. . .And as for the priest being the impersonation of Christ, is it really too difficult for your omnipotent God to have a women impersonate Christ? Was Christ black? Is it therefore impmossible for black people to become priests?
The word is “personification”, not “impersonation”.
Gender cannot be lumped into the same category as nationality or race. If I, who am caucasian, woke up black, I would still essentially be the same person. If I woke up a man, however, I would not be. More separates men and women than simply our sexual organs. Our bodies, our hormones, our very minds are effected by our gender. Gender permeates to the deepest part of our identity, in a way that no other personal characteristic does. Jesus did not simply become human, He became a male human. To ordain women priests would be to reduce the Incarnation to “Jesus became human”, weakening its theology.
Further, being a father isn’t limited to Jewish males. The priest is to stand in the place of Christ (acting “
in Persona Christi Capitas” - “In the Person of Christ the Head”), and so preside over the Body (the Church) as its Sacramental Head (Christ’s Sacramental vicar). To do this, the priest must image Christ the Bridegroom, i.e., be a physical sign of Christ the Bridegroom, and to relate this way to the Church, which, collectively, is Christ’s Bride - His own Body (see Eph. 5:25-32); and in order to do this, the priest must be a male. Intimately connected to this is the origin of the word “priest” itself, which in the Greek of Scripture is “
presbyteros” (e.g. Acts 14:23) often translated literally as “presbyter” or “elder,” but what it really means in Greek is “senior” or “patriarch”, i.e., the father of the community.
This, of course, is the origin of the Catholic custom of calling a priest “father” (see 1 Cor. 4:15); and this is a continuity of our Jewish roots, for it was the father (and not the mother) who presided at the Passover Meal, and so over our New Passover Meal, the Eucharist. It was also the father or elder of the family, tribe, or clan which offered animal sacrifices on behalf of the family, tribe, or clan before the institution of the Jewish Levitical priesthood under Moses (e.g. Gen 8:20-21, Gen 15:9-18, Gen 26:25, etc.). Christ’s New Covenant was a restoration of this privilege to the fathers of the entire community (the Ordination of presbyters/priests: Acts 14:23), rather than limiting it to the Levitical caste alone (as Moses had done after the rebellion of the Golden Calf). A woman, of course, is incapable of being a father, just as a man is incapable of being a mother.
The Catholic Church, by the Lord’s own design is a Family - a Household (Eph. 2:19-20, 1 Tim. 3:15), and thus a patriarchy by nature.
