Sherman Kuek
Published in Catholic Asian News (September 2008 Issue)
IT IS HAPPENING!
Some two years after the General Synod of the Church of England voted to uphold the ordination of women, about a thousand women were ordained as priests in 1994. To mention that the event of women’s ordination in the Church of England had been met with strong internal resistance is an understatement. By 2005, it was estimated that over 700 priests had left the Anglican Church because of this dispute over women’s ordination, a number of whom subsequently sought acceptance from the Catholic Church.
But more than that, this event had triggered off an increasing pressure on the Church of England to also begin consecrating women priests as bishops. As a result, its General Synod had most recently ruled in favour of the consecration of female bishops, although such consecration has yet to be practically actualised. However, at this point of time, the Anglican churches in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, among several others, have already appointed women as bishops.
The Anglican Communion does not stand alone in its ordination of women ministers. A number of other mainline Protestant denominations like the Methodists, Presbyterians, and Lutherans do so too. These mainline Protestant denominations are also joined by a host of others that practise women’s ordination.
Purportedly, the reason Jesus Christ did not ordain women as reflected in Sacred Scripture was that He was abiding by the societal norms of His day. Had Jesus been living through an age in which societal norms reflected greater appreciation of women’s dignity, He would have brought unto Himself women to partially comprise His band of Apostles. Furthermore, the magnitude of honour accorded by Him to women is held by proponents to be the legitimate reason for women’s ordination. Clearly, nothing in Jesus’ actions reflected a faintest taint of discrimination against women.
THE CHURCH'S "NO" TO WOMEN'S ORDINATION
It would seem from recent trends that the support for ordination of women is intensifying from various sectors, but this position continues to be unacceptable to the Vatican. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has decreed the following in no uncertain terms:
Remaining firm on what has been established by canon 1378 of the Canon Law, both he who has attempted to confer holy orders on a woman, and the woman who has attempted to receive the said sacrament, incurs in latae sententiae excommunication, reserved to the Apostolic See.
This decree is said to have been pronounced infallible in accordance with the ordinary and universal Magisterium of the Church. In resonance with this pronouncement, the teaching that the Church has no authority whatsoever to exercise a prerogative to ordain women is to be contained within the scope of the deposit of faith.
Does the Catholic Church’s refusal to ordain women truly constitute gender discrimination? Is this how the Church perceives it, that she refuses to ordain women because she thinks women are lesser in dignity and significance? It is in fact often (if not always) assumed by proponents of women’s ordination that the Church’s refusal to ordain women constitutes a marginalisation of women and giving rise to inequality.
The official and detailed position of the Church on this issue is documented in Inter insigniores (1976) and in Ordinatio sacerdotalis (1994). As far as the Church is concerned, the question of gender equality does not arise - in fact, the equal dignity of and honour for both the male and female gender is a non-negotiable given. Women are on all accounts of honour and dignity equal to men, in Christ, and this by no means contradicts the position that Christ had established a permanent norm of male priesthood.
Rather, the more pertinent issue falling within the scope of this debate is that of the historicity of the person of Jesus and His Church. Just as the first Christians believed that Jesus intended for the priesthood of the Church to consist of men, so should we. Right from the second and third centuries, any attempts to admit women into ministerial priestly functions were pronounced heretic.
The Church maintains that our Lord Jesus did not appoint female apostles, and that to do so today in compliance with resounding social pressure would constitute a departure from apostolic tradition. The appointment of women as ordinary ministers of the Church is not a prerogative that has been accorded by Jesus to the Church. Had He desired to do so, He would perhaps have best appointed His Mother to be the very first of all apostles (and the most deserving one at that!)
Further to that, the priest who acts in persona Christi (“in the person of Christ”) mirrors the image of Christ the Priest. Even if Christ’s role as mediator is not in some way related to His maleness, the historical Christ was nevertheless embodied as a man. Just as the bread and the wine which become His body is first offered up as real bread and real wine in embodiment of this historical reality, the priest standing in the person of Christ must also be an embodiment of the historical reality of the Saviour sent to the world as a man.
This does not mean that women cannot signify Christ, for all the faithful – both male and female – are one with the Church in the common priesthood of the faithful. However, the election of a ministerial priesthood points to a somewhat different consideration.
THE CHURCH'S "YES" TO WOMEN'S DIGNITY
The angle that is most often ignored by proponents of women’s ordination is that of the Church’s heightened awareness of women’s dignity and uniqueness.
Pope Paul VI had emphatically reinforced the pronouncement of Vatican II on the absolute equality of women and men. Similarly, Pope John Paul II had repeatedly and incessantly accentuated the equality in the dignity of both women and men. His 116-page apostolic letter Mulieris dignitatem (1988), in which he delineated the dignity of women and the uniqueness of their roles, was an overt testimony to the position of honour the Church accords to women.
In his apostolic letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis, the Pope John Paul II had irrevocably declared that the relegation of the priesthood to the male gender could not be construed as a lower position being accorded to women:
...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 a 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.
Evidently, the Church’s recognition of the equal dignity and value of women is complemented with a rightful defence of the differences between the two genders. The two dimensions of personhood are not to be confused one with the other.
A FUTURE PROSPECT?
Is the position of the Catholic Church on women’s ordination likely to change in time to come? A most brief answer would be “no”. Cardinal Walter Kasper shed realistic light upon the issue in his address at the Church of England Bishops’ Meeting in June 2006:
...it can be academically demonstrated that the rejection of the ordination of women within the tradition was not predicated on contemporary concepts alone but in essence on theological arguments. Therefore it should not be assumed that the Catholic Church will one day revise its current position. The Catholic Church is convinced that she has no right to do so.
The sacrament of holy orders is not a human invention; it is a gift of Jesus Christ to the Church that she may sustain the life of her children. In this light, arguments either for or against the admission of women into the holy orders cannot be made as if it was simply an issue of social discrimination.
To be sure, the reservation of priestly ordination to men alone does not automatically concur with the mistaken notion that the Church is chauvinistic in her disposition. Rather, it is an invitation to the faithful to pursue a greater understanding of “the meaning of the episcopate and the priesthood” (Inter insigniores).
Some continue to say, “Had Jesus been alive at this moment, He would have done it differently”. Well, He is alive now. And He is acting in and through His Church.
In the recent decades, many Protestant Christians – especially those involved in the disciplines of Spirituality and Spiritual Theology – have sought to broaden Protestant spirituality by seeking to glean from the spiritual wealth of the Catholic faith.
