Why Christ Won’t Let His Church Ordain Women

The international Catholic news weekly The Tablet thought the appointment of the first woman Archbishop of Canterbury in the Anglican Church presented a ripe opportunity for the Catholic Church to re-examine the issue of women’s ordination to the priesthood.

In a short article consisting chiefly of an interview with Irish Jesuit theologian Father Gerry O’Hanlon, he does not hide his frustration with the current state of the question within Catholicism and states bluntly his wish that the Church “stopped beating about the bush and undertook a fair and open re-examination of current teaching.”

It is clear from his remarks that he thinks the current teaching of the Church rests on flawed theological groundings. This leads him to conclude that the non-ordination of women is as great a scandal for the Church as was its previous tolerance for slavery.

He then cites the theological conclusions of the Pontifical Biblical Commission in the 1970s and the opinion of the famed theologian Karl Rahner on the matter. The Tabletsummarizes his thoughts:

Highlighting how the Pontifical Biblical Commission in the 1970s found that there was no Scriptural warranty for the Church’s position on excluding women from ordained ministry, he noted that theologian Karl Rahner, in the late 1970s, argued that the burden of proof should be with the Church to show this. ‘This burden has not been discharged,’ Fr O’Hanlon said.

By itself, this short article is unremarkable and is just one among many others that have appeared over the years in largely liberal Catholic publications. But what it does illustrate is that, in the minds of many Catholics — perhaps even a majority of Catholics in Western culture, if polls are to be believed — the issue is still an open one.

Christ Gives His Church No Authority to Ordain Women

But how can this be? Did not Pope St. John Paul II close the door on this issue, with his definitive decision that the Church has no authority to ordain women? Indeed, he did, as he states in his 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis:

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 definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.

Pope John Paul bases this judgment on two key factors. First, the Church must follow the example of its Lord, who chose only men as apostles. Second, and in accord with this, it has been the Church’s long-standing tradition to ordain only men to the priesthood. He notes that this decision has also been ratified in modern papal documents.

He also firmly rejects the notion that the non-ordination of women implies that women hold an inferior status to men in the economy of salvation. He emphasizes that the Virgin Mary, though not chosen by her Son to be an apostle or a priest, nevertheless holds a lofty status in the economy of God’s plan for creation:

Furthermore, the fact that the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, received neither the mission proper to the Apostles nor the ministerial priesthood clearly shows that the non-admission of women to priestly ordination cannot mean that women are of lesser dignity, nor can it be construed as discrimination against them. Rather, it is to be seen as the faithful observance of a plan to be ascribed to the wisdom of the Lord of the universe.

And yet, it is precisely these arguments that are rejected as insufficient by proponents of women’s ordination. Indeed, they are deemed so woefully flawed that it leads to the idea that, in holding to them, as Father O’Hanlon says, the Church is merely “beating around the bush.”

Christ Gives His Church Authority to Teach

In response, I would offer three points. First, left unaddressed in such rejections is the underlying ecclesiology that inspires them. Clearly, little regard is given to the very high magisterial authority of John Paul’s decision. In effect, it is brushed aside as an erroneous teaching, and therefore there is no need to justify dissenting from it, regardless of the authority of the pope. The issue of the Church’s indefectibility seems not to concern them, and all non-infallible teachings — which they take this one to be — are treated as open to constant theological re-litigation.

Indeed, and not to stray too far off topic, it is certainly true that the question of female ordination is only one of many issues that Catholics of a more liberal persuasion believe should be reconsidered for possible reversal. Do I even need to cite the long list of such topics? And to illustrate this point, we see that the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, is “pro-choice” on abortion and very liberal in all matters pertaining to human sexuality — a fact that Father O’Hanlon chooses to ignore.

In short, there is an ecclesiological package in play here that goes beyond the single issue of women’s ordination.

Critics like Father O’Hanlon are quick to allege that the Church’s teaching is grounded in superficial theological reasoning. But his own views express a shallow and superficial treatment of magisterial authority. Among those who reject the teaching of Pope John Paul, despite its lofty authoritative status, we often see simplistic distinctions made between the “few” infallible teachings of the Church and the many non-infallible ones, with the latter treated as fodder for endless criticism.

Sadly, what this ecclesiology portends is a Church that is little more than a debating club of endless controversy — or a court that is constantly in session and never reaches a verdict on anything. But this is precisely why Christ founded his Church on apostolic authority, and precisely why we have an authoritative magisterium.

Christ, Not the Church, Instituted the Male-Only Priesthood

There is also the issue of the papal arguments themselves, which are not nearly as superficial as Father O’Hanlon implies. It is simply assumed that Jesus’ choice of only men means next to nothing. But this is not true.

Surrounded by a pagan culture that often had priestesses, the decision — by Judaism first, and then by Christ — to limit the priesthood to men is either the result of a mere patriarchal and cultural bias, or the product of a definitive theological decision with deeper meaning.

When did Jesus ever make decisions in the Gospel that we can say are clear examples of him bowing to cultural bias? Indeed, the opposite seems to be the case, especially with regard to the status of women.

His decision to choose only men, therefore — despite the presence of so many important women in his ministry — is precisely why the early Church viewed his example as expressive of something sacramentally significant and binding.

Furthermore, it cannot be said that Christ made this decision on a purely prudential level, only because he knew the dangers women would face in the evangelizing task. As St. Paul clearly shows in his letters, women did evangelize, and they were part of the Church’s outreach to the world.

Christ’s Decision Accords With Our Human Nature

Finally, it must be remembered that Pope John Paul II did not issue this decision — which has been reaffirmed by Popes Benedict XVI and Francis — in a theological vacuum. His own development of the theology of the body is a profound elaboration on the deep sacramental significance of our gendered bodies. We are not Gnostics, and the Church has a long theological tradition discussing the bridal imagery for the Church in particular.

The status of Jesus himself as a male human being has iconic and sacramental significance that proponents of women’s ordination dismiss as irrelevant, if not as an embarrassment. For them, the maleness of Jesus is a mere epiphenomenal reality — as gender is for all of us, apparently — and has no bearing therefore on the question at hand. But this insouciant dismissal of the maleness of Jesus as meaningless is itself yet another example of the simplistic and superficial theology that they claim is superior to the Church’s own meditation on the topic. I respectfully disagree.