Change is Part of God’s Plan

by admin · August 27, 2008

Tony Meehan, Cape Town – Fr Remo Bonifazi was shocked (Anti-Catholic, letters July 23-29) by your editorial of July 2-8, which speculates that one day the ministerial priesthood may be conferred upon women. However, I think that the writer has not considered that change has always been part of God’s plan.

Our God is a living, thinking God who has changed his mind on many occasions. Abraham negotiated with Yahweh over Sodom and Gomorrah. Yahweh was quite prepared to change his mind if Abraham could find any upright people. When Jesus gave the keys of the kingdom to Peter, his principal instruction was: Whatever you bind (change) on earth will be bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
Not too many years ago, only priests could hold the Blessed Eucharist. Today, it is often women extra-ordinary ministers of Holy Communion who take Our Lord to the sick on Sundays.

When the Pharisees questioned Jesus about divorce being allowed by Moses, his reply was: Because, at that time, the people were hard-hearted. Jesus instructed them to change their thinking and to revert to what it was from the beginning (Mt 19:8).
Again, in the time of Moses a man was found collecting wood on the Sabbath day, and because the penalty he should undergo had not been fixed, Yahweh said to Moses: This man must be put to death. The whole community will stone him outside the camp (Numbers 15:32-36). This teaching has obviously been changed or repealed. I cannot remember anyone reported to have been stoned for not attending Sunday Mass.

Though only Jesus and his disciples are mentioned in the stories of the Last Supper, which was their Passover meal, it seems inconceivable that Our Lady and the other women were not present. After all, these women had followed Jesus from Galilee and looked after him (Mt 27:55). The Passover was, and still is, a family feast.
Of course the Bible reflects the culture of the day where the customs and traditions determined that women would either be excluded or would remain invisible in Passover and most other rituals. Like children, they could be seen but not heard.

The Church of today lives in today’s world, accepting that women are not to be excluded or be made invisible, so it is quite reasonable for them to attain full recognition and to participate equally in Church life and its rituals. I think the Holy Spirit could well inspire the Church to one day, confer ministerial priesthood upon women.

In his condemnation of your excellent editorial, Fr Bonifazi adopts an unnecessary un-Christ-like attitude by suggesting that you are anti-Catholic, hypocritical, and blind to the truth.