“Despite the fact that he stands today at the apex of the clerical pecking order, there’s a sense in which Pope Francis is the most anti-clerical pontiff in Catholic history.”
During his customary in-flight news conference at the end of his trip to Sweden yesterday, Pope Francis took a question on women priests and not only reiterated, as he has several times in the past, that St. Pope John Paul has already said no, but he appeared to suggest that the Church’s ‘no’ is forever.
“‘If we read carefully the declaration of St. John Paul II, it goes in that direction,’ Francis said.
“What that response didn’t address, however, is the more interesting question currently percolating about women clergy, which is the matter of whether women can, and should, be ordained as deacons. I say it’s more ‘interesting’ largely because Francis’s answer is less predictable, and therefore the outcome is more up for grabs.
“I don’t know how to handicap where the pope will come down on the issue, but I do know where to begin in trying to describe how he’s likely to approach it: What he sees as the ‘disease’ of clericalism, and the danger of clericalism setting the tone for discussions of women in the Church.
“Despite the fact that he stands today at the apex of the clerical pecking order, there’s a sense in which Pope Francis is the most anti-clerical pontiff in Catholic history …”
By John L. Allen, Jr., Cruxnow.com — Click here to read the rest of this article.
Voice of the Faithful ® 
#1 by Nora Bolcon on November 3, 2016 - 10:23 AM
How sad is Voice of the Faithful that they don’t see the truth thru this lie. Clericalism is increased by sexism in our church as we say these people who come in this flesh are the only people worthy of being ordained priests no matter whether God calls them or not.
When will the laity of our church see the grave sin we all commit by upholding an evil which has been outright proven to cause global poverty, violence, rape, terrorism, slavery, forced marriage and forced illiteracy?
If the Pope were to say we can choose not to ordain black men because only white skinned people are truly called to priesthood, would this encourge clericalism or just hatred of black people? It is no different when we say these things to women.
Is it truly believeable that it is less demeaning of the human dignity of women when we tell them, “But don’t worry there is plenty of other things women are better at than men.” than it would be of thye human dignity of black men, if we were to tell all black people, “Don’t worry there are plenty of things black people do better than white people?” Shame on Pope Francis and shame on us for letting him get away with this.
The permanent deaconate is another voiceless, pointless, unneccessary ministry, and we should not be side-stepped away from standing up for equal human justice for our sisters in Christ by this nonsense. And we wonder why our youth don’t bother coming anymore. We forget to ask, “Why on earth should they?”
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