Why can't there ever be a female Pope?
 

i'm sure you have quite some female cardinals, priests out there



feels kinda sexist, that the pope always has to be male

The Catholic Church doesn't allow female Priests or Cardinals Nicky so no chance of a female Pope :laugh:

We don't have female Priests Nicky, in fact there's still a rule of celibacy for male Priests forbidding marriage for them.
(Although I believe there can be dispensations if married Priests from other religions convert to Catholicism).

The Catholic church has as one of its bases that the first leader of the church was Peter the apostle.
He is believed to be, and has been given the status of being in effect the very first Pope.
Therefore all his successors need to be male.
Standing in the place of St. Peter.

Womens heads are too small for the hat

Meh, it's utter sexism imo women are second class citizens in most religions

:laugh:

Won't reply what I was going to.

Actually though Niamh..
The people in the Catholic church and even the ones I attend when I go.
It is possibly surprisingly that it is the vast majority of the females who are the more strongly against female Priests.

Even my own late Mother and Grandmothers on both my parents side, were absolutely not in favour of female Priests either.
Even my female cousins and Nieces, who are Catholic too, they also would not like to see it happen.
Very few indeed would.
So it's not just a generational thing.

However yes, the Catholic church is male dominated in its ministry, absolutely.
That cannot be denied.

Yes indoctrination is a strong drug. I have a lot of experiences with the religion myself as you can probably imagine being born and raised in Ireland. Most schools (high 90%'s) were Catholic run. I'm quite sure views on women within the Church is part of the reason the numbers of practicing Catholics has dropped so drastically since I was a child growing up in the 90's

Oh there's a new Pope elected

Because they are sexist

Yep

I would counter that it's not surprising at all, Abrahamic religions are repressive of women at their core and thus women who are heavily invested in religion tend to have a bit of cognitive dissonance going on when it comes to the intersection of inequalities and religion... even when they would immediately recognise it in any other (non-religion-related) aspect of life. Men can explore the question freely; because it's academic, it doesn't affect them in the same way directly, so it doesn't affect their commitment to the religion in the same way.

But then isn't that the case with so many aspects of religion. Caveats, contradictions and selective blinkers are an essential part of faith (in organised religion), I feel... questioning in one area tends to lead to a cascade of further questions that can be catastrophic for a religious person who isn't ready to take a deep dive.

I think women priest in the Catholic Church is going to happen, otherwise the religion will die out as there are just not enough men joining the priesthood

having being raised in the religion (as you probably were) and having to go to mass etc I always remember feeling a strong injustice that girls weren't allowed to be Alter "boys" ( :worry: ) I think they allow girls do that now though

Alter boys is all in the name. Didn't that give you any clues?

Gave me plenty of clues Alf yes, I figured out the puzzle in the end and parted ways with the Church :smug:

I personally don't see Women Priests, certainly not for a very long time.

However I can see a point where a Pope will open up to allowing married Priests, that would be of great assistance to increasing the Priesthood numbers.
The Catholic faithful too would be a bit more open to that albeit not yet.

I think one of the reasons an american pope was picked is because the catholic population of america represents conservatives, moderates and progressives. Most other countries don't tend to have that range of factions

I think you're right especially as celibacy is a discipline rather than any teaching of Christ. It's a very hard life as a Priest and often lonely although I imagine their faith helps as does a good Church community.

I wouldn't expect changes anytime soon though. When you have your rules for 2000 years it takes a lot to change them

It's funny as well how it's always the celibacy of the Priests that's talked about and never the nuns.

True, people often talk less about the celibacy of monks too

The latest Pilgrimage series on BBC has them going through the Alps and there's a guy who was on the Traitors there. He's supposed to be a practicing Catholic but then meets a monk and asks him if he has a female or male partner lol

Ive heard people say that the reason for Catholic Priests celibacy is to protect the churches property and wealth from passing to wives or children

Yeah that's quite possible although celibacy has always been very prized in Christianity since the beginning

So odd when you think about it