Can women be ordained to the priesthood? This is a question which provokes much debate in our modern world, but it is one to which the Church has always answered “No.” The basis for the Church’s teaching on ordination is found in the New Testament as well as in the writings of the Church Fathers.
While women could publicly pray and prophesy in church, they could not teach or have authority over a man, since these were two essential functions of the clergy. Nor could women publicly question or challenge the teaching of the clergy.
A variety of works by the Church Fathers indicate that women do play an active role in the Church and that in the age of the Fathers there were orders of virgins, widows, and deaconesses, but that these women were not ordained.
The Fathers rejected women’s ordination, not because it was incompatible with Christian culture, but because it was incompatible with Christian faith. Thus, together with biblical declarations, the teaching of the Fathers on this issue formed the tradition of the Church that taught that priestly ordination was reserved to men. Throughout medieval times and even up until the present day, this teaching has not changed.
Further, in 1994 Pope John Paul II formally declared that the Church does not have the power to ordain women. He stated, in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis 4:
“Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church’s judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force. 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. 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 definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”
And on October 25, 1995 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in conjunction with the pope, ruled that 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 (cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium 25:2).”
The following quotations from the Fathers constitute a part of the tradition on which this infallible teaching rests.
“Pretending to consecrate cups mixed with wine, and protracting to great length the word of invocation, [Marcus the Gnostic heretic] contrives to give them a purple and reddish color … [H]anding mixed cups to the women, he bids them consecrate these in his presence.
“When this has been done, he himself produces another cup of much larger size than that which the deluded woman has consecrated, and pouring from the smaller one consecrated by the woman into that which has been brought forward by himself, he at the same time pronounces these words: ‘May that Charis who is before all things and who transcends all knowledge and speech fill your inner man and multiply in you her own knowledge, by sowing the grain of mustard seed in you as in good soil.’
“Repeating certain other similar words, and thus
goading on the wretched woman [to madness], he then
appears a worker of wonders when the large cup is seen to
have been filled out of the small one, so as even to
overflow by what has been obtained from it. By
accomplishing several other similar things, he has
completely deceived many and drawn them away after
him.”
—Against
Heresies 1:13:2, A.D. 189
“It is of no concern how diverse be [the
heretics’] views, so long as they conspire to erase
the one truth. They are puffed up; all offer knowledge.
Before they have finished as catechumens, how thoroughly
learned they are! And the heretical women themselves, how
shameless are they! They make bold to teach, to debate,
to work exorcisms, to undertake cures …
”
—Demurrer
Against the Heretics 41:4-5, A.D. 200
“[A female heretic], lately conversant in this
quarter, has carried away a great number with her most
venomous doctrine, making it her first aim to destroy
baptism … But we, little fishes, after the example
of our ΙΧΘΥΣ [Greek,
“Fish”], Jesus Christ, are born in water
… so that most monstrous creature, who had no
right to teach even sound doctrine, knew full well how to
kill the little fishes, by taking them away from the
water.”
—On
Baptism 1, A.D. 203
“It is not permitted for a woman to speak in the
church, but neither [is it permitted her] to teach, nor
to baptize, nor to offer, nor to claim to herself a lot
in any manly function, not to say sacerdotal
office”
—The
Veiling of Virgins 9, A.D. 206
“When a widow is to be appointed, she is not to be
ordained, but is designated by being named [a widow]
… A widow is appointed by words alone, and is then
associated with the other widows. Hands are not imposed
on her, because she does not offer the oblation and she
does not conduct the liturgy. Ordination is for the
clergy because of the liturgy; but a widow is appointed
for prayer, and prayer is the duty of all.”
—The
Apostolic Tradition 10, A.D. 215
“For women were not appointed to teach … For
even Jesus the Christ, our Teacher, sent us the Twelve
[apostles] to make disciples of the people and the
nations. There were with us female disciples, Mary
Magdalene and another Mary, and He did not send [them] to
make disciples with us of the people. For if it were
required that women should teach, our Teacher would have
commanded them to make disciples with us.”
—Didascalia
3:6:1–2, A.D. 225
“[T]here suddenly arose among us a certain woman,
who in a state of ecstasy announced herself as a
prophetess and acted as if filled with the Holy Ghost
… Through the deceptions and illusions of the
demon, this woman had previously set about deluding
believers in a variety of ways. Among the means by which
she had deluded many was daring to pretend that, through
proper invocation, she consecrated bread and performed
the Eucharist. She offered up the sacrifice to the Lord
in a liturgical act that corresponds to the usual rites,
and she baptized many, all the while misusing the
customary and legitimate wording of the [baptismal]
question. She carried all these things out in such a
manner that nothing seemed to deviate from the norms of
the Church”
—from the Epistles
of Cyprian 74:10, A.D. 253
“Similarly, in regard to the deaconesses, as with
all who are enrolled in the register, the same procedure
is to be observed. We have made mention of the
deaconesses, who have been enrolled in this position,
although, not having been in any way ordained, they are
certainly to be numbered among the laity.”
—Canon
19, A.D. 325
“[T]he so-called ‘presbyteresses’ or
‘presidentesses’ are not to be ordained in
the Church.”
—Canon
11, A.D. 360
“Certain women there in Arabia [the Collyridians]
... In an unlawful and basphemous ceremony ... ordain
women, through whom they offer up the sacrifice in the
name of Mary. This means that the entire proceeding is
godless and sacrilegious, a perversion of the message of
the Holy Spirit; in fact, the whole thing is diabolical
and a teaching of the impure spirit.”
—Panarion
78:13, A.D. 377
“It is true that in the Church there is an order of
deaconesses, but not for being a priestess, nor for any
kind of work of administration, but for the sake of the
dignity of the female sex, either at the time of baptism
or of examining the sick or suffering, so that the naked
body of a female may not be seen by men administering
sacred rites, but by the deaconess.”
—ibid.
“From this bishop [James the Just] and the
just-named apostles, the succession of bishops and
presbyters [priests] in the house of God have been
established. Never was a woman called to these …
According to the evidence of Scripture, there were, to be
sure, the four daughters of the evangelist Philip, who
engaged in prophecy, but they were not
priestesses.”
—ibid.
“If women were to be charged by God with entering
the priesthood or with assuming ecclesiastical office,
then in the New Covenant it would have devolved upon no
one more than Mary to fulfill a priestly function. She
was invested with so great an honor as to be allowed to
provide a dwelling in her womb for the heavenly God and
King of all things, the Son of God … But he did
not find this [the conferring of priesthood on her]
good.”
—ibid., 79:3
“[W]hen one is required to preside over the Church
and to be entrusted with the care of so many souls, the
whole female sex must retire before the magnitude of the
task, and the majority of men also, and we must bring
forward those who to a large extent surpass all others
and soar as much above them in excellence of spirit as
Saul overtopped the whole Hebrew nation in bodily
stature.”
—On The
Priesthood 2:2, A.D. 387
“A virgin is not ordained, for we have no such
command from the Lord, for this is a state of voluntary
trial, not for the reproach of marriage, but on account
of leisure for piety.”
—Apostolic
Constitutions 8:24, A.D. 400
“Appoint, [O Bishop], a deaconess, faithful and
holy, for the ministering of women. For sometimes it is
not possible to send a deacon into certain houses of
women, because of unbelievers. Send a deaconess, because
of the thoughts of the petty. A deaconess is of use to us
also in many other situations. First of all, in the
baptizing of women, a deacon will touch only their
forehead with the holy oil, and afterwards the female
deacon herself anoints them.”
—ibid., 3:16
“[T]he ‘man is the head of the woman’
[1 Cor. 11:3], and he is originally ordained for the
priesthood; it is not just to abrogate the order of the
creation and leave the first to come to the last part of
the body. For the woman is the body of the man, taken
from his side and subject to him, from whom she was
separated for the procreation of children. For he says,
‘He shall rule over you’ [Gen. 3:16]. For the
first part of the woman is the man, as being her head.
But if in the foregoing constitutions we have not
permitted them [women] to teach, how will any one allow
them, contrary to nature, to perform the office of the
priest? For this is one of the ignorant practices of
Gentile atheism, to ordain women priests to the female
deities, not one of the constitutions of
Christ”
—ibid., 3:9
“A widow is not ordained; yet if she has lost her
husband a great while and has lived soberly and
unblamably and has taken extraordinary care of her
family, as Judith and Anna—those women of great
reputation—let her be chosen into the order of
widows.”
—ibid., 8:25
“A deaconess does not bless, but neither does she
perform anything else that is done by presbyters
[priests] and deacons, but she guards the doors and
greatly assists the presbyters, for the sake of decorum,
when they are baptizing women.”
—ibid., 8:28
“[The Quintillians are heretics who] give women
predominance so that these, too, can be honored with the
priesthood among them. They say, namely, that Christ
revealed himself … to Quintilla and Priscilla [two
Montanist prophetesses] in the form of a
woman.”
—On Heresies 1:17, A.D.
428
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