{"id":2561,"date":"2012-04-05T15:55:54","date_gmt":"2012-04-05T19:55:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=2561"},"modified":"2012-04-05T15:55:54","modified_gmt":"2012-04-05T19:55:54","slug":"maundy-thursday-problems-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/04\/maundy-thursday-problems-again.html","title":{"rendered":"Maundy Thursday Problems Again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/p>\n

As I explained last year<\/a>, Maundy Thursday is the day I feel least comfortable attending Mass:<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t like to be beholden to anyone. \u00a0I don\u2019t like accepting a favor from someone I have no way of repaying or being indebted to someone I don\u2019t know and may not like. I frustrated my boyfriend for more than half a year by never taking food from the post-Mass receptions the campus church hosted. In my mind, the food was for people who had bought in, and it would be inappropriate to benefit from the Church\u2019s largesse when I had no intention of supporting. Not to mention, raised on a diet of mythology and\u00a0fantasy\/scifi novels<\/a>, I have a slight distrust of\u00a0accepting food in strange places<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And this year, I might be off the hook, but I think I feel worse<\/em>. \u00a0There\u2019s been a discussion going on across the Patheos Catholic portal about whether it\u2019s appropriate to include women in this part of the service. \u00a0Fr. Longenecker of Standing on My Head is\u00a0adamant<\/a>:<\/p>\n

We should get this straight. The tradition and the rubrics mandate that men are to have their feet washed. Not little girls, not women, not boys. Men. Why is this? Because the foot washing ceremony is not only an example of Christ being the lowest servant of all, as Tom\u2019s article makes clear, but it is also a consolidation of the apostolic ministry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And Thomas McDonald of God and the Machine concurs<\/a>,\u00a0saying \u201cSadly, this [men-only footwashing] is rarely the case in modern parishes.\u201d \u00a0I don\u2019t have the standing to criticize their\u00a0interpretation\u00a0of the liturgy, but that \u201cSadly<\/em>\u201d stuck out to me. \u00a0They don\u2019t seem to be talking about balancing two goods (the humility required to serve or accept service, which is presumably salutary to everyone in the Church versus the symbol of the apostolic ministry), but as though there is just one good, and it is under siege by the ignorant.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The simple fact is that many institutions and traditions which excluded women from participation and membership have done so for reasons which we now consider dishonorable. \u00a0Absent any other data, we\u2019d bet that the next exclusion we find is also not well-founded. \u00a0So it\u2019s unkind for the defenders of men-only footwashing to act as though the cause of the policy is obvious or that we should be in the habit of accepting these kinds of\u00a0distinction uncritically.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even after reading several posts on the subject, I don\u2019t really understand why<\/em> these bloggers have such a\u00a0high degree of confidence in the purpose of the ritual. \u00a0When one commenter writes:<\/p>\n

Right now I live in a diocese that has an overwhelming majority of liberal Catholics and priests. So I asked the question \u201cWill women be participating, i.e., getting their washed?\u201d The response was an incredulous \u201cYes, of course. Why not?\u201d. I said that would not be Biblical, since Jesus did this (according to the Gospel of John) for the Apostles, the first priests \u2013 at the first Eucharist where no women were present for a reason.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

All I can think is that I don\u2019t understand why he thinks it\u2019s permissible for women to participate in the Eucharist either, since that sacrament was created at an event from which they were purposefully excluded. And all the Apostles were (to the best of my knowledge) Jewish, but that quality is treated as more incidental when it comes to modern practice. \u00a0If you want to overcome my reasonable skepticism, you need to flesh out your arguments more.<\/p>\n

Mark Shea had the most<\/a> approachable<\/a> posts on this topic. \u00a0As a layperson, he sought out data and then explained it without using it as a cudgel or berating the people who had questions. \u00a0Up til his post, it felt like the discussion was falling into the arguments as soldiers error that Yudkowsky describes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Arguments are soldiers. Once you know which side you\u2019re on, you must support all arguments of that side, and attack all arguments that appear to favor the enemy side; otherwise it\u2019s like stabbing your soldiers in the back. If you abide within that pattern, policy debates will also appear one-sided to you\u2014the costs and drawbacks of your favored policy are enemy soldiers, to be attacked by any means necessary.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Your \u2018enemies\u2019 are usually attacking you in good faith, and if you can\u2019t summarize their position as something nicer sounding than a will to destroy, you might convince a straw-man, but you sure as heck won\u2019t move your audience.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

One other note: a number of the commenters on Shea\u2019s post seemed to think the all-serving-all model was diminishing the message down to a treacly let\u2019s-be-nice kind of thing. \u00a0If any of them end up over here, I\u2019d really ask you to read my post from last year\u2019s Maundy Thursday<\/a>. \u00a0I didn\u2019t find the practice cloying, I found it terrifying<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I explained last year, Maundy Thursday is the day I feel least comfortable attending Mass: I don\u2019t like to be beholden to anyone. \u00a0I don\u2019t like accepting a favor from someone I have no way of repaying or being indebted to someone I don\u2019t know and may not like. I frustrated my boyfriend for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,27],"tags":[38,36],"class_list":["post-2561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-debatetactics","category-parsing-catholicism","tag-feminism-and-the-family","tag-from-the-pews"],"yoast_head":"\nMaundy Thursday Problems Again<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As I explained last year, Maundy Thursday is the day I feel least comfortable attending Mass: I don\u2019t like to be beholden to anyone. \u00a0I don\u2019t like\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/04\/maundy-thursday-problems-again.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Maundy Thursday Problems Again\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As I explained last year, Maundy Thursday is the day I feel least comfortable attending Mass: I don\u2019t like to be beholden to anyone. \u00a0I don\u2019t like\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/04\/maundy-thursday-problems-again.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Unequally Yoked\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-04-05T19:55:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.internetmonk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/washing_feet_01.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Leah Libresco\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Leah Libresco\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/04\/maundy-thursday-problems-again.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/04\/maundy-thursday-problems-again.html\",\"name\":\"Maundy Thursday Problems Again\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-04-05T19:55:54+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-04-05T19:55:54+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/17ee17592b35b40040d5f5f7ea5ab464\"},\"description\":\"As I explained last year, Maundy Thursday is the day I feel least comfortable attending Mass: I don\u2019t like to be beholden to anyone. \u00a0I don\u2019t like\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/04\/maundy-thursday-problems-again.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/04\/maundy-thursday-problems-again.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/04\/maundy-thursday-problems-again.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Maundy Thursday Problems Again\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/\",\"name\":\"Unequally Yoked\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/17ee17592b35b40040d5f5f7ea5ab464\",\"name\":\"Leah Libresco\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/20e1e6a3a94c4e7928687804a41d888d?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/20e1e6a3a94c4e7928687804a41d888d?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"caption\":\"Leah Libresco\"},\"description\":\"Leah is the author of Arriving at Amen and Building the Benedict Option. 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