Francis by Patrick J. Marrin for July 17, 2014

If you are a Catholic I don’t think you are a very good one. Women will NEVER be priests in the Catholic Church.

Unless I’m wrong it’s because there were no women amongst the 12 disciples?

Then, again, there were no non-Jews amongst the disciples, either…

Y’all are gonna laugh when St Peter takes ya up to the big house in his pick up truck and GOD is a woman.

yes they should, but it will be a long time. if it ever happens before women are ordained as priests.

Woman priests? Why not? Most women are care givers by nature. Probably won’t prey on the choir boys either. And is Priestess too pagan? haha

Women priests make sense for so many reasons. In the patriarchal world it may have been acceptable to relegate women to other roles within the Church, but in the modern world, it’s an outdated concept to bar them from serving as priests. AND it may actually help improve diminishing church attendance as well as directly helping with the diminishing number of men entering the priesthood.

I hope the Holy Father takes a decisive stance and changes the church’s rules on this. He may do so as it is not so much a matter of religious doctrine as church tradition that has prevented women from becoming priests thus far. The Church has to do something radical or may find itself without a flock some day.

When I was in 4th grade (circa 1966) I asked my teacher, a nun, why only the boys got to miss class for altar boy training. She smiled and said someday things would be different. She was right. My granddaughter will be in 4th grade this year and will get to be an altar server if she wishes. Even the church understands supply and demand. It makes no sense to pray for religious vocations and then ignore half the church’s population. “Rules” made by men for men. I have faith that this too shall pass.

@kd1sq:There were 12 APOSTLES. Jesus had thousands of DISCIPLES. There’s a major difference: Apostles are “Those who are sent”; disciples are “followers or adherents”. The Apostles were simply the “inner circle” of His disciples until He sent them out to “make disciples of all nations”. This is not to say that there should or should not be female priests (we ELCA Lutherans have had female pastors for a few decades…some good, some bad, same as with male pastors), simply to clear up the terminology errors.

Very good comments today, one of the hot button topics among Catholics. I took a poll among my friends and 100% of them are in favor for women in the clergy. And we are all in our 70s, the “old generation” Catholic!

Women can’t be priests…you think the the church hierarchy has been denying the will of the Holy Spirit for all these centuries?

Well, the Mormon church has been changing doctrine for over a century to get what it wants. The Pope could just say the holy spirit changed its mind.

Not to correct BVM, but the correct term is CELEBRATE Mass.

Let’s see if we can’t get priests married first!

I now have to question the artist and his intentions.

For anyone who still visits these comments, women cannot ever become priests, it is spiritually impossible, it is not a matter of deciding when, not a matter of cultural or historical circumstances of the Bible, not a PC or a voting thing,

God created men with male souls and women with female souls. The roles of men and women are particular to their spirits as to the bodies. Men cannot be mothers, women cannot be fathers, we are two different types of souls. Priesthood is spiritual Fatherhoood, that is why we call priests “Father”, and the “Holy Father.” There are spiritual mothers, but they take on different roles. The Church can never change this, they do not have the authority to do so.

God is not taking sides, and man did not create God in man’s image. God is neither male nor female. Genesis says “Lets make man (human kind, not males) in OUR image,” Male and Female He created them."

We use the pronoun “He” because 1) we have not created a gender noun that fits God, 2) its more polite than saying “It” and 3) the primary role that God takes in leading us is in the male fashion, but that is not to say God has more male attributes than female. Gender comes FROM God, but God transcends gender. To say God is male or female is to say that, then, one gender did not come from God, because all that we are comes from Him. If he is male and not female, then female nature must come from somewhere else, but we who follow the Bible know all that is comes from God, so female must be a part of God. And Genesis states that when God make human kind, He made both male and female, and both were make from God’s image.

Patrick Marrin, are you a devout Catholic? What is the meaning of this comic strip? Understand, the Church, the pope does not have the authority to ordain women priest. IF you sway in this way, you are in heresy.

Women are priests and prophets by baptism, called to sanctify the world and preach the Gospel to it. Mary, for all her other honors, was not a priest, or apostle. Martha and Mary, although hosts of the Lord and his good friends, were not priests or apostles.

The priesthood of the Church, called primarily to serve the faithful, is a service, not an elevation.

This is the primary reason I left the Roman Catholic Church to join the Episcopal Catholic Church. The RC fathers have again closed themselves off from the Holy Spirit.

What a load of doggy doo!!!!!