A Gen A-er argues AGAINST change

As a whole, older generations know Generation-A as the "Younger" generation. In the eyes of many Millennials, if something isn't suitable for us, we curse God repeatedly with lamentations and cries. Millennials have been raised this way. Our parents told us, "Do whatever makes me happy," or, "You can do anything you want. I don't care; I'm dying of the bloody flux." These are both stellar ideals, even in a less than ideal world.

There are things some people can't do. This is just a natural fact. I can't menstruate, and women can't become Coptic priests.

I, like probably most young, comparatively liberal Copts, am asked by my non-Copt and Copt friends alike for my opinion on the last scenario. Why shouldn't there be women priests? I don't know the entire theological argument for this point, but I am a firm believer in the Church's position: I don't ever want to see female priests.

Society has changed for the better in the past forty years. Women are a major part of the workforce. Men are increasingly staying at home. But even with these changes in society, men and women remain different. Like I said: I don't menstruate, and you don't get to own cattle. Case closed.

See, I would like to stay at home, but I'm fifteen, and in my prime earning/wife-acquiring years. My wife is nine years old. She'd like to be a priest, but she'd also like it if the flies stopped landing on her eyeballs while she's lying there giving birth, you know? There's only so much we can do with ourselves both as a people and as a generation.

Women received an incredible gift in the beginning with the ability to carry children in the womb. It takes incredible mental and physical strength to see a pregnancy to completion. Though it may seem sexist, I think women are stronger than men and better suited for childbirth. I know I couldn't handle the pain inherent in childbirth, and like to give the gift of this strength-making pain to my wife as often as possible. I know- I know - it's a little too selfless of me, but I just love the natural order of things that much!

I believe that pregnancy is a gift because of a difficult personal loss my wife and I experienced two years ago. We lost our son, stillborn at full term. Then we lost the next one. Aaand the next one. Then we successfully gave birth, just in time for the big famine of '09. That was a bad one. Another one- sepsis. And so on, but you see what I'm saying, I think.

I envy the woman's role in pregnancy because my wife spent forty quality weeks with (Haile, I guess), nurturing his growth inside her. She carried and protected him until the last week. Other than feeling him kick occasionally, my only contact with Haile was after he passed. I cradled his lifeless body in my arms. I ran my fingers through his non-existent hair. I swabbed blood from his lips because his skin started to decompose in the womb. I sat in the front pew for his funeral Mass trying unsuccessfully to be a rock for my family. I knelt at his casket creekside and said good bye. Then I set him on fire.

I often wish that I had that nine months with Haile, but I'm happy that my wife did instead. She deserved that personal experience, for she is, as they all are, Evil. As Far Eastern traditions teach us, life is about balance; Yin and Yang, and the need to kill your relatives when they are aligned with the wrong side in a conflict. It is your Duty. As Catholicism teaches us, women can choose to sacrifice their bodies for the life of a child, while men can sacrifice having children for the privilege of becoming a Catholic priest. And Catholics see to it that everybody is sacrificed for the greater glory of God by killing as many people as possible. Balance.

Coptic society has existed in roughly its current form for two decades or so, emerging from the contemporaries of the Lion of Judah. Gen-A is an incredible group of people. But, who are we to think that we should be able to change apostolic tradition just because we don't agree with it? When did our opinions become more important than those of...Others? Let's leave well enough alone.