Ordination of Women? - An Ecumical Meditation and A Discussion

by Frans Jozef van Beeck, S.J.

from Towards a New Theology of Ordination: Essays on the Ordination of Women, pp.90-100.

Ed. by Marianne H. Micks and Charles P.Price, Virginia Theological Seminary,
Greeno, Hadden &Company Ltd. Somerville, Mass., 1976

Frans Jozeph van Beeck, S.J., is Professor of Theology at Boston College. His view on validity was cited in Bishop Vogel’s statement on the Philadelphia ordinations.

A Meditation

The worst thing to do is to shrug one’s shoulders, for it means you—with your concern—are unimportant. I cannot imagine Jesus shrugging his shoulders. He knew that the Father had entrusted everything to him (Jn 13:3). He let everything the Father had given him come to him, and was determined never to turn away anyone who came (Jn 6:37) .

That does not mean that Jesus let himself be dominated by the concerns that people brought to him. Recognizing them is not the same as allowing yourself to become enslaved by them. Jesus knew that he had come from God and was going back to God (Jn 13:3) . Paul came to know that, too:

If I am called to account by you or by any human court of judgment, it does not matter to me in the least. Why, I do not even pass judgment on myself, for I have nothing on my conscience; but that does not mean I stand acquitted. My judge is the Lord (1 Cor 4:3 - 4) .

The church is called to share in this freedom, “free woman” that she is (Gal 4:31). To be free is to be open to every cause and concern, to be so free as to be the slave of no cause or concern: that is the freedom of Christ. A tall order. Actually, a hopeless enterprise for those whose principal concern is with their own righteousness. After all is said and done, we must be willing to find ourselves with no righteousness of our own, no legal rectitude, but only with the righteousness which comes from faith in Christ, given by God in response to faith (Phil 3:9). That means, in the concrete, that the church must make discretionary judgments without trying to curry favor from people (if she did, she would be no servant of Christ!), and then cast all her cares on God, in the realization that she is his charge (Gal 10; 1 Pt 5:7)

Summary of the Discussion

This article grows out of several convictions. The admission of women to Holy Orders is the subject matter of a discretionary judgment on the part of the Episcopal Church in the United States and is not primarily a doctrinal matter. The fact that it is a discretionary matter implies that it is squarely ecumenical. It also means that it must not be put in political terms; if this were done, the church would be currying favor from people. Obviusly, this does not mean that there are no political aspects to the issue, nor that the eventual decision, whichever way it goes, will not have political consequences. In the concrete, there is the danger of selective ecumenism; the kind of ecumenism invoked to plead for or against woman’s ordination is not true ecumenism at all. Hence, the Episcopal Church is called to occupy its own place among the churches, and there are reasons to count on the understanding of those churches which will continue to keep women out of the ordained ministry. Finally, the issue is ecumenical at a level that is more basic than ecumenism among the churches can ever be, viz., at the level of harmonious relationships between men and women. Let us take a closer look at these considerations.

I. Doctrinal considerations

Three points deserve consideration here, after it is remembered that Haye van der Meer, in his Women Priests in the Catholic Church? (Phila.: Temple U. P., 1973) has convincingly shown that the traditional arguments in favor of the exclusion of women from the ordained ministry must be called insufficient.

(a) First, there is the christological argument. The fact that Christ is a man, the argument goes, shows that, by God’s own revealed will, it takes a male to preside over the church; hence, only men can convincingly represent Christ. This argument must be rejected, for it places masculinity in a privileged position in the hypostatic union of the divine nature and the human nature in the one Person of the God-Man. The tradition expressed this point as follows:

The only thing that is not implied in the general terms used by Chalcedon are the individual characteristics. For that reason the saying “what is not assumed is not redeemed” may be understood only of the specific nature [i.e. the “human nature”] and not of these characteristics. In other words, Christ would not have to be a woman, an atomic physicist, or a Japanese in order to be redeemer for women, atomic physicists, and Japanese.(1)

Hence, all human persons can become the bearers of Christ’s person and of his ministries, which is the same as saying that women can be ordained.

(b) Second, there is the theological argument. God, it is said, is consistently named by the name of “Father”, and the usage of Jesus confirms this in such a way as to make the metaphor normative; hence only men can convincingly act in the role of mediator between people and God. Now it must be clear from the outset that this does not make God masculine, since the divine essence, as especially St. Gregory of Nyssa has taught, is incomprehensible and transcendent, surpassing all differentiations. The question, in other words, is not whether God is masculine or not, but whether he can be credibly represented only by masculine metaphors and male persons. Without in any way denying the obvious preponderance of masculine imagery in the tradition, it must still be said that the usage of Jesus must not be uncritically taken as normative in this regard. Jesus calls his Father Abba, which is a name expressing endearment. In other words, it is the unprecedented tone of familiarity, and not the masculine metaphor in and of itself, that expresses the unique relationship of Jesus to the Father—a relationship which Christians are called to participate in. There is no doctrinal reason why women could not, in the Lord, be the sacramental representatives of our God, who calls us to such intimacy.(2)

(c) The only doctrine that applies to the issue is the doctrine of the inclusive unity of the Body of Christ implied in the baptismal formula of Gal 3: 2 8: “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is . . . neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” What does this doctrine mean? It does not mean: women must be ordained. So the fact that they have not been ordained in the tradition of some of the mainstream churches is not a departure from sound doctrine. Doctrine, in and of itself, does not put the church under any obligation. “Of course we all ‘have knowledge’.” But “this knowledge breeds conceit; it is love that builds” (1 Cor 8:1). Love must decide the issue. This love takes the shape of discretionary ecclesiastical judgment if the issue affects the church as a whole.(3)

II. Discretionary matters as ecumenical matters

Ordination of women to the priesthood is possible from the doctrinal point of view. But this knowledge does not put the church under any obligation, any more than the correct realization that “an idol has no real existence” put the Corinthians under the obligation to disregard completely the conscientious overtones of the eating of meat offered to idols (1 Cor 8:1 - 13; 10:23 - 11 :1).

This is so because good Christian practice can never in its concreteness be deduced from sound doctrine. Doctrine, after all, is not a stable, one-for-all given; it is itself subject to the conditions of history, at least in the sense that there is such a thing as development of doctrine. In the experience of the church it has often happened that doctrine developed under the influence of the practical, living faith-decisions of saints, inspired groups of Christians, and others, who put vital life-issues up for mediation and theological study. Hence, good Christian practice in the concrete has often been the source of sound doctrine rather than the other way round.

But are there doctrines, then, which are so timeless and essential that they remain the source of good Christian practice— let us say, the divinity of Christ, the all-encompassing mercy of God, etc.? If for a moment we prescind from the time-determined formulations of such central truths, we must indeed say that there are such doctrines. Otherwise we would lapse into complete doctrinal relativism. But then we must also realize at once that such doctrines, precisely because of their divine character, are inexhaustible. The church is always called to a fuller realization and to a fuller actualization of the mystery they convey. How that fuller realization and actualization will happen in the concrete, however, cannot be read off without ado from the doctrine in its stark form. It takes concrete situations to present the church with the kind of decision-situation that calls for a discretionary judgment—a judgment which at once changes the church’s practice and gives her a deeper realization of the depths of mystery involved in the doctrine. But to take this position means that practical decisions and discretionary judgments are part and parcel of the church’s realization of what is involved in doctrine.

What is the shape which such discretionary judgments tend to take when the church as a whole is involved? The answer is: they are concretized in church order. But then we must be immediately reminded that the church order only conveys its real meaning, i.e. its Christian meaning, if it is seen against the background of what gave rise to it in the first place, viz. the practice of agape, born of the desire to do justice to concrete needs and to show concern for the weak and the wronged. That means: the discretionary judgments that make up the church order are only intelligible if they promote communion and are perceived as such. Hence the emphasis, from the earliest times, on koinonia and communio, or, to use the Russian Orthodox term, sobornost. The subjective attitudes that animate this communion are mutual respect and understanding, a willingness not to be doctrinaire (epikeia), a sense that we are to deal with each other, not as the slaves of doctrinal or legal tyranny, but as members of one family, of one household (oikonomia).(4)

This in turn means that the decision about the admission of women to the ordained priesthood in the Episcopal Church is squarely ecumenical, since it involves a practical, discretionary judgment which is also going to affect the Episcopal Church’s relationships—at the level of church order—with the other churches. In the practical situation of incomplete unity among the churches such a discretionary judgment becomes very important, so that the question becomes: how is the decision going to affect the unity of Christians?

III. A political approach?

Communio, like the entire ecumenical enterprise, is far more than politics, or the art of the feasible. The goal of ecumenism is not an easy truce among the churches at the level of church order, but rather the union of all Christians in the Lord. Any attempt to force such a truce would very probably exclude a sizable part of the Christian world—political settlements tend to have victims! The ecumenical enterprise would degenerate into pure politics if the different church orders were taken for the main object of comparison, negotiation, mutual adaptation, and harmonization, without keeping in mind that those church orders represent discretionary faith-and-agape judgments about the very nature of the church. This can even be maintained with regard to elements in the order of a particular church which I would consider objectively heretical; unless I manage to see and appreciate the faith-inspiration behind such an element I am in no position to exercise the theological, ecumenical virtue of acceptance and an understanding (and confrontation!) in the Lord.(5)

Each church’s loyalty in matters ecumenical is to the Lord, not to any particular church order, whether it be its own or that of other churches. Neither the tradition nor the practice of any church must be canonized, although they can be usefully employed in the service of testing a new issue. If the traditions of any church were canonized as such, ecumenism would become a purely political (and terribly painful) exercise in harmonization and negotiation at the level of church order, in which each church would agree to having some of its feathers singed in the interest of a type of unity that would amount to little more than forced uniformity. In addition, in such a process, many if not all churches would find themselves truckling to the orders of other churches and second-guessing the responses of other churches, and thus they would be continually tempted to curry favor from people, rather than seeking the will of the Lord in the matter of Christian unity.(6)

This is, of course, not the same as saying that there are no political aspects to the issue. The decision of the Episcopal Church, whichever way it goes, will have consequences for its relationships to other churches at the level of church order. I like to think that an affirmative decision would mean a lot to the ordained women ministers, say, in the United Methodist Church and the United Church of Christ, given the high visibility and authoritative status the ordained clergy in the Episcopal Church have traditionally enjoyed. An affirmative decision would also, I like to think, be a forceful invitation extended to such churches as the Roman Catholic Church and the various Orthodox Churches to confront the issue of the role of women in the church. But it would be as wrong for the Episcopal Church to make an affirmative decision for such reasons as it would be wrong not to make it because of some flack from “Rome” or “Constantinople”. The fact that, in the ecumenical situation, all churches find themselves responsible, in the Lord, for each other does not mean that the churches are also responsible for each other’s responses.

IV. Selective ecumenism

I must be frank now. In the concrete, an affirmative decision made by the Episcopal Church in the matter of the admission of women to the ordained priesthood would raise issues mainly between the Episcopal Church and the Roman Catholic, Old Catholic, and Orthodox Churches. I say this because I think that the main sources of opposition to women’s ordinations in the Episcopal Church are the concerns that animate such movements as the American Church Union.

It must be stated from the outset that the American Church Union is in some ways the direct descendant of the Tractarian movement, which, more than any other movement, has helped to place the Anglican Communion in the mediating position in the ecumenical movement that it has today. In other words: its tradition entitles the A.C.U. to raise the issue of ecumenism in the context of the matter in hand. But it must also be said: the Anglican Communion as a whole is the heir of the Tractarian movement, and it can claim to be its rightful representative, for the Anglican Communion would not be what it is without the powerful doctrinal, ascetical, and ecclesiological impetus of Pusey, Keble, Newman, and so many others. Its impact on the Roman Catholic Church is notable not only in the person and influence of Newman, but also in the concerns brought forward and adopted in the course of the Second Vatican Council.

This means first of all that it would be inappropriate and untruthful for members of the A.C.U. to think of themselves and their tradition merely as the representatives of Roman Catholic and Orthodox concerns within the Episcopal Church; they are also representatives of an Anglican tradition that has caused significant changes in the doctrinal and ecclesial stance of the Roman Catholic Church.

It also means that it would be a misperception of the factual course of history if the A.C.U. were to present themselves as the only representatives of the Tractarians, and it would be inappropriate for them to act as if they were the only members of the Episcopal Church to be actually responsible for good relationships with “Rome” and “Constantinople”.(7) While finding myself, as a Roman Catholic, in profound sympathy with many aspects of A.C.U. sensibility in matters doctrinal, ecclesiological and ascetical, I cannot get myself, as a Catholic theologian, to relate to the Anglican Communion only through the mediation of the concerns represented by the A.C.U. and those Christians in the Anglican Churches who see themselves as primarily inspired by the Tractarian tradition.

Hence, there is no reason now to defend the exclusion of women from the priesthood in the Episcopal Church under invocation of “Rome” and “Constantinople”. It just may be the vocation of the Anglican Communion once again to be the instrument in God’s hand to enlighten them on this particular score.

Such an appeal to “Rome” and “Constantinople” is often, as we have said, put forward as an act of ecumenical concern, and it often is. But not necessarily or in every respect. It may, in fact, be unecumenical. The latter would be the case if it were implied that ecumenism would primarily (and even exclusively) impel the Episcopal Church to reach out to Rome, Constantinople, and Utrecht, thus relegating the great majority of Christian churches to a “Low”—what a metaphor!—status. This would be nothing short of an attitude of “selective ecumenism”—which in fact would be no ecumenism at all.

V. Can the Episcopal Church occupy its own place and count on understanding?

If the soul of ecumenism is agape, communio, koinonia, sobornost, then harmony at the level of church order becomes a relative good. This means: the Episcopal Church is primarily called to occupy its own place among the Christian churches, with its own church order, developed in function of the concrete signs of the times as they appear within and around the Episcopal Church. There lies its loyalty to the Lord who is to come.

The question of women’s ordination to the priesthood is indeed an ecumenical issue, but this means that it must be approached, not from the point of view of the various orders of other churches, but from the point of view of communio.

Hence, the question becomes: can the Episcopal Church count on the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Churches, and the Old Catholic Church to be respectful and understanding, willing not to be doctrinaire, ready to approach the Episcopal Church with oikonomia?

I do not venture to speak for Orthodoxy, nor for Old Catholics, although I have reason to suspect, in view of the long tradition of epikeia and oikonomia that characterizes Orthodoxy at its best, that there will be understanding from those quarters. I do not venture to speak even for the Roman Catholic Church, because I lack any hierarchical qualification; I can only speak as a Catholic priest and as a Catholic theologian. My expectation (and my hope) is that the Roman Catholic Church will be understanding. My reasons are twofold.

First, although recent statements on the role of women in the church’s ministry have still firmly rejected the participation of women as ministers in the church’s sacramental liturgy, this rejection has been based on tradition rather than on any idea that women are essentially incapable of being part of the church’s ordained ministry. The ancient thesis: “Only the male can be the proper subject of ordination,” is obviously now understood to express a discipline, not an essential incapacity.

Secondly—and more directly ecumencially—post-Vatcian II ecclesiology has moved steadily away from a conception of the unity of all Christian churches in terms of unity of church order, in the direction of collegiality, relative local autonomy, unity in diversity, and even in the direction of a communion of a variety of “rites”. This “synodal”, “pluriform” orientation of Roman Catholic ecclesiology—combined with a sustained emphasis on the Pope as visible center of Christian unity, but with the “monarchy” metaphor toned down—warrants the expectation that the ordination of women to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church will not turn out to be an insuperable obstacle to harmonious ecumenical relationships with Rome.

VI. “You are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28)

Oikoumene originally means “the inhabited earth.” Without pressing etymology to the point where “ecumenism” would “really mean” the process of making the earth inhabitable, it does make sense to point out that ecumenism must press further than merely ecclesiastical concerns. The ordination of women to the priesthood is but one way in which a larger, more basic, more comprehensive concern is raised, namely, the need, in the Lord, for harmonious relationships between men and women, not only in friendships and marriages and good professional collegiality, but also in social structures. The raising of the issue of discrimination against women in the world at large as well as in the church must, from a theological point of view, be seen as an instance of historical revelation, and as such it is the work of the Holy Spirit in the world as well as in the church. Through this process of consciousness-raising it has now more than ever become possible to accept the gift of redemption from the debilitating cultural prejudice against women, which is a social sin that has held men and women captives for so long. Without the church’s commitment to absorb and outsuffer and so to redeem the hurts and the scars of this affliction, a decision to ordain women to the priesthood would be the worst kind of ecclesiastical tokenism. With such a commitment—which would have to show itself in countless (and delicate) other ways as well— it could be a blessing which would make the earth more inhabitable for all of us.

Notes

1. Piet Schoonenberg, The Christ (N.Y.: Herder & Herder, 1971), pp. 72-73.

2. Cp. “Invalid or Merely Irregular?—Comments by a Reluctant Witness,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies XI (1974) 381 - 399, p. 398 n. 45.

3. An example of this in history is the practice of the medieval Church to withhold the chalice from lay people. Much as we may now disagree with that decision (which grew over a long period of time), we must recognize that this was a discretionary matter. Hence, the argument of some reformers that this practice amounted to the exclusion of the laity from the “true sacrament” is a doctrinaire overstatement, a sample of conceit bred by “knowledge”.

4. Cp. “Towards an Ecumenical Understanding of the Sacraments,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies III (1966) 57 - 112, pp. 111 - 112.

5. I do not mean to exclude the possibility that the issue of women’s ordination to the priesthood could be used to “solve” a different problem, again in a purely political fashion, viz. by the church’s making an easy settlement with women’s liberation. This issue is outside the scope of this paper, but let me point out two things. First, the church could much better and much more critically deal with feminism if women were in the ordained ministry (“What is not assumed is not saved”!). Secondly, just as racist institutions tend to hire unqualified blacks, because they are mainly interested in salving their own guilty consciences and promoting a liberal image, so sexist institutions have a tendency to employ unqualified women. In both cases the final outcome is the same: the performance of the blacks, or the women, is below par, and the institution finds a new rationale for its racist or sexist prejudices. This comparison must not be taken to imply that the racial problem and the sexism problem are the same, but that a purely political approach to either leads to analogous undesirable results.

6. The background for the position here taken is the idea that ecumenism is not retrospective, but prospective and eschatological. Cp. op.cit., n. 4, pp. 69 - 73.

7. Alleged utterances by some prominent Roman Catholic and Orthodox churchmen (“It would sever all ties.”—"They won’t do it, for they put too high a value on good relationships with us."—Etc.), while doubtlessly born out of serious conviction, sound a little bit like veiled threats—to which especially those in the Episcopal Church who feel close ties with Rome and with Orthodoxy may easily give in. 1 Cor 4:3 - 4 is the watchword in such cases.

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