WOMEN PRIESTS — NO CHANCE

I. Summary[1]

There is a general assumption, especially in North America and Europe, that the Catholic Church’s insistence on a male priesthood is an obscure anomaly, which endures only because most of the popes refuse to move with the times. Pope John Paul II, using his full authority as the successor of Peter, states that the Church cannot — not will not, but cannot — ordain women, now or in the future. For him, only a baptized man receives sacred ordination. There is an important sense in which the current debate about the ordination of women, even if it is sometimes expressed in terms which Catholics find offensive, is going to be useful in the development of our understanding these things. Moreover, the Church will provide richer testimony to the unchanging truth of a male-only priesthood. The male-only priesthood of Jesus Christ and the bridal nature of the Church are spiritual realities of which our two human sexes, male and female, are profound and deeply important images, made in the flesh. Bogle said also that “ours is an incarnate faith, centered on the great fact that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

Finally, this debate about the priesthood will shed light on other issues, especially those surrounding questions of sex and gender, about which there is so much tortured re-evaluation in our times. Bogle explained that the Church holds the truth for which so many in these days are aching. One may find debating feminism and the priesthood tedious at times, but God calls the people to do it, and one will find that presenting His truth will produce multiple blessings.

II. Personal Position

I believe that Jesus revealed in what direction our mind should proceed by emphasizing the link between his own priestly mission and that of his disciples: "As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world" (Jn 17:18). The sending of the Son by the Father is the foundation and model of the sending of the disciples on the part of Christ. The similarity between the two missions is complemented by the fact that the disciples relate to Jesus as his representatives. I think Jesus willed that his disciples should act in his name and be his representatives. He conferred upon them a pastoral power in the image of his own and entrusted to them the task of celebrating the Eucharist in his name.

I am convinced that it follows that the assignment of the ministerial priesthood to males must be explained with reference to Christ himself and the mystery of the Incarnation. Following the example of Christ, I think, the priest is called upon to perform a role that calls for the exercise of authority and the embodiment of a relationship to Christ. He is called to lead the community as its shepherd and to do this in the name of Christ by representing the power that belongs to the Head of the Church. The divine choice that once singled out the male gender for the Incarnation also assigns to this gender the priestly ministry. If the priesthood is restricted to men, it is because of an essential orientation built into the mystery of the Incarnation.

I think the real issue is not whether women should have access to the priestly ministry but how the participation of women in ecclesial endeavors should be promoted. If Jesus restricted to males the pastoral ministry, it was for the sake of enabling women to carry out an ecclesial mission more suited to their personality and more productive. Therefore, I believe that the Church ought to favor this promotion of women activity which is an expression of the universal priesthood of the faithful.

I noticed in my scriptural readings and reflections that in the mystery of the Incarnation, women play an indispensable role, a maternal role, in Jesus' own coming to being here in our midst. This maternal role has continued in the form of cooperation with Christ's mission. One may see in the motherhood of Mary with respect to the Church. All this points out the importance of woman's mission carried out in keeping with specific women capacities. Moreover, a woman was the first witness to the Resurrection and was given the mission to convey the first message of the Risen One.

To sum up, my personal position regarding women priesthood will be and always be a big NO!

III. Stand of the Roman Catholic Church on the Issue of Women Priesthood

The Roman Catholic Church doctrine on the ordination of women, as expressed in the current canon law and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, is that: "Only a baptized man (In Latin, vir) validly receives sacred ordination."[2] Insofar as priestly and episcopal ordination are concerned, the Church teaches that this requirement is a matter of divine law, and thus doctrinal.[3] The requirement that only males can receive ordination to the diaconate has not been promulgated as doctrinal by the Church's magisterium, though it is clearly at least a requirement according to canon law.[4]

In 1994, Pope John Paul II declared the question closed regarding women ordination in his letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, stating: "Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance…I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful."[5]

The Church teaching on the restriction of its ordination to men is that masculinity was integral to the personhood of both Jesus and the men he called as apostles.[6] The Roman Catholic Church sees maleness and femaleness as two different ways of expressing common humanity.[7] Despite the common academic phrase "gender roles," which implies that the phenomenon of the sexes is a mere surface phenomenon, an accident, the Roman Catholic Church teaches that there is an ontological (essential) difference between humanity expressed as male humanity and humanity expressed as female humanity.[8] While many functions are interchangeable between men and women, some are not, because maleness and femaleness are not interchangeable. Just as water is necessary for a valid baptism, and wheaten bread and grape wine are necessary for a valid Eucharist (not because of their superiority over other materials, but because they are what Jesus used or authorized), only men can be validly ordained, regardless of any issues of equality.[9]

Pope John Paul II, in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, explained the Roman Catholic understanding that the priesthood is a special role specially set out by Jesus when he chose twelve men out of his group of male and female followers. John Paul notes that Jesus chose the Twelve (cf. Mk 3:13–14; Jn 6:70) after a night in prayer (cf. Lk 6:12) and that the Apostles themselves were careful in the choice of their successors. The priesthood is "specifically and intimately associated in the mission of the Incarnate Word himself (cf. Mt 10:1, 7–8; 28:16–20; Mk 3:13–16; 16:14–15)."

Pope Paul VI, quoted by Pope John Paul II in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, wrote, "[The Church] holds that it is not admissible to ordain women to the priesthood, for very fundamental reasons. These reasons include: the example recorded in the Sacred Scriptures of Christ choosing his Apostles only from among men; the constant practice of the Church, which has imitated Christ in choosing only men; and her living teaching authority which has consistently held that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is in accordance with God's plan for his Church."

The Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued and published on May 29, 2008, in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, a decree signed by Cardinal William Levada, on the existing ban on women priests by asserting that women 'priests' and the bishops who ordain them would be automatically excommunicated "latae sententiae."

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[1] Bogle, Joanna. “Women Priests — No Chance.” This Rock (October 2003): 18-21.

[2] Codex Iruis Canonici canon 1024, c.f. Catechism of the Catholic Church 1577.

[3] "The Catholic Church has never felt that priestly or episcopal ordination can be validly conferred on women," Inter Insigniores, October 15, 1976, section 1.

[4] Commentary by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the Declaration Inter Insigniores.

[5] John Paul II in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis , c.f. Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici (30 December 1988), 31.

[6] Inter Insigniores section 5.

[7] Catechism of the Catholic Church 355, 383, 369–72, 1605, 2333.

[8] Gaudium et Spes 12,4.

[9] "Mulieris Dignitatem," 26–27.