Category Archives: Holy Orders

Celibacy and the Priesthood

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Throughout the history of the Church, one of the distinguishing marks of heretical movements has been the relaxing or abolishment of the requirements of clerical celibacy.  Whether it was the Arians, the Lutherans, or the Anglicans, the abandonment of this “hard teaching” has been a common thread.  One might even say that it is a tell-tale sign that it is the spirit of man at work rather than the Spirit of God.  And in this regard the current Germazonians who are lobbying for the Church to abandon the requirement for a celibate priesthood are no different.

To see why it is such a giveaway as to the presence of merely human solutions, we must first admit to the supernatural origin of the priesthood.  It is the “Lord of the harvest that gives the Church her priests” and when He doesn’t respond as expected, it is up to men to pray Him to send more laborers.  It is not up to men to move to harvest from different fields.  Put another way, the celibate priesthood is a sign of the Divine origin of the priesthood.   It was Our Lord Himself who told us that “Not all can accept this word [continence for the priesthood], but only those to whom that is granted” (Mt 19:11).  It is the priest who is an alter Christus, another Christ, who offers His same sacrifice.  As a sign of his authority to do so, the priest is given the supernatural ability to conform his own life to Christ’s celibate gift of Himself.  In short, celibacy is the mark that can’t be faked.  The power to maintain continence is the sign that Christ has put His stamp of approval on the Priest and is the distinguishing mark of the Priesthood of the Order of Melchizedek. 

What About Peter and the Other Apostles?

While Christ Himself was celibate, didn’t he call His future priests, the Apostles, from among married men?  Of this we can at least be sure that St. Peter, Our Lord’s first High Priest, was married.  We hear of Jesus’ healing Peter’s mother-in-law in Mark’s Gospel (c.f. Mk 1:29-34).  In fact St. Paul also mentions that the Bishop should only have been married once (1Tim 3:2).  How do we reconcile this with what was said above?  Perhaps more to the point, doesn’t this simply mean that celibate priesthood is merely a discipline that can be exercised and relaxed according to circumstances?

In order to avoid such a superficial interpretation of the evidence, we must dig a little deeper.  When we do, we find that in the early Church there was actually a two-pronged obligation for the cleric.  He was either not to marry, or if, being married when he was called, he would need to renounce the rights of marriage and live as a celibate.  When Peter is gaging the price of following Christ, He tells Our Lord that the Apostles have “given up our possessions and followed you.”  Our Lord then tells the Apostles that they must also renounce marriage, and if married, the rights of marriage: “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who will not receive back an overabundant return in this present age and eternal life in the age to come” (Lk 18:28-30).

The Law of Continence

The law of continence is found to be part and parcel of the priesthood in general.  Even the Levitical Priests during their time of service in the Temple were required to practice temporary continence.  Because the priesthood of the New Covenant essentially offers daily sacrifice their time of service is perpetual.  The Apostles would have known this and practiced it as evidenced by the fact that the Church consistently affirms that the practice has its origin with the Apostles:    

“When at the past council the matter on continence and chastity was considered, those three grades, which by a sort of bond are joined to chastity by their consecration, to wit bishops, presbyters, and deacons, so it seemed that it was becoming that the sacred rulers and priests of God as well as the Levites, or those who served at the divine sacraments, should be continent altogether, by which they would be able with singleness of heart to ask what they sought from the Lord: so that what the apostles taught and antiquity kept, that we might also keep.”

Council of Carthage Canon 3

During these first few centuries, men could only renounce the use of marriage with the consent of their wives.  But abuses of the requirement continued until the Gregorian reforms of the Church in the 11th and 12th Centuries.  It was not until the Council of Trent that the Church ceased calling candidates to the priesthood from married men.  By creating a system of seminaries, most of which began educating the candidates at a young age, the floodgates of celibate men entering the priesthood were opened.

Calling married men to the priesthood then is not unprecedented, even if it has not happened in a long time.  But in no time in history has the celibacy requirement been relaxed because it is believed to be of Apostolic origin.  If married men of the Amazonian region are to be called to the priesthood then they must be willing to renounce the rights of their marriage.  This would likely mean no longer living with their wives, even as “brother” and “sister”.  This aspect of renouncing the rights of marriage was not mention either in the Final Synod document or in Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation.  It would seem that in keeping with Apostolic Tradition that this would be an important detail to discuss.

Praying to the Lord of the Harvest

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On the first Saturday of Advent, the Church chooses as the gospel Matthew’s account of the commissioning of the Apostles.  After taking to heart the lost souls around Him, He demands that His disciples beg God to send more laborers into the fields.  He then empowers the Apostles and commands them to go out into the world to continue His mission of redemption (c.f. Mt 8:35-10:3).  The implications are obvious.  There are many lost souls that can only be saved through the continuing authoritative mission of the Apostles.  But this mission only continues through the prayers of all Christ’s disciples for more Bishops and Priests.

This interpretation is by no means novel.  The Church has always understood what Our Lord was telling us to do.  Nevertheless, in times of vocational crisis, there is a tendency, rather than trusting in God’s way of doing things, to look for human solutions.  Thus, we find ourselves discussing doing away with celibacy or adding women to the ranks of the ordained as human solutions to the problem.  But ultimately the “vocations crisis” is a crisis of faith in that we do not trust in God’s promise to send faithful Bishops and Priests.  We do not have them because we do not ask.

One might immediately object to what I just said.  There are plenty of people who pray for vocations.  While it is true that I have no idea how many people pray for vocations regularly, I do know that the Church has official periods of supplication for Priests that practically go unnoticed.  I am, of course, speaking of Ember Days. Ember Days are the ways in which the Church fulfills Our Lord’s command to pray for more harvesters.

The Ember Days

The Quatuor Tempora or Ember Days, are four periods of prayer and fasting (if you want to know how to fast, read this previous entry) that the Church has set aside for each of the four Ecclesiastical seasons.  Ember Days begin are marked by three days (Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday) of penance by which the Church, especially through fasting, consecrates to God each of the Seasons of the Year.  The practice sprung out of the habit of Israel to fast in the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth month (c.f. Zech 8:18-19).  The practice, at least according to Pope St. Leo the Great, has been a part of the Church’s year since the times of the Apostles.

The Advent Ember Days, like each of the other three, have as their object gratitude and supplication for the harvest.  According to Leo the Great, the Advent Ember Days, falling in the time of the year where all the fruits of the earth had been collected, would mark a time of “joyful fasting” (Zech 9:19) in thanksgiving for the harvest. 

The connection to the earthly harvest also has a further meaning connected to Our Lord’s mention of the great harvest of souls.  The Church through an act of penance would pray the Lord of the harvest to send worthy Ministers who are holy and true Shepherds during the Ember Days.  The faithful would join the Church in her intention by offering their own acts fasting.  In short then the Ember Days are special days in which the Church as a whole fasts and prays together for vocations. 

The fall into disuse of the Ember Days and the current vocation crisis are hardly coincidental.  The prayer of the Church is always far more pleasing and efficacious than individual prayer.  As the Ember Days of Advent come upon us tomorrow, let us join the Church in this act of gratitude for the faithful Shepherds among us and beg the Lord to send us more.  As Dom Prosper Gueranger exhorts us, the Ember Days are a great way to “keep within ourselves the zeal of our forefathers for this holy season of Advent.  We must never forget, that although the interior preparation is what is absolutely essential for our profiting by the Coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ, yet this preparation could scarcely be real, unless it manifested itself by exterior practices of religion and penance.”  Individually chastened by our fasts, let us then join the Church in these Ember Days and implore the Lord of the Harvest to send out more laborers.     

An Invitation to Awe

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One of the aspects of the Liturgy that is often overlooked is its inherent power to spark wonder and marvel and therefore leading to praise.  At least, it ought to do this.  Being no mere work of man, but an Opus Dei, a work of God, the Liturgy is meant to draw us into the “Sacred Mysteries”.  A liturgy that doesn’t elicit this response probably has too much man and not enough God in it.  Whether or not our current liturgy is awe-full or not, this need to be awe-filled remains key to the highly sought after “active participation” so cherished by the Fathers of Vatican II.  Rather than entering into  a debate over the merits and de-merits of the Novus Ordo  Mass, I want to offer a reflection on how to stir up the necessary awe that allows for a fuller participation in the Sacred Liturgy.

One of the more controversial changes to the Mass was the movement of the words “mystérium fídei” (Mystery of Faith) from the formula of consecration of the wine to right after the consecration.  Again, we will forego any critique of it and simply admit that the Liturgy is the way it is right now and we should make the best of it.  The words “Mystery of Faith” seem now to be awkwardly out of place, until we go back to the goal of causing us to marvel at what God has done and is doing.  The words Mystery of Faith, spoken by the Priest, are meant to be an expression of awe at what has just occurred before our very eyes.

All too often, rather than an invitation to awe, it is treated as a rubrical instruction for the congregation to say something.  But if we hover on the exclamation itself, then, rather than simply being a canned response, it can be an exclamation of faith in what has just occurred.  In order to grasp this however we must linger a while on the meaning of the words.

The Mystery of Faith

When the Son of God “took flesh and dwelt among us”, there was nothing remarkable about His appearance as a man.  But this same man, a man Whom they heard, saw with their eyes and touched with their hands was revealed to them to be the Son of God (c.f. 1Jn 1:1-3).  Their senses all supported the gift of divine faith they were given.  Never to leave His Church orphaned, this same Son of God extended the Incarnation throughout time and space through the Eucharist.  Now we are only in the presence of His words and no longer bound to the experience of our senses.  In the Eucharist our senses fail, but once we accept the words spoken by Our Lord we “recognize Him in the breaking of the bread.”

In his Encyclical on the Eucharist, Mirae Cartitatis, Pope Leo XIII reminded the faith that the Eucharist “is the chief means whereby men are engrafted on the divine nature, men also find the most efficacious help towards progress in every kind of virtue.”  But it is faith pre-eminently, that is exercised and strengthened—“nothing can be better adapted to promote a renewal of the strength and fervor of faith in the human mind than the mystery of the Eucharist, the ‘mystery of faith’…”  When we respond to the Priest’s awe-full utterance with a fervent act of faith, faith grows.  It is not merely a declaration on our part, but an exclamation that the entire history of salvation is bound up and made present in what we just witnessed.  But it is the Mystery of Faith because the mystery cannot be seen with human eyes but only through faith.

The Mystery of Faith

It is not only an act of faith, but participation in a mystery.  We are not just bystanders, but actual participants.  Our senses tell us we are in a pew in a church somewhere while faith tells us we are at the foot of the Cross speaking directly to Christ and offering Him up to the Father.  It is a mystery then first of all because it is real contact with the foundational mystery of the Cross.  And in this one mystery, Pope Leo XIII says, “the entire supernatural order is summed up and contained.”  Because in truth it is not just His Passion and death that is re-presented but His Resurrection as well.  It is, as St. John Paul II says, truly His Passover in which we journey with Him.  Each of the Memorial Acclamations contains the same content; the Passion, Death, Resurrection and “the eschatological footprint of Christ in His return”. 

We can see better what Our Lord meant when he told Thomas that those who did not see Him were blessed.  It is for our benefit that He presents Himself in a veiled manner.  By veiling Himself, His presence grows clearer and clearer in proportion to one’s charity.  Knowledge (faith) always leads to love so that His hidden presence in the Eucharist causes charity to grow in our soul. 

If this does not excite in us both reverence and awe, then we are merely going through the motions.  This Mystery of Faith is the content of eternity because it sums of all the mysteries of our Faith.  We will be contemplating this Mystery of Faith when faith gives way to vision.  In this way the Mass truly is training for life everlasting and we should treat it as such.

The Chair of St. Peter and Pope St. Clement

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St. Paul would often close his letters with a personal touch, mentioning those that held a special place in his heart.  His letter to the Philippians is not unique is that regard.  What is unique about this particular letter however is the man whom he mentions and what he says about him.  St. Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, speaks of a man named Clement “whose name is listed in the book of life” (Philippians 4:3).  It is rare that the canon of Scripture canonizes a saint, but St. Clement is just such a man.  He was predestined to become a saint and therefore he did.  This Clement, according to Eusebius, became the fourth man to occupy the Chair of St. Peter.  In fact, next to St. Peter he may be the most influential of all 266 of them.

When the two pillars, St. Peter and St. Paul, were both martyred in 67AD the Church barely skipped a beat.  For any other human endeavor, to lose men of this relative importance so close in time (some say it was on the same day), would have signaled the death knell.  Instead the Church kept going and growing because the Apostles had formed the next generation the way that Jesus had formed them.  This next generation, whom we call the Apostolic Fathers, still “had the voice of the Apostles ringing in their ears” (St. Irenaeus’ description of Clement in Against Heresies).  Of these men, St. Clement, as a disciple of not only St. Paul, but also St. Peter, was one of the most prominent.  Although we do not know much about his history, Tertullian tells us he was both baptized and ordained a bishop by St. Peter himself.  He eventually became the fourth bishop of Rome in around the year 91, reigning for 9 years before being martyred during the persecution of Trajan.

A Monumental Letter

The fact that he had both seen and been acquainted with the Apostles gave him a great deal of credibility, but his influence has spread beyond his own time because of a letter that he wrote to the Church in Corinth around the year 96AD.  This letter has been passed down through posterity completely intact with many known copies.  Not only does it give us a glimpse into the life of the early Church, but it gives us the earliest known exercise of Papal Authority outside of Sacred Scripture (c.f. Acts 15).      

St. Paul himself once had to deal with schismatic groups forming within the Church of Corinth.  Some 50 years later, they are at it again.  This time a dispute arose over the liturgy arose and a schismatic group arose trying to expel the Bishop and the Presbyters.  When and how long this went on, we do not know.  What we do know is that it was brought before the attention of the fourth Pope.  He was unable to address it immediately because of a new round of persecutions spearheaded by the Emperor Domitian.  But once the Emperor died in the year 96AD, Clement turned to the issue at hand by writing them a letter.

The letter should be read by all of us, but there are a few points worth noting.  First, he opens with an apology for not addressing the issue sooner (because of the persecution).  This means that he saw it not just as an exhortation, but as a duty.  Second, Corinth is about 240 miles from Ephesus, the home of St. John the Apostle.  Rome is about 600 miles away.  St. John does not deal with the issue, but St. Clement does.  Third is that, the only reason why we have the letter to this day, is because it was received and read as an authoritative statement.  That is, after the letter is received, the schism is put to rest.  Again, how long it took, we do not know.  But we do know that it was.  In fact, the entire Church saw it as an authoritative document as it was read throughout the entire Church.  It was even read in the liturgy in many of those Churches leading many to lobby for its inclusion in the Biblical canon. Finally, we can not forget what was said at the beginning—Clement’s name is written in the Book of Life. If he is disobeying God’s plan for the Church and setting it down a divergent path then we must explain how he is still infallibly among the future blesseds.

Although intended specifically for the Church in Corinth it was relevant to all Christians of the time, and even in our own day, because it clearly demonstrates that the Church hierarchy including Papal primacy was in place before the close of the first Christian century.

The Fundamental Problem

For St. Clement the source of the problem in Corinth is an unwillingness to accept the hierarchy as ordained by God.  He reminds them that the hierarchy of Bishops, Priests, Deacons and Laymen was instituted by the Apostles.  He says that,

“the Apostles have preached the Gospel to us from the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ [has done so] from God. Christ therefore was sent forth by God, and the apostles by Christ. Both these appointments, then, were made in an orderly way, according to the will of God…preaching through countries and cities, they appointed the first-fruits [of their labors], having first proved them by the Spirit, to be bishops and deacons of those who should afterwards believe.”   


Letter to the Corinthians, (LC) 42

We find a similar structure enunciated in the first century Church manual The Didache (c.f. Chapter 15).

He then goes on to show why a hierarchy is fitting by pointing out that God had ordained such a hierarchy in the Old Covenant which is fulfilled (not abolished) in the New Covenant.  There can be no novelty in worship or in structural hierarchy.  The hierarchy is based not on subjection but mutual dependence.  St. Clement says,

“[T]hese things therefore being manifest to us, and since we look into the depths of the divine knowledge, it behooves us to do all things in [their proper] order, which the Lord has commanded us to perform at stated times. He has enjoined offerings [to be presented] and service to be performed [to Him], and that not thoughtlessly or irregularly, but at the appointed times and hours. Where and by whom He desires these things to be done, He Himself has fixed by His own supreme will, in order that all things, being piously done according to His good pleasure, may be acceptable unto Him. Those, therefore, who present their offerings at the appointed times, are accepted and blessed; for inasmuch as they follow the laws of the Lord, they sin not. For his own peculiar services are assigned to the high priest, and their own proper place is prescribed to the priests, and their own special ministrations devolve on the Levites. The layman is bound by the laws that pertain to laymen.”

LC, 40

The tone of Clement’s letter is very pastoral as he attempts to appeal to them in charity and faith.  But this means only that he waits until the end of the letter to remind them of their duty to obey him.  In fact, it is these latter paragraphs that make it abundantly obvious that Clement is exercising his prerogative based upon his primacy.

In language very reminiscent of St. Peter’s language at the Council of Jerusalem, St. Clement reminds them that the Holy Spirit speaks through him and to disobey will put them in spiritual danger—

“Accept our counsel, and you will nothing to regret.  For as God lives, and as the Lord Jesus Christ live and the Holy Spirit…as surely will he that humbly and with equanimity and without regret carries out the commandments and precepts given by God, be enrolled and chosen among the number of those who are being saved through Jesus Christ…If anyone disobeys the things which have been said by Him through us, let them know that they will involve themselves in transgression and in no small danger.”


LC 58-59

Given the clarity with which St. Clement wrote, it becomes very evident that the Pope is not a late Catholic invention.  In fact, to deny Papal primacy and the hierarchy of the Church is to say that the Church went off the rails even before the death of the last Apostle.  A very dangerous proposition, especially when the Scriptural canon was not even complete yet (John’s Gospel still wasn’t written).  For it is quite clear from Clement’s Letter to the Corinthians that Christians everywhere understood that the Bishop of Rome enjoyed a place of primacy and that each local Church, in union with the Bishop of Rome, had a hierarchy of its own.  And this is why both reading and knowing the Church Fathers is very important for Catholics.

Sign of Contradiction

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In what has been labeled as a landmark study into various institutional responses to child sex abuse, the Australian Royal Commission targeted two particular practices of the Catholic Church; deeming them as directly contributing to abuse.  There is a certain familiar ring to them with the Commission recommending that the Church remove the canonical seal of Confession as pertains to sexual abuse and make clerical celibacy voluntary.  Many in the media, both Down Under and abroad, have criticized the Church for being too quick to dismiss the recommendations of the Commission.  Of course, the Church has been listening to these “recommendations” for many years now and so has good reason for rejecting them out of hand.  Nevertheless, it is always instructive for us to look at why, particularly the recommendation to change the practice of celibacy, is not a real solution.

To be fair, the Commission was quick to point out that clerical celibacy was not a direct cause of abuse but instead called it “a contributing factor,” especially since it “is implicated in emotional isolation, loneliness, depression and mental illness. Compulsory celibacy may also have contributed to various forms of psychosexual dysfunction, including psychosexual immaturity, which pose an ongoing risk to the safety of children.”  Furthermore, “for many clergy and religious, celibacy is an unattainable ideal that leads to clergy and religious living double lives, and contributes to a culture of secrecy and hypocrisy” (p. 71).

Statistics Don’t Lie but People Sometimes Use Them Wrong

Because we live in a world that increasingly relies on empirical observation, it is always helpful to begin by examining exactly how they came to their conclusions.  There can be no doubt that the Church in Australia, like the Church in the United States and the rest of the world, fostered a culture of abuse in the past.  There have been many effective safeguards put in place in the last decade but there is always room for improvement.  Still, there is some extreme speculation in what the Commission is saying.  To say that celibacy is a contributing factor with any degree of statistical confidence, you must be able to compare the incidence with non-celibates, with all other risk and institutional factors (including size) being equal.   To simply report raw numbers and unadjusted proportions comparing the Catholic Church (964 institutions) with Hinduism (less than 4 institutions) is highly misleading and can lead to spurious conclusions (see pp. 45-46).    They mention that the Church had the highest percentage of the total abuse cases, but there is no adjustment in that percentage for the fact that it is by far the largest institution.  It is like comparing the number of murders in Billings, Montana, with those in New York City without making any adjustment for the population size.  Per capita the incidence of abuse within the Church is no higher than other religious institutions, making any claim that celibacy is a contributing factor spurious at best.  In a peer reviewed setting, what they reported in their numbers of victims would have never passed even the most cursory of scrutiny.

They may have data to support this claim, but it would have been remarkable since no other group has found the incidence among priests to be any higher than other religious denominations and some have even found it to be lower.  If you really want to know the truth as to the incidence of abuse, follow the money.  Since the 80s insurance companies have offered sexual misconduct coverage as a rider on liability insurance and they have found that the Catholic Church is not at any additional risk than other congregations.  In fact, because most abuse claims involve children, the only risk factor they do include is the number of children’s programs they have (for more on this, see this Newsweek article).

The Unattainable Ideal

There is also a familiar tone to their contention that compulsory clerical celibacy is an “unattainable ideal” for many of the clergy.  In fact, it is similar to the response that Our Lord gave to the Apostles when they questioned Him regarding “becoming a eunuch for the sake of the Kingdom of God” (Mt 19:12).  It is a calling based on a very high ideal, an ideal that can never be attained unless there is a particular call—”Whoever can accept this ought to accept it” (Mt 19:12).  It is both a free choice and a calling to a high ideal, but God always equips when He calls.

The point is that it is an unattainable ideal for all of the clergy without the necessary graces attached to the call.  But it is still a fallen man who accepts the call and thus the possibility for infidelity always remains real.  But just because some men fail, does not mean that the Church should throw away the ideal.

What this really betrays is a hidden assumption that everyone is making.  Priests are human just like everyone else and when they itch they must scratch.  We do not understand what celibacy is and therefore assume the solution to the problem is an orgasm.  If we can set it so that this orgasm occurs in a licit situation then we will rid the priesthood of this problem.  But again, if that were the case no married men would do something like this.

This is where JPII’s elixir of Theology of the Body comes in.  In man who has been redeemed by Christ, sexual desire is meant to be the power to love as God loves.  Nuptial love is the love of a total giving of self.  It is in the body’s “capacity of expressing love: that love precisely in which the person becomes a gift—and by means of this gift—fulfills the very meaning of being and existence” (JPII General Audience 16 January 1980).  Marriage and Procreation aren’t the only ways to love as God loves.  These are simply the original models that God gave us “in the beginning”.  Anytime we image Christ in giving up our bodies for others we express the nuptial meaning of the body.

With this in mind we can begin to understand celibacy.  Celibate life can only flow from a profound knowledge of the nuptial meaning of the body.  Anyone who chooses this vocation out of fear of sex or some deep sexual wound would not be responding to an authentic call from Christ (JPII General Audience 28 April 1982).  Celibacy is meant to be an anticipation of Heaven where we are neither married nor given in marriage.  It is a witness to the resurrection of the glorified body.  In other words, those who forego marriage in this life do so in anticipation of the “marriage of the Lamb”.

The Commission simply sees no value in celibacy and therefore is quick to dismiss it.  It is a sign of contradiction and therefore “has to be the problem” even if there is no way to prove it.  They rightly call it an ideal, but then fail to grasp the value of that ideal.  It is an ideal because it is also a sign—a sign that is valuable to the rest of society as a whole.  It serves a complimentary role to marriage and helps to show its true meaning.  It is an anticipation of our future life where our union with Love itself will be more intimate than marriage.  But it also shows the great worth of marriage itself because it is a sacrifice of great worth.

Priestesses

Holy Orders, Women's Ordination

The Pew Center for Religion and Public Life recently released a study that looked at the desire among American Catholics for changes in the Church.  Not surprisingly, one of the issues that a majority of Catholics (59% of all Catholics and 46% of regular Mass-goers) were in favor of changing was Women’s Ordination.  We as Americans especially (interesting that this really is a non-issue everywhere else except Canada) hate being told no and won’t stand one second for any type of discrimination.

For her part, the Church has spoken infallibly on this issue.   In Ordinatio Sacerdotalis John Paul II said 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.”  In other words it is an issue solely based on the authority given to the Church.  The Church has no authority whatsoever to ordain women.  The Church has never said that it will not ordain women only that it cannot.

As an aside, there is a movement by dissenting theologians and priests to find loopholes in definitive Church teachings.  One of the great gifts that our current Holy Father has given to the Church is his clarity as a teacher after Vatican II.  When he was Prefect for the CDF made sure that all loopholes were closed when in the audience of John Paul II he confirmed that it was an infallible teaching of the Ordinary Magisterium when he wrote:

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). Thus, in the present circumstances, the Roman Pontiff, exercising his proper office of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32), has handed on this same teaching by a formal declaration, explicitly stating what is to be held always, everywhere, and by all, as belonging to the deposit of the faith.

This is why I find the whole issue particularly puzzling.  If someone is a faithful Catholic they know that when the Church speaks infallibly it speaks for Christ.  To continue arguing on this issue is not an argument for priestesses but an argument against the Church as the voice of Christ.  We also know that the truths of the faith do not arise from common human experience but they come to us form God’s gracious self-giving.  A doctrinal tradition that is grounded in objective revelation must be preserved and monitored by an authority that transcends subjectivity and is capable of real judgment.

It is helpful however to understand and respond to the reasons why those in favor of priestesses are unable to hear the Church when she says “No.”  According to womenpriests.org there are seven reasons why the Church should allow women’s ordination.  While there appears to be little distinction between a few them, it does seem to adequately summarize the reasons why those in favor of women’s ordination think it something to be considered.

Jesus empowered women to preside at the Eucharist

The argument goes that Mary and the women disciples were present at the Last Supper and received the command from Christ to “do this in memory of Me.”  I have to admit that this is an incredible stretch.  All three of the synoptic Gospels say that it was Jesus and the Twelve at the table and make no mention of anyone else.  Mark says “when it was evening, he came with the Twelve.” (Mk 14:17), Luke says “when the hour came, he took his place at table with the apostles” (Lk 22:14) and Matthew says, “When it was evening, he reclined at table with the Twelve.”  (Mt 26:20).

It is interesting to note that none of them mention these women disciples.  Given Luke’s affinity for showing women’s place in the kingdom you would think he might mention that there were women there.

Matthew’s Gospel is perhaps the most damning for the priestess argument.  He was writing to a Jewish Christian audience, so if there were to be priestesses he would not have omitted that important detail.  The Jews were perhaps the only religious sect that did not have priestesses at the time so if there were to be priestesses in the Christian religion he surely would have mentioned it.

To the argument that the women prepared the Passover and then Jesus and the Apostles came to the meal also has no biblical evidence.  Luke in fact says it was Peter and John who did the preparation (Lk 22:8-13).

In this case the advocates for women’s ordination are going way beyond what Scripture tells us; especially given that Tradition does not support that position either.  This brings us to arguments two and three

This is a true case of Latent Tradition. Believers have always known in their heart of hearts that women too can be priests.

I am not real clear what they mean by “latent tradition” in this case, but I assume they mean it was something that was believed early on and then was hidden away in the hearts of some of the faithful.  This is almost a subtle form of Gnosticism where there is this select group who has held on to the true teaching.

Is there any evidence to the claim that “believers have always known in their heart of hearts that women too can be priests”?  Clearly St. Paul did not teach this to be true.  In 1 Tim 2:11-14, he taught that women could not teach or have authority over a man in the Church, which are two obviously essential functions of the clergy.

The early Fathers of the Church also were unanimous in saying that there could be no women clergy.  Tertullian quoted St. Paul’s admonition that women might not speak in the church in the 3rd Century (206) saying “(I)t 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).

Similarly in the 4th Century (387) St. John Chrysostom said that  “(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 natural question would be if it was rejected from the very beginning, when exactly did it go “latent”?

Women were given the full ordination to the diaconate in the Early Church.

This like the previous argument is not historically accurate.  According to the Apostolic Traditions (written around the year 400) the role of the deaconess was to assist with the baptism of women.  In the first few centuries baptism was done completely naked.  “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.”

Furthermore there is no evidence that these deaconesses were ordained and in fact there is evidence to the contrary.  Both the First Council of Nicaea (325) and the Council of Laodicea (360) said that they are not to be ordained but be counted among the laity.

Through baptism women and men share equally in the new priesthood of Christ. This includes openness to Holy Orders.

With the historicity of their position highly suspect at best, we turn to the theological argument.  This argument is an attempt to equate or at least put on the same level the priesthood of all believers and the ministerial priesthood.  This is one of the essential differences between many of the Protestant ecclesial communities and the Catholic Church.

What exactly does the Church say about the differences?  In Lumen Gentium(10), the Second Vatican Council said the following:

‘Though they differ essentially and not only in degree, the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood are none the less ordered one to the other; each in its own way shares in the one priesthood of Christ.’

The proponents of women’s ordination say that the difference is one of only degree.  But the Church says the differences are in kind even though they are ordered towards each other.  The priest is for the laity and the laity for the priest.

What is the difference between the priesthood of all believers and the ministerial priesthood?

As part of our baptism we share in Christ’s priesthood.  The role of the priest is to offer sacrifices.  The priesthood of all believers offers spiritual sacrifices (see Romans 12:1 and 1 Peter 2:5).  They are united to Christ’s priesthood by a spiritual union through faith and charity, but not by sacramental power.

The ministerial priesthood however is a personal (albeit sacramental) representation of Christ, such as offering the Eucharistic Sacrifice or forgiving sins.  Like every sacrament, Holy Orders has matter and form—the matter is the male sex.

Why the male sex?  Well, because Christ is male.  That is no mere accident or social convention.  You tread on dangerous ground if you suggest it is because then Christ would be guilty of the sin of sexism.  He came as a male because He was the Son Who came to reveal the Father.  The Father’s masculinity is essential to knowing Who He is.  God is masculine in relation to everything and thus priests who represent Him sacramentally (i.e. make visible what is invisible) must be male.

Now let me make clear what I am saying.  God is masculine in relation to everything that is.  I am not saying that God is masculine.  God has both masculinity and femininity in Him or else He could not be the source of those things.  More accurately, it would be proper to say that He transcends masculinity and femininity.

A prejudice barred women from the priestly ministry…Women were considered less than men in every respect.

Does anyone see a problem with this argument right off the bat?  On the one hand they say that the early Church did ordain women.  Now they said they didn’t.  Which is it?  I love the part where they say, “OK, in the past the Church refused to ordain women as priests.”  It’s as if they are saying that alright, alright, we made up the other reasons.  But here is the real reason.”

That being said, this statement has a hidden assumption and it really goes to the heart of the confusion not only of the priesthood but of society as a whole.  The assumption is that the only response to chauvinism is egalitarianism.  The chauvinist says that because men and women are different in their essence, one must be superior to the other.  Egalitarianists reject the conclusion that one must be superior to the other by also rejecting the premise that they are different in their essence. They say there really are no differences in the sexes.  But in reality all they have done is swung equally wrong in the opposite direction.  For what they both assume is that all differences are differences in value.  But they can be equal in value while being different in role.

That our bodies are different ought to be obvious.  But what is the body other than the form of the soul.  This means that our masculinity and femininity goes to the very depths of our souls.  When I say “I am a man” the “I” that is saying it really is masculine and not a neutered soul in a biologically male body.  This is why when your biology contradicts your ideology it is time to rethink your ideology.

Maybe instead of merely dismissing the Fathers of the Church as chauvinists, we should look at the ways in which they were right.  The Holy Spirit inspired the author of 1 Peter to call females the “fairer sex” which means that in some ways females are the weaker of the two sexes.  This also implies that egalitarianism is contrary to Scripture.

The point is that the response to the injustice that men for many generations (ever since the Fall really) have perpetuated on women is not identity.  As Chesterton said, “there is nothing so certain to lead to inequality as identity.”  Unbeknownst to feminists however they are acknowledging the superiority of the male sex in trying to become like men.  They foolishly seek to alter inequality rather than seek truth or justice.

Women Priests

In other Christian Churches women are now being given access to all the ordained ministries.

Is this really one of the best seven reasons they can come up with; “everyone else is doing it”?  It didn’t work with my mother as a teenager and you can’t imagine it will work with Holy Mother Church.  You need reasons why the Catholic Church should do it.  Keeping up with the Lutherans is not one of them.

Cardinal George is often asked why the Church will not allow women priests.  His response is very much how I would envision Christ responding—with a question.  He asks them to tell him what they think a priest is.  He has yet to come across a single person who could tell him correctly what a priest is.  That is what is behind this “argument”.  It is a fundamental misunderstanding what the difference between a Priest and other Protestant ministers is.

A Priest is not merely a minister who preaches and leads the congregation.  No, a Priest is one who stands in persona Christi or in the Person of Christ.  A Priest’s primary focus is to bring the Sacraments to the laity so that they can be empowered to go out and sanctify the world.  This is something very different than a Protestant Minister who leads a congregation in worship.  As CS Lewis says in his essay Priestesses in the Church?, that there is “an old saying in the army that you salute the uniform not the wearer. Only one wearing the masculine uniform can (provisionally, and till the Parousia) represent the Lord to the Church: for we are all, corporately and individually, feminine to Him.”

The fact is that many Catholic women, all over the world, feel called to the priestly ministry.

Finally we come to the last of the arguments.  Many Catholic women “feel” called to priestly ministry.  This really is a question related to discernment.  Although this is a whole topic in itself, this is something that we have forgotten how to do.  When discerning any call from God as being authentic or not, there are checks that God has placed in our lives.  One of those checks is to check it against the authority of the Church who we know speaks on behalf of Christ.  Because the one who hears the Church hears Christ, if the Church says no so does He.  This is a good indication that the call is not authentic.  Again this is a rejection not of an all male priesthood, but the Catholic Church herself.

Truth cannot contradict truth.  If you claim to be receiving an inspiration and it does jibe with the Church, then that is probably a good indication exactly which type of spirit is leading you.  Like all heretical claims, it is really just a repackaging of an old heresy.  The Montanists claimed that their leader Montanus was the spokesperson of the Holy Spirit (along with 2 women, Priscilla and Maximilla).  Even Tertullian was drawn away from the Church by them.  Like all heresies it keeps dying and then is reincarnated in a different form.

What is most disturbing to me personally is that it is really functionalism at the heart of anyone who argues it is an insult to a woman’s personal worth not to be allowed to become a priest.  We are not who we are primarily because of what we do, but primarily in Who made us and Who we were made for.  Am I less valuable because the Church won’t allow me to be a priest?

I close with CS Lewis’ conclusion regarding the problem of priestesses in the Church.  He says “(W)e men may often make very bad priests. That is because we are insufficiently masculine. It is no cure to call in those who are not masculine at all. A given man may make a very bad husband; you cannot mend matters by trying to reverse the roles. He may make a bad male partner in a dance. The cure for that is that men should more diligently attend dancing classes; not that the ballroom should henceforward ignore distinctions of sex and treat all dancers as neuter.”

 

Sorry, Not Deacons Either

Holy Orders, Women's Ordination

In a recent interview with Catholic News Service, Archbishop Paul-Andre Durocher of Quebec called upon his fellow Synod Father to reflect on the possibility of allowing for female deacons.  Specifically, he said “I think we should really start looking seriously at the possibility of ordaining women deacons because the diaconate in the church’s tradition has been defined as not being ordered toward priesthood but toward ministry…It’s a just question to ask. Shouldn’t we be opening up new venues for ministry of women in the church?”  I suspect that the Archbishop is not being entirely genuine in his response.  On the one hand, he says that we should “start looking seriously” and on the other it is “just a question to ask.”  But since he “just asked,” we can talk about why the Synod Fathers should waste no time on “looking seriously” at it.

One of the fruits of the Second Vatican Council was a restoration of the permanent diaconate.  But we cannot ignore the fact that it was “re-introduced” into a world that was very different from the world in which it went into hibernation nearly 800 years before.  Gone is a sacramental understanding of reality, replaced with one that is entirely functional.  Through this paradigm, the deacon is viewed primarily by what he does rather than first and foremost what he is.  He might look and act like a Protestant minister through his ministry of preaching and service, but the difference is a sacramental one and not merely a functional one.

Obviously then there is a necessity to explain and develop further a Theology of the Diaconate.  The current prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Gerhard Cardinal Müller lays a firm foundation for this in his 2002 book, Priesthood and Diaconate.  The former Bishop of Regensburg offers what is an irrefutable argument for why women cannot be deacons–“because Mother said so.”

In order to see the issue properly, we must properly understand the Sacrament of Holy Orders.  It is not three separate Sacraments but instead a single sacrament that is separately administered with three successively higher sacramental effects.    The criterion for belonging to the sacramental higher orders is whether or not the degree is ordered to the full priestly authority of Christ as given to a Bishop.  The priest is given the authority to act in persona Christi while the deacon shares in the priestly action by participation.  At the beginning of the 2nd Century we find Ignatius of Antioch  already giving expression to the interconnectedness and distinctions among the degrees of Order—“Let everyone revere the deacons as Jesus Christ, the bishops the image of the Father, and the presbyters as the senate of God and the assembly of the apostles.  For without them one cannot speak of the Church.”  In continuity with this, the threefold hierarchy of the single sacrament is taught in the Council of Trent and is a theme of Pope Pius XII’s 1947 Apostolic Constitution Sacramentum Ordinis.  In this document, he emphasized the unity of the three degrees of Holy Orders—Diaconate, Priesthood and Episcopacy and was cited as a source for the Second Vatican Council’s document on the Church, Lumen Gentium.  Why this unity of a single sacrament is important will be seen in a moment.

Women Ordination

In Ordinatio Sacerdotalis John Paul II said 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.”  In other words it is an issue solely based on the authority given to the Church.  The Church has no authority whatsoever to ordain women.  The Church has never said that it will not ordain women only that it cannot.

In order to clear up any confusion and close the discussion once and for all, one of Cardinal Müller’s predecessors as Prefect for the CDF, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI)  when in the audience of John Paul II confirmed that it was an infallible teaching of the Ordinary Magisterium.  Specifically he said:

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). Thus, in the present circumstances, the Roman Pontiff, exercising his proper office of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32), has handed on this same teaching by a formal declaration, explicitly stating what is to be held always, everywhere, and by all, as belonging to the deposit of the faith.

Given the Magisterial precedents above, there can be no doubt that Ordinatio Sacedotalis refers to all three degree of the Priesthood given through the Sacrament of Holy Orders and not just to the second degree of what we commonly call priesthood.  This question should be considered closed and the attempts by dissenting theologians and priests to find loopholes in definitive Church teachings should move elsewhere.

In all honesty, I find the whole issue particularly puzzling.  If someone is a faithful Catholic they know that when the Church speaks infallibly then it speaks for Christ.  To continue arguing on this issue is not an argument for deaconesses or priestesses but an argument against the Church as the voice of Christ.  We also know that the truths of the faith do not arise from common human experience but they come to us form God’s gracious self-giving.  A doctrinal tradition that is grounded in objective revelation must be preserved and monitored by an authority that transcends subjectivity and is capable of real judgment.

Before closing, it is helpful to address the argument that the Early Church had deaconesses.  The problem with this argument is that the term diakonein could be used in any or every form of service in the early Christian community. According to the Apostolic Traditions (written around the year 400) the role of the deaconess was to assist with the baptism of women.  In the first few centuries baptism was done completely naked.  “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.”

Furthermore there is no evidence that these deaconesses were ordained and in fact there is evidence to the contrary.  Both the First Council of Nicaea (325) and the Council of Laodicea (360) said that they are not to be ordained but be counted among the laity.  Deaconess was simply one of a number of ecclesial ministers.

In conclusion it is worth mentioning that while the Archbishop may consider himself “progressive” and listening to the “Spirit of Vatican II,” his suggestion really represents a step backwards to the clericalism that plagued the Church prior to the Second Vatican Council.  The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council attempted to lay the groundwork for a theology of the laity that did not view them as somehow second class citizens of the Church.  While we still have a long way to go in this regard, we must overcome the habit of defining a lay person as one who is less than a priest and therefore full participation is somehow lessened by a lack of woman’s ordination.  Furthermore by treating the possibility of the diaconate as a mere concession to women since they cannot be priests, you are not solving the problem of the so-called inequality between the genders in the Church.  You are merely admitting to it and trying to throw women’s ordination proponents a bone.  If prelates and priests inside the Church would leave the question closed, perhaps we could get on with the necessary work of understanding more fully what the roles of the laity (both women and men) are within the Church.  Quite frankly, if you look around the problem is not the participation of lay women in the life of the Church but lay men that seems to be the larger issue.