Los Angeles Times editorial blasts Catholic teaching on women’s ordination

December 02, 2008

Upset by the prospect that Father Roy Bourgeois risks excommunication if he does not repudiate his participation in a woman’s ordination, the editors of the Los Angeles Times on Sunday criticized Catholic teaching on women’s ordination. The editorial also took issue with Cardinal Roger Mahony’s recent reminder to parishes that laypeople are not permitted to preach the homily at Mass.

The Times editorial makes no effort to provide an accurate understanding of Church teaching on the impossibility of ordaining women, mentioning only a "traditional view" and claiming that theologians have gradually been turning away from that "view." (To be accurate the editorial should have said that some theologians have abandoned the traditional teaching.) The editorial should be read in light of another recent editorial in the same paper, attacking a new Vatican document that reiterated the prohibition against homosexuals in the priesthood. In each case the Times makes the argument that Catholic teaching clashes with the demands of justice-- an argument that might eventually be used to justify court intervention in Church affairs.

 

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Further information:

• Editorial: Women and religion (Los Angeles Times)
• Cardinal Roger Mahony: Lay preaching regulations (Archdiocese of Los Angeles)