by Martin Newland
CHRISTIANS who see discrimination as the only sin are wrongly saying that this justifies the ordination of women says a pamphlet out this week entitled Women and the Priesthood — Looking Ahead.
CathOlic journalist and broadcaster Joanne Bogle says that those who are "besotted" with discrimination as the only evil in this world are "getting imprisoned in their own egos" and have forgotten that Christ's incarnation as a male established definitively the relationship between men and women in the Church and the world.
For the Church to ordain women would be tantamount to "inventing things that are not there," in Scripture and Tradition, the pamphlet continues.
Alexina Murphy, member of the Catholic Women's Network, denied strongly that the movement for the ordination of women was concerned solely with an unreasoning quest for the priesthood.
"God created persons and Jesus redeemed persons," she said. "Any discrimination against persons is radical discrimination."
She admitted that some women latched onto the ordination of women in a misguided way but said that nevertheless this was a "precipitating issue".
"If women can't represent Christ before the community and the community before Christ then this implies that there is something wrong with women. That is the discrimination we are concerned about", Mrs Murphy told the Catholic Herald.