I don’t know anyone who doesn’t agree that women were integral in the formation of early Christianity, from Mary and Mary Magdalene to Perpetua and Felicity and on and on.
There is the question of what their role was vis-vis men, of the importance given to Thecla by EO as as great as(or greater than) an apostle, the selection of Mary Magdalene into the inner circle of Jesus and the effect that that had on early forms of Christianity.
Paul speaks of there being no man or woman in Christ, of full equality of all of us in Christ therefore, and of women prophecying in churches, and Prisca being a leader of her house church mentioned before her husband. (He) also speaks of women needing to be silent in churches, which is inconsistent with his early message of women prophesying.
Clearly then, there were different traditions bubbling up even in the very earliest dates of Scripture composition.
We do know that other Christian traditions, just as early as the proto-orthodox, did have a female ordained priesthood, such as the Marcionites and the gnostics.
Orthodox traditions have not appeared whole cloth, but they have been hammered out from the very beginning, such as was the case between the Biblically recorded dispute between Peter and Paul on the law.
Traditions develop. Origen, the first philosopher of Trinity, certainly is not considered orthodox now, but he was considered fully orthodox in his own lifetime, and the most prominent philosophical orthodox voice in the church of his day. Some of the works of Augustine on free will were fully orthodox until the time of popes censuring the same kinds of ideals in the time of Pascal and the Calvinist development of that Augustinian train of thought.
Traditions and practices develop. Practices that are fallen away from are censured and forgotten.
It is not a settled question of how the ordained priesthood developed, and what priestly functions women themselves may have played in the early churches. Often churches were not bigger than extended families, after all, and the diversity of churches in those early days of a decentralized and fragmented persecuted leadership was great. Indeed we are all members of the priesthood in Catholic theology; we are all a nation of priests.
Priestly functions could be as informal as annointing Jesus’ feet with oil in preparation of his death, for example. As structures became more formalized, as in the letters of Timothy, the structures we have today become more apparent. the early church however was very much in flux.
This discussion is about whether or not there were females ordained to the priesthood, which of course there were not because it is an impossibility, and which of course this image does not depict as Church teaching, much less “prove,” as the sensational headline suggests.
Headlines are to provoke interest and readership and discussion. This headline is a question and not a statement of definite proof. The article itself notes well enough that these findings are open to interpretation and dispute.
As for being impossible, I assume that what you mean is that it is impossible because the HS cannot teach contrary to what he has already taught through magesterium.
There has been strong ruling from as late as JPII on this, and the political controversy is heating up now as Catholic reformers are taking a cue from Pope Francis as the memory of JPII fades, but there is no infallible teaching on the ordination of women.
I have no opinion either way, frankly. Given the very suggestive role that Priscilla played in her own church as recorded in the Bible though, it is not impossible that a church that bears her name may have frescoes that demonstrate that the role that women played in that church at that time may well have been different than what would be the case in Catholic orthodoxy today.
