Priestess of Christ?

Last time, we talked about the truth behind the myth of Pope Joan. We ended with a question, though. Why does it matter that only men can be priests?

Well, in 1976, it was formally and officially put into words by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in their letter to the world, Inter insignores. In that letter, and in Pope John Paul II’s document Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, it was stated that the priesthood was reserved for men, and men alone, and there was nothing the Church could do about it. Now, these two letters were not authoritative in themselves. However, they were authoritative in that they were the teaching of the entirety of the Magisterium, meaning that reserving the priesthood for men alone is an official and formal teaching of the Catholic Church, and none can, in good conscience, reject this teaching and remain Catholic.

Why is this, though? Why do we stick with the “archaic” idea that only men have the “right” to be priests, even after Paul says in Galatians that “there is no male and female” (Galatians 3:28). Well, there are a number of reasons.

The first, and most obvious, reason we don’t allow for women to become priests is the very simple reason that Jesus didn’t choose any women to be among his twelve apostles. Instead, Jesus chose twelve men to lead his Church after he left.

The objection to that is usually that choosing women to be priests would have been incredibly unusual and would have thrown everyone off of his message and driven most of his people away. Except for one minor point. In that time, the Jews were the weird ones for not having priestesses. The Romans had the Vestal Virgins, the Greeks had Oracle at Delphi, among others, the Egyptians had Cleopatra and God’s Wife of Amun. The list goes on and on with the different priestesses in the region around Israel. Priestesses actually would have been normal.

Beyond just the normality of priestesses in the world at the time, though, Jesus wasn’t exactly known for following social customs. He spoke to a Samaritan woman, a known adulteress, while in Samaria, breaking at least three different social taboos simply acknowledging her existence. He dealt with the ritually unclean on a nearly daily basis. One of the twelve was a tax collector, the absolute lowest of the low in the world of Jewish social customs. A woman would probably actually have been closer to normal than some of the other things he did.

There’s also the fact that Jesus did actually greatly respect women in his ministry. The first people he appeared to after the Resurrection were women. Jewish tradition would have thrown out their testimony, but they were the ones who were to bring testimony to the Apostles, yet they were never to be counted among the number of the 12. Mary, the very mother of God, the absolute pinnacle of womanhood, without whom Jesus isn’t born, wasn’t even numbered among the twelve. The one with the strongest claim to any authority outside Christ held none.

Beyond just what Jesus did, though, the Apostles continued the trend of not choosing women. After Judas died, in the upper room, Mary had been present, but instead of choosing God’s mother, the obvious choice, they chose Matthias. Mary wasn’t even the other top choice, it was Barsabbas. Even when the Apostles move out to the rest of the world and start spreading the Gospel in a culture that welcomed and accepted priestesses, there was never a woman ordained, only those who aided in the mission of the Church as lay ministers.

Next time, we’ll take a more in-depth look at some of the history after the apostles of this teaching, as well as some theology about it. 

The Woman Who Wasn't

Last time, we discussed the myth of the Pope Joan, the mythical female who suddenly became pope in 855. This time, let’s take a look through some of the claims made in the story and try to understand the actual history behind the time.

First off, let’s take a look at the town of Mainz. There was indeed a monastery in the town in 800. St. Alban’s Abbey was built in 798 and consecrated as a church in 805, though there are gravestones from a monastic community in the area that go back to the 600s. It would eventually be destroyed in 1552, but that’s a bit outside our timeline. St. Alban’s also excelled as a school, and even inspired the court schools of Charlemagne.

Now, let’s take a look at that papal election in 855. First, let’s take a peek at some of the major players.

Pope Leo IV. He had been pope from 847-855, when he died at the age of 65(ish). His main claim to fame was repairing churches in Rome that had been damaged by Turkish invaders.

 Anastasius. He was a priest in the middle of the 800s, and would later in life become the chief librarian of the Roman Church. He became known for being an incredibly brilliant man, one of the smartest priests at the time, and had done work translating writings from Greek to Latin. In 847, he fled the church he had been placed at. In 850, he was excommunicated, and he was again excommunicated in 853.

 Benedict. Pretty much unanimously elected pope in 855.

Okay, let’s take a step by step through what happened.

Leo IV died. He’s out of the picture. Anastasius was upset with the Roman church for excommunicating him. Benedict was very popular with the Roman people. Benedict was proclaimed the Pope in 855. However, at the time, there were two emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, Lothaire and Louis II. Anastasius intercepted the legates on their way bringing the news to the emperors. He bribed them to tell the emperors that he, Anastasius, had been chosen, not Benedict. The legates bought it and told the emperors Anastasius was pope. He returned to Rome with a small army and arrested Benedict.

Now, this is where the story gets interesting. While Benedict was in prison, the people of Rome literally revolted to the point of throwing Anastasius out of town. After being restored to the position he was rightfully elected to, Benedict actually forgave Anastasius and lifted the excommunication. Anastasius repented and would eventually (in 867) be made librarian, a very important job.

The election of 855 was VERY highly contested. It’s not exactly one where we don’t quite know what happened, and we’re just guessing. There’s absolutely no way a woman could become elected pope, reign for two years, and then cover up the entire thing, while at the same time having this (rather well documented) controversy between the emperors, the Romans, and the pope.

Given that it’s so easy to prove the 855 date entirely false, where did this story come from?

Well, it first showed up in 1250 in a writing by a Dominican monk. It got continually copied over time, because the monks who were copying simply wrote down what they saw without thinking about it. (Fun fact, that’s where Protestants got the “for thine is the kingdom, and the glory, and the power forever” bit at the end of the Our Father, a copying mistake on a version of the English Bible that eventually became the King James Version). It was actually discounted by the 1640s by, unusually, a Protestant looking to find the truth behind the story, trying to figure out how best to discredit the Papacy.

But this brings out a new question, which we’ll discuss next time. Why would do we even need a male pope in the first place?

Popess?

The next step in the series is going to take some considerable research, so while I'm doing that, I'll be doing posts on various other random topics. Once I'm done with my research, I'll go back to the series.

Anyways, today, we're going to take a look at a very popular Catholic urban legend. Well, when I say Catholic... It's a popular legend about Catholics. It's been around since the 1300s and for some reason it just won't go away... In fact, ABC ran a special about it in 2005, around the time Pope Benedict XVI was elected. For the sake of clarity, I'll use the timeline that ABC presented.

So what is this legend? Well, it's the story of a woman who became pope. 

NOTE: The following is the legend and is not actually substantiated by facts of any kind.

Around 800 AD, in the German town of Mainz, a girl was born. The English had been building monasteries in the region to educate the boys of the town, but there was absolutely no chance of a girl getting any sort of education. Near Mainz, the monastery of Fulda was built, to educate the boys of the town.

It was to Fulda where Joan first went, wearing the robes of the monks and able to disguise her feminine figure. There, she proved to be a naturally gifted student, excelling in her studies of Greek and Latin, among all the other subjects.

From there, she lived in the monastery for several years, making lovers of some of the more important monks and eventually being moved to Athens. From Athens, she began to acquire a reputation as a learned scholar and an intelligent monk. She became a secretary in a curia (a system of governance), then an archbishop, and eventually, she was made a Cardinal.

In 855, after the death of Pope Leo IV, she was almost unanimously elected to be pope, under the name "John Anglicus," or "John the Englishman." Upon her election, she reigned for about two and a half years, until, one fateful day, during a Papal procession.

During the procession, Joan went into labor. She gave birth on a street that became known as the "Via Vicus Papissa," the street of the woman pope. Here, accounts differ. They all agree on one point, though, that it was that day, after giving birth, that Joan died. 

After the great scandal of having a female pope, the Church officials did everything in their power to cover up the event. The records of Pope Joan were officially destroyed. She'd had a bust made and put in the Sienna Cathedral that was eventually erased and the bust of Zacharias II replaced. Pope John XXI actually changed his numbering from XX to XXI in recognition of the female pope in 1276, after thoroughly checking the records of the popes.

This is where the legend ends

What a wonderful story. Thursday, we'll take a look at some of the details and examine just how much (if any) of this story is actually true.

Sidebar: Logical Reasoning

After a few different posts, and some interesting comments, I think it’s time for a sidebar before we proceed forward with our investigation. There have been many different accusations of logical fallacies in discussions over the last few posts, and I think it’s time to discuss this for a little bit.

First, what is a fallacy? A logical fallacy is a flaw or gap in reasoning, something that involves a missing step in logic. They’re typically used by politicians or others who are more focused on impressing or convincing than on honest philosophical investigation or solid truth.Here, we’re going to list a few of the most common fallacies used and a description of what they are.

First, the most common one is the “ad hominem” fallacy. This is when, instead of answering a claim, the response becomes a statement about the person themselves. For example, claiming that because someone has been arrested, they’re unable to tell the truth at all.

Second, the “genetic” fallacy, saying that a position isn’t true because of its history. For example, because a German politician had been a member of the Hitler Youth in the 1930s, anything they do must be some sort of Nazi propaganda.

Third, the “strawman” fallacy, intentionally misrepresenting a person’s belief to make it easier to argue against. For example, claiming that someone who opposes abortion wants to turn women into baby-making machines.

Fourth, “special pleading.” This is one that I’d like to address in depth for a moment, because it’s one that’s levelled quite frequently and has been levelled against me a few times. Special pleading means trying to cite something as an exception to the rule without explaining the exception. It usually implies some version of a double standard. For example, saying that all thieves should go to jail, except this one, because he only stole $80.

Now, why has this one been used so many times in the discussion about the existence of God? Well, for a very simple reason. When most Christians try to prove that God exists, they will prove the necessity of some form of deity, and then assume that because a god must exist, the Christian God must exist.

How is this different from what I’ve been doing? Well, in the beginning, when I said to start from scratch, I meant to start from absolute scratch. This means no preconceived notions of God or assumptions about what he would be like. Any preconceived notions or arguments that the Christian God hasn’t been proven yet would be true. I haven’t proven the Christian God yet.

There is one final fallacy I would like to discuss. This last one is the “fallacy” fallacy. The fallacy fallacy is when someone assumes that because something was decided upon by bad reasoning, it automatically isn’t true. Just because the steps to get somewhere aren’t the most solid doesn’t make it less true.

Next time, we’ll actually continue with our journey forward.