The women's ordination movement and related disputes within the Roman Catholic Church
LE3 .A278 2007
2007
Thomson, Tony
Acadia University
Master of Arts
Masters
Sociology
This thesis is about the Roman Catholic women's ordination movement in the context of other contemporary problems facing the Roman Catholic Church, specifically, the perceived priest shortage, mandatory celibacy for priests, reproductive rights, homosexuality, the sexual abuse crisis and the debate concerning priestly ordination for women. The attitudes of Roman Catholics toward these problems are explored through secondary analysis of Canadian statistical data and qualitative interviews. Chapter IV provides a typology of six North American Roman Catholic theological attitudes based on a review of major doctrinal disputes within the Church and personal interviews performed by the author in 2006. Participants were asked questions concerning the shortage of priests, ordination for women, priestly celibacy, homosexuality and reproductive rights. Their answers could be categorised according to their theological views and by their involvement within Roman Catholic lay movements. All respondents believed it is their responsibility to instruct the hierarchy on social issues. Chapter V discusses the internal debate within the Roman Catholic women's ordination movements. Some ordination activists seek to protect the hierarchical form of church governance, while others call for deconstruction of that hierarchy. Furthermore, the sensational "River Ordination Movement" has caused further strain due to the resulting excommunications and Vatican pressure on progressive lay movements. As debate intensifies, the focus of the women's ordination movement is evolving from a liberal feminist movement to a radical feminist movement as prescribed by theologians Elisabeth Schssler Fiorenza and Rosemary Radford Reuther at the 2005 Women's Ordination Worldwide international conference in Ottawa, Canada.
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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:2856
