Crazy Tracy vs. the Vatican

Posted on August 6, 2002 in Pontiff Watch

Crazy Tracy is rapidly becoming the Howard Stern of blogdom: you read her to see just what she’s going to say next! Her latest rant on the Vatican decision to excommunicate the seven women who were ordained as priests three weeks ago (but apparently not the bishop who did it) sounds like a classic case of Tourette’s Syndrome. You can almost believe that someone shot her into space, then caused her to fall to the earth without a parachute at Grand Canyon Village; bounce off the South Rim; skip and roll down the Bright Angel Trail (taking short-cuts whether or not they were possible); slam into the magma wall of the inner gorge; splash into the river, bob downstream until she came to Hoover Dam where she was sucked into the turbines and chopped up only to be miraculously reconstituted when her remains went through the sluiceway at Davis Dam; floated down to the Gulf of California where she was picked up by a passing fisherman who landed her ashore at the Bull Ring by the Sea at Tijuana where Pope John Paul the Second was waiting to tell her the news. It would be to his advantage if he were a eunuch because, if such a meeting were to take place, I am sure she’d kick him in the balls. Yes, she’s that mad.

It came as no surprise to me that the Vatican did this. For many years, John Paul has been applying the political litmus test to prospective bishops to ensure that no daughter of Eve would ever acquire “apostolic succession”. Even after two thousand years, they’re trying to keep the Touch off the females. Jesus himself had no problem touching women. Nor do most priests. If the Creationists are right and if Eve is responsible for all the nasty aspects of our present existence (including Creationists, I might add), isn’t 6000 years a long time for a species to hold a grudge?

More seriously, I can’t for the life of me see why the Vatican doesn’t think that women are fit to preach the Gospel. Jesus himself was once set straight by a Canaanite woman who told Him that he had no business not helping her. [cf. Matthew 15: 22-28] If the spiritual advice of a woman was good enough for Jesus, why can’t John Paul take the hint?

I have to admit that the first time I saw a woman priest (at an Episcopalian service), I was a little taken aback. Hearing the high pitched voice of Mother Franny intone the opening of the mass nearly caused me to drop the prayer book. I adjusted quickly to that, however, though I have never quite gotten over the darned Episcopal translation of the Mass which seems to prefer words with three or more syllables to the simple ones used in the English translation of the Catholic Mass. As a Quaker, I learned to reverence certain of the older women of the congregation, especially one Madge Seaver, who had studied the Word all through their lives,prayed on it, and thought about it every day. Madge brought a lifetime of experience and insight to the passages of the Gospel that she illuminated. Her impromptu sermons were at least as good — often much better — that the ones prepared by men who’d spent a good part of their Christian life incarcerated in seminaries. Madge made the words of Jesus live for me. She was a minister in the purest sense (unless she is still alive, in which case, she is still a minister in the purest sense): that of someone who uses her learning in the word and example of Christ to teach and heal others.

The Catholic Church would only be helped by a Pope like Madge. I doubt that even with women in the clergy that the Church will give up its stands against abortion and I wouldn’t necessarily want it. Religion serves a fine purpose in offering an alternative morality to the rather sterile one imposed by mere fear of the law. But the Church of my childhood is being hurt by its stubborn refusal to open the clergy to women and married persons of both sexes. The so-called Biblical texts supporting these positions are, like the injunctions we hear again and again “against homosexuality” vague at best. What is the Pope afraid that the ordination of women do? Create an embarassment larger than the one booming out of the Boston Archdiocese? It strikes me as odd in the extreme that a church that supports life should work so hard to avoid being embarassed by pregnancy, if this is indeed the case. Perhaps young women should not be priests. But then, perhaps, so should not young men. Let them both live, breed if they wish, raise a family, and then, in their old age, if they are suitable for the vocation, let them join the clergy and serve their fellow Catholics as Madge Seaver and many others like her serve their congregations.

National Catholic Reporter Article on The Feast of Mary Magdalene
Another Rant by Tess

At Tess’s place I wrote:

The decision to excommunicate the women came as no surprise to me, to tell the truth. The current papacy seems bound and determined to protect the male only, celibate priesthood at all costs. I’ve gone from Catholic to Quaker to agnostic with Buddhist leanings as I have watched the church do a fast reverse from the sudden, long overdue, forward movement of Vatican II. They say there is a Vatican III in the works: maybe they plan to declare the Pope a demigod?

And at Tracy’s:

Tracy: I personally left the Catholic Church in large part because of the way it treated women. This excommunication of women whose only sin is the desire to serve their God much as the apostles Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany did is just another kneejerk reaction on the part of this present generation of ecclesiastic leaders who seem to seek not to want to cure the sicknesses of their church. On the other hand, like Jenna, I must register my concern about the way you have protested: another reason for my having left the church was because I could not stand to watch as good, loving, charitable Catholics were mown under by the conservative right of the church. They are stronger than I am because they remain with the church. They, too, are the church and when you attack it as a whole, you also attack these people who I still love and cherish as friends.