Theos-Talk Archives (May 2005 Message tt00645)

In response to Bart's question:

"It is often asked whether a woman could validly be ordained. The ordinary 
clerical answer is in the words: 'We have no such custom, neither the Churches 
of God,' fortified perhaps by the reminder that the Christ is said to have 
chosen His twelve apostles and His seventy preachers exclusively among men. 
This is an argument of some merit, but we add to it a further consideration - 
that this particular type of force is not adapted to work through the feminine 
organism. There are other types of energy which are so arranged, but they are 
of quite a different character and are little known to our present 
civilization much, I fancy, to its loss. The cult of our Blessed Lady in the 
Roman Catholic Church is an unconscious effort to fill a gap which many people 
instinctively recognize. 
One of the conditions under which we receive this mighty gift of grace is that 
it is arranged to flow through the masculine organism. The forces now arranged 
for the distribution through the priesthood would not work efficiently through 
a feminine body; but it is quite conceivable that the present arrangements may 
be altered by the Lord Himself. It would no doubt be easy for Him, if He so 
chose, either to revive some form of the old religions in which the feminine 
Aspect of the Deity was served by priestesses, or so to modify the physics of 
the Catholic scheme of forces that a feminine body could be satisfactorily 
employed in the work. Meantime, we have no choice but to administer His Church 
along the lines laid down for us."
[C.W. Leadbeater "The Sacraments. An abridged and revised Edition of his 
Book 'The Science of the Sacraments'" St Alban Press, Sydney, 1993:241-2 - 
edited and revised by Sten von Krustenstierna, former Presiding Bishop of the 
Liberal Catholic Church]

It is said that Geoffrey Hodson (a Liberal Catholic priest) 
undertook "clairvoyant experiments" in "observing" the purported ordination of 
a woman by a Liberal Catholic bishop (it didn't "work"), and in examining 
Hosts "consecrated" by a woman priest (they weren't as "powerful" as those 
consecrated by a male priest).

Dr Gregory Tillett