Discipline, Dogma, Doctrine and the Pharisee's Question

This site contains a sustained discussion of discipline, dogma, and doctrine concerning the ordination of women to priesthood in the Roman Catholic church.

Perhaps a little scriptural reflection will be of assistance.

From the Gospel of this past 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time (13th Sunday after Pentecost), this is the Pharisee's question to Jesus and Jesus' partial answer:

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"Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?"

He (Jesus) said to them, "Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
'This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.'
You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition."

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Jesus in this Markan gospel refers to first Isaiah's prophetic judgment against a people whose ostensible piety is merely adherence to rules fashioned by human beings that purports to be more.

It's all about the phoniness of a commitment that seeks security in human authority while forgoing the SEEKING of God's will in an authentic community -a community that reflects the continuing revelation of God's love and mercy.

The extended passage from Isaiah that Jesus uses to confront the hypocrites that we ALL heard in Sunday's lessons is:

9 Stupefy yourselves and be in a stupor,
blind yourselves and be blind!
Be drunk, but not from wine;
stagger, but not from strong drink!
10 For the LORD has poured out upon you
a spirit of deep sleep;
he has closed your eyes, you prophets,
and covered your heads, you seers.
11 The vision of all this has become for you like the words of a sealed
document. If it is given to those who can read, with the
command, ‘Read this’, they say, ‘We cannot, for it is sealed.’
12 And if it is given to those who cannot read, saying, ‘Read this’, they
say, ‘We cannot read.’

13 THE LORD SAID:
BECAUSE THESE PEOPLE DRAW NEAR WITH THEIR MOUTHS
AND HONOUR ME WITH THEIR LIPS,
WHILE THEIR HEARTS ARE FAR FROM ME,
AND THEIR WORSHIP OF ME IS A HUMAN COMMANDMENT LEARNED BY ROTE;
14 SO I WILL AGAIN DO
AMAZING THINGS WITH THIS PEOPLE,
SHOCKING AND AMAZING.
THE WISDOM OF THEIR WISE SHALL PERISH,
AND THE DISCERNMENT OF THE DISCERNING SHALL BE HIDDEN.

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God's peace.

EMcC+