no, not just the RCC but many churches now have this problem.  This also was addressed by Paul when he said:

"Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly..." 

the word adorn is from the Greek "kosmeo" which we get our word "cosmetic."  It means "to arrange" "to put in order." 

A woman must arrange herself appropriately in order to worship God.  A proper adornment on the outside reflects what's going on inside the heart.  Are they going to church to pray to God or prey on man? 

When a woman dresses for church to attract attention to herself she has violated the purpose of worship.  In the 4th century church father John Chrysostom wrote:

"And what then is modest apparel?  Such as covers them completely and decently, and not with superflous ornaments; for the one is decent and the other is not.  What?  Do you approach God to pray with broidered hair and ornaments of gold?  Are you come to a ball?  to a marriage-feast?  to a carnival?  There such costly things might have been seasonable; here not one of them is wanted.  You are come to pray, to ask pardon for your sins, to plead for your offenses, beseeching the Lord, and hoping to render him propitious to you.  Away with such hypocrisy!"

I found that the story became more complicated the more Hebrew I learned and then even more so when I started learning Sumerian mythology and reading about the ancient Assyrian language.

As a child, knowing the story in native tongue only, I thought it was a simple version of a more complicated truth.

Now I am beginning to realise that it is the summarised version of a gigantic mythology which was taught to the Children of Israel but has its basis all over Mesopotamia (Iraq), Aram (Syria), and Canaan (Lebanon and Israel).

The Sumerian and Semitic mythology that was before the Bible (remember the Bible was only given to Moses _a long time_ after many of the events it tells of) has only been written down in distinct versions much later. And I believe that to understand the Bible correctly we have to know all of that mythology so we can know what it was the Bible was correcting.

I'll give you an example.

This article tells the story of no X signs. (You don't have to read the entire article. It is about software development.)

When you go into a restaurant and you see a sign that says "No Dogs Allowed," you might think that sign is purely proscriptive: Mr. Restaurant doesn't like dogs around, so when he built the restaurant he put up that sign.

If that was all that was going on, there would also be a "No Snakes" sign; after all, nobody likes snakes. And a "No Elephants" sign, because they break the chairs when they sit down.

The real reason that sign is there is historical: it is a historical marker that indicates that people used to try to bring their dogs into the restaurant.

Most prohibitive signs are there because the proprietors of an establishment were sick and tired of people doing X, so they made a sign asking them to please not. If you go into one of those fifty year old ma-and-pa diners, like the Yankee Doodle in New Haven, the walls are covered with signs saying things like "Please don't put your knapsack on the counter," more anthropological evidence that people used to put their knapsacks on the counter a lot. By the age of the sign you can figure out when knapsacks were popular among local students. 

Sometimes they're harder to figure out. "Please do not bring glass bottles into the park" must mean that somebody cut themselves stepping on broken glass while walking barefoot through the grass once, and it's a good bet they sued the city.

It looks like an esay one. Why is there a "No Dog Allowed" sign in the restaurant? As the author says, it's not merely because bringing dogs to the restaurant is not allowed. Otherwise there would be a "No Elephants" sign as well. No, it's because people brought dogs to the restaurant (and not elephants).

This is the first point: rules are written down not because we don't want people to break them but because people have broken them in the past. (They might also have broken them before they actually became rules. For example Abraham has probably eaten food forbidden to his descendants later.)

But more interesting (and surprising) is the second part of the story. There are actually more prohibitions as history proceeds as people are over time more likely to do things that one might eventually want to prohibit.

Either way, there is information missing in the written version. Some information is missing because people at the time knew it (but we do not any more). Some information is missing because it was implicit at the time and isn't any more (i.e. people then learned it immediately and we can't). And some information was missing then but we have it now.

So in order to understand the written rules, we HAVE to know the context in which which they were written.

What was it those originally addressed would have known which we don't? What was it those originally addressed would have understood immediately which we can't? And what was it those originally addressed didn't know which we now do?

In Judaism we have the Oral Torah, which is a number of told stories, later written down in parts of the Talmud, that tell us some of the stories related to the laws that explain what people then knew or would have assumed.

But we also have the imperative to study the world as well as the Bible.

The Oral Torah does a bit to solve the first problem. Study of natural sciences does a bit to solve the third. (It can explain to us why we know what we know and so allows us to figure out what our ancestors didn't know.) But the second problem can only be solved by study of ancient texts and mythology apart from the Bible.

If there are no dogs allowed, we have to find out if elephants were common pets. Otherwise we won't know whether elephants are disallowed as well. And since the written rules don't tell us that, we have to look elsewhere in order to understand the full truth of scripture.

Who told you this and where are you getting this from? 

Christianity is first outlined in the book of Acts.  The first scriptures read in the churches (homes) were the OT scriptures. Read Acts 2, which is a sermon by Peter.   The NT is basically, for the most part, a collection of letters to the Saints (Christians) in these churches on how to conduct themselves as Christians and of course, the reason for doing so (Christ the Messiah had come). 

When I say Faith, to me it means "Forsaking All I trust Him."  It's not about religion or creed.  It's about a relationship I have with God himself similiar to what Adam and Eve had before the fall.  We were reconciled to him by the death, burial and resurrection of the one he sent to die in our place.  That has nothing to do with which religion one attends.  The invitation is open to all. 

Like I said read Ps 118:8.  I respectfully disagree Leauki only agreeing that looking elsewhere should drive us to read scripture because that's where we will find the answers for the what, when, why, where and how questions we have so often.  The world cannot answer these questions that the word of God can.  All I can say is I'd love for you to spend as much time in the book as you have done outside the book! 

Just to be clear, you do understand that I do not consider the OT to be mythology don't you?  You keep bringing that up but I want to be clear that just as Jesus and the other NT writers confirmed and verified the OT so too do I believe it's filled with history, poetry, and prophetic writings that have borne out to be absolutely right on. 

The Hebrew Bible is technically mythology. The fact that we both believe that it's also true doesn't change the fact that it is Hebrew mythology.

Myths are not true or false, they are just stories that belong to a certain people or tradition.

There is a Greek mythology and a Hebrew mythology. If you believe that one is false and the other true, even if it were proven fact that one is false and the other true, both remain mythology.

But that wasn't even my point. I used the term "mythology" to describe stories older than Exodus (set in about 1300 BCE) and recorded in the Hebrew Bible as well as other writings.

I haven't even really started with outside the book. I am only beginning to study the ancient Middle-East and Sumerian mythology. But ever since I did the Hebrew Bible made more sense.

The word for "I" used by G-d is "anoki" rather than Hebrew "ani"? I know why. The history of Abraham's brethren in Mesopotamia explains it.

The word "Elohim" is grammatically plural but refers to only one real "person"? I know why. Studying some ancient Phoenician answers the question.

The weird grammatical constructs translated like "the Lord spoke and said"? I know where they came from. Differences in tenses in two branches of Semitic languages explain them.

None of these things are obvious from just reading the text. And all of them give us important hints as to the meaning of it.

When a lot of people say, "I can tell you don't want to hear what I have to say", they often mean, "I can see you don't want to heed what I have to say".  Which is to say, they want you to listen to them, but they don't really care what you believe.  To them, religious discussion is about changing other people. 

She's right, there are many flavors of ice cream and each of us get to decide which flavor is "right" for us.  If "what's right for us" was the point, then this lady would have a point.  However, if she is a Christian then she shouldn't be looking for "what's right for us", she should be seeking "what is right".

I can say, "I'm right" and leave out the "You're wrong" part.  However, truth isn't a matter of interpretation or popular vote. 

The truth is the truth. Nothing more.

I will not get into a bible debate with you.  However, it only goes to reason.  The early Church - which at the time was the RCC - wrote the bible.  Whether it was divinely inspired or not is immaterial.  That the faith predates the Bible is a given.  The old Testament is only part of it and comes from the Jewish Torah. 

The early Christians were practicing their faith and religion 400 years before the Bible came to pass.  Parts were written earlier, but the Bible (in the books we know of today) was not completed until the late 4th century.

pretty much you nailed it. 

right on you two!  Truth is truth. 

no, Jews wrote the bible.  Jewish Christians.  Every single one of them but Luke who was a gentile Doctor.  It was NOT RCC but I do understand that's what they teach.  The RCC didn't start until the 4th century. 

Agree

yes, of course.  Faith goes all the way back to Abraham and before. 

The whole bible was written by the end of the first century.  They were gathered together later and bound together into what we have today but they were regarded as scripture right from the get go.  You can read Peter's letter (3:16) and see that (written in the 1st century).  The very first council was just a few years after Christ was crucified (Jerusalem Council) you can read that in Acts 15 attended by the men who walked with Christ.

By AD 200 one basic Canon was recognized although there were some continuing debates about a few books.  I think you must be referring to Jerome who transcribed the bible into Latin from Hebrew and Greek in the 4th century?   

KFC,

I can see this garage sale scene happening as you describe it!

I would have told her the same.

Almighty God established an all male Aaronic priesthood in the Old Covenant and  Christ established an all male priesthood (in the order of Melchisedech) in the New Covenant.

Women who become pastors do their own thing instead of being obedient to Christ. He is the Truth and calls us to pick up our cross and follow Him. And ignoring or circumventing Truth to pursue their desires is a grave offense to Him.

"Faith is believing in things you know ain't so". 

-Mark Twain

It's best not to get too involved in debate with people on a mission - they are often agressive for no apparent reason.

On a side note, I never understood the popularity of the christian music and book indsutry. We don't have anything like that where I live. I remember quite clearly looking for a special candle for the baptism of my niece in Sacramento. It's a RCC custom and we had to shop around for it and were lucky in in this one huge christian store that had a ton of music, hymn books, spiritual literature and everything you could possibly imagine, even a superher costume of Bibleman with a cape and mask (but I think there was a female option lol) FIGHTING THE SHADOW OF DOUBT!! That costume just reaffirmed my latent oppinion that americans are slightly crazy, no offense

Please, if you will check the Church's history...from the moment of the Church's beginning on that first Pentecost Day in 33AD, no woman was ever ordained as a priestess in the Catholic Church.

When you think about it, women as pastors has occurred only outside the Catholic Chruch and mostly in major denominations of centrifugal Protestantism (and as Leauki has noted, modern Jewry has women rabbis).

Well, actually the debate is closed ever since the late, great Pope John Paul II issued the July 10, 2002, Declaration by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which based upon the Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis states in part,

  "In order to give direction to the consciences of the Catholic faithful, and dispel any doubts which may have arisen, the Chruch has no authority whsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful." (n.4).

Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was originally issued in 1994, and it clarifies the Church's perennial teaching on priestly ordination. In part, "4. Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time it is considered still open to debate, or the Chruch's judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is a mere disciplinary force.  Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Chruch's divine Constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (St.Luke 22:32), I declare that the Chruch  has no authority whsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful."

This settles any doubt about the authority and permancy of the Church's constant teaching, simply re-affirmed by the Pope's Apostolic letter founded on the written Word of God.  The priestly ministry is mentioned in St.Luke "confirming the brethren" was to only men under the Sacrament of Holy Orders, "the laying on of hands." Acts of the Apostles. It did not proclaim a new or altered teaching. This teaching was from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church and now it has been set forth infallibly by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.

In short, women's ordination in Christ's Church is an impossibility and always has been.

Just one more thing.

To understand the Church's position on only male priests, we must look at the nature of the priesthood. The priesthood is an office entrusted by Christ to His Apostles.....Christ chose only men as His Twelve Apostles and He gave them His authority to teach, govern, sanctify and forgive sins in His Holy Name. 

Christ ordained only males becasue only males can be priests. When priests celebrate the Holy Mass and consecrate the Eucharist, they act in persona Christ, in the person of a groom, the Spouse of Holy Mother Chruch, which is the Bride of Christ. In this sense, the Chruch is feminine and the Holy Mass emphasixes the marital relationship between Jesus and His Chruch by recalling the passage in The Apoc. 19:7-9. The Lamb's Bride is in her wedding garments...The celebrant acting in persona Agni, has to be male.

Dr. Guy posts:

Brilliantly true statement and question Doc. The true Christian Faith was taught and passed down from generation to generation by oral teaching..the early Christians learned by hearing the faith...it was the priesthood of the Old Covenant Church who was Divinely appointed to be the teacher of man before Christ and the priesthood of the New Testament Chruch who was Divinely appointed to be teacher of man after Christ. God never intended that man learn his holy religion solely from the Holy Bible.

Christ didn't say "Write Bibles and scatter them all over the earth and let every one read his BIble and judge for himself". If Christ had said that there never would have been Christianity sent to teach all nations to observe all things whatsoever He had commanded, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. There would never have been one Church, the union of one body in Christ.       

Go stake a man's salvation on the declaration that the Bible and the Bible only is the sole rule of faith.....That was the injunction of 16th century Protestant plan of salvation and churches upon churches have been springing up since, fighting and quarreling with each other. 

With this line of thinking, what became of the millions of poor souls who lived before 1517....before the Bible was printed and who couldn't read it if they had one? Did our Blessed Lord fail to provide an adequate means of conveying to men in every age the knowledge of His Truth?

Melkhitsedeq was a Canaanite priest.

Do Catholic priests really see themselves as spiritual descendants of Canaanite priests?