Praise be to Jesus and Mary.
First reading says,
After taking counsel, the king made priests from among the people who were not Levites.
Whoever desired it was consecrated and became a priest of the high places.
This was a sin on the part of Jeroboam, for which it was to be cut off on the part of the house of Jeroboam,
for which it was to be cut off and destroyed from the earth.
In 1994, Blessed John Paul II came out with an apostolic letter, short but important,
which in the eyes of many made him go from the Papa Buono to the Papa Cattivo,
from the Good.
from the Good Pope to the Bad Pope.
It was one of those documents, and he came out with relatively many that changed in the eyes of many
his appearance, his reputation, from good to bad.
What did he say in this letter?
The Pope writes,
Although the teaching that priests the ordination is to be reserved to men alone
has been preserved by the constant and universal tradition of the Church
and firmly taught by the Magisterium and its more recent documents,
at the present time, in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate,
where the Church's judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination
is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.
Wherefore, the Pope continues,
In order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance,
a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself,
in virtue of my ministry of confirming the Brethren,
I declare that the Church has done well.
I declare that the Church has done well.
has no authority whatsoever
to confer priestly ordination on women,
and that this judgment is to be definitively held
by all the church's faithful.
The church has no authority
to confer priestly ordination on women,
and this judgment is to be held definitively
by all the church's faithful.
Debates and dissension may continue,
and we'll hear about these for years to come,
but the church's teaching is clear,
remains clear, because the church does not create
or invent the sacraments, but receives them from our Lord,
who instituted them according to his will.
Again, John Paul II, citing Paul VI, states,
and we'll be jumping back and forth between two documents,
the 1994 Ordinatio Sacerdotalis
and the 1987 Mulieris Dignitatem, on the dignity of women.
Citing Paul VI, John Paul explains,
the church holds that it is not admissible
to ordain women to the priesthood
for very fundamental reasons.
These reasons include the example recorded of Christ
in the scriptures choosing his apostles only from among men,
the constant practice of the church,
which has imitated Christ in choosing only men,
and her living teaching authority,
which has consistently held that the exclusion of women
from the priesthood is in accordance
with God's plan for his church.
So the fundamental reason why women may not be admitted
to the priesthood is not discrimination on part of the church.
The church is not a human creation.
It is divinely instituted and constituted.
It is not discrimination on part of the church,
but rather the example recorded in the sacred scriptures
of Christ choosing his apostles only from among men,
and the teaching authority, which has consistently held
that the exclusion of women from the priesthood
is in accordance with God's plan for his church.
And in the church,
it is the priests who represent Christ, head of the church.
Christ, son, not daughter, of the father.
Christ, son, not daughter, of Mary.
Christ, spouse, sponsus, not sponsa, of the church.
So then, does the church deny women
the right to be ordained?
No, because ordination is not a right.
The priesthood ordination is not a right for anyone,
neither woman nor man.
But rather, it is a call from God,
from God who chooses us, and not the other way around,
from God who calls us, and he calls whomever he wills.
But just on the topic of rights, John Paul II writes,
in our times, the question of women's rights
has taken on new significance in the broad context
of the rights of the human person, and it's not a bad thing.
Rights should be recognized,
but the question of women's rights
must not under any condition need to the masculinization of women.
In the name of liberation for male domination,
pope writes, this puts this letter in quotation marks,
women must not appropriate to themselves
male characteristics contrary to their own
feminine originality.
There is a well-founded fear that if they take this path,
women will not reach fulfillment,
but instead will deform and lose
what constitutes their essential richness,
and again, on Blessed John Paul II,
the fact that the Blessed Virgin Mary has no kinds of rights,
mother of God and mother of the church received neither the mission proper to the apostles
nor the ministerial priesthood clearly shows that the non-admission of women to priest the
ordination cannot mean that women are of lesser dignity nor can it be construed as discrimination
against them rather it is to be seen as the faithful observance of a plan to be ascribed
to the wisdom of the Lord of the universe you know our lady was not ordained a priest
but she was far more than a priest it is not too much to say that the priesthood is possible only
because of our lady because in the present economy of salvation our redemption depends on Christ
and on Mary she has been associated by Christ to his work of redemption and the priest is merely
a minister of the graces of redemption acquired by whom by our lady with
our lady and by our lady with our lady
by our lady with our lady with our lady
our lady with our lady with our lady with our lady
our Lord. A priest is a minister of the subjective redemption while Our Lady acquires with Our Lord
our objective redemption. So the priest distributes her graces, the graces that Our Lady
acquired for us. How could the priest be able to nourish the faithful with the body of Christ
if Our Lady had not made that body in her immaculate womb? How could a priest renew
the sacrifice of Calvary at the altar during Mass if Our Lady had not offered her son to the
Father on Calvary itself? Our Lady precedes the priest and the priesthood. We can ask ourselves
how could a priest forgive sins without Our Lady who as Pope Benedict XV in 1918 states very
clearly Our Lady who so suffered with and almost died with her son, suffering and dying with her
son, that she can be said rightly to have redeemed the human being.
The human race with Christ, with Christ, under Christ, subordinate to Christ. Our Lady has
redeemed the human race with him. It is her grace that she and her son acquired together
that a priest distributes. And Our Lady's greatness comes not from her trying to affirm
herself, trying to fight for her rights, not trying to take the place of her son, high
priest and redeemer. Our Lady's co-redemptrix, not redemptrix, she redeems us with Christ.
Subordinate to Christ, alongside Christ. Fulfilling her role as the new Eve, alongside the new Adam,
just as Eve was created for Adam, so was Our Lady created for Christ. St. Paul reminds us that it is
a woman that's created for man and not man for woman. And Our Lady fulfills that role perfectly
and gives us the greatest example that women should follow. All generations shall call her
blessed because God has looked upon her.
You know, her as his handmaid. And it is the mighty one that has done great things in her.
So if women are to achieve that fulfillment of which Blessed John Paul II spoke, it must
be an imitation of Our Lady. Like St. Clair was such a devout, you know, such a devotee
of Our Lady that she became called icon of the mother of God. Women, in general, too,
are to realize the plan of God, the plan God has for them in his church, by uniting themselves
to the priesthood, not by ordination but by...not by being ordained themselves, but by their
prayers and sacrifices and, above all, by their spiritual maternity, something which a priest does
not have. A priest cannot be the spiritual mother of souls because he can, you know, he has to be a
spiritual father. In conclusion, we firmly believe and profess with Pope Innocent III that whoever,
without a previous episcopal ordination, and a valid ordination, because the valid
matter for the sacrament of the priesthood is and remains a baptized man, and a laywoman
remains a laywoman after her ordination just as much as she was before.
So whoever without an episcopal ordination believes and presumes to be able to offer
the sacrifice of the Eucharist is a heretic, a partaker and consort of the perdition of
Korah and his accomplices and must be separated from the Holy Roman Church, Pope Innocent III.
So the debate and the protest may continue, but the Church has no authority whatsoever
neither today nor in the future to confer priestly ordination on women, and this judgment,
if we are to remain Catholics, must be held by us and by all other people that want to
remain in the Catholic Church.
Praised be Jesus and Mary.