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Women's Ordination and Infallible Teaching, An Inquiry
Was The Teaching Infallible?
[The Second Essay On the Women Ordination Ban]

This essay continues discussion of the question, are there good grounds for believing that the ban on women priests has been taught infallibly by the ordinary magisterium. On the face of it, the history of the Church provides no reason to believe that the ban has been infallibly taught in this mode, as it is defined in Lumen gentium 25 at Vatican II. But let us continue our inquiry.

 1) The behavior of Jesus: Let me state the  obvious at the outset. Nowhere do the Gospels record Jesus as teaching that women cannot be ordained priests. The gospels are silent on whether Jesus ever said anything at all about this issue. What the Gospels do record is Jesus' selection of only men as the Twelve. Among his other disciples and closest followers women were quite prominent. Is there any normative theological significance in the fact that the Twelve were all men? Jesus doesn't say anything  about why the Twelve were all men. They were also all Jews, and as far as we know there were no gentiles present at the last Supper. Is there any normative significance in these facts? Has the Church erred in ordaining gentiles? Presumably not. How would one establish that only choosing men was theologically significant, but only choosing Jews was not? (And let's no pretend that no gentiles were around for Jesus to select--there were Roman centurions,  Samaritans, lots of gentiles in fact that Jesus could have chosen had he wanted to.) Further, let us suppose, following tradition, that the Twelve were the precursors of the bishops of the Church. Can the other disciples Jesus  called (and Scripture records that there were many, including women, whom Jesus called to be his disciples) not be presumed to be in a parallel manner precursors of the presbyteral order? We are told of the 72 who were sent out to  preach--we are not told that they were all men, or if this were the case, that it was of normative theological significance. In any case a clear threefold distinction of sacred orders was some time in being firmly established and universally recognized, and we do not know how detailed were Jesus's instructions and intentions with regard to the ordained ministry. Let us also be clear that there are many things which the Church has done with the subsequent  guidance of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus did not do--use of vestments, the establishment of a Curia to assist the pope, etc, etc, etc. Likewise there were many things Jesus did which the Church has not done.

 Among the most  significant for our purpose here is Jesus's observance of many Jewish rites, customs, festivals and laws. Now some people very early on in the Church were firmly of the opinion--including for a time Saint Peter--that all followers of Jesus should therefore imitate at least the main features of Jesus's Jewish observances. These people presumably thought that doing so was intended by the Lord himself. Paul after much effort and controversy finally convinced the other Apostles that this was not so. Here is a clear case of drawing a false inference from the practice and behavior of Jesus. And since we have no specific teaching of Jesus on the role of women in the structure of the  Church, it is safer not to see a ban where none is strictly deducible from his behavior or practice. For how indeed are we to conclude that Jesus's choice of males only for membership in the Twelve *was* of normative theological significance, but that his choice of Jews only and his observance of Jewish laws and customs was not? On the basis of the principle that where nothing is expressly forbidden, there is no essential bar to permitting it, I conclude  that we can conclude nothing definitively negative from the behavior of Jesus with respect to the ordination of women.

 2) The teachings of Saint Paul. In 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy Paul states that women should be silent  in church, that they should not attend church services with their hair uncovered or wearing jewelry or expensive clothing, and that they should not yield authority over men. Which of these statements is due to the limitations of his cultural conditioning and can be dispensed with, and which are of normative and permanent theological significance?

 "It is shameful for a woman to speak in the assembly" (1 Cor 14:35). When John Paul II was in England a woman read at the Westminster Cathedral Mass in his presence, nor was she wearing a veil if I recall. I think she had a nice suit and earrings on too. I didn't know that the pope found this shameful. Perhaps only speaking that constitutes religious instruction is meant by Paul. Well, this hasn't stopped thousands of nuns and other laywomen from catechizing and instructing men in theology. Women are now allowed to preach under certain circumstances  during Mass and other services. Women can baptize. Women can distribute the eucharist. Charismatic gatherings are full of women speaking in tongues, prophesying, and interpreting prophecies. A little further on in 1 Corinthians Paul speaks of a "command of the Lord". Some authors have tried to interpret this as pertaining specifically to the previous remark about women. But this is an unpersuasive exegesis. The context of Paul's remark about a  "command from the Lord" is the whole of his teaching on the proper use of prophetic and other spiritual gifts, for he addresses his remark about the Lord's command to "anyone who claims to be a prophet, or to have any spiritual powers" (1 Cor 14:37)--i.e. it is not addressed specifically to women. Note also that in 1 Cor 14:34 Paul attributes the subordination of women explicitly not to a command of the Lord, but to the Law (i.e. the Jewish Law). It is fair to say that Paul is not particularly consistent in his teachings on the relevance for Christians of the Jewish Law--it's an issue he struggles and wrestles with time and time again. He rails against Judaizing practices in some places, and appeals to them in others. He praises the Jewish Law in some places and proclaims that it has been superseded in Christ in others.

 1 Tim 2:12 makes no appeal to a command of the  Lord--instead it is Paul himself who claims to deny permission to women to teach or have authority over men. But generations of nuns have taught men, and Mrs Thatcher had authority over men--has either fact been condemned by the Church? In 1 Tim 2 Paul appeals to the supposedly subordinate and morally inferior position of Eve relative to Adam. His exegesis here as in other places where he comments on the Old Testament is hardly definitive for later  commentators. Paul simply reflects his own Rabbinic training and culture. Even if we accept the legitimacy of Paul's prohibition, it doesn't follow that we should interpret this as any more than a matter of changeable discipline and law, just as it was no more than changeable discipline and law which forbade women to handle the sacred species until recently.

 Peter Burns, SJ
 -End of Part 2 of 3-

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