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{"id":816,"date":"2014-08-14T13:25:34","date_gmt":"2014-08-14T17:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/davidmills\/?p=816"},"modified":"2014-08-14T18:49:14","modified_gmt":"2014-08-14T22:49:14","slug":"the-settled-question-of-ordaining-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davidmills\/2014\/08\/the-settled-question-of-ordaining-women\/","title":{"rendered":"The Settled Question of Ordaining Women"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

A friend had sent round the article by the Episcopal bishop whose abuse of Catholic history I discussed in\u00a0St. Therese, St. Terese Benedicta, and Women Priests<\/a>\u00a0a few days ago and it started an email conversation in which one of the participants pointed to the Australian Catholic writer David Sch\u00fctz\u2019s helpful \u00a0summary<\/a> of Sr. Sara Butler\u2019s argument. In\u00a0The Catholic Priesthood and Women: A Guide to the Teaching of the Church, s<\/em>he distinguishes between the reasons the Church doesn\u2019t ordain women and the explanations for why she doesn\u2019t. In Sch\u00fctz\u2019s summary:<\/p>\n

The \u201cfundamental reasons\u201d are three fold:<\/p>\n

1) The tradition of male only priesthood is rooted in Jesus\u2019 way of acting (in chosing only males to constitute The Twelve): it is the will of Christ
\n2) The Apostles\u2019 way of acting confirms the Tradition
\n3) The Tradition has normative value<\/p>\n

These fundamental reasons are outlined in John Paul II\u2019s Ordinatio Sacerdotalis<\/a><\/em>\u00a0but have their root in\u00a0 Paul VI\u2019s 1975 Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and the Declaration Inter Insigniores<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

These are the reasons\u00a0why the Church cannot ordain women. Any argument with the Church\u2019s practice must address these reasons. But\u00a0for those who wish to understand what God\u2019s purpose may be behind these reasons, there are explanations. It is important to note that the \u201cexplanations\u201d are not \u201creasons\u201d. They do not in themselves constitute the reasons for the Church\u2019s way of acting, but rather are to be regarded as \u201ctheological arguments\u201d which give us a way of understanding God\u2019s purpose in directing the Church to act in such a way.<\/p>\n

The explanations\u00a0or \u201ctheological arguments\u201d are based on the \u201cAnalogy of Faith\u201d (i.e., male only priesthood in relation to the doctrine of the Mystery of Christ and to the doctrine of the Mystery of the Church).<\/p>\n

1) The Christological Argument: The priest acts in persona Christi capitis ecclesiae; the priest is a sacramental sign of Christ; the priest is a sign of Christ who is and remains a man.<\/p>\n

2) The Ecclesial Argument: The analogy of the covenant and the Eucharist; the priest as the \u201cliving image\u201d of Christ the Bridegroom; the ministerial priesthood and nuptial symbolism.<\/p>\n

Sch\u00fctz then describes her response to the ten objections to the Church\u2019s teaching, noting interestingly that she holds that<\/p>\n

the Pauline \u201canti-women\u201d passages do not fall into the \u201cfundamental reasons\u201d category, but rather into the \u201ctheological arguments\u201d category. In other words, St Paul\u2019s prohibitions are not the reasons\u00a0why the Church cannot ordain women; rather they are themselves explanations\u00a0or theological arguments for the practice that was already fully established in that first generation of restricting the pastoral ministry to men.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"