Volume > Issue > A Humble Proposal

A Humble Proposal

GUEST COLUMN

By Sheldon Vanauken | January/February 1996
Sheldon Vanauken is a writer in Virginia whose books include A Severe Mercy, an award-winning bestseller.

Open Letter to the Holy Father:

Preface: We are all too aware of the tiresome clamour of feminist women and their male fellow travellers for priestesses in the Church. Clearly what they want is power and prominence in the Church and in the Mass. And no less clearly they do not, or will not, understand why the priest — in persona Christi — MUST be male, nor understand that the Church, the bride and spouse of Christ, is female.

And yet this must be allowed to them: The relationship of Christ to his bride and spouse — that the Church is female — is not made clear in the Mass. If I understand correctly, the priest in persona Christi consecrates the elements that become the Body and Blood, and then he, representing the female Church, partakes.

Proposal: I humbly propose that a girl or woman, distinctively gowned (perhaps all in white), representing Holy Church (conceivably in persona Maria), be standing or kneeling by the altar during the consecration, and that she be the first to communicate.

Enjoyed reading this?

READ MORE! REGISTER TODAY

SUBSCRIBE

You May Also Enjoy

Private Revelations: Authentic, Paranormal & Preternatural

Pseudo-mystical phenomena have occurred in cases of seemingly pious individuals who are unwittingly tricked by demons, sometimes for years.

When God Takes a Vacation (A Play in One Act)

The year is 2005. God is sitting on His throne; He has just returned from a short, 50-year vacation in the far reaches of the galaxy.

Abortion as “Growth Experience”

Almost all abortion ideologues refuse to address the core question: Is the unborn child a fellow member of the human family, one to whom we owe love, life, and justice?