St Michael Society

The Roman Catholic Church has never ordained women to the priesthood, and never will. But that doesn’t stop some women from trying. Of course it doesn’t work and some of these women have broken off into their own sects or have joined other faiths that ordain women.

But this news story is reporting that Italy has ordained its first “woman priest.” In reality, the woman was “ordained” in an Anglican Church in Rome and belongs the Italian Old Catholic Church, which broke away from the Roman Catholic Church in the 19^th century – so its not a Catholic Church in reality.

The woman, Mrs. Maria Vittoria Longhitano, said that she hoped to breakdown the prejudice in the Roman Catholic Church, who only believes in ordaining men to the priesthood.

“We are talking about an extremely hierarchical system; a male caste with a strong instinct of self-preservation,” she said. “And this is why there is this general attitude against ordaining women in the Church.”

Mrs. Longhitano gets it wrong on so many levels. The Catholic Church has never and will never ordain a woman as priest, for several reasons, none of which have to do with equality rights or any kind of attitude against women. Jesus himself treated women with the utmost respect and compassion, something that was unheard of in those days. His Church extends that treatment toward women today and recognizes the special place they play in the Church and in his ministry.

In 1976, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released Inter Insigniores, which laid out these reasons by women will not/cannot be ordained priests:

1)     Church tradition – The Catholic Church has never felt that priestly or episcopal ordination can be validly conferred on women.

2)     Jesus Christ himself never chose a woman to be an Apostle – Despite the radical and novel way Jesus treated women during his time, Jesus Christ did not call any woman to become part of the Twelve. If he acted in this way, it was not in order to conform to the customs of his time, for his attitude towards women was quite different from that of his milieu, and he deliberately and courageously broke with it.

3)     The Apostles never chose a woman to be part of the Apostolate – In spite of the so important role played by women on the day of the Resurrection, their collaboration was not extended by Saint Paul to the official and public proclamation of the message, since this proclamation belongs exclusively to the apostolic mission.

4)     Jesus’ actions were a “permanent normative” for the Church so the Church simply cannot ordain women – This practice of the Church therefore has a normative character: in the fact of conferring priestly ordination only on men, it is a question of an unbroken tradition throughout the history of the Church, universal in the East and in the West, and alert to repress abuses immediately. This norm, based on Christ’s example, has been and is still observed because it is considered to conform to God’s plan for his Church.

5)     A priest should naturally resemble Christ – 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”.[19] 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.

6)     This is not a human or equality rights issue since no one has the right to be a priest - It is sometimes said and written in books and periodicals that some women feel that they have a vocation to the priesthood. Such an attraction, however noble and understandable, still does not suffice for a genuine vocation. In fact a vocation can not be reduced to a mere personal attraction, which can remain purely subjective. Since the priesthood is a particular ministry of which the Church has received the charge and the control, authentication by the Church is indispensable here and is a constitutive part of the vocation: Christ chose “those he wanted” (Mk:13).