Catholic Teaching on the Exclusion of Women from Holy Orders

by Sr Vincent Emmanuel Hannon

from The Question of Women and the Priesthood, Geoffrey Chapman 1967, pp.45-70.
Republished on our website with the necessary permissions

Introduction

There are always risks in taking things for granted: either it leaves one open to the charge of unintelligent acceptance of things which may be true or false, or it leads to the development of a theory from unproven principles. The former may be comfortable, while the latter is dangerous. There must certainly be hypotheses, but hasty conclusions are never desirable.

The fact that women have never been admitted to the Christian priesthood leads many to hold that it is the express mind of the Church that they should not be. Further the supposition has arisen that this situation is of divine law. It was easy to build up quite a plausible justification for this conviction. One of the main reasons given for the socalled incapacity of women for orders is the fact that there were no women among the apostles. As far back as the fourth century Epiphanius used this argument: ‘Never has a woman been appointed amongst bishops and priests’.(1) Now it is quite evident that such a premise cannot be a basis for a theology excluding women from the sacerdotal ministry. If it is a historical fact that Christ did not ordain any women, it seems difficult to see how any but a historical conclusion could justifiably flow from the premise. Even if the theological has bearing on the historical we have still nothing more than a negative argument. This has validity only when the missing evidence can be rightly adduced. Christ did not ordain any women, but can we justifiably affirm from this that he willed to exclude them for ever? If the new status of woman today is an obvious fact, in the time of Christ her position was obviously inferior. It would have been preposterous and imprudent, as well as detrimental to the Gospel message, to have women closely associated with it in the first century of the Christian era and indeed even later. That this is not a gratuitous assertion can be proved from an admonition to widows found in the early Christian document known as the Didascalia Apostolorum. It forbids them to answer questions put to them by unbelievers:

. . . except only concerning righteousness and faith in God .... For when the gentiles who are being instructed hear the word of God not fittingly spoken, and all the more that it is spoken to them by a woman . . . they will mock and scoff, instead of applauding the word of doctrine.(2)

The prescriptions in the Pauline epistles to the Corinthians and to Timothy seem to deal more specifically and theologically with the matter, but even then these passages and their meaning are subjects of dispute. Is it not possible that the particular milieux of these two communities of Corinth and Ephesus may have conditioned the Apostle's prohibitions here? It would be a strange inconsistency not to allow the historical circumstances here to carry their due importance, while in other places allowing them preponderant weight.

The task now at hand is to investigate the teaching of the Church regarding the exclusion of women from holy orders. By and large this exclusion is more taken for granted than expressly ordered. Because this is a strictly theological issue, only the traditional theological reasons for debarring her will be given. Therefore the aggressively masculine arguments of some of the Fathers will be omitted. Later there will be space to discuss some of these in the light of their times.

1. The teaching of the magisterium

Canonical discipline is outlined in Canon 968, par. I, which states ‘Sacram ordinationem valide recipit solus vir baptizatus'. The use of vir and not the generic homo seems to make the meaning of this canon clear. A recent writer(3) however has pointed out that the expression vir baptizatus is here used to emphasize the absolute necessity of baptism as a prerequisite for orders rather than to exclude women from the priesthood.

That woman is excluded from the reception of holy orders has never been explicitly and directly maintained by any doctrinal declaration of the universal magisterium of the Church. The two Councils which dealt with the sacraments in general and in particular say nothing explicitly of their exclusion. The Council of Florence did not speak at all of the subject of the sacraments. Neither did Trent, in the two sessions on the sacraments in general and on holy orders in particular, express anything from which the exclusion of woman could be deduced. One canon anathematized ‘anyone who says that all Christians have the power over the word and in administering the sacraments’.(4) This is the closest reference to our subject, but in fact does not touch the issue at all. The fact that this great Council does not even refer to the subject is indeed strange, for the Lutheran doctrine on the priesthood of the laity would seem to raise the question of a female ministry. Leo X did in fact condemn Luther for teaching that in the sacrament of penance, if no priest is available, any Christian, even a woman or child, may forgive sin.(5) Again the issue is by-passed and there is nothing to warrant the opinion that the Tridentine popes or fathers intended even remotely to make any statement regarding woman's capacity for orders. It is worth noting that the Catechism of the Council of Trent, while expounding and determining the teaching of the Council on the subject of orders, made no reference whatever to the disqualification of women from this sacrament, even when treating of those who are excluded from licit reception by canonical impediment.

The nearest approach to a formal prohibition of a female ministry in the Church is found in the Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua(6) which declares that women, however learned and holy, ought not to teach men in the assembly or attempt to baptize. Several local Councils of medieval France refer to women in connection with the sacerdotal ministry but express unanimous disapproval for what seems to be any kind of female service in the liturgy. The local Council of Nimes states that it had been suggested by some that women should be taken into the priestly ministry, but that the Council declared this as improper and contrary to reason(7) The Council of Reims had to correct abuses by lay people and women taking the eucharist to the sick and it forbade them to enter the sanctuary.(8) A Council of Paris also declared that in certain provinces women approached the altar and administered holy communion contrary to the divine law and canonical discipline. This Council expressed its abhorrence of such conduct.(9) Pope Leo IV forbade choirs of women to sing in the churches, but this and the above prohibitions cannot be said to constitute de fide teaching of the magisterium. It is obvious that in every case these pronouncements were evoked by actual abuses and are nothing more than disciplinary in character.

It is clear therefore that there is no explicit teaching on this in the Church's universal magisterium. In a later chapter on the institution of deaconesses the legislation and admonitions of local Councils will be discussed. For the present it is necessary to consider the evidence of sacred scripture as interpreted by Catholic writers.

2. Foundation in scripture as expounded by Catholic authors

While neither the Old nor the New Testament explicitly declares women incapable or even unfitted for the priesthood, the basic reasons for holding that they are so are found in the two following texts from St Paul:

As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church ( 1Corinthians 14 : 34-35)

Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent (1Timothy 2: 11-13). (10)

Catholic commentators are unanimous in interpreting these texts as an absolute restriction debarring women from public and active exercise of ecclesiastical office, and hence excluding them from the priesthood.

Commentaries recognized as representative of Catholic consensus can be quoted. Cornely asserts that the prohibition is absolute and universal and that on no condition may women speak in church.(11) Similarly Cornelius a Lapide states that Paul is referring to the public assembly where it is not permitted for women to speak or attempt to teach.(12) An early commentator states that the admonition to silence is intended at public worship where it is not fitting that women should teach in church.(13) Allo, while he takes note of 1Corinthians 11:5 where St Paul seems to suppose that women prophesied in public, the only condition being the wearing of a veil, states that the silence imposed by 14:34 is not a contradiction but an example of the Apostle's tactics in such controversies.(14) According to this commentator St Paul is attempting to eradicate the abuses of the Church at Corinth by at first tactfully encouraging the use of the veil (in 11 :5) and only later (14:34) forbidding women to speak in the public church assemblies.(15) Estius adds nothing new to the apostolic prohibition but endorses the Pauline reason for this imposition, ‘ex more omnium ecclesiarum confirmat, quod de silentio mulierum praecepit’. (16)

Before going further it is necessary to discover what St Paul means when he states that women are forbidden to speak (lalein). There are different interpretations of this word and its usage here. The Greek word lalein is found in classical antiquity to have many shades of meaning: ‘talk’, ‘chat’, ‘prattle’;(17) later on it comes to be used in the New Testament simply for ‘to speak’, to talk’.(18) In the same Epistle (1Corinthians 11 :1-5), St Paul says ‘I desire that women should pray (proseuchomené) dressed in a seemly way’. Now it seems that the Apostle is either contradicting what he says in 1Corinthians 14:34 when he tells them to be silent, or else he refers to two different services, allowing the one in public while forbidding the other. Opinions on the two passages have been varied. Some hold that he denies in chapter 14 what he permitted in chapter 11;(19) others that the context indicates that praying and prophesying pertained to public prayer but that this was done silently;(20) others hold that the restriction is so general and absolute as to exclude women from public exercise in church of even extraordinary gifts,(21) while Cornely holds that women were to join in the public assemblies but that they were only in attendance as was the rest of the congregation.(22) St Thomas says that in prophecy there are two things, namely revelation and the manifestation of revelation; that women are excluded not from the first function but from the second, which is the announcing of the message. (23)

However interesting all these speculative suggestions may be, it is primarily the internal evidence of scripture itself that has value here. It appears that St Paul speaks in this chapter of two different functions. In 1Corinthians 11 he allows women to pray at the public assembly but in 1Corinthians 14 : 35 he forbids them to preach. This interpretation is already held by Peter Lombard who says it is lawful for women to pray with men in community, but not to speak there.(24) This interpretation of lalein would then harmonize with 1Timothy 2 :11-12, where the Apostle says: ‘I permit no woman to teach (didaskein)’. Furthermore though the word lalein is not that used here, it is found in Hebrews 13 : 7 bearing the meaning of ‘preaching’. Some theologians(25) today recognize in these texts reference to a twofold function. Catholic commentators in the past, however, did not make the same distinction between the crucial words in these two passages, yet were unanimous in excluding women from all official positions in the Church: ‘Women are not to exercise any authority in the Church’.(26)

The reasons for the silence in the liturgical assemblies are furnished by St Paul himself and have been repeated by Catholic commentators ever since. First of all the Apostle says that silence is woman's part in liturgical assemblies because that is the custom of ‘all the churches’ (1Corinthians 14:34). It is generally admitted now that this phrase should be joined to the subsequent passage and not separated from it by a period as in the Vulgate.(27) The passage therefore reads: ‘As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silence in the churches’. The Apostle's second argument for woman's silence is her ‘subjection’ (Vulgate)(28) as ‘also the law says’. No further qualification is given by St Paul himself here but the Fathers commenting on this passage saw here a reference to Genesis 3:16. Theophylact(29) and Peter Lombard(30) saw this as a reference to Genesis 3 where Eve receives the divine penalty: ‘. . . your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you’. It seems certain that the Apostle had Genesis in mind, for in 1Timothy 2:13-14, where he teaches that ‘woman is to learn with all submissiveness’, he gives as his reasons the priority of Adam's creation and the seduction of Eve. Further support for this interpretation can be seen in 1Corinthians 11:8-9, where St Paul is speaking of feminine apparel during the liturgy and recommends the wearing of the veil to manifest her subordinate state; the reason he gives is this: ‘For man was not made from woman but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man’. A third reason for the maintenance of silence on the part of women is also supplied by the Pauline teaching in 1Corinthians 14:35, ‘For it is shameful for women to speak in church’.

Commentaries on these texts from St Paul display an impressive unanimity but add little by way of explanation or elaboration of this apostolic doctrine: the texts are understood as being in themselves definitive. This is the interpretation of the recent scholar Allo, who sees in them supreme principles having an application valid not only for Corinth but for all places and all times.(31) It is necessary, however, to examine in detail the interpretation of one or two commentators representative of Catholic opinion. The seventeenth-century commentator Cornelius a Lapide can be taken as typical; where any of the other noted commentators make an added contribution this will be alluded to. In a subsequent section we shall consider the consensus of the fathers and the scholastics on this question and shall thus deal specifically with the argument from tradition. The present writer is aware of how closely allied are the arguments from strictly scriptural commentary and patristic tradition, but owing to the massiveness of evidence it is more convenient to treat each separately.

According to Cornelius a Lapide, St Paul gives five reasons for woman's silence in church.(32) Firstly, he says this is an imposition of nature itself and of the positive law found in Genesis 3:16. In support of this he refers to St Anselm who followed St Ambrose in this opinion. Secondly, this silence is suited to her modesty and humble status in the presence of men. Thirdly, man possesses better reason and judgment as well as discretion than woman. It is proper, he adds as his fourth reason, for which he finds support in Genesis 3:16 and St Anselm, that woman is commanded to silence, because when she speaks it is only to lure man into sin. Besides, silence is a good remedy for feminine loquacity! Here we notice an addition to the reasons found in Paul, but this anti-feminism is not unusual among commentators expounding these biblical texts concerning woman. Cornelius a Lapide explicitly states the time-worn bogey that woman is passionate and sensual by nature, while man is rational; hence it is only reasonable that she should remain silent. Like many of the fathers he finds backing in Aristotle and quotes with approval a passage from De Natura Animalium (book IX, ch. 1) which is obviously heavy with prejudice.(33)

Cornelius a Lapide is clearly convinced that woman's role is to be one of silent subjection. He fully endorses St Paul's injunction that women should ask their husbands at home for any information they may need in spiritual things, and he quotes Primasius who says that women have meetings of their own where they are given instruction outside liturgical assemblies.(34) Furthermore, commenting on verse 35, he states that it is better that women should remain ignorant of what is not necessary than that they should give scandal by asking questions and learning it in church.(35) Theophylact is more stringent when, in commenting on 1Corinthians 14 : 34., he asserts that it is not permitted for women to speak in church even when it is a matter concerning essentials or the salvation of souls.(36) Peter Lombard states that it is unseemly for a woman to speak in church, because it is contrary to ecclesiastical discipline and because she ought to observe silence as an expression of her shame in introducing sin into the world. No matter how wonderfully endowed she is with gifts of tongues and prophecy it is the opinion of the same author that she should still keep silent in church.(37)

In1Corinthians 11 St Paul commands that a woman should be veiled during liturgical meetings and bases this necessity on her subjection to man: ‘The head of a woman is her husband’ (verse 3, R.S.V.).(38) Estius notes that Theophylact rendered this ‘Caput autem uxoris maritus’ but that Tertullian says it applies to virgins as well. With the latter, Estius is in total agreement, for this rule of subjection is a thing established by God and of universal application. Every woman is therefore forbidden to speak, that is to take on an official role of teaching or preaching in any way in the assembly.(39) In reply to the objection that the prophetess Anna spoke in the temple, Cornelius a Lapide denies that she did so in the men's court and holds that ‘she gave thanks to God and spoke of him to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem’ (Luke 2:38) in the atrium of the women. The inference is that this could not be called public speaking in the sense repudiated by St Paul, and this is borne out by Cornelius a Lapide when, with the support of Cajetan, he says that the Apostle does not forbid women to speak or sing in church when only women are present.(40)

The wearing of the veil in the liturgical assembly is taken as a symbol of female subjection. This ever recurring interpretation is based on St Paul's injunction in 1Corinthians 11 :5: ‘Any woman who prays or prophesies with the head unveiled dishonours her head.’ Estius is representative of Catholic opinion when he states that the veil signifies subjection, and therefore man, who is subject immediately to God, need not wear it, but woman, who is subject by nature, should. In the second place man, being the glory of God, is not veiled because the ‘gloria Dei’ is not hidden but revealed. Woman on the contrary should wear a veil because she is the glory of man and he is her head.(41) So also Primasius, who says that a veil shows her to be humble and subject to her husband. (42) Haymo is more in the line of the strange rabbinical tradition which demanded the veiling of women lest the angels be lured into lasciviousness when he states that the reason for this veiling in the Christian assemblies is to preclude the same on the part of men.(43)

This manifestation of female subjection is also deduced from the seduction of Eve, the punishment meted out to her after the Fall, and from the creation account itself, where scripture records the creation of Eve from and for Adam: ‘And the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman’ (Genesis 2 : 22) and, ‘I will make him a helper fit for him’ (Genesis 2:18). Oecumenius notes that Genesis does not say that Eve was seduced, but that the woman was, with the consequence that the punishment was imposed on all women, and that woman as such exists from and for man as such.(44)

Summarizing therefore the arguments deduced from scripture for the observance of silence by women in church we find them based on the Pauline reasons: the custom of all the churches; the creation of woman from and for man; her seduction by the serpent and her subjection to man by the divine command. Subsidiary reasons such as her loquaciousness, lack of logic and frailty are also given as sufficient to warrant woman's silence in public gatherings. Although none of these commentators explicitly states that she is in consequence excluded from the priesthood, yet the very condemnation to silent attendance implies such a prohibition, the inherent reason being that preaching or official teaching of the word of God is an essential element of the Catholic priesthood. Her role of silence automatically excludes her from the priestly ministry. It is to the testimony of tradition that we turn for an explicit declaration of the incapacity of women to receive holy orders.

3. Arguments from tradition for the exclusion of women from the priesthood

Among the fathers, Tertullian and Epiphanius are the first to consider the question of a female priesthood specifically and to treat it positively. Although neither is dispassionate on the subject they at least do justice to the question by considering it in itself. This is something that is lacking in later theologians who seem to follow each other without any originality. Though lacking the positive approach of Tertullian and Epiphanius, the scholastics share their prejudice. The burden of their thought is to repeat monotonously the arguments against a female ministry. The nearest they come to an open and non-polemical consideration of this question is when they state that if Christ intended women to share his priesthood, Mary would have been invested with this privilege. This question, however, seems to be posed only with a view to a preconceived reply; the question itself is hardly relevant and the answer at best superficial.

Tertullian is convinced that woman are totally excluded from the priesthood:

It is not permitted to women to speak in church, or to teach, or to baptize, or to offer, or to lay claim to a man's function or to the priestly office .(45)

Again, in the controversy against the Marcionites, who claimed to be the only successors of the Pauline communities, he wrote characteristically:

What boldness is found among these female heretics! They are daring to give the Church's teaching, to take part in disputes, to exorcize, to promise cures and even to baptize.(46)

St John Chrysostom has the following to say:

When it is a question of the care of the Church and of so many souls, let the whole female sex retreat from such an office . . . and similarly the majority of men.(47)

Scoffing at a contemporary Arabian sect called the Collyridians which honoured the Virgin Mary to excess by sacrificing cakes to her in a pagan manner, Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, brands it as ‘feminine madness’. He continues:

Never anywhere has any woman, not even Eve, acted as priest from the beginning of the world.(48)

He points out that the same can be said of New Testament times where not even Mary herself was entrusted with the priestly office. He adverts to the female diaconate but says that this had nothing to do with the priestly ministry.(49) Pope Gelasius, writing in 494 to certain careless bishops who apparently allowed women to participate in sacerdotal functions, states his view in no uncertain terms:

With impatience we have heard of the contempt in which divine things are regarded so that women, who have no competence in the execution of these rites reserved to men, are ordained to minister at the sacred altar. . . ,(50)

It is the scholastics and post-scholastics, however, who give lengthy argumentation on the question of women and holy orders. That they do consider this matter at all seems to be due more to their desire to be comprehensive than to a genuine concern to investigate the possibility of a female priesthood. Nor do we expect their theological conclusions to be free from such obscurities as those which, until the advance of the various sciences, influenced all human thinking and scholarship. St Thomas, St Bonaventure, Scotus, Durandus, Soto, Vasquez, Billuart and St Alphonsus Liguori, all representative of Catholic tradition, consider the possibility of a female ministry in the Church and are unanimous in rejecting it. A certain uniformity also prevails in their reasoning.

St Thomas teaches that the male sex is required for the reception of holy orders, not only for validity but for congruity, so that if a woman were made the subject of all that is done in the ordination ceremony she would not receive this sacramental His main reason is that since a sacrament is also a sign, not only the thing (res tantum) but its signification (sacramentum tantrum) is required, and a woman is incapable because of the impossibility of her sex to signify eminence of degree, which orders necessarily confer and should consequently signify. This for St Thomas forms an exact analogy with the sacrament of the sick, which for its valid reception requires a sick person in order to signify the need of healing.(52) Without this the reception of ‘the last sacrament’ would be invalid. Consequently a male is necessarily the only subject of holy orders. Scotus(53) and Durandus(54) also hold that the male sex is an absolute requirement for the reception of holy orders. Soto declares that this necessity is founded on the divine law(55) while St Alphonsus says this same law excludes women and hermaphrodites in whom the female sex prevails.(56) St Thomas is so convinced that masculinity is the decisive factor that he maintains that even boys and male imbeciles can receive valid orders.(57) In the opinion of the scholastics, her sex therefore forms the first obstacle to the reception of orders by a woman. They find their reasons for this in either the natural or divine law or both taken together. St Bonaventure states that because man is the image of God he is therefore capable of orders. He refutes the argument which declares woman is eligible since orders pertain to the soul in which there is no distinction of sex. He points out that this sacrament does not look to the soul alone, but to the soul united to the body and this by reason of the signification which consists in a sign through which the body is united to the soul also in the execution of the priesthood. With St Thomas he affirms that the signification of eminence does not belong to woman, owing to her inferior status.(58)

A second major argument used by most of the scholastics following Epiphanius is that if Christ had intended the priesthood to be conferred on the female sex, he would have ordained the Virgin Mary. But the fact is he gave the power of consecrating and absolving to men only, although his mother was most worthy of all.(59) That Christ did not confer his priestly power on any woman is seen as confirmation of the incapacity of the female sex for orders.

Billuart reduces the arguments against a female sacerdotal ministry to two: the will of Christ, as manifested by St Paul, and the tradition of the Church.(60) Scotus says woman is debarred from orders for four reasons: ‘Primo ex parte sexus: secundo, aetatis : tertio, infirmitatis : quarto, poenae Ecclesiasticae.’(61) Later in the same passage he says that women never, even among pagans, offered sacrifice to God; that the Levites in the Old Testament were men only and that Christ the mediator was man; from all of which he infers that a woman cannot be a priest. Though giving the persistent discipline of the Church as his fourth reason for the exclusion of women from orders, Scotus allows that this is the least significant reason. The Church itself, he says, would not have presumed to deprive the whole female sex, without any fault of its own, of the right to be ordained. To have done so would be a grave injustice, even if it had been denied only to a few.(62) Such then are the scholastic reasons which, though varying slightly in secondary arguments, are solidly unanimous in regarding the priesthood as peculiarly a man's office. Masculinity is an absolute requisite for the valid reception of holy orders.

Arguments for the fittingness of an exclusively male priesthood are found in abundance among the writings of the scholastics. Those of Soto can be taken as representative. Not only is woman excluded from orders but it is most fitting (congruentissima) that she should. He says that this sacrament constitutes a person in a pre-eminent grade, by which he surpasses all others. The fact that woman is subject to man by the law of nature itself would falsify the signification of the sacrament of orders, even if it were conferred on her; hence she would not receive the priestly character.(63) This is the opinion of St Thomas who holds that ‘sacramental signs signify by reason of their natural likeness’. (64) Secondly, Soto holds that the feminine sex does not befit the dignity of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.(65) The reason is that Christ is the head of the man just as man is the head of the woman, as St Paul says. As a sign of this a woman should wear a veil, but a man can leave his head uncovered or be shaved, and since the tonsure is the badge of clerics (clericorum insigne), women are rightly excluded from the clerical state (a clericatu). Thirdly, because orders have among other functions that of teaching, women are excluded from them, for the apostle Paul says they should be silent in Church. Fourthly, he who receives orders is ipso facto capable of becoming a bishop and as such the spouse of the Church; but a woman ought not to be a spouse of the Church whose spouse is Christ. For this reason she is incapable of receiving any orders, minor or major.(66) Soto concludes that reason itself shows the absurdity of allowing women either to consecrate or to hear confessions; for even though some may be prudent (‘nam etsi aliquae sint prudentes’), the sex as such is singularly lacking in reason and shows a fickleness of mind (‘animi levitatem praefert’) making them unfit for ecclesiastical duties.

The scholastics consider some objections to their teaching and their solutions are strikingly Thomistic. Replying to the objection that Deborah exercised authority, St Thomas states that this was in temporal not priestly matters.(67) Elsewhere he quotes Aristotle's view that there is a ‘corruption of public life when the government comes into the hands of a woman’ and he avers that as a consequence a woman has neither the power of orders nor that of jurisdiction.(68) As for the evidence that there were abbesses who were known to have exercised jurisdiction, he states that they had not ordinary but delegated authority, and that this was on account of the danger of men and women living together in community .(69)

Being debarred from orders implies the prohibition to teach publicly - firstly, according to St Thomas, on account of the condition attaching to the female sex whereby woman should be subject to man, as appears from Genesis 3 : 16.(70) All subsequent scholastics who deal with this question use the same reasoning. Secondly, women should not teach in public lest men be enticed to lust. Lastly, as a rule women, not being perfected in wisdom, are unfit to be entrusted with public teaching.(71) St Thomas does however allow her, if she should have the grace of wisdom, to use it in private teaching.(72)

In announcing the resurrection in obedience to Christ's command, St Mary Magdalen was, according to St Thomas, merely enjoying a privileged concession denied to other women; because woman was the first to bring the source of death to man, she could be first to announce the dawn of the resurrection.(73) Regarding prophecy, St Thomas says there are two things, namely revelation and manifestation of revelation. Women are not excluded from the first, but as to the second he makes a distinction between public and private manifestation. She may announce - but this is not preaching, an office which is reserved to the ordained minister.(74)

For the sake of completeness it is necessary to note that St Thomas permits a woman to baptize, but he is careful to add that the reason she may administer this sacrament is because Christ is the chief baptizer. Even so, she may baptize only in the case of necessity and when there is no man available. It is rather strange to find the Angelic Doctor supporting this opinion by quoting Galatians 3:28: ‘There is neither male nor female’.(75)

Regarding the ordination of deaconesses in the early Christian Church, Durandus says it was a blessing, in virtue of which they were competent to read the morning homily but not the Gospel at Mass; nor were they competent to minister around the altar as the deacon did.(76) Billuart, too, denies that their ordination conferred any sacramental character.(77) St Thomas remarks that the term deaconess denotes ‘a woman who shared in some act of a deacon, namely who reads the homilies in church’.(78) In reply to the assertion that there existed priestesses in the primitive Church, since they are mentioned in the Decretals (Cap. Mulieres, dist. 32), St Thomas says that priestess (presbytera) means a widow.'(79)

In reply to the objection that religious life and martyrdom are greater perfections than holy orders and are given to woman and that therefore they should be admitted to this sacrament, St Bonaventure distinguishes between grace gratum faciens and grace gratis data. The former is given for the benefit of the receiver, and thus religious life and martyrdom are given to women, but the latter is given for the sake of others, and so the ministerial office is conferred on men only.(80) Lest the Pauline text, ‘Neither male nor female. . .’, be used as a proof that women are equally capable with men for the reception of orders, Scotus declares that St Paul here speaks of discrimination between men according to merit and not according to office.(81)

It can be seen that the scholastics examine the question of a female priesthood in a fairly comprehensive manner. Their approach however is one-sided; they seem preoccupied merely with finding reasons for the exclusion of women from orders. This defensive position is invariably characteristic of those who enjoy the rights of possession. It would be too much to expect a more open and challenging confrontation of the problem. All of these fathers reflect the mind of the Church in their age, a mentality coloured by the conditions prevailing in the times in which they wrote.

It is of interest to compare their theological works with some Protestant opinions on this point. None of the Reformers,(82) with the exception of George Fox,(83) challenged the tradition which considered women debarred from orders. However, with the increased social status attained by woman towards the end of the last and during the present century, Protestant Churches began to open their doors to female ministers of various kinds. The rejection by Arthur Stanley, Anglican Dean of Westminster, of Florence Nightingale's offering of herself to the service of the Church closed the era of an exclusively male ministry in these non-Roman denominations. ‘I would,’ she declares, ‘have given her (the Church) my head, my hand, my heart. She would not have them. She told me to go back to do crochet in my mother's drawingroom.’(84) Today many denominations number women among their fully-ordained ministers.(85)

Yet there is still an unwillingness in some Churches to discuss the question of a female priesthood. There are various reasons for this. The Anglicans prefer to postpone the issue, since at the present moment it is thought to form an obstacle to reunion with the Methodist Church.(86) The Swedish Baptists dislike the question ‘not so much because it is impossible, but that it is unimaginable’;987) while no doubt there are some whose sole opposition is based on prejudice similar to that expressed by a Church of England canon at the Convocation of York in 1938, who declared that the very thought that the chalice should be administered by a woman made him shudder.988) Despite such opposition it is clear that a transformation has come about in Protestant thinking on the question at issue. The impelling cause seems to be the newly-acquired status of woman. Even a century or less ago these same circles would have found it unthinkable to admit women to the ministry. Of course the Protestant principle of the perennial adaptability of doctrine to suit every age and milieu is at work here.

We are not dealing with a defined dogma of the Church, and one wonders whether a somewhat similar metamorphosis is feasible in Catholic thinking of the twentieth century, at a time when every topic from inspiration to the use of contraceptives is being rethought, with tremendous pain but with concomitant profit. The present trend in theology at least augurs a more objective and positive treatment of the question from which the Church as a whole should have much to gain and nothing to fear.

Notes

1. PG 42:744-45.

2. R. H. Connolly, Didascalia Apostolorum the Syriac Version translated and accompanied by the Verona Latin Fragments, Oxford, 1929, p. 133. See also J. A. Jungmann, The Early Liturgy, London, 1959, p. 62, who says: ‘The state of culture in the period of Christian antiquity was not favourable to the employment of women in the Church's ministry.’

3. Arguments from tradition for the exclusion of women from the priesthood

3. Dr Haye van der Meer, SJ., theological reflections on the thesis ‘Subiectum ordinationis est in solus mas’, unpublished doctoral thesis for the University of Nijmegen (1962).

4. Denzinger 1610.

5. Denzinger 753.

6. PL 56:884. This collection, influenced by the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus, was probably made in southern Gaul towards the end of the fifth century.

7. J. Hefele, A History of the Christian Councils, 5 vols., traps. ed. W. R. Clark, Edinburgh, 1871-96, vol. II, p. 405.

8. PL 161:169.

9. Mansi 14:565.

10. Some non-Catholic authors regard this text as dependent on 1Corinthians 14:34, 35, were others such as Anderson-Scott, Bousset and Weiss hold that 1Corinthians 14:34, 35 is itself an interpolation because (a) these two verses break the connection between vv. 33 and 36 and (b) are transposed by several Mss, including the sixth century Codex Claromontanus, to the end of chapter 14.

11. Rudolpho Cornely, S.J., Commentarius in S.Pauli Epistolam ad Priorem, Paris,1909, p.445.

12. Cornelii à Lapide, S.J., Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram, Paris, 1868, Tom. 18, p.353.

13. Rabanus Maurus, PL 112:595.

14. E.B.Allo, Première Epître aux Corinthiens, Paris, 1935, p.373.

15. Ibid.:‘En face d'une abuse complexe qu'il veux détruire, il commence par ne l'examiner que sous un aspect, qui peut être secondaire, avant de s'attaquer au principal, à ce qui en fait la substance.’

16. Guilieme Estii, In Omnes Pauli Epistolas, Paris, 1858, tom. I, p.705.

17. H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford, 1961.

18. J.H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, London, 1914.

19. E.g. Allo, op. cit.

20. E.g. Estrus, op. cit.

21 E.g. J. Rickaby, S.J., Notes on St Paul, London, 1905, p. 111.

22. Op. cit.; cf C.Callan, O.P., The Epistles of St Paul, New York, 1953, p. 411.

23. Super Epistles S. Pauli Lectura, Romae, 1953, Vol I, P. 402.

24. PL 192 :340: ‘Orare cum viris commune mulieribus, sed non loqui . . . . Docere autem victim in Ecclesia, mulierem non permitto.’

25. E.g. J. Daniélou, The Ministry of Women in the Early Church, trans. Rev. G. Simon, London, 1961, p. 10.

26. W. Rees, ‘1 and 2 Corinthians’ in A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, Edinburgh, 1957, col. 881 a.

27. E. B. Allo, op. cit., p. 372.

28. RSV has ‘subordinate’.

29. PG 124:750.

30. PL 121:1672.

31. Allo op. cit., p. 267: ‘Autre temps, autre moeurs; mais les principes supérieurs, dont Paul fait ici une application valable pour Corinthe, valent pour tous les pays et pour tous les temps.’

32. Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram, op. cit., p. 396.

33. Ibid.: ‘Mulier misericors magis et ad lacrymas propensior est, quam vir: invida item magis et querula, et maledicentior, et mordacior: praeterea anxia, et desperans magis quam mas, atque impudentior et mendacior, quin etiam facilior decipi.’

34. Ibid.: ‘Habent concionatores, confessarios et magistros, qui eas instruant’.

35. Ibid.

36. PG 124:750.

37. PL 191:1672

38. The Jerusalem Bible has ‘man is the head of woman’, while the Vulgate reads ‘the head of the woman is the man’.

39. In Omnes Pauli Epistolas, op. cit., p. 592: ‘Notandum est enim, Apostolum universe loqui de sexu muliebri, qui its conditus est a Deo, ut regi debeat a viro: sive nubat viro, sive sint, quae non nubant. Unde et virginum monasteria necesse est a viris gubernari.’

40. Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram, op..cit., p. 397.

41. In Omnes Pauli Epistolas, op. cit., p. 600: ‘Debet mulier potestatem, id est, signum potestatis viri supra se, quod est velamen, habere super caput suum.’ Cf. also Rabanus Maurus, PL 112:136.

42. PL 68:532: ‘Mulier autem debet habere velamen, quod ostendat illam humilem, et viro esse subjectam.’

43. PL 117:576: ‘Et ne ipso profluxio capillorum provocat homines ad amorem libidinis, ideo praecepit velue capillos et ligare.’ Cf. also S. Th., II, IIae q. 177, a.2.

44. PG 119:155: ‘Ideo non licit: Eva seducta; sed Mulier seducta, naturam quae facile decipiatur significans. "Factus est transgressions obnoxia". Non sola Eva facta est transgressioni obnoxia sed et universum mulierum sodalitium. Quemadmodum enim in Adam omnes morimur, ita in Eva universae prevaricatae sunt.’ CL also C. Spicq, O.P., Les epîtres pastorales, Paris, 1947, P. 71.

45. PL 2:902.

46. PL, 2:56.

47. Dialogo del Sacerdozio, testo, introduzione a note del S. Colombo, Turin, 1952, lib. II, p. 46.

48. PG 42:742.

49. PG 42:743.

50. PL 59:55.

51. S. Th., Suppl., q. 39, a.l.

52. Ibid.

53. R. P. F. Frassen, Scotus Academicus, Romae, 1722, tom. XII, tract III, disp. I, 104, where he says women are excluded on four grounds: Terms, ex parte sexus . . .

54. Durandus de Sancto Porciano, In Petri Lombardi Sententias Theologicas Commentariorum, Venetiis, 1571, lib. IV, dist. 25, q. 2, p. 364: ‘Sexus virilis est de necessitate Sacramenti’.

55. Commentariorum Fratris Dominici Soto, in Quantum Sententiarum, Venetiis, 1570, tom. II, p. 51: ‘Prima sexus virilis est de iure divino de necessitate, non solum praecepti sed etiam sacramenti’.

56. Opera Moralia, Romae, 1909, tom. III, lib. 6, tract 5, dub. 2, p. 773.

57. S. Th., Suppl., q. 39, a. 2.

58. In Quantum Librum Sententiarum, (list. 25, a. 2, q. 1. in Omnia Opera, Quaracchi, 1889, tom. IV, pp. 649-655.

59. De Soto, op. cit.: cf. also F. C. R. Billuart, Summa Sancti Thomae, Paris, no date, VII, diss. III, art. III, p. 341.

60. Ibid.

61. Op. cit. tom. XII, tract III, disp. I, p. 104.

62. Ibid

63. 0p. cit.: ‘Et ideo si foemina ordinavi tentaret: quia sacramentum est signum rei sacrae: et hoc sacramentum est signum consecrationis ad gradus praeeminentiam, esset signum falsum, atque adeo nullum esset sacramentum . . . .’

64. Suppl., q. 39, a. 3. ad 4.

65. Op. cit. tom. II, p. 51.

66. Similarly St Thomas, Suppl., q. 39 a. 1 : ‘The crown is required previous to receiving holy orders, albeit not for the validity of the sacrament. The crown or tonsure is not befitting to women (1Cor. 11) neither therefore is the receiving of holy orders.’

67. Suppl., q. 19, a. 1, ad 2. Scotus gives the same solution, Scotus Academicus, op. cit., p. 105: ‘Mulieribus autem licit temporaliter dominari, sed non spirituali dominio. . . ’ Likewise Billuart, Summa Sancti Thomae, op. cit.: ‘Quantum ad Debboram, non praefuit in sacerdotalibus, sed in temporalibus ex commissione extraordinaria . . . . ’

68. Suppl., q. 19, a. 3, ad 4. So also Billuart, op. cit., p. 342, who says prophecy is not a sacrament but a gift of God.

69. Q.19, a. 3, ad 4. Cf. Billuart, op. cit., who gives the same reason.

70. II-II ae, q. 117, a. 2.

71. Ibid.

72. Ibid. ad. 3, and III, q. 95, a. 1, ad 3.

73. S. Th., III, q. 55, a. 1, ad 3.

74. S. Thomae Aquinatis, Super Epistolas S. Pauli Lectura, Marietti, Romae, 1953, vol. I, p. 402: ‘Responsio: dicendum quod in prophetia sunt duo, scilicet revelatio et manifestatio revelationis, sed a revelatione non excluduntur mulieres sed multa revelantur eis sicut et viris. Sed annuntiatio est duplex. Una publica, et ab hac excluduntur; alia est privata, et haec permittitur eis, quia non est praedicatio, sed annuntiatio.’

75. S. Th., III, q. 67, a. 4, ad 1.

76. In Petri Lombardi Sententias Theologicas Commentariorum, loc. cit.

77. Summa Sancti Thomae, op. cit.., p. 342.

78. Suppl., q. 39, a. 1

79. Ibid.

80. In Sent., lib. 4, dist. 25, a 2, q. 1.

81. Scotus Academicus, loc. cit.

82. Luther in fact declared against a female ministry and only grudgingly admitted that in times of emergency it is better that women should preach than that the Word of God should be without a preacher. Cf. K. Bliss, The Service and Status of Women in the Churches, London, 1952, p. 150.

83. Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, wrote that his chief concern was ‘to give women their place and stir them up to take it and he claims that man and woman are again helpsmeet [sic] since the Redemption . . .as before the Fall’ (quoted by K. Bliss, op. cit., pp. 22, 23).

84. Cited by Bliss, op, cit., p. 14

85. ‘Woman’, The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia, Michigan, 1955. In 1959 the Swedish Parliament authorized the elevation of women to the ministry and in l961 the first woman was ordained by the Church of Norway. See above for ecumenical statistics.

86. This was the subject of comment by The Daily Telegraph - 2.7.1963 - the Anglican-Methodist conversations. Cf. Charles Boyer, S.J., in a recent article ‘La Donna a L'Altare’ in L'Osservatore Romano, 16 aprile, 1965, who also argued that the study of this question would be an obstacle to Christian unity.

87. Report made to the World Council of Churches and quoted by Bliss, op. cit., p. 135. The bitter division in the Church of Sweden over the ordination of women, since its formal proposal in 1957, is not a happy precedent in that country.

88. Cited by R. W. Howard, Should Women be Priests?, Oxford, 1949, p. 33.

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