Ordaining Women

Fr. Eduard Perrone, Chaplain, Opus Bono Sacerdotii

A Pastor’s Descant 

July 6, 2003

My parting shot, a ‘hit-and-run’ message, as I prepare for my vacation concerns the matter of ordaining women to the priesthood. It’s not that I think you entertain any doubts about the Church’s teaching on this matter, but it is that reports often reach me that in this or that parish, even from the pulpit, the idea continues to circulate that women may someday be admitted to the priesthood. In case you haven’t heard, this Pope, His Holiness John Paul II, had declared this an impossible dream since he, with full papal authority, defined infallibly that women cannot be ordained to the priesthood–ever. That solemn declaration officially ended the matter for all time. It is a decision that cannot be reversed. Women’s ordination is a dead issue. Why then do some priests, religious and religious educators continue to campaign for women priests? It’s incomprehensible without understanding the broader subject of dissent from Church teaching which, for the dissidents, is thought no more than so many statements of policy, or, more correctly, polity. In this view, Church teaching can be accommodated to times and changing circumstances such as to permit the revision even, if need be, the Gospel itself. Thus, the articles of the Creed, the decrees of the Church Councils, the magisterium of the holy father and his bishops, and the unanimous teaching of the Church Fathers are all considered provisional, until a more enlightened time may deem them suited for emendation or disposal. With such a posture, one can yet hope that the Pope’s declaration on the inadmissability of women to the priesthood will be revoked. Besides the utter futility of hoping for something impossible to attain–a fantasy, a possibility only for the imagination and not in reality–there are several other things to note in connection with this subject. I bring to your attention only one of them.

Like it or not, God made humanity in two sexes, male and female, with the obvious consequence that there are differences between the two. A woman is not a mutation of a man with mere sexual difference. Masculinity and femininity are not just accidental qualities of a basically unisex human being. A woman is not a man with a female anatomy. There are two different ways of being human, both of which constitute ‘being made in the image of God.’ A man is he who is capable of being a father; a woman, she who can become a mother. This is no mere manner of speaking, as if a kind of role-playing. It is reality. Men cannot be mothers and women cannot be fathers. And if a man is called to the priesthood, he represents Christ who is not a male figure, but a real man. Moreover, since Christ is the ‘bridegroom’ of his spouse, the Church, the priest is a father. A woman can never become a father, no matter what our unisex enthusiasts insist upon.

The priesthood has had many problems in recent years due, in part, to the facile dismissal of the priest as father. Indeed, some priests are commonly called their first names by their parishioners without the prefixed title ‘father’–often with the priest’s approval. But a father-priest is one who, like Christ, cares for his ‘children’ by word and example, who protects them from dangers, and who provides for their sustenance. That the Church’s children are not getting the pastoral care they require, “getting stones for bread” in vacuous sermonizing, are being scandalized by misconduct , abuse, and neglect by priests to provide for the sacraments (especially in hearing individual confessions) is due to the diminishment of the priest as father, which is to say, as a man able and willing to be responsible for the good of his spiritual dependants.

The feminine has a distinct offering for the good of the Church, different from the masculine. It is that of spiritual maternity. Women have a special relation to sacredness and it is thus no surprise that women usually excel in the spiritual life over most men. The ideal Christian and perfect disciple of Christ is a woman, Holy Mary. But for all her perfection in every sense, she is not less a person, not less a human, not less a woman, and not less a Christian because she is not a priest

The two poles of fidelity to the Pope’s teaching and a devoted love for our Blessed Mother keep one in Christ’s truth. They make clear that only men can be priests and that this reservation is no offense to women but a specification of the very difference that makes both men and women give shape to the image of God.

July is the month of the Precious Blood of Jesus.

Fr. Perrone