Chick priests

What's the deal with Catholics/Christians not wanting women to be priests?
If you're trying to spread the beliefs of your religion, wouldn't you want as many people as possible?

It's like not wanting women to vote...you miss out on a huge number of potential votes by just allowing dudes to vote.

I wouldn't go lumping Christians as a whole in that category. Catholics, yes. The Lutheran religion and Methodists have female priests. Just making that point. Otherwise, i could care less because i feel if a religious sect wants or doesn't want women to be priest, that's their choice. It's like belonging to a church that doesn't like gays and one may be a supporter of gay right. I feel that the church can do what they want. The people can make themselves a church that caters to gays if they wish. It's a free country here to do that.

I agree with Tex. Not all Christians believe this. The Church of England has been ordaining female Ministers for probably about 20 years now. Last year they extended that to allow female Bishops (though I believe women still cannot become Archbishops but I may be wrong).

That was what the big hoo-hah was about last year when the Vatican attempted to grab the [s]bigots and misogynists[/s] traditionalists into the Catholic Church. I can't see that there were that many that switched though, those same people generally still tend to use terms like "papist".

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:I agree with Tex. Not all Christians believe this. The Church of England has been ordaining female Ministers for probably about 20 years now. Last year they extended that to allow female Bishops (though I believe women still cannot become Archbishops but I may be wrong).

That was what the big hoo-hah was about last year when the Vatican attempted to grab the [s]bigots and misogynists[/s] traditionalists into the Catholic Church. I can't see that there were that many that switched though, those same people generally still tend to use terms like "papist".

Did you mean to do this?

bigots and misogynists

That would fix many child pedo cases within the Catholic Church... let preachers get laid!

lol. Cat-lick Priests were allowed to marry until about 1300. Cynical historians tend to suggest it was a cost-cutting exercise and I agree.

To be fair, whilst the Anglican church has allowed women to join the clergy for some time there have been threats of separation from the African branch when the question of women bishops was being considered. Sadly our spineless jellyfish of an archbishop didn't tell them to sling their hooks. So regardless of the official position, there can be quite a difference of feeling within the church itself. Some Anglicans in the UK were opposed to the ordination of women bishops. On the flip side, I'm sure there are some Catholics who want to see women priests.

As for why...I think it's just sexism. They attempt to defend their sexism by claiming that women aren't meant to teach men, and that there were no women disciples so it's not what God wants - it upsets the natural order, or some such. Another factor would probably simply the fear of change - which was one of the reasons why some politicians dragged their heels over female emancipation - they just didn't know which way women would vote. The old guard see allowing women to preach as a change to Tradition and religion is all about Tradition and Authority. They don't like change.