Vatican City, May 30, 2018 / 07:31 am
The teaching of the Catholic Church on the impossibility of ordaining women to the priesthood, now or in the future, is clear – and to sow confusion by suggesting otherwise is a serious matter, wrote the Vatican's top authority on doctrine.
In a May 29 article in Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Cardinal-elect Luis Ladaria, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote that "Christ wanted to give this sacrament [of holy orders] to the twelve apostles, all men, who, in turn, transmitted it to other men."
"The Church has always recognized herself bound by this decision of the Lord, which excludes that the ministerial priesthood can be validly conferred on women."
Taking this into account, as well as Pope St. John Paul II's 1994 apostolic letter "Ordinatio sacerdotalis," which states that all Catholics must "definitively" follow this teaching, Ladaria said, "it is a matter of serious concern to see the emergence in some countries of voices that question the finality of this doctrine."