By RAYMOND DE SOUZA
Part 4
The participation of women in the life of the Catholic Church over the centuries has been remarkable. Without being priests, women have played a major role in the instruction of the faithful, service of the sick and needy, and the works of the apostolate.
The work of spreading the Gospel, as early as in the apostolic times, was facilitated by the efforts of devout women, and it continues today by the nuns and sisters of the numerous orders and congregations, as well as many devoted lay women in Catholic associations in a great many countries.
There are women who stood up as towers in the City of God, even as doctors of the Church.
Take for instance, Saints Clare, Gertrude the Great, Birgitta of Sweden, Catherine of Siena, Angela Merici, Teresa of Jesus (of Avila), Margaret Mary Alacoque, and Therese of Lisieux, who have contributed an outstanding heritage to the Church, which we can benefit from to this very day.
Lay women also direct home and family life. They are the bearers of culture and form the souls of their children for life.
Many of the saints were indebted under God for their sanctity to the influence of pious mothers, and much of the good that there is in the world can be traced to the same source — the mother.
It is noteworthy, too, how many of the great mystics and recipients of divine messages for the renewal of Christian and priestly life have been women.
It was in 1994 that Pope John Paul II wisely closed the debate on women priests, and for good. He promulgated the apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, and made full use of his pontifical authority and power to define a matter of faith, concluding his letter by saying:
“Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church’s judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.
“Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Luke 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”
The prerogative of papal infallibility was defined with precision by Vatican Council I (yes, there was a Vatican Council I, but not too many have heard of it or of its work). The Pope of the time was the great Pope Pius IX, the Pope of the Sacred Heart.
The council fathers approved the document Pastor Aeternus, which defined the conditions for a papal teaching to be infallible. In simple terms, the Pope must speak ex cathedra, that is, from the Chair of Peter, in a matter of faith and/or morals. Any other topic does not involve infallibility.
How does one identify the ex cathedra manner of speaking? Simply by three specific characteristics:
The Pope must address the whole Catholic world, and not only a country, diocese, or the people at St. Peter’s Square, let alone in an airplane;
The Pope must make full use of his pontifical authority;
The Pope must make clear his will to define a teaching.
This is precisely what happened when John Paul II promulgated Ordinatio Sacerdotalis.
He addressed the whole Catholic world; he used the fullness of his pontifical authority; he specifically defined a truth; it was a matter belonging to the Deposit of the Faith.
Of course, you will find lots of laypeople, both men and women, who deny the fact that the Pope taught infallibly. You will find priests, and perhaps even bishops, who follow the same path.
But their opposition to the teaching does not render it invalid. Since it belongs to the very nature of the Sacrament of Holy Orders, the exclusive male priesthood is a matter of faith, and no layperson, priest, or bishop will ever change that. Period.
Let us delve a littler into the Mind of the Church, and of Christ, to investigate why He did not call women to the priesthood. Was it only a matter of…tradition?
No, there was much more to it.
The basis for male priests only is simply because the priest must be a man because he represents a Man, Jesus Christ, and by his Ordination he acts in persona Christi Capitis, in the very person of Christ the Head, who is the Bridegroom of His Bride, the Church. That is why we call the Church our Mother, not our Father.
Here is why the ordaining of the Blessed Virgin would not make sense: She represents the Church as Bride, not as the Church’s Head Groom. The ultimate reason for ordination of men only to represent Christ as Head lies, therefore, in the fact that God the Son became a man and not a woman. He became a man in order to be the Husband of the Church and at the same time the perfect image of the Fatherhood of God.
A woman cannot be a Christian priest, because she cannot be a husband and father. The child is conceived and grows outside the father and is clearly distinct from him. The child is conceived and grows within the mother.
God has revealed that He is to be called Father, for a father more than a mother is an image of the transcendence and might of God.
A woman, on the other hand, more than a man, is an image of those other immanent and tender qualities of God in His relations with the human race. These various divine qualities have been demonstrated in the Incarnation and in the sending of the Holy Spirit.
Next article: Can a Catholic resist a wrong teaching of his bishop?
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(Raymond de Souza, KM, is a Knight of the Sovereign and Military Order of Malta; a delegate for International Missions for Human Life International [HLI]; and an EWTN program host. Website: www. RaymonddeSouza.com.)
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