The Role of Women
in the Church

The role of women in the Church has received much attention since the Second Vatican Council, both from society in general and from the Church at large. This is an eminently worthwhile and proper topic of discussion for all Catholics, and in general the dialogue has been most positive, wholesome, and fruitful. In a few instances, however, the Church has had to defend herself from critics, many of them not Catholic nor even of religious disposition, who have sought to frame the role of Catholic women in political terms, using it as a wedge issue to attack the Catholic Church at her very foundations.

It is important, therefore, for all Catholics to become familiar with the teaching of the Church in this matter, primarily for their own understanding, but also to enable them to defend or explain the Church's position to those who are in error.

Much of the controversy surrounding the role of women in the Church centres on priestly ordination. Over the last thirty years, the Church has reaffirmed her position restricting ordination to men, declaring this to be an unalterable teaching to which believing Catholics must assent.

Put in the simplest of terms, the Church does not have the authority to change what has become part of what is known as Sacred Tradition. The word tradition comes from the Latin tradere, which means to hand over or to hand down. When we speak of Sacred Tradition we mean the teachings and practices handed down from the time of the Apostles to the present day.

What we learn from Sacred Tradition is that Christ himself, though surrounded every day by women of exceptional faith and character, most especially his Blessed Mother, the woman "exalted above all the angels and men to a place second only to her son", chose only men as Apostles, a practice that was continued by the Apostles themselves, and down through the centuries by the bishops of the Church.

During the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the celebrant acts in persona Christi--in the person of Christ, a role which affirms, says the Church, the sacramental appropriateness of the male priesthood:

"The Christian priesthood is therefore of a sacramental nature: the priest is a sign, the supernatural effectiveness of which comes from the ordination received but a sign that must be perceptible and which the faithful must be able to recognize with ease. The whole sacramental economy is in fact based upon natural signs, on symbols imprinted upon the human psychology: "Sacramental signs," says Saint Thomas, "represent what they signify by natural resemblance." The same natural resemblance is required for persons as for things: when Christ's role in the Eucharist is to be expressed sacramentally, there would not be this "natural resemblance" which must exist between Christ and his minister if the role of Christ were not taken by a man: in such a case it would be difficult to see in the minister the image of Christ. For Christ himself was and remains a man". (Inter Insigniores, 1976)

Some have challenged this interpretation, arguing that Jesus chose only men in order to conform to the practices of his time, but the Church points out that Jesus broke with custom on a number of occasions, and would not have confined ordination to men just to satisfy cultural prejudices. On one occasion, for example, when the Apostles went to fetch food, they returned and "were surprised to find him talking to a woman" (John 4: 27); in fact, holding one of his longest recorded conversations, not just with a woman, but one who was a Samaritan, a people with whom the Jews "had no dealings" (John 4: 9-10) because they looked down on them as foreigners. Jesus displayed the same disregard for custom when confronted by scribes and Pharisees who wanted to stone to death an adulterous woman (John 8 : 3-11), and when he affirmed the indissolubility of marriage in contradiction to the Mosaic Law which allowed a man to "put away his wife" (Mark 10: 2-12).

The notion that Jesus came under the influences of his time and compromised his beliefs in order to make some kind of cultural accommodation is just out of the question.

Instead, when we look at the priesthood, it is we--both men and women, both priests and people--who must examine our own attitudes as shaped and formed by the influences of the modern age in which we live. Are we viewing, perhaps, the ministerial priesthood with the eyes of the world, simply regarding it as a position of authority or influence, a branch of management, if you like? Or do we view the ministerial priesthood with the eyes of faith, where authority is transformed by, and measured against, "the model of Christ, who by love made himself the least and the servant of all." (Catechism: 1551). It is in this context of love and service, which are to be exemplified by both priest and people, that we fully experience the true and perfect equality bestowed on us by our baptism.

In her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, St Therese of Lisieux reflects on how she found her personal path of love and service. She describes her early unfulfilled longings to serve God with her whole heart, mind, and body:

"To be betrothed to you, Jesus, to be a Carmelite, to become, through my union with you, a mother of souls--surely that  ought to be enough for anybody? But somehow not for me; those privileges I've mentioned are the stuff of my vocation. But I seem to have so many other vocations as well! I feel as if I were called to be a fighter, a priest, a doctor, an apostle, a martyr; as if I could never satisfy the needs of my nature without performing, for your sake, every kind of heroic action at once."

Later, in reading Sacred Scripture (1Corinthians.12-13), St Therese finds "a way that is better than any other."

"Now I was at peace; when St Paul was talking about the different members of the Mystical Body, I couldn't recognize myself in any of them; or rather, I could recognize myself in all of them. But charity--that was the key to my vocation...Love, in fact, is the vocation which includes all others; it's a universe of its own, comprising all time and space--it's eternal."

The Church echoes the words of St Therese in the document Inter Insigniores (1976):

"It therefore remains for us to meditate more deeply on the nature of the real equality of the baptized which is one of the great affirmations of Christianity; equality is in no way identity, for the Church is a differentiated body, in which each individual has his or her role. The roles are distinct, and must not be confused; they do not favour the superiority of some vis-a-vis the others, nor do they provide an excuse for jealousy; the only better gift, which can and must be desired, is love (1 Cor. 12-13). The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven are not the ministers but the saints."

The position of the Church in regard to women's ordination in no way suggests the Church holds women in anything but the highest esteem. As expressed by the late Pope John Paul the Great:

 "The Church gives thanks for all the manifestations of the feminine 'genius' which have appeared in the course of history, in the midst of all peoples and nations; she gives thanks for all the charisms which the Holy Spirit distributes to women in the history of the People of God, for all the victories which she owes to their faith, hope and charity: she gives thanks for all the fruits of feminine holiness." (Apostolic Letter on the Dignity and Vocation of Women, August 15, 1988)

His predecessor, Pope Paul V1, who set up a special commission to study problems relating to "the effective promotion of the dignity and the responsibility of women", wrote that:

"Within Christianity, more than in any other religion, and since its very beginning,  women have had a special dignity, of which the New Testament shows us many important aspects...; it is evident that women are meant to form part of the living and working structure of Christianity in so prominent a manner that perhaps not all their potentialities have yet been made clear".

Both Holy Fathers were echoing the sentiments expressed by the Second Vatican Council:

"The hour is coming, in fact has come, when the vocation of women is being acknowledged in its fullness, the hour in which women acquire in the world an influence, an effect and a power never hitherto achieved. That is why, at this moment when the human race is undergoing so deep a transformation, women imbued with a spirit of the Gospel can do so much to aid humanity in not falling." (Council's Message to Women: Dec. 8th, 1965)

While we must accept the Church's teaching on this issue, we must not ignore or dismiss the desire of women to use all their gifts to the fullest in the service of God and His Church, and we give thanks to God for those millions of women who, in the manner of St Therese, are already totally engaged in fulfilling "the call to holiness addressed to all the baptized." (Catechism: 941)