In the course of discussions on the priesthood I often hear comments like, “A woman can be a counselor, right? She can manage a parish, right? She can have some good things to say while preaching, right? She can even do the same things a man does in order to confect the sacraments! So what’s the big deal?”
These comments, in my opinion, show an impoverished understanding of the priesthood.
The priesthood is not a job. It’s not what he does (for, to be sure, a woman can “do” all those things a priest does rather nicely!) It’s who he is. At his very essence.
I heard Fr. Vincent Serpa say, regarding Baptism (paraphrasing): If we could see the change that occurs in the soul of the newly baptized, nuclear fission would appear as child’s play. A sublime, profound change occurs, at our very essence, at the very moment we are baptized. An indelible (unchangeable, immortal) mark has been placed on our soul–more powerful than any mere nuclear fission!
Similarly, at the ordination of a priest a profound change occurs. What existed 30 seconds prior to his consecration does not exist anymore. He is a new creation: a priest, configured to Christ. Ontologically there is a change in his being. He may* look* like the same man, but what has just occurred is earth-shatteringly sublime! Just like in our sacrament of the Eucharist: “to observe that after bread becomes the Sacred Body of Christ, it still tastes like bread and feels like bread, but is now the Body of Christ? There has been an ontological change. A cup of wine still smells like wine and tastes like it, but it is now the Blood of Christ. At ordination an ontological change takes place.”
source.
So ordination is not the “deputizing” of someone to perform an assignment; it is NOT the admission of someone to a profession such medicine or law.
Thus, just as at our essence we
women can never be fathers, no matter what functions we perform better than men, we can never be a father to our children. When we women throw a baseball with our sons, go hiking with our daughters, teach our children to light a campfire, we are doing the same things men often do, but it’s always as mothers.
So, even if a woman were “ordained” to the priesthood, still she would not be, at her essence, a priest. It’s just not ontologically possible. That is, no amount of ontological change can transform a woman into a priest–at her essence she always remains a woman. [SIGN1]And a woman can never be a father.[/SIGN1]
The above is indeed the crux of the matter !!
