Translation

04 June 2010

Aquinasblog Dialog I

I came across Aquinasblog after viewing new blogs at St. Blog Parish a couple o' weeks back.

I read a couple of the posts at Aquinasblog and thought I would inquire about the author's thoughts on women ordination since they were not clear. In a series starting in this post, the dialog that ensued will be shared for your evaluation.

Near the end of the dialog, I found this part of the website about a book the author is writing very telling on the author's view. Some examples:
The faithful then concluded that if something might change, it would change, so they just went ahead and acted as though it did change. As a result, they started taking belief on our own terms, no longer looking to the Church to define sin or dogma and often actively disregarding it. The tipping point was Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae which reaffirmed the papacy’s thoroughly illogical condemnation of artificial birth control (and which was subsequently thoroughly ignored). ...

As a result of the breaking of authority, the faithful tended to accept only what made sense and to turn away from the mysterious and that associated with authority and tradition. But the downside was that individuals had to figure everything out for themselves and had the full burden of making meaning in their lives, rather than receiving it from the institution.
You can read the rest if you'd like.

The dialog starts here:
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Hello,

I noticed that aquinasblog.com was just added to the St. Blog Parish as was my blog cathorick.blogspot.com. Upon reading some of your first posts and looking at your papal authority tags, I noticed that you're not too keen on the woman religious visitations and are actually for woman ordination. This does not seem to be a Catholic orthodox position on these issues. On the former, why can't Church superiors look into woman orthodoxy just as I looked at your blog? Finally, John Paul II closed the debate about women ordination and said faithful Catholics must assent to the teaching.

Please let me know what you think. (Please do not publish my email address).

Thank you,
[gbm3]
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Hi [gbm3],

I take the long view -- a hundred years ago, the papacy condemned democracy, historical scholarship, biblical criticism, ecumenism, free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and even freedom of conscience. It has reversed its position on all of those; I expect it will someday also reverse its position on women's ordination, which is why I think it should continue to be discussed. That's how we figure things out. Aquinas was never afraid to argue about anything. The spirit of disputation has been lost and should be regained because it's the practical result of the belief in the harmony of faith and reason. As to the nuns, well, I think the way they went about it was just rude.

[Aquinasblog author]
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Update: the other dialogs are here:
II III IV V VI VII VIII

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