Secret History
Experts in theology and the early history of the Catholic Church heard Dr Ally Kateusz, research associate at the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research, outline the findings at a conference hosted by the International Society of Biblical Literature at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome yesterday.
Dr Kateusz, the author of 'Mary and Early Christian Women: Hidden Leadership', bases her research findings on the depiction of women as clergy in ancient artefacts and a mosaic in a Roman church in which Mary, the mother of Jesus, is depicted as a bishop.
She revealed that this mosaic contained a red cross on a vestment that only bishops wore.
But it was covered over with white paint on the orders of the Vatican "to disguise the fact that Mary was portrayed as a bishop".
The findings are set to challenge the long-held dogma in Catholicism that women cannot be priests, strictly enforced since Pope John Paul II, who also ruled that the issue of female priests could not even be discussed on pain of excommunication.
Some of the six Irish priests who have been censured by the Vatican in recent years were targeted over their support for women in the priesthood.
According to Dr Kateusz, the three oldest artefacts anywhere in the world depicting Christians at the altar in churches all portray a woman at the altar.
"They depict women at the altar in three of Christendom's most important churches - St Peter's in Rome, the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem," she said.
Miriam Duignan, spokesperson for the Wijngaards Institute, said: "This is evidence that women served as clergy in some of the most important churches in Christendom."
Some of the research relates to an ivory reliquary box dated around 430AD which shows a female priest at the altar in Old St Peter's Basilica in Rome.
Speaking about the Lateran Baptistery in Rome and the hidden mosaic there, Dr Kateusz said: "Pope Theodore commissioned this mosaic including the bishop's pallium [on Mary]. Her arms are raised as if performing the Eucharist. It is a symbolic way of saying Mary was a church leader."
Comment: Ancient coins suggest there may have been a female pope: Legends of a medieval female pope may be true
See also:
- Caesar's Rome and today
- Judaism and Christianity - Two Thousand Years of Lies - 60 Years of State Terrorism
- Saint Paul Was Real
- History textbooks contain 700 years of false, fictional and fabricated narratives
- Witches, Comets and Planetary Cataclysms
- The Existence of Female Shamans: Solving the Mystery of a 35,000-Year-Old Statue
- Behind the Headlines: Jesus never existed? Interview with Laura Knight-Jadczyk
- Behind the Headlines: Who was Jesus? Examining the evidence that Christ may in fact have been Caesar!
- Behind the Headlines: The Myth of Jesus Christ - Interview with Robert M. Price
- The Truth Perspective: The Stoic Roots of Christianity: Self-Transcendence Through Meaning and Responsibility
Reader Comments
I did read it twice, and then some. And I'm not doing anything you tell me to, as if you know better than me. I will pray when I see fit. And I will interpret what I want when I want without your belief system damning me to eternal hell.
These made up figures you use to hold your belief system above the rest of us are characters in a story. There is zero basis in fact that any of that actually existed. It is, and always has been, a belief system, and a tale to beat all tales..
Any person who has read the early church fathers (HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS) will not be surprised that women had a leadership role in the church. So what?
But then to leap frog to the say it was FACT that there were female priests is just ….bad scholarship.
I requested that the so called scholar and author do so.
Reading carefully is a skill that can be practiced.
There is zero basis in fact that any of that actually existed. It is, and always has been, a belief system, and a tale to beat all tales..If all your hear-say is correct, prove it. I can show you more proof they existed. The twisted belief system you are referring to is just that. The information presented to you is incorrect and you accept ignorance as proof for a debate you can't prove.
We may need better scholarship here, or better reporting of scholarship.. or, even a basic understanding of Catholic theology.
OF COURSE, Mary was venerated in the early Church..... she is the MOTHER of the Church!
Christ gave her to us on the Cross. Read about it. It is in the Gospels.
Do us a favor. Read the entire Gospel at least twice before starting to write. Then study the early Church Fathers. Then pray. Then think...just think.. about starting to write about it. .