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A reality for Anglicans, a nightmare for Catholics . 

"Scandalous." 

That's what last night's post, "Inciteful Women Egged on by Fr Grayland', was called by the American website, 'Catholic Answers' (1.1k members) who summarily deleted it and warned that any more of the same will will earn this blog's banishment. Cancellation.

How that post made it onto 'Catholic Answers' is a mystery, but the point surely is that Fr Grayland et al in their overt bid for 'real power sharing' (code for women priests), are scandalous - especially Fr Grayland, who by virtue of his ordination is bound to uphold Church doctrine which,  for obvious reasons starting with the spousal relation of the priest to the Body of Christ, has always reserved the priesthood to men, as modelled by Our Lord Himself.

"The worst kind of scandal is what brings the church itself into disrepute, because it undermines the faith of the community of believers. Indeed, canon law not only specifies ecclesiastical punishment for clerics who cause scandal by their misbehavior but it also allows a penalty to be suspended “whenever the offender cannot observe it without danger of grave scandal or infamy” (emphases mine). https://religionnews.com/2018/08/20/the-catholic-church-needs-a-new-doctrine-of-scandal/

 A previous chat on Flashes of Insight ha ha, was in hindsight obviously softening us up for last night's 'scandalous' report. 

In that episode Joe Grayland (sic), Parish Priest of Palmerston North's Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, asks if the relationship of women and the Catholic Church is 'a problem'. Talk about leading questions ... 

But he was prompted by Auckland theologian and lecturer Jo Ayers' statement that the Catholic Church organisation (sic) reflected an ancient society where women are incapable of leadership and governance.

"Second-class membership for women anywhere is unjust,” she told Flashes of Insight (make that Splashes of Incite) last Wednesday. It's up to Ayers then, to promote herself to first class, which in the Church she belongs to happens to be sainthood.

She says that the Catholic Church is no longer prophetic for women and that civil society is.

“The evidence in New Zealand of women in leadership, in the highest jobs in the country underscores that civic society is ahead of the (Catholic) Church”.

Que? Is Ayers suggesting that Mass Murderess PM Jacinda Ardern is 'prophetic' and evidence "that civic society is ahead of the Church"? 

Kate Bell, catechist at Palmerston North Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, is me-tooing; she's 'concerned the Church is so far behind.' 

“It is the (Catholic) Church that has the problem. It has not been able to comprehend and stay on board with the fact that women are baptized. ... Society has not got it all right either and the church could provide some really interesting critique." 

You can say that again, Ms Bell. Except that you mean criticism, not critique. 

It is a point picked up by Elizabeth Young, theologian, pastoral worker and chaplain in Forbes, Australia.

Young says the Scriptures, Proverbs, legitimize women’s leadership, in for example business.

She says Jesus call to people was not limited; it was inclusive. 

And these are 'flashes of insight'? Isn't Young just stating the obvious? 

For Young, the challenge is how can the Church embody and exemplify this ‘reign of God’ in civil society and like Bell she wonders how the Church today can challenge society.

Oh gosh, that's a hard one. Umm ... er ... could the Church start with challenging society on the issue of killing its unborn children to the tune of 500,000+ since society made babykilling legal? Challenging society on the  43% rise in late-term abortions since Ardern, Little&Co, Death Dealers to the Nation, got the Abortion Law Act passed in March 2020 - just before the Church, in obedience to Ardern, Little&Co instead of obedience to God, locked our Eucharistic Lord away, shut its doors and cancelled Mass and the Sacraments? Is that enough of a challenge to satisfy Ms Bell and friends?

Fiona Dyball from the Liturgy and Faith Formation office of the Australian Catholic Bishops told the conversation of the importance of understanding discipleship.

“If we are following Jesus, we follow what Jesus did, and Jesus chose and called women all over the place to receive the good news, to spread the Gospel and be Jesus witnesses." 

Yeah, we get that. Who's been saying anything different?  

A fan of Pope Francis who is really setting the say, Dyball says she is however looking for more public encouragement from some of the male leaders in the Church. 

Far from seeing the cupboard bare, Dyball says she sees women in the Church ministry who are prophetic but sees there is still plenty of room, in the spirit of Vatican II, to ‘open the windows’.

Oh, spare us. Of course Dyball is a fan of 'Pope Francis' - and although we'd hoped the 'spirit of Vatican II' , a strange spirit indeed, an inimical spirit, had outworn its welcome, it seems that like Aladdin's genie, now out of its bottle it can't be put back. It can be overcome only by prayer, best by the Mass - the Traditional Latin Mass. And notice that for Dyball, priests are merely 'male leaders'.

Kate Bell expatiates on baptism by stating that “the Church fails to understand that in the power and the validity of baptism we are made into Christ."

Speaking of baptism, instead of eavesdropping on Fr Grayland and his ladies, why not listen instead to the voice of an angel - the Angel Azariah, guardian to the Church-approved mystic Maria Valtorta (Poem of the ManGod):

Maria Valtorta 

"(Baptism) is immersion in the suffering of Christ, in his tears, in his Blood, in his humiliations, in his death. This is under the species of water The Victor over Death died to destroy the truest death: that of sin. And He opened his veins to give you the means to make your souls white, and He let his chest be rent to gather you into the hollow of his Heart. And to have you rise from there to a life of Grace ... 

The truly dismal and distressing aspect of these chats hosted by Fr Grayland (sorry, 'Joe') is the lack of a supernatural perspective. They attempt to drag the Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, down to the merely human level, with no cognisance of the fact that we as members of Christ's Body are called to become divine. Nup.

It's obvious that at this time of unprecedented crisis and chastisement in the world and in the Church we all, not just Fr Grayland and friends, should lift our game, and our eyes, from the human horizon to the sublime. Instead of conforming to that old whore, the world, we must conform ourselves to Christ.

"If the Catholic considered these things, ... he would see no longer ... see (Baptism) as a Sacrament which restores Grace and cancels out Sin, but as the holocaust of Christ, who opened his veins to give you the lavacre which takes away Evil and makes you sharers in Good; to change you from creatures into semigods; to infuse into you the Virtues indispensable to save yourselves and therefore, to make you capable as well of understanding Wisdom, believing, hoping in Mercy. 

"Whoever is born and rises again in the Blood of Christ and remains faithful to that Blood no longer dies, but lives in Jesus Christ the Saviour, having, like Him, overcome the world and Satan in taming concupiscences. This restraining from sin, this loving gratitude to Him who restores your nature as children of God - the sharing, through Grace, in Life, glory and divinity - comes sponataneously in whoever is able to contemplate Baptism for what it really is."

 

The Lamentation of Christ by Peter Paul Rubens