On the Ordination of Women

A shameful thing happened at the national Assembly of Women Religious (NAWR) of 1971. One religious sister and two laywomen put on a show. They read the prayers of the Mass that are reserved to the priest up until the Consecration. This demonstration was intended to highlight the “injustice” of excluding women from the priesthood. Instead, it exposed the impious radicalism of certain elements lobbying for the ordination of women. One of the organizers of NAWR was quoted by Commonweal magazine as saying, "I hope you are all as disturbed by this as I am." Indeed we are, but not for the same reasons. 

This is just one example among many of the abuses perpetrated by radical feminists in their quest for the priesthood. The ordination of women has long been the fervent hope of dissident elements of the Church. Given false hope by the reforms of Vatican II, the feminists "re-open" the question of the ordination of women every few years. I say "re-open" somewhat patronizingly because Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium have all consistently and definitively closed this question.

Women cannot be ordained for one simple reason: the priesthood was instituted by Christ and the Church has no power to change its fundamental nature.  Sacred Scripture makes it clear that God established the priesthood. In the Old Testament, Abraham was blessed by "Melchisedech, the king of Salem, bringing forth bread and wine, for he was the priest of the most high God" (Genesis 14:18). Melchisedech prefigures the priesthood instituted by Christ; that is why the Psalmist says, "Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech" (Psalm 109:4).

Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament priesthood at the Last Supper when He established the sacrament of holy orders. Though both men and women followed Jesus, He specifically chose twelve men as his Apostles. Though some of His closest disciples were women -- besides St. John, only women stood at the foot of the Cross -- Christ only ordained the Twelve. 

This was utterly intentional. Christ did not chose men as His priests simply to conform to the limitations of His time. Any argument to that effect insinuates that God's will can be limited by human culture. If Christ had willed it, He would have ordained women. The fact that He did not is ample justification for the constant practice of the Church. Indeed, the ordination of men alone is a Tradition that has never varied. The early Church did employ deaconesses, but even then, there was never a doubt as to the impossibility of their ordination. 

St. Thomas Aquinas treated the issue of women and the priesthood by distinguishing between the lawfulness and validity of a sacrament. Lawfulness describes whether it was right to administer the sacrament while validity describes whether it was possible for the sacrament to be administered. Stealing an example from Matt Fradd, to baptize an infant whose life is not in danger without the permission of the child's parents would be unlawful. While it was wrong to do so, the baptism was nevertheless valid and therefore took effect. It would, on the other hand, be invalid to try to baptize an animal. Because the creature lacks an immortal soul, a fundamental necessity for baptism, it is impossible for the sacrament to occur in the first place. 

St. Thomas Aquinas says that it would be invalid for a woman to receive the sacrament of holy orders:

"Wherefore even though a woman were made the object of all that is done in conferring Orders, she would not receive Orders, for since a Sacrament is a sign, not only of the thing, but the signification of the thing, it is required in all sacramental actions.... Accordingly, since it is not possible in the female sex to signify eminence of degree, for a woman is in the state of subjection, it follows that she cannot receive the sacrament of Orders" (Supplement to the Summa, Q.39, A.1). 

In other words, women cannot be priests because they lack "eminence of degree," being in "a state of subjection."

Now drop the torches and pitchforks, and give St. Thomas a chance to explain what he means by "subjection." In the first part of the Summa he writes:

"Subjection is twofold. One is servile, by virtue of which a superior makes use of a subject for his own benefit.... There is another kind of subjection which is called economic or civil whereby the superior makes use of his subjects for their own benefit and good.... So by such a kind of subjection woman is naturally subject to man" (Summa I, Q.92, A.1). 

The "eminence of degree" Aquinas attributes to men is not the result of medieval misogyny. Though our culture seems to have forgotten it, there is a difference between men and women. Part of that difference is man's preeminent position. 

"Superior" refers to position. For example, an elected official is superior to and exercises subjection over their constituents. But no one would say that the official is fundamentally better than anyone who voted for them. 

St. Lois de Montfort writes, "Jesus Christ gave more glory to God, His Father, by His thirty years' submission to His Mother than He would have done in converting the whole world by working the greatest miracles." No one would dare say that by subjecting Himself to the Blessed Virgin, Christ is indicating that she is fundamentally better than Him. Instead, God-Made-Flesh is obedient to Mary because she is His Mother. 

Thomas is saying that men and women are designed to play different roles, not that one sex is "better" than the other. This is no more oppressive than a father's position as head of the household. In the same way, men alone are called to be spiritual fathers through the priesthood.  

Unfortunately, dissidents all too easily brush off St. Thomas' arguments as the product of his time rather than looking at their validity. It is much harder to dismiss Pope Paul VI's letter to the Anglicans and St. John Paul the Great's Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. When the Anglican church began ordaining women, Pope Paul VI responded by writing:

"[The Church] holds that it is not admissible to ordain women to the priesthood for very fundamental reasons. These reasons include: the example recorded in the Sacred Scriptures of Christ choosing his Apostles only from among men; the constant practice of the Church, which has imitated Christ in choosing only men; and her living teaching authority which has consistently held that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is in accordance with God’s plan for his Church.”

If that is not enough for you, St. John Paul the Great was even more firm:

“Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitely held by all the Church’s faithful.”

 Case closed.

In order to be a Catholic lobbying for the ordination of women, you must: deny some pretty strong Scriptural arguments; refute St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest theologians in history; and find a way to explain how St. John Paul the great, when speaking ex cathedra, really didn’t mean what he said.

We cannot, however, in defending the restriction of the sacrament of Orders to men, neglect the instrumental role that women play in the Church. Even though they cannot become priests, there is indisputably a place for women in the Church. In the same apostolic letter quoted above, St. John Paul the Great writes, “The presence and the role of women in the life and mission of the Church, although not linked to the ministerial priesthood, remains absolutely necessary and irreplaceable.”

Without being priests, women make invaluable contributions to the Church. Lay women are lectors, Eucharistic ministers, CCD teachers, professionals who take Christ’s light into the workplace, and mothers who raise their children in the faith. Religious sisters sustain the Church with their prayers, serve the poor, teach in Catholic schools, and perform countless works of faith and love.

Of course, we cannot forget Mary, Mother of God. How could we? Her powerful intercessions preserve us from harm, her spiritual motherhood of all Christians brings us closer to her Son. Anyone who says that the Church is anti-woman is quite frankly self-deluded. The single most revered saint in history is the Blessed Virgin. In St. Gabriel’s address, “Hail full of grace,” we see that God has elevated her above the angels. My single greatest assurance that God does not intend for women to be priests is the fact that He did not make Mary a priest. If the priesthood signifies “eminence of degree” as St. Thomas Aquinas writes, and if it were at all possible for a woman to be a priest, would not Jesus Christ have ordained His Mother? Would not she who is honored by angels merit the priesthood if it were open to her sex?

Proponents of the ordination of women pretend that women feel alienated from the Church because they are excluded from the priesthood. This is demeaning to centuries of women who have courageously, humbly, piously, and selflessly served the Church. Women do not require admission to the priesthood to contribute to the life of the Church.

Deus Vult!