Third, since only priests have access to positions of full authority in the Church, to deny women priestly ordination is to reduce women to a state of second-class membership in the Church. Unless the Church changes this policy and gives women equal status, large masses of women will turn away from the Church as surely as the working class in Europe did in the nineteenth century when the Church failed to defend the rights of workers against the moneyed bourgeoisie with whom the Church allied itself. It is pointless to say that women are treated as equals of men when obviously they are not.
Response: Women are equal to men in dignity, but do not have the same roles in the Church. Women do not need presbyteral or episcopal orders to exercise great influence in the Church. It must be admitted that priests and bishops exercise the greatest authority in the Church and that women are excluded from these ranks. Ministry, however, should not be sought for the sake of power, but for service. It is not the most powerful who will be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, but the most humble and the holiest.
Some argue that it is inappropriate for a man to put forth such an argument since men hold power in the Church. The answer is that this is by Christ’s arrangement, not man’s. The Bible points out the special relationship between God and Israel expressed under the imagery of marriage. In the Old Testament, the people of Israel are described as the daughter of Zion, the bride whom Yahweh takes to Himself by a sacred covenant. In the New Testament, Christ is presented as bridegroom and the Church as His bride. In the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Christ the bridegroom unites Himself to His bride, the Church. To preserve the truth of the sacramental sign, the priest who acts in Christ’s person, must be male. The sacramental significance would be lost if a woman presided at the Eucharist. This problem is not a problem of an historical nature. It is not a matter of discussing a certain custom in the hope that it might change in the future. The very structure of Christian revelation and of the Church would be tampered with.
It is often said that if there were no women priests in the early centuries of Christianity, it was because of cultural factors. It depended on women’s subordinate role in the society of that time. But we should not forget that women had major roles in pagan religions, from Greece to Egypt and Mesopotamia. This was never the case with the Judeo-Christian people. And yet they were surrounded by peoples whose women were active participants in cult celebrations. All this surely prompts us to reflect that this choice had profound bonds with revelation itself. So it was not a factor determined by historical and cultural conditions. It was quite the opposite.
Sincerely in Christ,
Rev. Jeffery A. Fasching
No comments:
Post a Comment