Homily

I haven’t seen an article on this topic for quite a few years now, where the headline declares “Woman Ordained as Catholic Priest.” But I Googled the topic and found a 2013 article on the usually very competent Reuters news service, with a headline “Kentucky Woman Ordained as Priest in Defiance of Roman Catholic Church.” Eleven years ago, Rosemarie Smead was that woman and she declared that she wasn’t worried that she would be excommunicated because she was way beyond listening to 80-year-old men telling her how to live her life. She herself was 70 years old so I guess she only had 10 more years left before she also became irrelevant. But the article surprisingly mentioned that a poll taken earlier in 2013 showed that 70% of American Catholics believe women should be allowed to become priests.

If anyone is unclear about so-called women's ordinations, please know that Pope John Paul II declared that, because of the example set by Christ, and His apostles, and the constant understanding of the Church on this subject for 2,000 years, the Church is not able to ordain women. And, of course, it is not just the Catholic Church that holds to this understanding. All the ancient Christian Churches that have a valid priesthood believe the same thing. It is only in Protestantism that you find a different opinion, but there is no valid priesthood in Protestantism.

Now I ask you how crazy this idea is, when a woman says, "I am ordained a Catholic priest. The only problem is that the Catholic Church says I am not a Catholic priest. But I don’t care what the Catholic Church says because I am a Catholic priest."

Why can't I say that I am a brain surgeon, the only problem is that the American Medical Society refuses to let me practice. I bring up this situation because it touches on the question of authority. Who has the authority to decide who may, or who shall become deacons, priests, and bishops in the Catholic Church? Is it the Church itself, or is it the individual members, or even a group of them, or even a very large group of them?

The Arian heresy in the early 4th Century taught that Jesus was not truly God, equal to the Father, but that he was created by the Father. Although He was much more than just a normal man, He certainly was not fully divine and equal to God the Father. So the Emperor Constantine called a council at Nicea, not far from Constantinople, for all the bishops to come together in 325 A. D., to settle this question. After much discussion and prayer, the Council declared that the Arian teaching was not the faith of the Church and that Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son, became man without change for our salvation and was equal in divinity to His Father. Naturally most of the Arian believers refused to accept the authority of the Council and continued to disrupt the life of the Church for a long, long time. In his farewell address to the leaders of the Church in Ephesus we heard St. Paul today warn them that there would be wolves that would come in to attack their flock. This has been proven true for the Church in every century, and of course in our own, and even in Louisville, Kentucky there are those who reject the authority of the Church and live and act under what they believe is their own "superior" understanding of the Gospel of Christ and His Church.

Who is Jesus Christ? Who can be ordained to the priesthood? Questions like these all point to the question of authority and truth.

So then where do we look for truth? Where do we think that it can be found? It's not a question you have probably asked yourself lately, but these are important questions if we want our lives to be guided, directed and enlightened by knowing what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad. How do we come to know these things? When was the last time you considered the source of your knowledge and how well you were listening to it and living according to it?

We heard in Jesus' prayer in today's Gospel, that He taught the apostles all the truth about Him, and His Father, and the Holy Spirit, and as we will celebrate next Sunday on Pentecost, these apostles, the foundation stones of Christ's Church, taught and preached this truth and so has the Church from the very beginning through the Council of Nicea, down to today. The authority of the Church does not come from me giving it authority. It comes from Christ Himself. It comes from the fact that it teaches, preaches, and preserves the truth of Christ. I can accept it, or reject it, but I cannot change it. Not even 70% of American Catholics can change the true Gospel.

This understanding does not sit well with many people in modern Western societies. It's thought to be foolish to give yourself over to any one authority and accept that teaching as true. Not only is it foolish but it is extremely inconvenient when you want to do something different from what that authority says is good, proper, and moral. So better you decide for yourself, all the time and everywhere, what you want to do, and what you think is right. Who can be smarter than you? Who can be wiser than you? Who can know the mind of Christ better than you? How is it that some parents can say that nobody has the right to tell them what to believe, even as they teach their children daily what they should believe?

To hear the voice of the Church is to hear the voice of Christ. To belong to the Church is to be members of the Body of Christ. To be sanctified through the life of the Church is to be prepared to be with Christ for eternity. The Church is not, as you will often see or hear from the media, some kind of political organization that operates in strange and mysterious ways as it tries to keep oppressed and shackled people from claiming their rightful rights and their equal equalities. To hear the Church, love the Church, obey the Church, learn from the Church, and be fed by the Church is to hear, love, obey, learn, and be fed by Christ. You will never read this in the secular media, but, on this Mother’s Day, I would like to remind us all that the Church is also our Mother.

Dear friends, how shall we now, where shall we now, find the truth that will guide our lives in every way? It's a vitally important decision. Let us not make it by default, but by our clear and direct choosing remembering the words of Jesus in today’s gospel:

“I have made your name known to those you gave me out of the world. These men you gave me were yours; they have kept your word. Now they realize that all that you gave me comes from you. I entrusted to them the message you entrusted to me, and they received it”.

… and so have we!