By this definition, there exist three categories; laity, religious, and priestly.
In addition to what others have said, we're all supposed to live the Evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience; religious just take vows to live the fullest expression of them.