Catholic Women Clergy? Different, but Equal in Dignity.

In the last few years, I’ve noticed a spiking interest in the concept of Catholic women clergy. Some argue for women priests, some argue for women deacons. To me, these arguments seem to largely be from a sincere place of service to the Church, inclusion in the mission of the Church, and a shared dignity we all have as human beings made in the image of God. However, all of them are theologically incorrect. I understand the heartfelt desire to serve the Lord, and I can understand the emotional pain one might feel from being told “you are not able to serve God in this way”, but we also need to face the reality of how we were made, which directly affects our ability to serve God in varying ways. God calls each of us to something that is both universal and unique, a vocation made up of smaller ‘vocations’.

We can view vocation in a number of ways, but the most approachable view I have found is that God calls us to one of 4 primary vocations (though, many would argue only 3): Holy Orders, Religious life, Holy Matrimony, and Single life (this one, some people debate. Can God call you something that you’re born into? I’d say absolutely). Within each of these vocations (some of which can be lived in tandem) are ‘sub-vocations’. These would be things like: the Diocese a priest serves in, the parish he is placed at, the ministries he oversees there, the people he cares for, and so on. For a marriage example: the woman I married, the children we raise, the job I work to provide for them, where we live, and so on. This can come down to the very day-to-day choices we make in either doing the will of God or choosing not to.

God does not call all of us to the same things. Some of us, He has made incapable of certain vocations. For example, I as a man am incapable of bearing a child. My wife certainly can, but she was made differently than me. In a like manner, my wife is also incapable, by her nature, of receiving Holy Orders. Becasue she is not ‘man’, she cannot fill the role of ‘father’. Because I am not ‘woman’, I cannot fill the role of ‘mother’. This is not to say that I am incapable of fulfilling some of the things she does to take care of our family. For example, I work in ministry, and we have discerned that she has been called to be a stay at home mother. If I was the stay at home father and she worked, this would certainly be less ‘traditional’ of a family, but it does not fundamentally change how we were made.

Even with the purest of intentions, the cardinal sin of pride can interfere with answering God’s call to a particular vocation. We so often fall to thinking that we know better than God how to serve Him. This isn’t something new; in the fall, it would seem that Adam was beside or nearby (‘with’) to Eve while she was committing the first sin and inviting him to partake (Genesis 3:6). This tells us that Adam, who’s role is to defend, does not defend. And Eve, who’s role is to be humbly obedient to God, is not obedient. Now, obviously they are both disobedient to God, as they both fall. However, what this shows us is an inclination for man to hide from his obligations and for woman to seek that which is not her nature. Both of them fall into sin, and both of them sought, in some form, to either hide from their vocation or to seek out that which is not their vocation.

In the Church, there seems to be a constant petitioning for women priests from various groups. Again, I love their desire to serve the Church, but if I am trying to serve the Church in a manner in which God did not make me for, I’m not actually seeking to serve God, but rather, my own desires. Without being too indelicate, but while also upholding the teaching of our Lord and the Church, women ordinations are an impossibility. It is, by the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium, an infallible teaching. This kind of infallibility is not defined by a specific council of the church, nor by the Supreme Pontiff. Rather, it is the kind of infallibility that comes from a universally held belief on faith and/or morals by the Bishops in union with the Pope (thus, universal magisterium). It was only when questions arose that Pope Saint John Paul II, in his Apostolic Constitution Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, re-asserted this already infallible teaching: “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. Lk 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” (Pope Saint John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, Section 4).

Even still, there was some confusion as to whether or not this was ‘up for debate’ in some way. Thus, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who at the time was the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (and later became Pope Benedict XVI) released a clarification (a ‘Responsum’) which said the following: “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” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Responsum Ad Propositum Dubum Concerning the Teaching Contained in ‘Ordinatio Sacerdotalis’).

One may point out that there are women ‘deaconesses’ in the New Testament. This is absolutely correct (Romans 16:1). Phoebe is called διάκονος, the same word used for male deacons. However, we have no evidence that this ministry was an ordained one. In fact, we have all the evidence to the contrary.

There is a work very often quoted by proponents of women’s ordinations that does mention deaconesses as an instituted ministry in the Church. However, this is not Holy Orders. Let’s look at the work itself as it described what the ministry of a deaconess actually is. Constitutiones Apostolorum, a work of the early Church of unknown authorship and likely written in the 4th century AD, states the following regarding the actual duties of a deaconess: “A Deaconess doth not bless, nor perform anything belonging to the office of Presbyters or Deacons; but is only to keep the doors, and to minister to the Presbyters in the baptizing of women, on account of decency.”

So then, why have a deaconess at all? Well, it was a common practice in the early Church to be baptized in the nude. This was certainly not a sexualized event, rather, just as with many symbols that show forth in our liturgies, there was a strong preference to be born again, and to enter into the sacramental economy of the Church in a highly symbolic fashion. After all, the sacraments do what they signify. Water reminds us of washing, cleaning, drinking, life, the flood, a creation from chaos to order. With this same mindset, those who entered the church (and from what we can tell, this certainly wasn’t everyone or everywhere) wished to enter into baptism in the most symbolically rich way they knew how. Thus, it makes sense why the ministry of deaconess was considered incredibly helpful for the sake of modesty and dignity of women coming into the Church.

So ultimately, why can women not receive Holy Orders? Because women are not able to be fathers just as men are not able to be mothers. Thus, our Lord appointed male-only Apostles. This is not to say that women somehow have no place in the Church, rather, it is to say that we are each called to the worship of Almighty God and the salvation of the world in a manner unique to us and the way in which He created us. Let’s not forget that the greatest saint, Mary, the Mother of God is a woman, that the first witness of the resurrection was a woman, that some of the greatest saints throughout history were women, that countless early disciples were women, and that without woman, there is no עֵ֫זֶר , no ‘helpmate’ for man. Without women there are no children, and thus no priests, holy marriages, religious, and our entire civilization ceases.

Praised be to Jesus Christ, now and forever.