Women’s Ordination and Catholic Orders

Alice C. Linsley

At the close of the debate in the Synod of the Church of England in early February 2006, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said: “People have talked at times about differences of opinion and how the Church can live with differences of opinion. I think that the problem is, for those who are not content with the idea that we should go forward along the line of ordaining women as bishops, the problem is not one of opinion, it’s rather one of obedience. It’s one of obedience to Scripture, or obedience to the consensus of the Church Catholic. And, while that’s not a view I wholly share, I think we ought to recognize that that’s where it comes from, those who hold to it are not just thinking ‘this is a matter of opinion’. And therefore it is rightly and understandably a lot harder to deal with dissent if you are talking about what fundamentally comes down to a question of whether you obey God or human authority. That’s why it’s serious. That’s why it’s difficult. It is more than ‘opinion’.”

Read it all at:

http://catholica.pontifications.net/