Vatican City, Jun 3, 2008 / 11:33 am
The secretary for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Angelo Amato, said this week only men can be ordained to the priesthood because “the Catholic Church is not authorized to change the will of her founder, Jesus Christ."
"Therefore," the archbishop continued, "in the participation in the life and mission of the Church, women cannot receive the sacrament of Holy Orders and therefore, they cannot carry out the functions proper to the ministerial priesthood.”
In an interview with the Vatican daily, L’Osservatore Romano, regarding the recent decree by the CDF on the “ordination” of women, Archbishop Amato explained, that the Church’s teaching on this matter is founded upon the “free and sovereign will of Jesus Christ, who only called men to be apostles.” The Church is bound by the decision of the Lord Himself, he stressed. “For this reason the ordination of women is not possible.”
Archbishop Amato said the CDF decree was necessary because of “false ordinations of women that have taken place in different parts of the world. The General Decree is also an aid to bishops to ensure a uniform response in the entire Church to these situations. In reality these are not true and proper ordinations,” he explained.