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	Tony Jones: Woman Busted for Preaching at Local Catholic Church The MinnPost February 28, 2011 http://www.minnpost.com/mnblogcabin/2011/02/28/26147/tony_jones_woman_busted_for_preaching_at_local_catholic_church Apparently not just anyone, at least in the Catholic Church. But it’s actually a little more arcane than that. A Catholic parish not far from my house did the unthinkable a few weeks ago and allowed a woman to preach. It seems that the problem is not that she’s a woman, but that she’s not ordained. Of course, being a woman in the Catholic Church means that, by definition, she cannot be ordained and therefore, de facto, she cannot preach. Someone from the parish reported this horrendous sin to the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis (yes, the Catholics are the only people around here who list St. Paul before Minneapolis). The StarTribune reports: Before long, the vicar general of the archdiocese was paying a call to St. Edward’s pastor, the Rev. Mike Tegeder, and reminding him that the rules of Vatican II have changed. Lay people, even someone with a master’s degree in theology from St. Paul Seminary like this woman, can’t give homilies anymore. That job can be done only by priests. Well, that’s not exactly true. They can give homilies, but only after the Eucharist. Before the Eucharist, only homilies by priests. After Eucharist, any old layperson can preach. If you’ve been to Catholic mass at your local parish lately, you know that a significant number of parishioners leave the church immediately after the Eucharist, neglecting to stay for the announcements and closing hymn. And I can’t say I’ve ever experienced or heard of a homily coming after the Eucharist at a Catholic mass. In order to describe the finer points of this amendment to the liberalizations of Vatican II, the spokesperson of the Archdiocese departed from his normal role of deflecting questions about pedophilia and speaking out against marriage equality and ventured into homiletical theory: “The purpose of the homily at the mass is to interpret the gospel,” said archdiocese spokesman Dennis McGrath. “Normally a priest is far more qualified to deliver that message. A priest is ordained to preach. Also, there’s an opportunity there for wrong teaching or misinterpretation [with lay preachers].” Do I really need to expound on the fallacious logic of his quote?
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