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When speaking before Catholic groups, I have found that one of the most frequently asked questions is, “Why does the Church not ordain women to the sacred priesthood?”
Most Christian denominations have long since admitted women to their ministries on an equal basis with men. Not to do so is almost universally seen today as a form of discrimination—this at a time when almost any form of discrimination is seen as the gravest of wrongs.
That not a few Catholics share this perception has frequently been impressed upon me. After a talk to a Catholic group on almost any subject, the first question raised during the question period is often still about why there is no female ordination. The questioner is almost always a woman, usually an older woman, and the question is typically posed in an aggrieved tone. Audience murmurs indicate that the concern is widely shared, including among some men.
A matter of great clarity
The fact of the matter, of course, is that women cannot be ordained to the Catholic priesthood. The Church’s magisterium, or teaching authority, has made that very clear. In an apostolic letter issuedMay 28, 1994, Bl. Pope John Paul II declared:
In order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s 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 held definitively by all the Church’s faithful (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis 4).
“No authority whatsoever. . . . To be held definitively. . . . In order that all doubt may be removed.” It would be hard to speak more plainly. The pope intended to settle the question once and for all. Moreover—perhaps because many voices continued to be heard imagining that the Church’s teaching might be changed anyway—the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the year after the pope’s declaration, on October 28, 1995, issued what it called a Responsum ad dubium (“Response to a doubt”) confirming the judgment of the pope.
This document was issued over the signature of the prefect of the doctrinal congregation, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI. In it he specified that the teaching excluding female ordination required “definitive assent, since, founded on the written word of God, and from the beginning constantly preserved in the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal magisterium” (emphasis added).
That’s “infallibly.” Without error. The Church’s magisterium has been rather chary in recent years about using the word infallible, but here, suddenly, it appears. Ratzinger was not claiming that Pope John Paul II as an individual was teaching infallibly in issuing Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. Rather, the pope was reflecting what had long been taught by the Church’s “ordinary and universal magisterium.”
When speaking before Catholic groups, I have found that one of the most frequently asked questions is, “Why does the Church not ordain women to the sacred priesthood?”
Most Christian denominations have long since admitted women to their ministries on an equal basis with men. Not to do so is almost universally seen today as a form of discrimination—this at a time when almost any form of discrimination is seen as the gravest of wrongs.
That not a few Catholics share this perception has frequently been impressed upon me. After a talk to a Catholic group on almost any subject, the first question raised during the question period is often still about why there is no female ordination. The questioner is almost always a woman, usually an older woman, and the question is typically posed in an aggrieved tone. Audience murmurs indicate that the concern is widely shared, including among some men.
A matter of great clarity
The fact of the matter, of course, is that women cannot be ordained to the Catholic priesthood. The Church’s magisterium, or teaching authority, has made that very clear. In an apostolic letter issuedMay 28, 1994, Bl. Pope John Paul II declared:
In order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s 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 held definitively by all the Church’s faithful (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis 4).
“No authority whatsoever. . . . To be held definitively. . . . In order that all doubt may be removed.” It would be hard to speak more plainly. The pope intended to settle the question once and for all. Moreover—perhaps because many voices continued to be heard imagining that the Church’s teaching might be changed anyway—the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the year after the pope’s declaration, on October 28, 1995, issued what it called a Responsum ad dubium (“Response to a doubt”) confirming the judgment of the pope.
This document was issued over the signature of the prefect of the doctrinal congregation, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI. In it he specified that the teaching excluding female ordination required “definitive assent, since, founded on the written word of God, and from the beginning constantly preserved in the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal magisterium” (emphasis added).
That’s “infallibly.” Without error. The Church’s magisterium has been rather chary in recent years about using the word infallible, but here, suddenly, it appears. Ratzinger was not claiming that Pope John Paul II as an individual was teaching infallibly in issuing Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. Rather, the pope was reflecting what had long been taught by the Church’s “ordinary and universal magisterium.”