On women priests: “If you really loved the church, you’d be a little broken up about being excommunicated…”

You no doubt remember the video “Ordain a Lady” that set jaws dropping around the blogosphere.

Now, a good response from blogger Kathleen Burke: (A grateful diaconal bow to Deacon Scott Dodge for this!)

If you really loved the Church, and valued your membership in the Church as the Body of Christ, you’d be a little broken up about being excommunicated . . . you wouldn’t be glowing. And while St. Paul is the king of the run-on-sentence that’s no reason to throw him out of the Bible; the fact that he writes things you find inconvenient is an equally bad reason to ignore what he says. That’s basically like saying ignore any part of Scripture that you disagree with. Oh, wait, that’s exactly what they’re saying.

If you go to the Women’s Ordination Conference’s website and flip through it you’ll glean some interesting information. They think the Church is racist, sexist, and, of course, homophobic. They signed onto a press release from Catholics for Choice supporting the HHS mandate, indicating their support for not only abortion and contraception but for making the Church pay for it. They support married clergy. They support gay marriage. So basically, they disagree with almost every teaching of the Church in regard to gender, sexuality, and family (how convenient) and think it’s institutionally horrible. I don’t understand why anyone would voluntarily associate themselves with people they think so poorly of . . . but they say they deeply love the Church. I mean, hey, they were baptized . . . but so was Henry VIII, so I’m not really sure what that’s supposed to mean.

Don’t get me wrong, I looked into the St. Therese quote and I’m kind of ambivalent about it. Here’s the passage often cited by Womyn Priest advocates:

“I feel as if I were called to be a fighter, a priest, an apostle, a doctor, a martyr; as if I could never satisfy the needs of my nature without performing, for Your sake, every kind of heroic action at once. I feel as if I’d got the courage to be a Crusader, a Pontifical Zouave, dying on the battlefield in defence of the Church. And at the same time I want to be a priest; how lovingly I’d carry You in my hands when you came down from heaven at my call; how lovingly I’d bestow You on men’s souls! And yet, with all this desire to be a priest, I’ve nothing but admiration and envy for the humility of St. Francis; I’d willingly imitate him in refusing the honour of the priesthood.”Of course they cite it out of context, but I’ve learned that is to be expected. They cite the fact that she’s a saint as proof for their position. I’m going to cite another saint for them, one they might want to emulate: St. Pio. The Church wrongly cracked down on Padre Pio; in his canonization he was exonerated. A true calling would call you to obedience, and it may be a horrible struggle, but it would be one you would undertake for love of God and Church.

Read it all.