[sparkscoffee] Re: National Prayer Breakfast with Obama Present
- From: Ron George <xgeorge@xxxxxxx>
- To: sparkscoffee@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2013 11:12:15 -0700
DR,
Speaking of Catholicism, I listened to Gary Wills, a Catholic himself,
and thought
this guy makes sense.
RG
The Cycle | Aired on February 18, 2013
As Popes days wind down, questions about the necessity of priests in
Catholicism
*Best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize winner Garry Wills talks to The
Cycle hosts about **
**the future of the Catholic Church and wonders if we still really need
priests.*
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-cycle/50849803#50849803
Transcript
>> the pope asked followers to pray for him and his successor, but as
the world prepares for a new pope set to be installed by Easter, our
next guest says there's no point in calling a conclave, because the
institution of the priesthood is entirely made up. with us now is "new
york times" best-selling author and Pulitzer prize winner Gary Wills .
he spent five years in seminary and nearly became a priest himself but
now challenges that basic tenet of the church in his
book "why priests: a failed tradition." Gary, i want to read back to you
the first line of the "new york times" book review on your book, which
reads " gary wills wants us to know that he really bears no animus
towards priests. truly." and the point that you're making, of course,
isn't an anti priest argument. it's a theological one that sort of
suggests that maybe historically, priests weren't exactly the direction
the catholic church was supposed to head in. and it's not really a new
argument. you know, Christians have argued for centuries over the role
of the clergy and whether one needs a direct conduit to god. so just
unpack your position a little bit for us.
>> well, it's true. i'm a great admirer of priests and friends of them.
and they can do anything. preach, teach, instruct catechism. st . paul
had over a dozen ministries. healers. prophe prophets. none of those
were priesthood. he never mentions priests. there are no priests. what
set the priests apart from the rest of the body of christ , as if he
were not part of that, was the idea that only he can consecrate bread
and wine and make it the body and blood of jesus . well, even in the
fifth century, St. Augustine , my principle thinker hero, said, it's
ridiculous to think that you're eating jesus when you take this. he said
you don't eat Jesus . you don't digest him. when he handed out the bread
and said this is my body, it was a bond with him. but it was his body
handing it out. his body was there. he didn't say eat my hand. eat the
bread as a symbol of your union with me. that was Augustine 's attitude.
and that continued to be the attitude of a number of people down through
the middle ages until a tremendous revolt at the top started and all of
these people were called heretics. there's a whole history of the middle
ages , in which there is an assertion of power coming out of the new
institution of the papacy saying that this is not simply a symbol. this
is not an infigora, as they said, this is literal. and then in the 13th
century , they got a very clever explanation. Thomas Aquinas was in love
with Aristotle and said he distinguishes substance and accidents. you
have a dog that is a substance. might be white, black, big, small. so
you can see the substance is different from the accidents. but never
said they could be separate. you can't have a dog who is no color, no
size, et cetera . he has to have some accidents. what Thomas Aquinas
came along and said, we can actually separate them. you can have
substance of jesus and accidents of bread and wine , and they're totally
separate. one doesn't invade the other. you just have to take that when
you eat the accident, you get the substance. you're not really eating
bread, you're eating Jesus .
>> would you be interested -- i guess speaking more practically, you
know, i assume we're going to have priests for a long time, as long as
we have the catholic church . in reforming the priesthood, opening it up
to women, opening it up to married men, that sort of thing. do you think
that's a good step maybe the church should be taking?
>> well, i don't want to open up the priesthood to women. because i
don't want priests. i want women to be teachers and leaders and
counselors, and they are in my church. my catholic church . see, the
problem is that if you are only a priest ordained from above, from
bishops who are appointed by the pope, and tells you that you alone in
that community are able to change these accidents, then the woman priest
will be subject to all the kinds of disciplines and nonsensical
directives that the males are. what we need -- see, all priests were
originally chosen by their congregations and so are the bishops.
Ambrose, when they said in Milan, we want you for your bishop, he said,
i can't be that, I'm a secular ruler, not even baptized. i said, doesn't
matter. we want you. now, they were the body of Christ . and so he had
to obey. the same was true of Augustine . when he gave out communion, he
said, "receive what you are, the body of Christ ." so when they told
him, you are the bishop, he couldn't leave. and bishops could not become
popes, because they could never leave their people. they were wed to them.
>> okay, Gary Wills , interesting stuff. thank you very much for
joining us.
>> my pleasure.
RG
On 2/15/2013 6:17 PM, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. wrote:
I have a woman friend who has since converted to Catholicism
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