The Church, and individual congregations, must be careful not to confuse historical practice, whether good or bad, with piety. The Lord calls us to look toward the future in following Him, not to keep looking back. We must remember that the respect and growing inclusion of women in speaking and leadership roles in the church was, and is, a response to the Lord’s guidance and gifting, and not to be taken as ‘expendable.’

As for restricting women, that doesn’t necessarily bother me, either. I admire the Catholic stance on women more than I do the Protestant one. No, women are not allowed to become priests. However, the priesthood is equally biased against men who might wish to have a normal relationship with a woman. Some men actually leave the priesthood because they want to get married (I read the memoirs of one such man a few years ago). How fair is it that they should have to give up their vocation, unlike Protestant ministers?

Also, Catholicism has a long history of honoring women, from Mary, the mother of Jesus, to numerous other female saints. Just the other day, I read in Christian History & Biography the story of Catherine of Sienna. As a medieval nun, she not only founded a charitable order but publicly criticized the Pope and urged him to reform. Where is the Protestant equivalent? I know that there are numerous Protestant women who have made wonderful contributions to the faith. However, I grew up in the church and I rarely heard about any of them. Instead, I only heard about male heroes such as Martin Luther, etc. It wasn’t until I became an adult that I learned about Protestant women who had made significant contributions to the Kingdom. It’s as if the Protestant church wants to bury the women who contributed to its history because it’s ashamed of them.

Am I understanding it well that they are trying to increase attendance by excluding from participation?

I firmly believe it will increase attendance. We all know that attendance has decreased in the last forty years - all we have to do is look around us on Sundays. Reverence for the Eucharist is lacking. It is difficult to train altar servers, especially in churches that are visited frequently by visiting priests. Consistency is lacking in the Mass. I find it tragic and pray that it will stop.

I agree with the post before me (see comment 57886). It scares me to see so much conservatism and traditionalism flooding back into the churches. As the Spirit departs from a place/church, all that is left is a form but no life. So, churches that do not have the Spirit will try to substitute the workings of the Spirit through programs and entertainment (liberal). Then, you have the opposite extreme (fundamentalists) that restrict, bind, and implement their rules by fear.

We all know that following church rules won’t get anybody to heaven. We have to be followers of Jesus instead. I look at the church of today as a whole and I am not happy with what I see. Jesus said that he was coming back for a bride without spot or blemish or wrinkle or any such thing. He is not coming back for a puny, skimpy, ugly bride that has spent more time complaining and whining and bickering than preparing for her wedding day. Implementing a new program, making new rules, or introducing Latin won’t fix the problems of the hearts of the people. The Bible tells us that the letter kills, but the Spirit makes alive.

We have not because we ask not. If we want to live, we must go the Giver of Life. At the end of Revelation 3, it is startling to find Jesus standing (outside) the church knocking and declaring, ‘If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they with me.’ (Revelation 3:20, TNIV)

The church needs to open the door and let him back in.

In my studies, I also found this quote interesting:

This conjugal faith, however, which is most aptly called by St. Augustine the ‘faith of chastity’ blooms more freely, more beautifully, and more nobly when it is rooted in that more excellent soil, the love of husband and wife which pervades all the duties of married life and holds pride of place in Christian marriage. For matrimonial faith demands that husband and wife be joined in an especially holy and pure love, not as adulterers love each other but as Christ loved the Church. This precept the Apostle laid down when he said: ‘Husbands, love your wives as Christ also loved the Church,’ that Church which of a truth He embraced with a boundless love not for the sake of His own advantage, but seeking only the good of His spouse. The love, then, of which we are speaking is not that based on the passing lust of the moment, nor does it consist in pleasing words only, but in the deep attachment of the heart which is expressed in action, since love is proved by deeds. This outward expression of love in the home demands not only mutual help but must go further; must have as its primary purpose that man and wife help each other day by day in forming and perfecting themselves in the interior life, so that through their partnership in life they may advance ever more and more in virtue, and above all that they may grow in true love toward God and their neighbor, on which indeed ‘dependeth the whole Law and the Prophets.’ For all men of every condition, in whatever honorable walk of life they may be, can and ought to imitate that most perfect example of holiness placed before man by God, namely Christ our Lord, and by God’s grace to arrive at the summit of perfection, as is proved by the example set us of many saints.

This comes from an encyclical by Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, published December 31, 1930 and includes another section which notes that if the husband is negligent in his duties, the wife becomes both heart and head.

This was surprising to me considering its origin in 1930, but even more pleasantly surprising to me is the overall attitude I have picked up that mutual submission is very much endorsed by the Catholic Church. I’m still learning.

I guess the moral of this posting, if there is one, is that every denomination has its group of ‘rabble-rousers’ (for lack of a better term), and I would place the above-mentioned article from U.S. News & World Report into that category. Since Vatican II, the Catholic Church has made some remarkable changes which I both respect and endorse, and I doubt very much that attendance will increase under a return to the stricter doctrines.

OK, I’ve been more than tired of churches that are completely controlled by men complaining about anything a woman might do outside of the kitchen and the nursery. The churches doing the most complaining have no women in leadership and no desire to put any there. Women have only the most limited of input in the churches, if any. In other words, I’d like to tell these men to quit blaming us for the church’s problems because they are in charge and the buck stops with them. (Oh, wait. It’s easier to blame someone else, preferably one who has no power to make real changes, than it is do the real work of fixing the problems in a church. I haven’t learned that from thirty years of church life? My bad (rolls eyes).