Edit: post made while you were typing the above. Will leave as is.

Congrats, sir, you have found the singular (I think?) example of a position of authority within America where one has to be a natural born citizen. That is totally a useful and relevant analogy to the Catholic Church restricting half of its followers from being ordained. Amazing that I would have to explain is, but my objection isn't to the concept of having conditions on positions of authority full stop, but specifically the conditions of restricting women from positions of authority. Thankfully, outside of religion, we as a society have moved away from one where we restrict women from positions of authority.

I have no idea what "inaccurate statement" you are referring to. I was asking a question not making a statement. And it was clearly a thought experiment not meant an accurate portrayal of reality. The point was that if you can't see any tension with not allowing female voices into positions of authority, can you see any tension in the more extreme scenario where they aren't allowed to speak in church at all?

"Farther" in what sense? You mean viewing the Catholic Church as nothing more than a structural hierarchy? Sure.

But Catholicism is much broader than mere hierarchy. Just as citizenship is more than just running for president.

Edit: Or successful women being defined as not including those who choose to be stay-at-home moms.

Meh - You used "this" church as if you were speaking into reality and not into some sort of generic hypothetical.

The answer is that there may or may not be tension depending on the other structures that are in place and the social context in which the church resides. And the existence of tension (as noted in the other post) does not immediately imply some sort of organizational error or problem, as tension exists in many ways in many organizational structures.

aaron I think you are reaching pretty far to try to deny the point that was originally made.

It seems like the argument should be about whether or not there is some reasonable reason for excluding women from positions of authority in the Church. If there isn't, then the Church denying them access to those positions is something worth criticizing, however the criticism is phrased. If there is a good reason, then the argument should be about that reason, which is what is implied anyway in the assertion that women can "have a voice" without having position.

How does the broadness of the Catholic church explain it's misogynist policies?

It is kind of amazing all the wiggling and hoop jumping you will go through to avoid giving even the slightest form of condemnation of a policy that restricts women from positions of leadership.

Interesting that you would choose a system that is (much closer to, at least) a meritocracy as your counterexample. In academia, there is zero explicit restriction based on gender, race, and so forth to climb the ranks. It is meritocratic. In the catholic church, no woman will ever (until the policy changes) be allowed to be ordained, regardless of their merits. If you want some generic "tension is everywhere!" type escape clause, well sure. But the solution to such omnipresent tension undertaken by academia - a meritocracy - is vastly superior to the fiat restriction of women from positions of authority. Especially considering how the academic tension is based on an entirely legitimate basic conflict (most people, such as those disadvantaged ones, lack the skills to be successful in academia) while their is no legitimatize to the basic conflict that women are in some way worse or less able to be ordained.

So you are contrasting a good solution to a legitimate problem with a bad solution to a nonexistent problem. Great example, Aaron, well done.



So I presume that is a "no, I can't list a single example of my alleged many, many examples"? But sure, as I said, if you want me to make explicit the "in the west" qualifier then go ahead. The policy is anachronistic in the west. Nit.



The problem here is that when I directly asked you your opinion on this policy of the catholic church you tried to evade it by saying " These are organizational decisions that are left to individual organizations to determine". But the exact same retort can be said to just about any organization decision (such as canada's decisions about its immigration policies) to similarly get you out of answering any question about any policy any organization has. It is just a completely empty retort.

Now sure, if you are either ignorant or don't care about the topic, then fine. But you are debating this topic. So it seems you do care. So what is preventing you from stating your view on the policy of restricting women from positions of authority in the catholic church? You have already told us you don't agree with every policy of theirs, well is this one such policy? If you want to say you are too ignorant or don't care enough to comment, then fine, I suppose. But don't just say "its an organization they can make decisions". That is the biggest nonanswer ever.

Did you miss where I a) quoted tame_deuces obvious hypothetical and b) lead off with "in particular" thus obviously making a further specification on the hypothetical I had just quoted. Sorry, what was referred to by "this" was completely obvious and entirely a reading comprehension fail on your part.

I love how wishy washy you are. In a hypothetical church where women are literally not allowed to speak in gatherings you STILL have to push back at the thought experiment with "may or may not be tension..as tension exists in many ways in many organization structures". That is the biggest...err...criticism...you can mount to a hypothetical church not allowing women to speak in gatherings?

My position (which should be fairly well-known by this point) is pretty libertarian in terms of structural organization.

What do you mean by "worth" criticizing? I think anyone is free to criticize whatever they want.

The initial objection I had was to take a statement about reaching out to downtrodden and marginalized, to understand empathy in the context of economic pressures and try to say that it's hypocritical to say this in the context of an institution that has structural limitations on the ability of women to reach some sort of structural position.

The analogy I used was completely precise in the sense that it makes no sense to tell Obama that he hates immigrants when he's reaching out to them because immigrants have structural limitations on their ability to reach some sort of structural position.

The repetition of the label game makes zero progress in the conversation: Obama hates immigrants because immigrants can't become president. Or maybe the entire US hates immigrants because immigrants can't become president according to the rules established by the entire nation.

Being a US citizen is far more than being president. Why should anyone measure their citizenship by whether or not they are president? It's perhaps one of the stupidest ways to conceive of citizenship.

Similarly, the Catholic church is far more than becoming pope or even being ordained. Why would anyone measure their participation in the Catholic church by whether or not they are pope? It's perhaps one of the stupidest ways to conceive of participation in the Catholic church.

The problem is that the analogy to immigration and restrictions on becoming president doesn't seem particularly useful. There are similarities, but the differences are also obvious. Immigrants can't become the chief executive. Women can't become a parish priest. The one restriction is significantly more restrictive than the other. The fact that there is more to being Catholic than being a part of the magisterium doesn't really change anything. There's more to being a citizen than being able to vote, but voting rights are very important. The ability of women to hold positions of authority in the church is closer to voting rights than the right to run for President. Perhaps an even better analogy would be if it were illegal for women to run for the state legislature.

Maybe it's not entirely fair to criticize the Pope personally for that fact, as if it was the result of some particular hypocrisy on his part, or as if he could very easily change it without repercussions, but the criticism is really directed at the church and I think that's fairly clear.

Considering how you have been deliberately evading direct queries of what your position is, I don't know why you think it would be well know. I have only guesses. So let's make it clear for everyone: do you approve or disapprove of the Catholic Church's policy of restricting women from being ordained?

I certainly agree with the first paragraph about how terrible Aaron's analogy is. But I disagree with the second. Because the Pope explicitly defends and supports the policy, it is absolutely fair to criticize him for it. This is quite different from the situation with Obama where he is is critical of US policy re illegal immigrants and is trying to change it. Thus we ought not to be critical of Obama purely because of the policy (but can of course criticize the set of policies he is trying to put forth, or his tactics in accomplishing this, or any number of other things). If it turned out that Francis was behind the scenes working to try and change this Church policy, then I might criticize his tactics but not his view of the policy itself. But we can only go on public statements and actions thus far, which are supportive of the policy and so I can criticize that support.

I think it's fair to criticize him, to be clear. All I meant by "not entirely" fair is that he doesn't deserve all the criticism individually, and I'm not sure the criticism should be that he's hypocritical.

I wouldn't condemn an organization that restricted its leadership to just women, so why would I condemn one that restricts its leadership to just men? I mostly find such policies to be organizationally defined.

Pretending like academia really is a meritocracy ignores some of the obvious realities that point to the fact that it's structurally an unjust system (unjust relative to what a truly meritocratic system is).

But more importantly, you just completely missed the point. The point had to do with organizational tension, not ascension.

I disagree that all structures are best expressed as a meritocracy. Even with my egalitarian perspective, I reject merit as being the fundamental metric of personhood and spiritual leadership.

Again, if you want to view the world in a Western-centric way and judge global organizations from that perspective, be my guest. But I will criticize your perspective as being narrow and limited.

I don't really have much of an opinion on it, much like I don't really have much of an opinion about Canadian politics. I can say that I don't have a problem with it, and that's true. And I can also say that I don't endorse it, and that's also true. The problem is more structural, in that you want me to take a side on a wedge issue, and the truth is that I don't really care much beyond the belief that organizations should be free to establish their own parameters. If they want to be that way, that's fine with me. If they want to be different than that, that's fine, too. (You're a political guy - I know you understand what you're doing here.)

No, I was originally criticizing what I thought was an unfair linkage being a statement of compassion and misogyny. I don't think the original comparison was fair or appropriate. And that is precisely what I was criticizing. So insofar as that aspect is concerned, I care about an accurate portrayal of what was said, and I care about the ability of organizations to define their own structures.

You can call it a nonanswer if you want. Male papacy is not something that's a policy I disagree with. It's not something I support. I think it's something that's neither here nor there. I can know quite a bit about it without having an opinion. That's not a matter of ignorance, but more of a matter of not really caring that much.

LOL wedge argument. Like I'm dumb enough to bite when I've already elaborated my position. If you want to play sound-bite argumentation, go play with someone else.

I agree with the above quoted segments from Aaron. I think there is a danger in projecting our worldview onto every organization.

It is also worth noting that the Catholic Church is not claiming to be equal opportunity in regards to leadership. If people see it as a boys only club and don't want to engage that is their freedom.

Being upfront about policies is significantly better than claiming they are equal opportunity when they in fact are not. I think politics and business which are theoretically supposed to be equal opportunity have greater disparity between ideals and the real world.

In other Popely news, I disagree with this decision.

http://www.americamagazine.org/conte...-flight-manila

See #7.

Im all for the view if they want to keep women out of leadership they should be able to. But freedom to engage or not is not always there for children and young adults.

I think religious organizations in particular invite more scrutiny, and should welcome it. The Roman Catholic church doesn't exist with the goal of being one organization among many, serving some partial need of some small community, among other organizations. It aims to be the Church of Christ, who is God of all and over all. The word "catholic" itself means "according to the whole". Religious life in a Christian sense claims to be concerned with what is most ultimately real, and which is so precious that a person should give up everything else to find it. If you are a devout catholic woman, the inability to hold positions of authority in the church is presumably a more fundamentally important kind of thing than whether or not you can join a particular country club, for example. Because of that, whether or not it is the best possible constitution of the church that women can't hold positions of authority is more important than it would be in some other organization, from a Catholic perspective.

Neil Degrasse Tyson is coming to give some sort of talk at the local University. For $100 I can get a VIP seat and meet him afterwards, which seems fairly cheap to get to personally troll the host of Cosmos. Decisions, decisions

Yeah true. I just don't think it is very harmful or relevant. If I grow up in an organization that only allows male leadership I will likely be oblivious for the most part until I am of age to go do my own thing.

I agree with this from a Catholic perspective. I think it is appropriate to have an internal discussion about gender roles and leadership. Having an internal conversation is different than the general public pointing the finger and sounding the misogyny alarm. Affording different roles to the genders does not need to imply disrespect or devaluing of either gender.

Are you saying you do not feel that the gender roles in catholicism are misogynistic?

Nah you notice.

I think you are right to some degree. And there is an argument that you know sexism will be passed on to the next generation because of this example etc.

I think it is a choice between 2 evils. The other option is to make every organization have the exact same values and structure to suit whatever the current PC flavor of the week is.

Every board will need to have equal parts: black, asian, homosexual, lesbian, red hair, blond hair, and hispanic...