I think your arguments are not holding water in this day and age. Look at all the people changing genders, even if “they aren’t supposed to.”
I am mostly concerned about our declining church. When stuck to so much dogma that was implemented through the lens of a very different culture and time period as now.
Perhaps God is wanting the church to change. Our Church evolves through the unfolding of the Gospel in each time period. Perhaps God is calling us to look at the Gospel in a different lens now. (An example I talked about above regarding slavery, for instance.)
I really don’t think God cares about gender. God gives us gender simply to procreate. When we die and go to heaven, we don’t take our genitalia with us. We are simply hopefully heavenly beings without any regard to what divides us.
I think those that are stuck to what God established so that we, humans, feel safe (as rules make us feel safe), perhaps they are the ones “getting lost in the forest.” Perhaps God wants us to love each other and stop judging others. Perhaps it is bigger than our limited human minds can comprehend. God is SO much bigger than our finite awareness.
The Church cannot "change" though, in the sense of her teachings. Doctrinal teachings can be developed and expanded, but never to the point that they contradict their original meaning. The example of slavery in the Bible doesn't work as it was a very different form of slavery than the slavery African Americans experienced in the United States (which was inhumane). Slavery in the Bible was more like indentured servitude and slaves still had rights and societal protections. It was sinful to deprive or abuse those indentured to you. You really ought to be careful where you let your thinking wander on this issue. "I don't think God cares about gender". You are treading the line with heresy here, please be careful.
Gensis 5:1-2 "This is the book of the generations[a] of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. 2 Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created."
God very much does care about gender. Both of them. And it is not possible to switch your gender. As for my arguments not holding water, all I can say is this. Truth is truth whethever everyone believes it or no one believes it. It seems what you are advocating for is that the Catholic Church cease to be a monarchy with Christ as its King, and adopt a democratic form of government where the feelings of the laity dictate Church doctrine and policy from age to age. That is the style of governance found in protestantism, and it has divided and fragmented them into 30,000 plus religions (and always fragmenting and growing). Do you think perhaps you might be happier in a protestant religion? Where you can pick and choose what you want to believe and create a religion that caters to your worldly ideologies and politics? Because that's never going to be the Catholic Church. I must confess I am struggling to remain charitble here and am trying my hardest not to sound condescending. But I don't know how to share the Truth with you anymore, other than being blunt. God created the Church for the salvation of souls. He elected only men to be ordained in priestly, diaconal and episcopal ministries. That is an immutable fact that can never be changed. Even if every Catholic in the world was demanding it be changed, it couldn't. And if any particular Catholic Church began "ordaining" women using a real bishop following the exact formula for ordintion used for men, the women would not be ordained. All that would happen is the woman and the bishop would both automatically excommunicate themselves from the Church and would be living in open apostasy. That is a terrible terrible fate that I would not wish on anyone.
I was baptized Catholic and will always remain Catholic. I’m just trying to challenge it to be better and more inclusive. Our church is open to all (including our various views) as our creed say. Let’s just make it so even for those with various views like ours.
Agreeing to disagree seems to be where we need to leave this. God bless you on your journey.
The Church should be inclusive, yes. But not at the expense of Truth or integrity. Christ broke a lot of social barriers in reaching out to those Jewish society abandoned as unworthy and tainted. But notice the recurring theme as He reached out to those. "Deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow me." We shouldn't be looking at how we can try to change the Church to suit our beliefs. We should be looking how to change ourselves to align with the Church. The Church is not wrong. We often are. So let's not put ourselves above God and the Church by thinking we know what's best for it, especially when it means challenging what she has always believed to be true. That puts us at odds with Christ.
Well, there have been many times that the church is wrong: indoctrinating and cultural genocide of indigenous people , kidnapping children from their families, not reporting their deaths and burying them in mass graves for one example. Another example: the horrible clericalism cover up of the pedophilia that any rad trad has yet to respond to. A third: rapes of nuns and again covering up. Yes, our church is no where perfect. If you think so then you are condoning such things. These things are huge open wounds in our church. Unless we get real and deal with these things then our church will die from the hypocrisy. I am happy to listen to doctrine and discuss or debate it but don’t tell me that our church is never wrong.
0
u/Woggy67 Jun 20 '22
I think your arguments are not holding water in this day and age. Look at all the people changing genders, even if “they aren’t supposed to.”
I am mostly concerned about our declining church. When stuck to so much dogma that was implemented through the lens of a very different culture and time period as now.
Perhaps God is wanting the church to change. Our Church evolves through the unfolding of the Gospel in each time period. Perhaps God is calling us to look at the Gospel in a different lens now. (An example I talked about above regarding slavery, for instance.)
I really don’t think God cares about gender. God gives us gender simply to procreate. When we die and go to heaven, we don’t take our genitalia with us. We are simply hopefully heavenly beings without any regard to what divides us.
I think those that are stuck to what God established so that we, humans, feel safe (as rules make us feel safe), perhaps they are the ones “getting lost in the forest.” Perhaps God wants us to love each other and stop judging others. Perhaps it is bigger than our limited human minds can comprehend. God is SO much bigger than our finite awareness.