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Document Details :

Title: Will and Meaning
Subtitle: Reflections on a Recent Analogy Concerning Christ's Institution of Eucharist and Orders
Author(s): FERRARA, Dennis M.
Journal: Louvain Studies
Volume: 21    Issue: 4   Date: winter 1996   
Pages: 315-335
DOI: 10.2143/LS.21.4.542239

Abstract :
If truth, to cite Balthasar's noted image, is symphonic, it is so only as the result of a long struggle of thought, akin to Beethoven's wrestling with the contrapuntists as he hammered out the double fugue that climaxes the Credoof the Missa Solemnis. The present article, which has as its general theme the Church's teaching on the inadmissibility of women to the priesthood, does not aim at a 'symphonic' understanding of this large and complex subject, but merely at a clarification of one of its major components, namely, the argument proposed by Pope John Paul II in Ordinatio sacerdotalis that the Church's teaching on this matter derives from the express will of Christ (as distinct from his merely virtual or implicit will or from a binding apostolic tradition): 'Christ chose those whom he willed (cf. Mk 3:13-14; Jn 6:70), and did so in union with the Father, ‘through the Holy Spirit' (Acts 1:2), after having spent the night in prayer (cf. Lk 6:12).'


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