Arnie,
I just stumbled over your page here and this discussion….
I’m happy that you brought it up – and I enjoyed reading your comments as well.
As a matter of fact – there ARE already a few Catholic women priests… Illegaly but licitly ordained, and called by God….
And I hope that the Church is one day soon going to change this so that all those women who are called will be allowed to officially discern and follow their call.
It’s not as simple as some have tried to make it look like in the answers above. It’s actually pure nonsense – that stuff about women being of another “substance”! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry….!!
It’s simply not true, and thus can’t be used as an argument. Also all the other common arguments against women priests are like straw that vanishes by a tiny little flame of the truth…
And things are changing indeed – although very slowly.
It’s actually only cultural stuff that stops women from following their call – nothing in the Bible is said against it – on the contrary – also women are serving in the early Church in equal roles as men, and Mary Magdalene was the first apostle, sent by Jesus himself to proclaim the good news to the male apostles.
I could write a lot about this – I’ve spent lots of time researching this and written about it in articles and on the internet, but most of it is in Swedish – only some of it is in English. And to write about even only the most essental things here would take the whole day… So I’ll give you some links below instead, where you’ll find much more to read.
From the Church fathers, and especially during the Roman empire, and all the way to our days, things changed so women were pushed out into the margins. Some of the “fathers” wrote terrible things about women – just because that was the common view in their days.
And this sadly destroys lives of women even today…
Here’s a very good article explaining why things turned out like they now are in the Catholic Church regarding this:
http://charlottetherese.110mb.com/church_without_women_leaders.htm
We had a long discussion about women priests in Sweden recently that several thousands followed – although not so many made any comments:
http://katolskvision.egetforum.se/viewtopic.php?t=113
There you’ll also see a press release about it in English as the first posting in the thread.
And at this webpage you’ll find some articles and videos about the ordinations of Catholic women (under the headline: kvinnliga/gifta präster = women/married priests).
http://www.geocities.com/katolskvision/kvartiklar.html
Coincidentally, some more Catholic women are actually being ordained today, just as I’m writing this…
Also – have a look at this webpage where you’ll find the truth about this, which the official Church tries to hide – and many good references – it’s in English, and in several other languages too:
http://www.womenpriests.org/index.asp
Here’s also a brand new blog at that page – about the subject – feel free to participate there:
http://www.womenpriests.org/dreamshareact/