Latest / The Catholic Current / LTACL: Synodality vs. Priesthood? (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.)

Transcript

LTACL: Synodality vs. Priesthood? (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.) · The Catholic Current

• 0:00
  I'm sure you've heard this joke before.
• 0:02
  How do you know when a politician is lying?
• 0:04
  His lips are moving, ba-dum-bum.
• 0:06
  It's been around for so long that nobody knows where it comes from, but most people are ready
• 0:10
  to believe it.
• 0:12
  But what if telling lies wasn't a joke?
• 0:16
  What if it was a way of life, even though it was a matter of life and death?
• 0:20
  I'm thinking now of someone who suffered because of lies, the great Russian author Alexander
• 0:26
  Solzhenitsyn.
• 0:27
  And he said this about life in the Soviet Union.
• 0:30
  He said, we know that they are lying.
• 0:34
  They know that they are lying.
• 0:36
  They even know that we know they are lying.
• 0:38
  We also know that they know we know they are lying, too.
• 0:42
  They of course certainly know that we certainly know they know we know they are lying, too,
• 0:47
  as well.
• 0:48
  But they are still lying.
• 0:51
  That's a devastating thing to say about a culture.
• 0:56
  But what if, God forbid, what if someone said, you know what, I think that statement may
• 1:02
  apply to certain aspects of the life of the church?
• 1:07
  We'd have a problem then, wouldn't we?
• 1:09
  Stay with me.
• 1:10
  I've got a story to tell.
• 1:11
  Hi, I'm Jesuit Father Robert McPig, your host here every day, The Catholic Current, coming
• 1:15
  to you from the Station of the Cross Catholic Meeting Network.
• 1:18
  Let's take a closer look.
• 1:19
  Glad you're here.
• 1:21
  Recently I've been talking about synodality, synodalism, the claims that synodality makes
• 1:27
  as being the heirs and stewards and outcomes of the Second Vatican Council.
• 1:31
  I've been looking at different documents that have come out of the storied study group number
• 1:37
  nine from the Synod on Synodality.
• 1:40
  They've been releasing some reports and they released a report on priesthood and about
• 1:47
  reforming priesthood for a synodal missionary church.
• 1:53
  How that differs from anything else, it's not really clear in the document.
• 2:01
  But as I read that document, two things happened to me.
• 2:04
  First, I thought back to a document that was put together by the U.S. Conference of Catholic
• 2:09
  Bishops a few years back at the end of all the regional and national meetings regarding
• 2:14
  preparing for the great synod on synodality.
• 2:17
  And one of the phrases stood out for me.
• 2:20
  The people there who wrote the report said that there were folks who were looking forward
• 2:25
  to, and here I quote, a fully co-responsible church.
• 2:30
  And I thought, they're lying.
• 2:34
  Or if they're not lying, they're at least being coy about the truth.
• 2:40
  Because what they really mean, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, they're talking
• 2:45
  about the ordination of women, which has been on the mind of a lot of people lately because
• 2:50
  of the recent visits from Mrs. Mullally recently of Canterbury to Rome.
• 2:57
  And I thought about this as I read this document from study group number nine about synodal
• 3:02
  missionary priesthood.
• 3:04
  And here's something that stood out for me.
• 3:06
  Ordinarily when we talk about the full office of the Christ of God, Son of God, and Son
• 3:11
  of Mary, we talk about Christ as priest, prophet, and king.
• 3:17
  But in this document, he's not referred to in those three terms.
• 3:21
  He's referred to instead, in place of, rather, as head, servant, and shepherd.
• 3:32
  That seems to draw off, bleed off, drain out specifically masculine qualities to priesthood.
• 3:44
  And I wish they would just come out and say it.
• 3:46
  If you really do intend to bring about the ordination of women, then you need to say
• 3:53
  so up front, so we know what we're dealing with.
• 3:59
  And then the faithful, exercising their census fidelium, can decide whether or not they want
• 4:04
  to pay for more international meetings on behalf of synodality.
• 4:10
  That having been said, let's get into the heart of the matter.
• 4:15
  There are people who would tell us that the Catholic Church doesn't ordain women because,
• 4:22
  well, gosh, I'm told.
• 4:25
  St. Paul was wrong about so many things in sacred scripture.
• 4:30
  We just didn't come to full clarity about it until the first quarter of the 21st century.
• 4:36
  And gosh, people like Pope St. John Paul II really didn't like and didn't appreciate women.
• 4:44
  And our Lord himself, the eternal Logos of the Father, the Christ of God, Jesus of Nazareth,
• 4:51
  Son of God and Son of Mary, was somehow inhibited and limited by the culture of his time.
• 4:58
  And he didn't ordain women then, but we are so over it now.
• 5:04
  But what if I told you that the reason the Church doesn't ordain women is because it can't?
• 5:13
  Not because it doesn't want to, but because it is not possible.
• 5:22
  Not because I say so, not because John Paul said so, not because St. Paul said so, but
• 5:33
  because that's the way God made it.
• 5:37
  Let's go to Thomas Aquinas in your spare time, read up what Aquinas has to say about sacraments,
• 5:43
  go to Summa Theologica part 3, starting with question 60.
• 5:48
  He says that from the very nature, sensible things have a certain aptitude for the signifying
• 5:55
  of spiritual effects, but this aptitude is fixed by the divine institution to some special
• 6:01
  signification.
• 6:02
  What does that mean?
• 6:03
  There's a more user-friendly approach in my book, Real Philosophy for Real People.
• 6:09
  It's very simple.
• 6:11
  A symbol, to symbolize properly that which is symbolized, must have a natural resemblance.
• 6:20
  But Father, what does that mean?
• 6:22
  Hey, we're going to have a sacrament and ritual of cleansing.
• 6:26
  Let's use water.
• 6:27
  It makes perfect sense.
• 6:29
  If I said, hey, we're going to have a sacrament of ritual and cleansing, let's use motor oil.
• 6:37
  That doesn't work.
• 6:39
  Let's have a sacrament of spiritual feeding and nourishment.
• 6:43
  Let's use bread and wine.
• 6:45
  Obviously that works.
• 6:47
  Let's have a sacrament of spiritual feeding and nourishment, and we'll use thumbtacks
• 6:54
  and broken glass.
• 6:56
  Doesn't work.
• 6:58
  Let's have a sacrament where the recipient is configured to the Christ of God, the Word
• 7:06
  made flesh, Son of God and Son of Mary, so that his priestly ministry will continue not
• 7:16
  merely by representation, but by configuration.
• 7:24
  So that when I, Bob McTague, from Newark, New Jersey, this no one, this nothing to whom
• 7:31
  God was inexplicably good, when I say, I absolve you of your sins, Bob McTague is the
• 7:40
  instrument, but it is Christ who is the agent of the sacrament.
• 7:46
  Christ, who is priest, prophet, and king, absolves.
• 7:52
  When I, Bob McTague, from Newark, New Jersey, say, this is my body, this is my blood, we're
• 7:58
  not referring to this old man with gray hair and pasty skin.
• 8:07
  The Christ of God, Son of God and Son of Mary, true God and true man, the eternal priest,
• 8:12
  prophet, and king, he says through this unworthy instrument, he himself says, this is my body,
• 8:20
  this is my blood.
• 8:22
  And we are not just souls who are wearing a body like a suit.
• 8:30
  We human beings are a composition of body and soul together, and God made us humans,
• 8:39
  some of us male, some of us female.
• 8:43
  And for a sacramental symbol, for a human body to be a sacramental symbol for the priesthood
• 8:51
  of the one eternal high priest, Christ, it has to be male, or his priestly agency can't
• 9:01
  be lived through the sacramental symbol.
• 9:07
  This is the way God made the world.
• 9:09
  If you're not happy with that, take it up with him the next time you see him.
• 9:16
  If our friends who are the greatest advocates of synodality, if our friends who are talking
• 9:22
  about a fully co-responsible church are truly, genuinely concerned about promoting the feminine
• 9:32
  dimension of the church and spiritual life and want some experience of the feminine charism
• 9:39
  within those men who will be ordained priests, they could have started, they could have started
• 9:45
  by mentioning Mary in this document about a synodal missionary priesthood.
• 9:53
  By my count, they mentioned Mary not at all.
• 9:58
  I wonder why that is.
• 9:59
  Now, of course, I could be wrong.
• 10:00
  Check for yourself.
• 10:01
  If I got that wrong, mention it in the comments below or write me at thestationofthecross.com
• 10:07
  slash askfather.
• 10:08
  Meanwhile, think on these things today, take them to prayer, and talk about them with those
• 10:13
  you love.
• 10:14
  Go in peace and please do pray for me, for I am a sinner.