Male-only Priesthood: Different reasonings in Early Church vs Today?

[SeriousQuestion]

Some of your posts seemed to imply that, I guess.

 

[catholic1seeks]

I just didn’t think there would be so many people defending the early church’s reasoning above the modern church’s reasoning. I thought more people considered women to be capable leaders, teachers, can choose secular jobs, can even lead men, etc. The early church’s reasoning largely (and generally) seem to reject even these abilities of women.

 

[chessnerd321]

Sure:

Of course women are not just a means if reporduction.

I would still say two things.

1. Was that even a serious question? Do you seriously think I was trying to say all nuns or other unmarried women are unfaithful Catholics because they aren’t wives and mothers? Anyway, nuns are married to Christ. Nuns are to be faithful wives to the church. And nuns very much take on a motherly role praying for the faithful, teaching in schools, staffing hospitals.
2. I have to be careful with how I phrase this. But I don’t actually think the church would affirm choosing to be single and unmarried as such a vocation. Thus all women are called either to this spiritual sort of motherhood, interceeding for the church, or literal motherhood.

 

[catholic1seeks]

Was that even a serious question? Do you seriously think I was trying to say all nuns or other unmarried women are unfaithful Catholics because they aren’t wives and mothers? Anyway, nuns are married to Christ. Nuns are to be faithful wives to the church. And nuns very much take on a motherly role praying for the faithful, teaching in schools, staffing hospitals.

Yes, this is largely what the modern church says.

But again, I don’t think that is what the Apostolic Constitutions would have in mind. It rejects women being “teachers,” whatever that may mean, for example.

This thread is about early church reasoning vs today’s modern reasoning for male-only priests. I see a disconnect.

 

[chessnerd321]

I don’t and I think you’re reading quite a bit into the text, frankly. Do you have any explicit quotations from the source to back up these claims? I don’t think the modern Church should have trouble affirming what’s there as written.

I’m no historian but I bet some women served the faithful in 400 AD similarly to how nuns do today. Maybe someone can call me out on that or back me up. But monastic traditions are very very old.

This thread is about early church reasoning vs today’s modern reasoning for male-only priests. I see a disconnect.

My point is that there is no disconnect as this reasoning could (and I’ve heard it) be employed.

 

[catholic1seeks]

This thread’s subject has clicked in my head before, but it mostly recently did when I was looking at a quick church fathers reference article on the male-only priesthood. And nearly every quote in itself seemed very unpersuasive (in their reasoning), and it didn’t really align with what I know from today’s Catholic theology and reasoning behind male-only priests.

Perhaps the only commonality was when church fathers would just bluntly say Christ didn’t appoint women priests. Of course the modern Church would agree. Maybe that is all that matters? I’m not sure.

 

[Roguish]

What should we make of this? Does it matter that the reasoning is different? If we no longer say that women are inherently inferior to men (that they are made to be under the man’s control, etc.), then are these early Christian arguments null?

No. In the modern climate it is no longer socially acceptable to espouse this line of reasoning, but it is nevertheless correct. A woman is an entirely different creature, not only physically, but also psychologically, and even more so spiritually. The capacity for spiritual leadership is a distinctly male capacity. Of course women can dedicate themselves to God with true piety and to great effect, and this qualifies them fully for the religious life as monastics (e.g. nuns) or devout lay women – but it does not qualify them for priesthood.

A female priest is an impossibility by the very nature of priesthood, same as a male mother is an impossibility by the very nature of motherhood. A man cannot ever be a mother, no matter how well he thinks he is capable of being mother-like in his behavior. Motherhood involves having a new body grow inside your own, and that experience cannot ever be yours if you’re a man. A man who does not understand this, is being silly. Same for a woman who does not understand she cannot be a priest.

 

[Crocus]

The priest is an alter Christus -another Christ-to the Bride in the mystery of the Mass. He does not primarily “administrate” or preach or pastor. He signifies.

Awesome contribution CB, from Catholic Answers! I should read them more often. It brings out the beauty of God’s plan. Thanks.

 

[catholic1seeks]

The capacity for spiritual leadership is a distinctly male capacity. Of course women can dedicate themselves to God with true piety and to great effect, and this qualifies them fully for the religious life as monastics (e.g. nuns) or devout lay women – but it does not qualify them for priesthood .

I disagree. Priesthood is only one kind of spiritual leadership. I know plenty of women spiritual leaders. Was Catherine of Sienna a spiritual leader? What about abbesses? What about Mother Angelica? What about pastoral associates and ministers at local parishes?

 

[Roguish]

I disagree. Priesthood is only one kind of spiritual leadership. I know plenty of women spiritual leaders. Was Catherine of Sienna a spiritual leader? What about abbesses? What about Mother Angelica? What about pastoral associates and ministers at local parishes?

Perhaps I should have chosen a better term. You’re right: priesthood is one kind of spiritual leadership, and there are other kinds of leadership roles that can be fulfilled very effectively by women. In fact, priesthood isn’t a “leadership” role in the modern sense of that term, for the essence of priesthood isn’t to do with organizational skills, nor even with “herding a flock”. It is the ability rather to represent/embody Christ, which is an entirely supernatural thing. As theCardinalBird and Crocus already quoted:

The priest is an alter Christus -another Christ-to the Bride in the mystery of the Mass. He does not primarily “administrate” or preach or pastor. He signifies.

(And the sad truth is that among the current clergy there are plenty who in fact do not have this ability, but were ordained anyway…)

 

[RobynP]

However the church today would unquestionably declear that women in general are born to be mothers and wives. This is the traditional family the church has always stood for.

But how can we reconcile that claim with the Church promoting celibacy and consecrated life as a more praiseworthy choice than marriage?

That’s part of what made Christianity so revolutionary. Women finally had other options besides getting married and becoming mothers. There are dozens of martyrs in the early Church who were killed for choosing to devote their lives to Christ and refusing marriage.

 

[chessnerd321]

Please read my other posts where I believe I’ve already clarified your question.

 

[Mintaka]

Are you really going to say that a male celibate and a female celibate are exactly the same sign?

The early Church valued women in all sorts of positions. But unless you joined a weird heretical “church,” you didn’t see women becoming “priests.” Even in weird heretical groups, they identified their women “priests” as becoming the Holy Spirit (or an alter-Spiritus), not with becoming Jesus. Women “priests” were either identified with Communion that wasn’t made out of wine or bread (such as the infamous sect that had Communion of milk and cheese, or some of the sects that used bodily fluids for their alleged magical effects), or with passing around wine that had been consecrated already by a man “priest.” (So basically, these ladies were EMHCs or deacons, but with titles.) The most common role for women “priests” in these groups was having sex with the man “priest” or the male worshippers, just like in a lot of Middle Eastern pagan fertility rites (or the fevered imaginings about Mass of bored Roman men); or as taking on the role of a personification and standing around. (Maybe something like concelebration – but the focus of these groups was a charismatic male leader or “bishop.”)

Seriously, I’m trying hard to think of a heretical early Christian group where women “priests” actually offered up a standard-ish version of Christ’s Sacrifice, and I really can’t think of any. It just wasn’t part of women’s spirituality back then. You have to get well into medieval times before you see heretical women “priests” setting up and leading their own congregations. (A few of them did say they were Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but usually medieval women claiming godhood just claimed to be the Holy Spirit.)

What was popular in early Christian times – very popular – was women being prophetesses (or claiming to be). In both orthodox Christian and fringe Christian groups, there were tons of female prophets. (And of course, even today there are more female than male mystics, which is what we usually call prophets these days.) Women having a spirituality of being close to God, of praising Him with great love, and of listening to His commands and passing them on – very common, then and now.

It was also overwhelmingly early Christian women who thought up and ran the Church’s guesthouses (xenodochia), orphanages, and hospitals. And if you are looking for deaconesses, you’ll find them there, along with vowed widows and virgins. You’ll also find them cleaning the church and the sacristy – very common self-imposed task for very rich women who were deaconesses.

Funny thing – we recently encouraged women’s religious groups to stop running hospitals and orphanages and so on, while simultaneously denigrating contemplative groups and telling them they should be out in the world. And a lot of those women’s religious groups who actually listened to this advice are now dying out. It’s almost as if they are supposed to be following their spirituality and gifts, instead of trying to be carbon copies of NGOs or corporations… or men.

 

[Brendan]

But it seems a quick study would suggest that the Early Church had a different reasoning behind the male-only priesthood — why women cannot be ordained — compared to today.

The reasoning is the exact same. Christ did not give the Church the authority to ordain women. Thus it cannot.

That was true in the 1st Century just as much as it is in the 21st Century.

Without the authority to ordain women, a Pope cannot do so, no matter how much he desires to. It would be no different than a Pope trying to change the moon into green cheese by issuing an Encyclical. Does God have the power to make that happen? sure! Does the Pope or any bishop,? NO.

 

[MichelleGeorge]

I could never figure out the reasoning to why Catholics say women can’t be priests. Why does gender matter at all? And don’t give me the line about men and women have different roles. Have does not equal should. And don’t say stuff like women have babies, men can’t. True, because that’s how our bodies are made. But it’s not our reproductive organs that are involved in being a priest… or SHOULDN’T be.

 

[edwest211]

Pope John Paul II gave the definitive answer:

http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-p...p-ii_apl_19940522_ordinatio-sacerdotalis.html

 

[AlyoshaKaramazov]

I’m seeing a lot of people here mention the fact that women in past times didn’t have as much
power as they do now, although, one thing that my parish priest has mentioned is that
during the time of Jesus, there is actually historical evidence that priestesses existed in different
pagan religions of the time meaning that Jesus most definitely could have appointed female
apostles if he wanted.

 

[TK421]

Both the Early Church (eg, first 400 years) and today’s Catholic Church generally promote a male-only priesthood. I say generally because (1) I’m no expert on the early Church and (2) many have pointed out ambiguities, especially early on.

But it seems a quick study would suggest that the Early Church had a different reasoning behind the male-only priesthood — why women cannot be ordained — compared to today.

This is from the Apostolic Constitutions from around AD 400, for example:

“[T]he ‘man is the head of the woman’ [1 Cor. 11:3], and he is originally ordained for the priesthood; it is not just to abrogate the order of the creation and leave the first to come to the last part of the body. For the woman is the body of the man, taken from his side and subject to him, from whom she was separated for the procreation of children. For he says, ‘He shall rule over you’ [Gen. 3:16]. For the first part of the woman is the man, as being her head. But if in the foregoing constitutions we have not permitted them [women] to teach, how will any one allow them, contrary to nature, to perform the office of the priest? For this is one of the ignorant practices of Gentile atheism, to ordain women priests to the female deities, not one of the constitutions of Christ” (Apostolic Constitutions 3:9).

The Church becomes progressively superior to her earlier versions as she completes more of her pilgrimage.

The current reasoning for the male-only priesthood - which is official teaching and doctrine - is the one that should be given the most importance.

 

[FloridaCatholic]

I don’t understand topics like these. Only men can be fathers. Women can be mothers. The problem lies when a man wants to be a mom or a woman wants to be a father. Moms aren’t less than dads, but different. Everyone is supposed to give their entire life to Christ, but this is manifested in different ways

Besides, JPII said never so never.

 

[Hodos]

How ever wants to interpret the relevant Scriptural passages quoted here, the point is that this early document suggests that women are inferior to men and cannot, by their very nature, lead men.

I think you are making the assumption that because God has created men and women to fulfill different roles that this makes one inferior over the other. I do not think the quote that you provided supports this assumption. Women may be perfectly capable of fulfilling clerical roles. But this would be irrelevant. God gave the responsibility of being head to men, and the clerical offices maintains God’s created order. That is what we see going on in passages of scripture that address marriage such as Ephesians 5, 1 Peter 2, and 1 Timothy 2, and it is likewise what we see in passages addressing the scriptural offices such as 1 Timothy 2-3, and Titus 1.