NOSTRADAMUS 2003-2025 by PETER LORIE

Author:PETER LORIE
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: POCKET BOOKS
Published: 2002-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

There are numerous verses such as this that can be interpreted to indicate the fall of the Church of Rome. It seems more likely, however, that the Catholic Church will not collapse completely, but will be transformed in some way; that the “lifeblood and substance” of this massive and outdated institution will find it necessary to change its structure to accommodate a changing world.

We can see something of the likely impression that women will make if we examine some of the changes that are currently taking place in the Church institutions of the world. For it won’t simply be the Catholic Church that will face the demands of women, but all organized religious institutions, with a concomitant domino effect.

In November 1992, the General Synod of the Church of England voted to accept women into the priesthood. 17 This was probably one of the biggest victories enjoyed by women in centuries, and it had a major impact on the way women will be viewed in the future.

In American seminaries more than 34 percent of students are now women, and at Yale University School of Divinity half the students are women. At Harvard University’s equivalent more than 60 percent of the students are women. These are incredible statistics, considering just how few women were involved in any aspect of organized religion just three decades ago—in fact, almost none. 18

According to Patricia Aburdene and John Naisbitt in Megatrends for Women, there are now thousands of Catholic women worshipping in all-female groups today. 19 Nonorthodox Jewish women are embracing the traditional Orthodox mikveh bath as a spiritual and women’s rights ritual.

And perhaps most dramatic of all, the American Episcopal Church elected its first woman bishop during the early 1990s. 20

Aburdene reports that even the American Fundamentalist movement, probably the most intransigent religious movement outside the Catholic Church, is showing signs of change, as one of the most famous TV evangelists—Pat Robertson—started to work together with a woman—Sheila Walsh. 21

Within Judaism, the Reform group has already proven to be the most flexible, with women now working as rabbis and cantors, and it will perhaps not be too long before the credo of the Orthodox is altered to accommodate new female attitudes and needs.

Perhaps this is the single most relevant aspect of what the feminine spirit will do for religion—that the ancient questions will be asked again. Why should we see God as either male or female? Was it really Jesus’s intention that the Christian Church should develop into a male-dominated system? Where are women in the Bible? And why has Mary, the Mother of Christ, been represented as a symbol of passivity to fit in with the patriarchal view of women?

Questions such as these are being asked by women and form the basis of attitudes that will certainly transform the various Churches. The walls of Rome will perhaps not fall, but certainly the women’s movement will alter the “lifeblood and substance” of Catholicism during the coming years.

Women and Power

When Venus will be covered by the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.