On the Ordination of Women

This issue—whether or not women can be ordained as priests—has been addressed. Rome has spoken. But the ordination of women still appears to be a question. It is debated in Catholic circles. I have debated the issue with Catholic friends. The ordination of women is rather a complex issue particularly in our historical context, in an age directly affected by the growth of feminism.

Can women be ordained to the priesthood? No. The priesthood is not an arbitrary profession, it is an office within the Church—an institution given to us by God not by men. Those who support women priests, I have found, think the opposite, at least in their arguments. The Catholics who have argued for a female priesthood to me conceive of a different view of the human person, a view that is deeply shaded by modern philosophy especially in regard to mind/body dualism. This particular debate is not an argument about feminism and equal rights; it is entirely and wholly theological. The matter itself is not at all unrelated to other pressing issues, particularly question of sex and gender roles, homosexuality, the moral acceptance of the transgendered, same-sex "marriage," contraception, etc.

Catholics who struggle with this issue sincerely face a problem that is intricate and complex. I faced it. I did not adhere to orthodoxy from the start. I did so by the night of baptism, praise be to God. But it took grace, prayer, and intellectual reflection under the direction of the Holy Spirit. I never was Catholic because of a "feel good" experience—I came in kicking and screaming because I knew it was the Truth. I enjoy the experience of the liturgy, certainly. But it was the Catholic intellectual tradition that seduced me as an atheist in my worship of philosophical knowledge. I battled internally to let go of so many sinful inclinations—the strongest being a homosexual, romantic involvement with another person—all that best suited what I wanted versus what is reality. I entered the Church because I was intellectually convinced that the Catholic Church conforms faithfully to Scripture, offers the most coherent view of the history of Christianity, protects Divine Revelation that does not contradict the findings of human reason, and possesses the most profound and sublime Christian moral code, spirituality, social teaching, and philosophical tradition for understanding the human person and life itself.

But many of my brothers and sisters haven't had the long, arduous journey through the desert to understand things in such a profound way. I certainly don't claim to know everything. As a convert, I have the grace to appreciate the gift of the Church in a way many cradle Catholics often take for granted. With all this in mind, I think it can be said that the problem is not the question raised by many Catholics, but the motivation and the thinking of Catholics who advocate for an invitation for women to the sacrament of Holy Orders.

In the study of theology, I have found that people who hold heretical doctrines are not evil people, but they are sensible people, some are even intellectual giants that are to this day counted amongst the Fathers of the Church. But it cannot be overlooked that they are profoundly mistaken (or there is profound miscommunication, i.e. Nestorianism is a heresy certainly, but was Nestorius actually a Nestorian or was he orthodox? It's an open question.) I think my brothers and sisters fail to see the rational incoherence of supporting women priests. Their question is sincere, but their conclusion is terribly mistaken.

Consider the figure Mary of Nazareth. Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy emphasize her place in God's redeeming action and her perfect obedience to God extensively. It is even argued in Protestant circles that we worship her when in fact we do not. In Christian theology, our salvation is linked to Mary's decision; it perhaps could have gone a different way, but it didn't. We know for nine months she bore the eternal Logos, she raised the God-man as her Son, and she was present at His death on the Cross. Despite all this, she was absent from the table, as was all women, in all four Gospels when Jesus instituted the Eucharist. She too was absent from the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

The Church teaches that Divine Revelation comes from Scripture and Tradition. Tradition consistently argues against women priests. Scripture, itself, does not argue in favor of women priests. There were female prophetesses, several are mentioned in the Old Testament. If this is so, why might a woman not perform the functions of a priest?

But that question begs a more fundamental question: what precisely is a priest? According to Catholic theology, a priest is a man who has received the Sacrament of Holy Orders. The priest himself is a sacrament—a sign that makes visible the visible, a sign of grace. The priest is in persona Christi, that is, "in the Person of Christ." He represents Christ, who was a twofold representative, as the mediator, Christ represented us to God and God to us. Christ was God manifested in the all His glory in the human condition. Jesus Christ is the ultimate sacrament of God. The priest represents the sacrament that is Christ Himself.

Beyond that of prophetesses, there were female deaconesses in the early Church—though it was not an ordained office. These women were the wives of deacons. They preached and helped with the baptism of women.

So it seems, we may accept all of this, but we refuse to ordain women. It certainly is not because she is less holy or less intelligent than a man. A woman can be as "God-like" as a man, and perhaps, a lot of the time even more so. Then, what is the objection?

Consider our theological language if we looked at things the other way around. Suppose we were to say "God our Mother" instead of "Our Father." Suppose that the Incarnation might just as well have taken a female form and the Second Person of the Holy Trinity was called the Daughter. Lastly, of course, the mystery of marriage that St. Paul describes between Christ and the Church is now Christ the Bride and the Church the Bridegroom.

"Why not?" is the immediate question. God is not a biological being and has no sex, so why does it matter that we say He or She, Father or Mother, Son or Daughter? One objection might be is that if we carried out these proposals we would certainly find ourselves in a different religion with its own symbolism and theological context. Secondly, It matters because there is something objective about gender. The idea of masculinity and femininity is not wholly a social construct, but rather there is, in human nature a fundamental reality that makes men and women inherently different. Cultural norms often recognize these differences. "Male and female, He created them." We find this in Genesis. We are equal as we have the same causation, we come from one God, but we were "male and female," different but equal. That is the point. When the two becomes one flesh, literally speaking in marriage, they become co-creators with God, they give life, they are complementary, each offers what the other is missing.

Catholic theological anthropology remarkably expounded upon by Pope John Paul II highlights the fundamental ontological differences of man and woman. St. Edith Stein, a phenomenologist (as was Pope John Paul II) revived the metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas to show that the difference in bodies constitutes a difference in spirit, that is, the soul is not unisex. Pope John Paul II championed this in his Theology of the Body. The different bodily structures of men and women lead to different lived experiences—emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, and so forth. For example, women are designed—ontologically—for motherhood. Women are created in a way—body and soul—that gives rise to psychological, spiritual, and emotional characteristics that would be necessary for motherhood. Regardless of whether a woman gives birth, she has the capacity for maternal love in spiritual motherhood while men do not.

The Catholic understanding lies in the reality that our creation includes not only our body but our soul as well. Each of us is a thought of God, willed from eternity. Thus our body not only conforms to our "manhood" or "womanhood" but our souls do as well. The inherent difference between man and woman is not simply biological or physiological, but spiritually as well. Our whole composite, body/soul is inherently different. Men and women share in their humanity—both are on the same level of being—as rational, free agents made in the image and likeness of God, equal in dignity and worth, subject to the same condition of physicality and temporal existence, but they are ontologically not the same. That is the point.

The understanding of the human person that leads to the conclusion that women ought to be ordained by priests is the mind/body dualism of Cartesian philosophy—Cogito Ergo Sum—"I think, therefore, I am." This doctrine holds that we see are simply a consciousness, a "thinking thing" with a body as an instrument. We aren't in anyway our body. The body is a vessel, nothing more. This is totally adverse to the Christian eschatological understanding of the meaning of the body. A woman is simply not a soul in a body that we call physiologically female nor the vice versa of men. The doctrine of the resurrection of the body flies in the face of such a claim. A human being is not simply a soul or simply a body; we are both.

What does this have to do with the ordination of women? Everything. Jesus Christ, God incarnate, was not just a human, he was a man. Properly understood in a Christian context, only a man can properly obtain the sacrament of the priesthood—a sign of God in the flesh, in the masculine as the Giver and Provider and what is given is protected by His wife, the feminine, the Church, the Mother, the Bearer and Nurturer. This goes back to the preeminent bond of God and Israel described throughout the Old Testament in masculine and female imagery established from beginning that goes through salvation history.

The Sacrament of Matrimony is fulfilled by a man and a woman participating in the marriage of Christ and the Church. The two are an image of the ultimate Bridegroom and Bride—that is the sacrament, that is what it reveals—it is a life-giving union just as Christ gives His Church children through baptism [The Easter Candle being plunged into the baptism font has a sexual connotation]. The Church is the Bride of Christ, our Holy Mother Church, of whom we are children of, the fruit of her union with Christ.

This nuptial imagery goes all through Scripture. While Adam was sleeping from his side God created Eve, his companion, his wife. While Christ was "asleep" on the Cross, blood and water poured from his side—two signs of our sacraments, the Eucharist and Baptism—and thus the Church came from Him as Eve came from Adam. Who is the priest? A priest is a man that represents Christ, in His service to His wife, the Church. At the wedding feast of Cana, Christ turned water into wine—which is fundamentally Eucharistic imagery in the transformation of substance. It is Christ's sacrifice that the priest brings to the Church in the Eucharist. It is those ordained that routinely baptise, consecrate the Eucharist, forgive sins, and do the work that Christ commissioned his disciples to perform—it's Christ's fidelity to His wife and she bears His fruits.

Jesus chose twelve Apostles. If he wanted women priests, why did he not choose them? Societal constraints? It seems dubious that God Himself, Creator of the universe, was restrained from doing something because of cultural taboos. Did these societal constraints stop him from talking to the Samaritan woman? Did it stop Him from eating with men who did not wash their hands in accord with the custom? Did it stop His condemnation of hypocrisy of the Pharisees? It certainly did not. So why would he yield on women priests if he were such a revolutionary? In fact, no time favored women priests than the time of Christ when virtually all pagan religions had priestesses and it would have been normal, perhaps, even natural of Him to choose women. The Gentiles certainly would not have rejected it. He had excellent candidates: His Mother, Mary Magdalene, or any of the women who had the courage to witness His Crucifixion—his apostles fled. Still, he chose only men.

What is even more relevant is the rational incoherence of this argument. In Christian revelation, we believe that God Himself has taught us how to speak to Him and of Him. Jesus called God "the Father" and Himself "the Son." Do Christians not believe in God's divine omnipotence? God does not make mistakes. When God became incarnate, as a human being specifically as a male, He did so at a precise time and at an exact moment in human history, which he ordained from all eternity. From the beginning, God has chosen the Jewish people, among whom His Divine Son would be born. It would be their own priestly traditions that would form part of the background and culture which would help them—and others—to see and know Him. As St. Paul teaches us, Christ was born "in the fullness of time." Every detail about the Incarnation was known in the mind of God. How could God not have known?

To argue that the masculine imagery used by Jesus Christ Himself is irrelevant, to say that the masculine imagery used for God in Scripture, or the nuptial imagery used throughout Scripture is not inspired, but merely human in origin, or if not that, though it is inspired, it is arbitrary and unessential is not acceptable. The whole of Scripture is inspired by God, all of it, every word. It all has meaning and significance properly interpreted and understood. The life of Jesus Christ is sacramental and in itself is the fundamental purpose of our faith. It is the center of our faith.

Ultimately, the argument in favor of the ordination of women priests reduces Scripture to outdated writings explaining salvation, while simultaneously promoting the idea that the writers of the time (despite Divine Intervention) could not possibly understand the human person nor human sexuality in any way that we do today enlightened by scientific advancement and historical criticism, thus, the understanding in Scripture of man and woman is both arbitrary and irrelevant, thusly: let's ordain women!

This totally debunks our sources of Divine Revelation. In the end, this is not an argument for the ordination of women, but an argument against Christianty in general. It also ignores the fact that we as human beings know from our poetical experience of life—we know that image and apprehension hang closer together than advocates of this position are prepared to admit. It is common sense that a child taught to pray to a Mother in Heaven will have a religious life radically different and opposed to that of a traditional Christian child. Image and apprehension are an in an organic unity for Christians. The same in our experience of existence—we are humans—body and soul, different sacraments that witness to the same One who made us all.

But, if we keep going with this, sex becomes superficial and irrelevant to the spiritual life—an idea entirely contrary to the theological anthropology of the Church (discussed above). Reason itself cannot tell us because the whole point of divine revelation is that it is knowledge of the supernatural—hence, you cannot know these things by unaided reason, e.g. God is Trinitarian.

In arguing this point, one is almost obliged to say that Scripture and Tradition are fundamentally wrong. That is to say, the Church that Christ promised the Holy Spirit to, the Church that the gates of Hell will not prevail against is a liar. The sources of Divine Revelation are illegitimate. And if this is so, why argue for women priests and not abolish Christianity? If Scripture and Tradition are false, Christianity is a lie.

The point is unless "equal" means "interchangeable," equality makes nothing for the ordination of women. And the kind of equality which implies that the equals are interchangeable—much like counters or identical machines—is among humans, a legal fiction.

One of the ends for which sex was created was to symbolize to us—embodied in the physical—the hidden things of God. That is what a sacrament is, a sign in the physical. One of the functions of marriage is to witness to and express the nature of the union between Christ and His Church. We have no authority to take the living and sensitive figures which God Himself has painted on the canvas of our nature and shift them about as we see fit.

It may be painful that this privilege has been endowed only unto men, but it is given by God and we cannot arbitrarily change what God has done. To "edit" the work of God is to claim an equal status that we all are obliged to recognize that we do not possess. Some men may not fully live up to their priestly vocation, but the solution does not rest in calling women to the task, but to remind these men to respond to their call. A man may make a bad husband, but the solution is not to reverse the roles or do away with them entirely or have women marry women.

It is worth pointing out, in choosing His apostles, Christ was not rewarding them. On the contrary, they did everything before His Death that did not merit reward—denying Him, doubting, betraying Him, etc. The priesthood isn't a badge of honor; it is a call to service for a sinful humanity that does not want the service. But just as bread and wine are essential "matter" of the Eucharist, so men are the "matter" of the priesthood.