Fr. Tony Flannery is right about priesthood/ David Quinn needs history lesson - No unbroken line of Apostolic Succession/ Response by Bridget Mary Meehan,arcwp

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/david-quinn-fr-flannery-has-cast-doubt-upon-the-core-nature-of-christs-church-3364248.html

David Quinn needs a refresher in church history. Fr. Tony Flannery is right about the priesthood.

Gary Wills, in his book, What Jesus Meant writes “Nowhere is it indicated there was an official presider at the Christian meal (agape), much less that consecrating the bread and wine was a task delegated to persons of a certain rank. It is a mark of the gospels’ fidelity to the followers’ original status that not one of them mentions a Christian priest or priesthood. When the term “priesthood” finally occurs, in the pseudo-Petrine letters, it refers to the whole Christian community (1 Peter 2.5, 2.9) and the “Peter” of this letter refers to himself not as a priest but as a “fellow elder” to the other elders… “(Gary Wills, What Jesus Meant, pp.69-70)

1. There were no priests in the first centuries of Christianity. Jesus does not call any of his followers priests. Peter, Paul, and the other apostles were not priests or bishops. Paul refers to functions and ministries, that came from gifts of the Spirit, not offices regulated by hierarchy, 1 Cor. 2.11-16) (Gary Wills, What Jesus Meant, pp.68-69)

Women were apostles. Junia (Romans 16:7), and Mary of Magdala, to whom the Risen Christ appeared and sent on mission to proclaim the core belief of Christianity, the Resurrection was the apostle to the apostles.

2. There is no unbroken line of Apostolic Succession.
David Quinn apparently has no idea that Peter was not a priest, a bishop, or a pope, or that apostolic succession comes down to us from the 1400's after the Great Western Schism. Therefore, apostolic succession does not go back to Peter and there is no unbroken line of succession. Three popes claimed to be pope at one time and Council of Constance appointed a different/new pope in 1417.

By the way, the history of the papacy is triple x rated – popes waged wars, granted indulgences for killing infidels (Crusades), Benedict X: papacy bought and sold for money; Gregory1, “When a woman has given birth she should abstain from entering a church for thirty-three days if she had a boy, sixty-six if she had a girl.”

And at least one pope wrote about women priests. He was annoyed that the bishops allowed women to preside at the altar.
Pope Gelasius wrote “Nevertheless we have heard to our annoyance that divine affairs have come to such a low state that women are encouraged to officiate at the sacred altars and to take part in all matters imputed to the offices of the male sex to which they do not belong.” (Gelasus "Letter to the Bishops of Lucania", 494) Sources: Rome has Spoken by Maureen Fiedler and Linda Rabben, and Gary Wills, What Jesus Meant

 Like Gary Wills, Tony Flannery gets it about the negative influences of clericalism: Wills sums it up:  “Christian priesthood, along with revived holiness codes- consecrated altars and consecrated men and “consecrating fingers,” with the extrusion of the laity (especially women) from altars from secret conclaves, from decision making from control of the believers’ money. The “rood screen” separating clergy from laity was a great barrier in the Middle Ages and it survived for a long time in the “communion railing”. Women returned to the unclean status give them by menstruation under Jewish (and other) law, were not allowed inside the sanctuary of a church- even the altar cloths had to be carried out to the nuns who washed them. For these groups, Jesus cleansed the Temple in vain.” (Gary Wills, What Jesus Meant, p. 85-84.)
Yes, the good news is that some smart, prophetic priests are now  breaking their silence and speaking about the sin of sexism, the elephant in the church's living room. Just when is the Vatican going to repent?
Bridget Mary Meehan, arcwp
www.arcwp.org
sofiabmm@aol.com