Saturday, August 05, 2006

Challenge from Women Priests

I found this article interesting. As I mentioned in my own article on women's exclusion, the Roman Catholic arguments sound very much like those the Baha'is use. When I was researching, I was reading some of the official statements, and if you changed a few technical terms, it could have been the UHJ talking.

The huge difference -- both an advantage and disadvantage -- is that the Baha'i exclusion applies only at the top. That means that it's easier to live with, and easier to ignore. It is also far more difficult to stage the type of protest this article is talking about. The "womenpriests" group can get male bishops to secretly ordain women, who can ordain other women, which gives a certain type of legitimacy. After all, men get to be priests by being ordained by bishops, too. But the Baha'i Faith has an elective structure. If some renegade NSA members, like these unnamed male bishops, decided to put women in a position where they are excluded (i.e. the UHJ), the ballots would be just quietly disqualified, and nobody would hear any more about it.