Female Preists?

[Montie_Claunch]

I am just curious why the church doesn’t allow women into the preisthood? Is this a discipline or a dogma?

 

[Aaron_I]

dogma.

A celibate priesthood, on the other hand, is a discipline, but it shouldn’t and won’t change anytime in the near future.

 

[WanderAimlessly]

He we go again on the Female Ordination topic :banghead:

Ordinatio Sacerdotalis explicitly prohibits the ordination of females into the priesthood. And, despite what others will say, it has been infallibly defined. Here is a section from Women and the Priesthood (This Rock: November 2003) on the subject:

In 1994, Pope John Paul II formally declared that the Church does not have the power to ordain women. He stated, “Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church’s judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force. Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter that pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Luke 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful” (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis 4).

In 1995, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in conjunction with the pope, ruled that this teaching “requires definitive assent, since, founded on the written word of God, and from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal magisterium (cf. Lumen Gentium 25:2)” (Response of Oct. 25, 1995).

PF

 

[awfulthings9]

Montie Claunch:

I am just curious why the church doesn’t allow women into the preisthood? Is this a discipline or a dogma?

For the same reason that the Church doesn’t allow men to be mothers. Tradition and Scripture show that God gave each sex a special and unique role. Niether is superior to the other because of that role - they are complementary. God doesn’t call men to be mothers and he doesn’t call women to be “fathers”.

 

[kleary]

Montie Claunch:

I am just curious why the church doesn’t allow women into the preisthood? Is this a discipline or a dogma?

The all male priesthood is Divine Revelation. Jesus is a male person so the priest must also be a male person.

It is not a matter of discipline and can never ever be changed.

This is because the priest acts in persona Christi in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. A woman cannot be Christ in the Mass because Christ is a male person.

Ken

 

[thistle]

CCC 1577 "Only a baptized man (vir) validly receives sacred ordination."66 The Lord Jesus chose men (viri) to form the college of the twelve apostles, and the apostles did the same when they chose collaborators to succeed them in their ministry.67 The college of bishops, with whom the priests are united in the priesthood, makes the college of the twelve an ever-present and ever-active reality until Christ’s return. The Church recognizes herself to be bound by this choice made by the Lord himself. For this reason the ordination of women is not possible.

 

[Lux_et_veritas]

How about if John Paul II explains why women cannot be ordained to the priesthood?

Here is the Responsum ad Dubium, written in 1995 by Josef Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect for the CDF. You may want to fully read the Ordinatio Sacerdotalis link below, where Pope John Paul II explains it all in his Apostolic Letter written in 1994. The issue is effectively closed as you will read.

Responsum ad Dubium
Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
October 28, 1995

Dubium: Whether the teaching that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women, which is presented in the Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis to be held definitively, is to be understood as belonging to the deposit of faith.

Responsum: In the affirmative.

This teaching requires definitive assent, since, founded on the written Word of God, and from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium (cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium 25, 2). Thus, in the present circumstances, the Roman Pontiff, exercising his proper office of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32), has handed on this same teaching by a formal declaration, explicitly stating what is to be held always, everywhere, and by all, as belonging to the deposit of the faith.

The Sovereign Pontiff John Paul II, at the Audience granted to the undersigned Cardinal Prefect, approved this Reply, adopted in the ordinary session of this Congregation, and ordered it to be published.

Rome, from the offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on the Feast of the Apostles SS. Simon and Jude, October 28, 1995.

• Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
  Prefect
• Tarcisio Bertone
  Archbishop Emeritus of Vercelli
  Secretary

And, for a good read on whether this means if it is infallible or not, please read, “Ordinatio Sacerdotalis - a definition ex cathedra”