Internal Indecisiveness

by Carroll Stuhlmueller

from Women Priests, Arlene Swidler & Leonard Swidler (eds.), Paulist Press 1977, pp. 23-24.
Republished on our website with the necessary permissions

(Carroll Stuhlmueller, CP, received his doctorate in Sacred Scripture from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. He has been a Visiting Professor at L’Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem and was at the time professor of Old Testament at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. He has published extensively and is on the editorial board of The Catholic Biblical Quarterly and The Bible Today.)

In this Declaration the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith manifests a low profile of authority. Not only was the form of a “Declaration” chosen instead of a papal “Motu Proprio” or “Encyclical,” but significant qualifying words or phrases lessen the internal certitude within the document. The Declaration claims to have made “a critical examination” of “various arguments capable of clarifying this important problem.” As a result, its own negative conclusions have had to be modified and its supporting reasons presented as less than probative. Because earlier publications have contributed to a more nuanced Declaration, new books and articles will continue the dialog and move the issue towards still greater certitude in the Magisterium and the Church at large.

We cite examples of indecisiveness within the document. Already in the “Introduction” it is not directly and definitively stated that women cannot be ordained. Rather, we read that “the Church . . . does not consider herself authorized to admit women to priestly ordination” (italics added). The door is left open. With new and further clarification the Church could consider herself authorized. This indirect style recalls a statement in Pope Pius XII’s encyclical, Humani Generis about polygenism (namely, the hypothesis that human beings existed after Adam not descended from him, or that “Adam” signifies several first parents collectively). Pius XII declared that “it is not apparent ("nequaquam appareat") how this position can be adjusted to those other statements which the sources of revelation and the acts of the Church’s Magisterium propose about original sin . . . “ {Enchiridion biblicum: Rome, 1956, n. 617). The statement implicitly admits that further investigation might make it apparent and even certain. In any case "appareat" is a weak word in ecclesiastical documentation.

Within the “Introduction” the Declaration admits: “we are dealing with a debate which classical theology scarcely touched upon.” Chapter One states moreover that the ordination of men only was “a principle. . . not attacked . . . a law . . . not challenged.” The subject then of women’s ordination bears comparison with the doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible. This religious truth received practically no attention in papal or conciliar documents till Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Providentissimus Deus (18 Nov., 1893). Since then it has undergone important development into what is now termed “the social character of inspiration” (cf., James T. Burchaell, Catholic Theories of Biblical Inspiration Since 1810. Cambridge University Press, 1969; J.L. McKenzie, “The Social Character of Inspiration,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 24 [1962], pp. 115-124; C. Stuhlmueller, “The Search for God’s Word," Cross Currents, Vol. 20 [Summer, 1970], pp. 301-314). Just as our study into the doctrine of inspiration has led to a much broader base and a wider sharing of this charism within the society of Israel, investigations into priesthood are deepening the roots and extending the base of this sacred office. In both cases the initial document from the Magisterium does not settle the question but focuses research.

In Chapter Two the Declaration concedes that a scrutiny into the Gospels and the attitude of Christ leads to “facts [which] do not make the matter immediately obvious.... We have here a number of convergent indications.” The word indications is very weak, especially in serious controversial dialog. Furthermore, the Declaration adds that “a purely historical exegesis of the texts cannot suffice.”

Because the results of Chapter Two on “the attitude of Christ” are so inconclusive, one is surprised that the all-important “Introduction” appeals to “the example of the Lord” as the reason why the “Church . . . does not consider herself authorized....” The same indecisive reasoning appears again in Chapter Three concerning “The Practice of thc Apostles.” Here we read: “They could therefore have envisaged conferring ordination on women, if they had not been convinced of the duty of fidelity to the Lord on this point” (italics added). Yet in Chapter Two this significant point is “not immediately obvious” and amounts to “a number of convergent indications.” Chapter Four, moreover, recalls “this attitude of Jesus and the Apostles which has been considered as normative by the whole of tradition up to our own day” (italics added). The word “considered” weakens a statement which could have read more simply and more forcefully “which has been normative.” This hesitation about tradition is more apparent when we recall the earlier admission in the Declaration that “we are dealing with a debate rarely mentioned by the Fathers and Scholastics" (whom the Declaration in Chapter One admits were often prejudiced in their attitude towards women), "which classical theology scarcely touched upon," a “question [which] has not been raised again.” In other words, the two shortest and weakest chapters in the Declaration become the principal basis for the negative conclusion.

The authors of the Declaration must have been conscious of this internal indecisiveness. Roman documents must be exegeted carefully; qualifying phrases which blunt the directness of the conclusions are deliberately introduced. When the document comes to “the final analysis” in Chapter Four, the authors state that it is the “Magisterium . . . [which] decides what can change and what must remain immutable.” Evidently reasons from Scripture and Tradition were not sufficiently cogent to close the case. If thc biblical, patristic and scholastic basis is not presented as probative and if the theological debate has only begun, then these admissions of the Magisterium deny ordination for women only for now and invite further research. Through this new study and through the extension of women’s pastoral role in the Church, which the Declaration declares very desirable, the indecisiveness will turn towards certitude.

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