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John Wijngaards

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“If all the bishops in the world had been asked, two hundred years ago, whether slavery is allowed by God, 95 per cent of them, including the Pope, would have said, 'Yes, slavery is allowed'. Yet in spite of their number, they would all have been wrong.”

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Book:The Ordination of Women in the Catholic Church ; Unmasking a Cuckoo's Egg Tradition
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“Some of my friends tell me that the ordination of women is an issue that can wait. 'Rome has decisively turned against it,' they say. 'Change may come, but only in the future — under another Pope, when the heat has died down.' They point to a vast majority of bishops and theologians who have decided to keep their mouths shut, even though they realise Rome is wrong. Tact is needed, they argue. There is a time for speaking and a time for silence... I disagree. Yes, for years I too thought that wisdom would slowly prevail in the Church and that the issue of women priests would ripen in the course of time. That is why, until three years ago, I too had adopted a strategy of wait-and-see. But now I have changed my mind. For the Roman authorities force us to take sides. They impose their own view so strongly as the truth, that by keeping silent now, we would compromise our own consciences.”

TraditionSlaveryCatholicismWomens RightsPriesthoodOrdinationMagisterium
Book:The Ordination of Women in the Catholic Church ; Unmasking a Cuckoo's Egg Tradition
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“True loyalty to the Church implies loyalty to the truth. It requires willingness to question rather than readiness to conform. What may seem opposition and dissent at first, will eventually prove to be an active co-operation between the teaching authorities and the theologians towards the one aim of a better-formulated doctrine.”

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Book:The Ordination of Women in the Catholic Church ; Unmasking a Cuckoo's Egg Tradition
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“Though, with St. Paul, I fully subscribe to women being treated on equal terms as men in the Church, I am not a feminist. I am a man, and I cannot speak from my Christian experience as a woman, nor judge issues specifically from a womanly perspective as women theologians do. Neither did I enter the field with a feminist agenda, as I narrated in the first chapter. I am approaching the question of women's ordination as a theologian. And like other theologians — both men and women — I have come to the clear recognition that the reasons for barring women from ordination cannot be substantiated from Scripture or tradition. Sacred Scripture leaves the question wide open. In so-called Catholic "tradition", women were excluded from ministries because of social conditions and cultural prejudice. I will validate these claims in the next chapters. I am defending these conclusions as a man, as a professional theologian and as a Catholic.”

TraditionScriptureCatholicismWomens RightsCatholic ChurchPriesthoodOrdinationMagisterium
Book:The Ordination of Women in the Catholic Church ; Unmasking a Cuckoo's Egg Tradition
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“The presumption that Jesus who had wiped out the ancient bias against women in the common priesthood of the faithful, would reintroduce it in ministerial priesthood defies all logic. The contention that Jesus, who brought worship 'in spirit and in truth' and for whom love and service were the supreme characteristics of his ministry, would then introduce maleness as an essential requirement offends the inner consistency of the Gospel.”

TraditionScriptureCatholicismWomens RightsCatholic ChurchPriesthoodOrdinationMagisterium
Book:The Ordination of Women in the Catholic Church ; Unmasking a Cuckoo's Egg Tradition
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“How could such an anomalous, un-Christian practice be tolerated in the Church in the first place? It seems that leaders were not prepared to listen to the prophetic voices raised by conscientious people in the Church.”

SlaveryCatholicismWomens RightsCatholic ChurchPriesthoodOrdination
Book:The Ordination of Women in the Catholic Church ; Unmasking a Cuckoo's Egg Tradition
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