Category Archives: Women’s Ordination

Guest Post: Against the Institution of Female Acolytes and Lectors

Recently, the Holy Father promulgated a ruling which allows for laywomen to be formally accepted into the to roles of lector and acolyte, roles which for sometime they have already been filling in practice. Up to this point, however, the formal acceptance was restricted to men. The move, while having very little visible effect on the current state of the liturgy, formalizes growing problems that will now be explored.

Why is Reading a Big Deal?

In the liturgical tradition of the Church, the priest reads from Sacred Scripture from the altar while facing away from the people. This liturgical choice preserves two important ideas: 1) the sacredness of the Word of God and 2) the offering of the Word to God. The first idea, the sacredness of the Word of God, is shown by the fact that only a person that has been in some way consecrated to God is able to the proclaim the word of God in the Church’s public worship. In the past, a distinction has existed between those possessing sacramental ordinations (deacons, priests, and bishops) and those that had received non-sacramental ordinations (lectors, porters, acolytes, exorcists, and subdeacons). Those receiving non-sacramental ordinations (also called minor orders) were understood to be acting as an extension of the ministry of the deacon, who possessed a sacramental ordination.

It is also important to note that, keeping in mind the principle that liturgical actions often have both a practical and symbolic purpose, the restriction of the ability to read publicly to those who will have a clear reading voice and will be knowledgable enough to correctly pronounce the more difficult words in Scripture will stop the proclamation of the divinely revealed Word of God from becoming an event the faithful laugh about on the car ride home.

Why do you hate Altar-girls?

With regards to the second idea, it must be kept in mind that the priest is offering the entire Mass as a sacrifice to God. This reality is reinforced by the priest facing towards the tabernacle while he is proclaiming the Word. The addition of women to the role of lector, in addition to the problems created by reading while facing the people, destroys this because God has always indicated that He desires the priestly ministry of offering sacrifice to be reserved to males.

In the liturgical tradition of the Church, only men are allowed to approach the altar, be it as bishops, priests, deacons, or even humble altar servers. Why is this? Is it because the Church fell to the spirit of past ages and has reinforced in its liturgy sexist ideas? The answer is a clear ‘No.’ To see why this is, one only needs to open a Bible and observe the patterns of worship that have been in place since the beginning and have been shown to please the Lord. (Exo. 28-29, Num. 3) They all contain male-only clergy because they are types of Christ Who will be both Priest and Minister in the New Testament. Those who participate in that liturgy act as sacramental signs of Christ, Who is male. This practice continues into the New Testament when Jesus and His Apostles continued the practice of male-only clergy even though they could have changed it. This change would not have even been perceived as strange outside the Jewish community as female clergy already existed in other religions in other parts of the Roman Empire, e.g., the vestals.

While the change only allowed for female acolytes, the formalization of an altar server, the principle on display is one that would eventually advocate for the female diaconate, priesthood, and episcopacy. This principle is rooted in the denial of the different roles of men and women in the Church, roles that have been clearly established in Scripture and vindicated by two millennia of tradition.

What about the Priesthood of the Baptized?

Forgetting the problems introduced by these changes discussed above, let us ask ourselves the question, ‘To what end are these changes made?’  Some would advance that it is desire to teach the doctrine of the priesthood of all the baptized. In response to this, it must be realized that this method will never achieve that goal because it obscures that reality more than it reveals it.

The sacrifice of the Mass is the perfect prayer of the Church and it is the meeting of Heaven and earth. All the faithful ought to hear Mass and offer this most perfect offering to God. An authentic teaching of the doctrine of the priesthood of all the baptized would teach the faithful how to more perfectly offer this sacrifice, because offering sacrifice is exactly what priests do. However, the priesthood within the liturgy is not the same as the priesthood outside the liturgy.

The ordained priest has been given the honor of offering the Mass and the faithful participate in the Mass to the degree that they spiritually unite themselves with him in his offering. This, however, is precisely the opposite of what is shown by allowing more and more faithful on the altar. Does the man or woman that reads at Mass participate more fully than one that doesn’t? If so, does that mean that we need to multiply roles until everyone attending the Mass is able to more ‘fully’ participate? This, again, is exactly the mindset forwarded by the increase of the roles of the laity in the Church’s liturgy.  From this, confusion emerges and we are left with a faithful that has traded true spiritual participation for a visible and ‘active’ participation and reduced the ability of others to spiritually participate in the liturgy by needlessly multiplying distractions.

Stripping down the Priesthood

What these changes leave us with, in addition to a liturgy less able to lead the faithful to union with God in prayer, is a sacramental priest stripped down and lacking identity. The priest has a sacred duty to offer sacrifice to God, namely the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. At the center of his spirituality must be this sacrifice and his entire life must be conformed to this sacrifice such that his entire life becomes a sacrifice. Just as a married man must lay down his life daily for his wife (who is the altar upon which he offers himself to God) and they are so conformed together that they become one flesh, so to must the priest become so conformed to the sacrifice of the Mass that he becomes a Victim-Priest just as Christ was. These changes, however, lead him more towards the roles of presider and orchestrator. One by one, his sacred duties are ‘contracted out’ to the laity and therefore lose their priestly character and change the character of the priest. The retractions are even more impactful to the diaconate, who has the duty to preform the exact ministerial actions that are being given to the laity.

The clergyman (be him a deacon, priest, or bishop) is a man chosen by God and consecrated such that he is given God-like powers, e.g., forgiving sins, calling down Christ from heaven, and strengthening a soul to endure death. Why are we stripping him of his duties and making him seem like an ordinary man? The evidence of this transformation is clear from priests being uncomfortable with saying, “I absolve you”, and replacing the ‘I’ with ‘Jesus’ or something similar. How can a man unconvinced of the massive amount of supernatural grace given to him and unwilling to proudly proclaim, with St. Paul that, “by the grace of God, I am what I am,” (1 Cor. 15:10) going to be able to fill the souls entrusted to his care with supernatural grace. We, the faithful, must support our clergy in living out their vocation by insisting that they keep the clerical duties for themselves.

About the Author

Connor Szurgot is currently a senior study for his BS. He has given multiple talks to the Catholic Campus Ministry at his university on topics such as Eucharistic reverence and mental prayer. He is a member of the Thomistic Institute and is a regular participant in their intellectual formation. He enjoys discussing the practical and philosophical aspects of politics as well as religion, particularly systematic theology.

Praying to the Lord of the Harvest

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.     

Priestesses

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

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.