Ash Rao

Progressive Action: The Best Thing since Sliced Bread

The recent resignation of Pope Benedict XVI raises several issues regarding the Catholic Church and its practices. First, the process of electing a new pope is far from democratic. Second, the people of the Catholic Church want change, and a new pope may be able to bring more liberal ideals to the Catholic Church and the College of Cardinals. Third, the conservative actions of the Catholic Church affect the women of worship that wish to be priests. Catholic law restricts women from being ordained as priests, and people want change. This event raises an issue question of To what extent should organizations pursue liberal ideals?

With the exchange in power in the Catholic Church bound to occur whenever the Council of Cardinals can appoint a new pope, a question comes up: will anything change? A very heated debate has sprung up regarding the currently illegal under canon law ordination of women. The current laws set by the church do not allow women to be ordained as priests. While consistency to tradition is an acceptable course of action for an organization to take, in a progressive society, the members of your organization want progressive reforms. In the case of Marie Bouclin, a woman from Sudbury, Ontario who was a nun for seven years, and became the personal secretary to a bishop in the 1990s, the lack of progressive action angered her. Having been a practicing catholic most of her life, she wanted to become a priest. When she learned that canon law forbade it, she spoke out on behalf of women wishing to be ordained. After speaking up about the issue what can only be described as one time too many, she was let go from her position as bishops secretary. Even despite this blatant refusal of her ideals by the church, she considered herself a priest and practiced as such, despite not having the title. Now not all clergymen share this idea, as an unnamed priest ordained Patricia Fresen, a South African woman, who then ordained Mary as a practicing priest. This decision by the male priest is a direct

Ash Rao refusal of canon law, which governs all actions of priests and other members of the clergy. In the July 2010 revisions of the canon law, both pedophilia and ordaining women as priests were marked as delicta graviora (grave delicts), or serious crimes against canon law. The ruling bodies of the church are so firm on their stance on this issue, the issue of ordaining women as priest received its own article in the revised canon law, under Part One Substantive Norms. Article five of this part of the canon now reads that The more grave delict of the attempted sacred ordination of women is also reserved to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This congregation oversees the doctrine of the Catholic Church, and holds all trials for crimes against said doctrine. With the seriousness of the crime of ordaining women, those who go against the canon are clearly committed to their cause.

However, not everyone involved with the church is in agreement with the concept of women potentially being ordained. While it is clear that the governing congregations of the church are against this concept, many of the faithful are also against it. A February 2013 survey of 300 American Catholics, only 46% of the people said that the new pope should move towards more liberal and progressive views. Why would this be? Women are being accepted into all other walks of life, from soldiers to scientists and careers in between, yet an organization over a billion strong makes it illegal for them to talk to people about a book. The only reason that women are not being ordained as priests is because in the Bible, Jesus only had male disciples, but during the time period that Jesus was said to be alive, women had no place in common society, and their lives were almost completely domesticated, living at home and taking care of the household. However it would seem that people want to cling to their archaic, conservative ways and merely continue the system based on a society from over two thousand years ago. While this is fine if you agree with this idea, in a progressive, liberal democracy, archaic conservative values are not what the general populous want.

Ash Rao To answer the original question of To what extent should organizations pursue liberal ideals? the actions of the Catholic Church have clearly demonstrated that conservative ideals do not work in a liberal democracy, and in a progressive society. People will not accept archaic ideals in a society that continues to move forward at a staggering pace towards a true liberal democracy. The Catholic Church needs to allow women to be ordained as priests.