Regarding Ordination Rights in the RCC

So I wrote this a while ago, but I wanted to repost it in a way that can easily be read.

WHAT I POSTED:

We can get caught up on what one means by “right,” but the matter of fact is that there are women in the Roman Catholic Church who feel called toward the priesthood but are denied the ability to become ordained because of the RCC’s position on female ordination.

While some would argue that the Church “has no choice” because their theological reasoning is for an exclusively male priesthood, such a position isn’t based on the Bible, but instead a certain type of interpretation thereof.  "Jesus didn’t ordain women" is the silliest of arguments because as a matter of fact, Jesus didn’t ordain anyone.  Church hierarchies of “priest, deacon, and bishop” were developed after Christ’s death.  Christ chose 12 male disciples, but also included women.  Their presence in the Bible, especially in important positions, is evidence of how highly the Jesus movement regarded women.  Mere mention was anomalous given the societal disregard for women that existed at the time the New Testament texts were written.  

Apostolic succession was a tool developed by the early church and has to do with a line back to Christ but is not gender based in any way.  In fact, the Bible makes mention of a female apostle, Junia, and the early Christian movement allowed women to preside over the Eucharist and perform the role of deacon and priest, as are evidenced in writings and art work uncovered from as late as the 600s.

Whether or not the church should or shouldn’t reflect prevailing views of the times is beside the point.  No, the Church should not be another manifestation of the Democratic, Republican, or any other party.  They SHOULD, however, stand for biblical values, some of which are resisting “church law” when it is unjust and fighting for the fundamental equality of spiritual value among the children of God.  It is quite clear given the archaeological and textual record that the early church and those whose lives more closely touched that of Jesus allowed women into leadership positions and that a celibate, exclusively male priesthood developed in later years, quite removed from the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

Ministry should be open to women.  There is no argument for an exclusively male priesthood that can be based in the Bible, at least not without giving preferential treatment to certain passages and a degree of cherry-picking that ultimately must give more weight to inferences of the reader as opposed to quantity or substance of passages defending such positions.

Word.