Women and the Priesthood
Can women be ordained to the priesthood? This is
a question which provokes much debate in our modern world, but it is one
to which the Church has always answered "No." The basis for the Church’s
teaching on ordination is found in the New Testament as well as in the
writings of the Church Fathers.
While women could publicly pray and prophesy in
church (1 Cor. 11:1–16), they could not teach or have authority over a
man (1 Tim. 2:11–14), since these were two essential functions of the clergy.
Nor could women publicly question or challenge the teaching of the clergy
(1 Cor. 14:34–38).
The following quotations from the Church Fathers
indicate that women do play an active role in the Church and that in the
age of the Fathers there were orders of virgins, widows, and deaconesses,
but that these women were not ordained.
The Fathers rejected women's ordination, not because
it was incompatible with Christian culture, but because it was incompatible
with Christian faith. Thus, together with biblical declarations, the teaching
of the Fathers on this issue formed the tradition of the Church that taught
that priestly ordination was reserved to men. Throughout medieval times
and even up until the present day, this teaching has not changed.
Further, in 1994 Pope John Paul II formally declared
that the Church does not have the power to ordain women. He stated, "Although
the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has
been preserved by the constant and universal tradition of the Church and
firmly taught by the magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present
time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate,
or the Church’s judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination
is considered to have a merely disciplinary force. 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. Luke 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" (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis 4).
And in 1995 the Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith, in conjunction with the pope, ruled that this teaching "requires
definitive assent, since, founded on the written Word of God, and from
the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the tradition of the
Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal
magisterium (cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the
Church, Lumen Gentium 25:2)" (Response of Oct. 25, 1995).
The following quotations from the Fathers constitute
a part of the tradition on which this infallible teaching rests.
Irenaeus
"Pretending to consecrate cups mixed with wine,
and protracting to great length the word of invocation, [Marcus the Gnostic
heretic] contrives to give them a purple and reddish color. . . . [H]anding
mixed cups to the women, he bids them consecrate these in his presence.
"When this has been done, he himself produces another
cup of much larger size than that which the deluded woman has consecrated,
and pouring from the smaller one consecrated by the woman into that which
has been brought forward by himself, he at the same time pronounces these
words: ‘May that Charis who is before all things and who transcends all
knowledge and speech fill your inner man and multiply in you her own knowledge,
by sowing the grain of mustard seed in you as in good soil.’
"Repeating certain other similar words, and thus
goading on the wretched woman [to madness], he then appears a worker of
wonders when the large cup is seen to have been filled out of the small
one, so as even to overflow by what has been obtained from it. By accomplishing
several other similar things, he has completely deceived many and drawn
them away after him" (Against Heresies 1:13:2 [A.D. 189]).
Tertullian
"It is of no concern how diverse be their [the
heretics’] views, so long as they conspire to erase the one truth. They
are puffed up; all offer knowledge. Before they have finished as catechumens,
how thoroughly learned they are! And the heretical women themselves, how
shameless are they! They make bold to teach, to debate, to work exorcisms,
to undertake cures . . . " (Demurrer Against the Heretics 41:4–5
[A.D. 200]).
"[A female heretic], lately conversant in this
quarter, has carried away a great number with her most venomous doctrine,
making it her first aim to destroy baptism. . . . But we, little fishes,
after the example of our Icthus [Greek, "Fish"], Jesus Christ, are
born in water . . . so that most monstrous creature, who had no right to
teach even sound doctrine, knew full well how to kill the little fishes,
by taking them away from the water" (Baptism 1 [A.D. 203]).
"It is not permitted for a woman to speak in the
church [1 Cor 14:34–35], but neither [is it permitted her] . . . to offer,
nor to claim to herself a lot in any manly function, not to say sacerdotal
office" (The Veiling of Virgins 9 [A.D. 206]).
Hippolytus
"When a widow is to be appointed, she is not to
be ordained, but is designated by being named [a widow]. . . . A widow
is appointed by words alone, and is then associated with the other widows.
Hands are not imposed on her, because she does not offer the oblation and
she does not conduct the liturgy. Ordination is for the clergy because
of the liturgy; but a widow is appointed for prayer, and prayer is the
duty of all" (The Apostolic Tradition 11 [A.D. 215]).
The Didascalia
"For it is not to teach that you women . . . are
appointed. . . . For he, God the Lord, Jesus Christ our Teacher, sent us,
the twelve [apostles], out to teach the [chosen] people and the pagans.
But there were female disciples among us: Mary of Magdala, Mary the daughter
of Jacob, and the other Mary; he did not, however, send them out with us
to teach the people. For, if it had been necessary that women should teach,
then our Teacher would have directed them to instruct along with us" (Didascalia
3:6:1–2 [A.D. 225]).
Firmilian
"[T]here suddenly arose among us a certain woman,
who in a state of ecstasy announced herself as a prophetess and acted as
if filled with the Holy Ghost. . . . Through the deceptions and illusions
of the demon, this woman had previously set about deluding believers in
a variety of ways. Among the means by which she had deluded many was daring
to pretend that, through proper invocation, she consecrated bread and performed
the Eucharist. She offered up the sacrifice to the Lord in a liturgical
act that corresponds to the usual rites, and she baptized many, all the
while misusing the customary and legitimate wording of the [baptismal]
question. She carried all these things out in such a manner that nothing
seemed to deviate from the norms of the Church" (collected in Cyprian’s
Letters 74:10 [A.D. 253]).
Council of Nicaea I
"Similarly, in regard to the deaconesses, as with
all who are enrolled in the register, the same procedure is to be observed.
We have made mention of the deaconesses, who have been enrolled in this
position, although, not having been in any way ordained, they are certainly
to be numbered among the laity" (Canon 19 [A.D. 325]).
Council of Laodicea
"[T]he so-called ‘presbyteresses’ or ‘presidentesses’
are not to be ordained in the Church" (Canon 11 [A.D. 360]).
Epiphanius of Salamis
"Certain women there in Arabia [the Collyridians]
... In an unlawful and blasphemous ceremony
... ordain women, through whom they offer up the sacrifice in the name
of Mary. This means that the entire proceeding is godless and sacrilegious,
a perversion of the message of the Holy Spirit; in fact, the whole thing
is diabolical and a teaching of the impure spirit" (Against Heresies
78:13 [A.D. 377]).
"It is true that in the Church there is an order
of deaconesses, but not for being a priestess, nor for any kind of work
of administration, but for the sake of the dignity of the female sex, either
at the time of baptism or of examining the sick or suffering, so that the
naked body of a female may not be seen by men administering sacred rites,
but by the deaconess" (ibid.).
"From this bishop [James the Just] and the just-named
apostles, the succession of bishops and presbyters [priests] in the house
of God have been established. Never was a woman called to these. . . .
According to the evidence of Scripture, there were, to be sure, the four
daughters of the evangelist Philip, who engaged in prophecy, but they were
not priestesses" (ibid.).
"If women were to be charged by God with entering
the priesthood or with assuming ecclesiastical office, then in the New
Covenant it would have devolved upon no one more than Mary to fulfill a
priestly function. She was invested with so great an honor as to be allowed
to provide a dwelling in her womb for the heavenly God and King of all
things, the Son of God. . . . But he did not find this [the conferring
of priesthood on her] good" (ibid., 79:3).
John Chrysostom
"[W]hen one is required to preside over the Church
and to be entrusted with the care of so many souls, the whole female sex
must retire before the magnitude of the task, and the majority of men also,
and we must bring forward those who to a large extent surpass all others
and soar as much above them in excellence of spirit as Saul overtopped
the whole Hebrew nation in bodily stature" (The Priesthood 2:2 [A.D.
387]).
The Apostolic Constitutions
"A virgin is not ordained, for we have no such
command from the Lord, for this is a state of voluntary trial, not for
the reproach of marriage, but on account of leisure for piety" (Apostolic
Constitutions 8:24 [A.D. 400]).
"Appoint, [O Bishop], a deaconess, faithful and
holy, for the ministering of women. For sometimes it is not possible to
send a deacon into certain houses of women, because of unbelievers. Send
a deaconess, because of the thoughts of the petty. A deaconess is of use
to us also in many other situations. First of all, in the baptizing of
women, a deacon will touch only their forehead with the holy oil, and afterwards
the female deacon herself anoints them" (ibid., 3:16).
"[T]he ‘man is the head of the woman’ [1 Cor. 11:3],
and he is originally ordained for the priesthood; it is not just to abrogate
the order of the creation and leave the first to come to the last part
of the body. For the woman is the body of the man, taken from his side
and subject to him, from whom she was separated for the procreation of
children. For he says, ‘He shall rule over you’ [Gen. 3:16]. For the first
part of the woman is the man, as being her head. But if in the foregoing
constitutions we have not permitted them [women] to teach, how will any
one allow them, contrary to nature, to perform the office of the priest?
For this is one of the ignorant practices of Gentile atheism, to ordain
women priests to the female deities, not one of the constitutions of Christ"
(ibid., 3:9).
"A widow is not ordained; yet if she has lost her
husband a great while and has lived soberly and unblamably and has taken
extraordinary care of her family, as Judith and Anna—those women of great
reputation—let her be chosen into the order of widows" (ibid., 8:25).
"A deaconess does not bless, but neither does she
perform anything else that is done by presbyters [priests] and deacons,
but she guards the doors and greatly assists the presbyters, for the sake
of decorum, when they are baptizing women" (ibid., 8:28).
Augustine
"[The Quintillians are heretics who] give women
predominance so that these, too, can be honored with the priesthood among
them. They say, namely, that Christ revealed himself . . . to Quintilla
and Priscilla [two Montanist prophetesses] in the form of a woman" (Heresies
1:17 [A.D. 428]).
NIHIL OBSTAT:
I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004
IMPRIMATUR:
In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004
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