THE MAN-MARY: Some thoughts on a possible feminist reading of the all-male priesthood.

I should begin this discussion by saying I’m not convinced this is the right approach, at all. Its sharp divergence from the usual (and, to me, thoroughly unpersuasive) “in persona Christi” explanations may indicate a fundamental problem in my approach. I am presenting this solely as what someone like me sees when she looks at the priesthood. It is entirely possible that the set of “people like me” is 1; or that I’m wrongheaded from the start!

Still, my New Haven visit made me think hard about the priesthood and women. This is not a question that had ever exercised me. I frankly find it hard to care. I know that sucks and is unhelpful; if you care, I guess all I can do is say that St. Therese of Lisieux also considered that she had a calling to the priesthood, and ended up understanding that calling in a very different and analogical way.

I can also, though, say that I don’t know that opening the priesthood to women would be a feminist act. This gets into a lot of tangled questions of “What is feminism?”, so let me be totally clear: The following discussion assumes that motherhood is a thing, a real thing in the world, and that no theory should overcome it (though I think we all know, after the 20th century, that theory can overcome all human loyalties).

Assuming that motherhood is a thing–I think it’s a thing of being radically available to your children. Maybe radically disposible to them. Certainly radically open to their needs.

And this is precisely what priests are to the faithful. I’m getting this from a thing by Fr. Richard Neuhaus, I think in The Public Square vol. 1, where he defends priestly celibacy by saying that priests are “radically disposible.” Like Kleenex. Or… like David’s self-as-libation, poured out for God.

I think a feminist Catholic could legitimately say that women are already treated as available, as disposible, even as Kleenex. A woman priest, therefore, would just be a cliche. Of course a chick is here to serve you! That’s not radical at all. A male priest is new and different and needed–a radically disposible male, not a female. A man-Mary, whose only word can be, “Fiat voluntas tua.”

Again, I don’t know that this is the defense I’d make. I welcome all y’all’s comments on this (and on my other posts today, of course). But I do think this idea of priestly vocation gets fairly close to what actual priests I’ve known have said about what their lives are like; and it overturns the standard gender roles in a way that might be instructive, even if this ultimately isn’t the best way to think about priests and women and Christ.