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U p F r o n t
A Whiff of Novelty
by Karl Keating
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This Rock
Volume 11, Number 2
 February 2000 
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Some people just don’t get it. The Vatican can say "no" a hundred different ways, and they still hear "maybe."
The November 27 issue of America, the Jesuit weekly, featured yet another article plumping for women priests. The writer, Susan A. Ross, teaches at Loyola University Chicago and is the author of Extravagant Affections: A Feminist Sacramental Theology. She says that within women’s religious communities "there is enormous pain" arising from the simple fact that convents need to call in a male priest to have a valid Mass—and thus many women religious are campaigning to have as few Masses as possible. This leads to divisions between the more traditional, who remember when Mass was celebrated daily, and the feminists, who prefer "non-eucharistic liturgies" to male-led Masses.
Ross explains that she is "concerned about religious congregations cutting themselves off liturgically from the rest of the church," but "I also question the morality of all-male Eucharists, of the complicity of the hierarchy, diocesan priests, and religious orders in perpetuating an image of the Eucharist where a man is always at the center and where women need not be in the picture at all." So, not only is it desirable to have female priests, but it is immoral to have only male priests.
She got one thing right. In every Mass "a man is always at the center"—the man Jesus Christ. The priest who represents him, the alter Christus, represents him best by himself being a man. That oversimplifies things, of course, but nevertheless that is a key reason (by no means the only key reason) why the priesthood is restricted to males. The priest is a "stand in" for Christ. As he re-presents the sacrifice of Calvary, the priest "is" Christ. The Mass is a divine drama, and the male lead needs to be played by a male.
Ross complains that "women need not be in the picture at all" during Mass. Their presence is not needed for the Mass to be a valid. Quite true, but it is also true that there is no need for non-ordained men to be at the Mass either—it will be valid even if the priest celebrates alone. While celebrating without a congregation is not the preferred mode, it not only is permissible but is recommended, if no congregation otherwise is available. This is the Church’s long-standing attitude, and it makes perfect sense. It is the priest alone who confects the sacrament. Contrary to what some allege, it is not necessary that there be a congregation to "receive" or "accept" what the priest does at the altar. His sacramental actions in no way rely on the "consent" of the laity.
When I saw that Ross wrote a book on "feminist sacramental theology," my eyes rolled. Nothing in her essay surprised me, and nothing in it was new, even if her particular tack—"Let’s have women priests so religious orders won’t collapse through internal dissension"—had a whiff of novelty to it. That’s what promoters of women’s ordination are reduced to now, looking for novelty. They long ago ran through their best arguments, and still the Vatican issued a firm "no." They heard but didn’t take the message to heart. They continue with their agitation, and they cause the very divisions they seek to cure. These divisions hurt.
I hope Susan A. Ross feels my pain.
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