According to a story in the Ottawa Citizen a group of nine women (including one Canadian) are going to be ordained as Roman Catholic priests on the 25th, Vinny did a post on this a while back and ya know…. I pretty well gotta agree with him. Women, under current Catholic structure and convention, cannot be ordained… they can go through the motions, they can follow the rituals, and they can call themselves Priest[esses?], but unless they follow the training, pass the tests, and are recognized by the governing body, it’s just a word. Now I’m sure that we could have a great debate here about whether or not women should be ordained, and in my opinion I see no reason why they should not, but that’s a separate question all on its’ own ain’t it?

I can see all the head scratching a go’en on now, everybody wondering where ‘ole stageleft is going with this one, yer probably think’en me and balbulican have been into the home made honey mead again - agreeing with the Catholic church [and a rightie] in the same post… but hear me out, there is in fact logic to this.

Regular readers are no doubt aware that I’m not exactly what you could call a stranger to the Pagan community, and I see the same damned thing there; time and time again, and quite frankly it p1$$3$ me off to no end. Somebody wants to be a Druid, so they read some lore, meet with other people who want to be Druids, dance naked around a bonfire a few times a year [I still don’t know where that part came from], and poof, there they are.. insta-druids, in the flesh. Bards - same thing. High Priestesses - pretty much the same thing. Shamans - yup. It don’t seem to matter, everybody can be what they want to be. Well, what if I decided I wanted to be a doctor, or a lawyer, captain of the Love Boat, or an electrician? Would calling myself something make it so? Please don’t tell me it’s not the same thing - because it is. The simple fact of the matter is that people just can’t go around calling themselves this, that, or the other thing just because they want to, or just because it feels right… saying something is does not make it so, and as much as that may get a few people’s knickers tied up in knots so tight they can’t breath [or walk properly] that is the way things are and if you give it even passing thought you’ll see that.

If these women want to be Priestesses[?] then I say go for it. I think they should start a new Christian sect, lay down the quidelines, the rules, the conventions, and the procedures…… go gather some followers, and be a Priestess, be the best damned Priestesses in what ever they call their sect that they can - but don’t do it in some other sects name and do not try and scoop somebody elses titles in some misguided effort to validate what’s happening because that only cheapens everything.