What women want Revisiting the Nature of the Priesthood and Women

Oct 2, 2006

Earlier this summer, the Washington Post ran an article entitled “Reclaiming the Feminine Spirit in the Catholic Priesthood.”  It recounted the story of 12 American women who participated in a floating ordination ceremony off a dock in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.  The women believed their act of defiance would reclaim “a proper, equal role for women in leadership” in the Catholic Church.  As one of the women explained, “there is a glass ceiling, and women are second-class citizens.”  She was speaking in reference to the “sexist” all-male priesthood.

Although I addressed this issue a year ago with my column on the impossibility of women’s ordination, it appears we need to re-visit it once again, especially in light of a startling poll.  The poll, taken by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, suggests 70% of “rank-and-file Catholics” are in favor of women’s ordination to the priesthood.

So, what is wrong with ordaining women anyways?

To understand, we must first look at the nature of priesthood.  The priesthood is an office entrusted by Christ to His Apostles for teaching, sanctifying, governing, and fathering the faithful.  Fatherhood is essential to the priestly vocation.  

Unfortunately, there is a tendency to view the Church as a large corporation operated by men seeking to oppress women.  The quote by the woman seeking ordination this summer proves this point.  She, like many others embroiled in the debate, views the all-male priesthood as a sexist “glass ceiling” that women must break through for equality’s sake.  The allusion to this Catholic corporate ladder is dangerous and misleading.  Moreover, this secular train of thought is exactly where society struggles to understand the role of women in the Church without female priesthood.  

The Church is not a corporation, but rather a divinely inspired family.  In understanding this concept, it is helpful to look at basic family dynamics.  Within my own growing family, my husband doesn’t feel discriminated against because he can’t act as the mother.  Actually, during this first trimester of our pregnancy, he is quite relieved that he cannot biologically act as the mother!  Similarly, I don’t feel robbed of some right to be the father.  We share mutual understanding that each has our own role in service to one another and in raising our family.  Also engrained within our understanding is the knowledge that we share equal dignity as persons.  

This analogy directly relates to the life of the Church.  Just as men cannot be biological mothers and vice versa, men cannot be spiritual mothers and women cannot be spiritual fathers.  This reality is stamped within our nature.  We are made differently, yet created with equal dignity.  

In Inter Insigniores, the declaration addressing women’s admission to ministerial priesthood, the Church “intends to remain faithful to the type of ordained ministry willed by the Lord Jesus Christ and carefully maintained by the Apostles.”  Christ, while choosing His twelve apostles, was deliberate in His choice of men.  Through Apostolic Tradition, the Magisterium is safeguarding this tenet of faith that was instituted by Christ.  

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Some remark that He was merely acting in accordance to the customs of His time.  However, through examination of the Gospels, it is obvious that Jesus broke away from the prejudices of His time regarding women.  We need only look to Jesus’ interactions with the Samaritan woman (Jn 4:27), the hemorrhaging woman (Mt 9:20), and the woman taken in adultery (Jn 8:11)…to name a few.  These accounts testify to Christ’s counter-cultural attitude towards women.

Moreover, no where in His charity, acceptance, and ministry to women does Christ call them to become one of the Twelve, not even his Mother nor the numerous women who faithfully accompanied Him during His public ministry.

We cannot deny that the debate over women’s ordination is alive and heated, but women need to enter the conversation with honesty and openness to the message of Christ.  He calls each of us to pick up our cross and follow Him, equally!  We might have different roles, but we are equally made and equally called to be His disciples.  

We must remember that obstinacy never trumps obedience to Christ.  He is the Truth!  And, ignoring or circumventing Truth to pursue our own wants or desires inhibits are ability to fully live the Christian faith.