Cardinal O'Malley on Priestettes

Should the Catholic Church begin ordaining women to the priesthood? No, if for no other reason than that it is beyond her power and authority to do so. I think that Sean Cardinal O'Malley has the right basic approach to this:

In an interview with “60 Minutes” on CBS that producers said took more than a year for them to persuade him to do, O’Malley seemed troubled by reporter Norah O’Donnell’s question as to whether the exclusion of women from the Church hierarchy was “immoral.”

O’Malley paused, then said, “Christ would never ask us to do something immoral. It’s a matter of vocation and what God has given to us.”

“Not everyone needs to be ordained to have an important role in the life of the Church,” he said. “Women run Catholic charities, Catholic schools …. They have other very important roles. A priest can’t be a mother. The tradition in the Church is that we ordain men.”

After O’Donnell pointed out that the Church doesn’t discriminate by race, only by gender, O’Malley smiled and said, “If I were founding a church, I’d love to have women priests. But Christ founded it, and what he has given us is something different.”

It's not about what we want. It's about adhering to what Christ established, ultimately about following Christ. If I or any other mere man were to start my own or his own) religion, then anything goes. Such a religion isn't seeking the good or the true, nor is it really even actually seeking self-fulfillment (an illusory concept), but rather it seeking self-gratification.