Theology on a male-only priesthood

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**I understand the theology around the male-only priesthood as it is presented now. **Even if I have difficulty understanding the ontological basis that presents this idea of an inherent “maleness” in men and an inherent “femaleness” in women, I get the basic understanding that yes, because priests represent Christ at the mass, and he was a man, it is fitting that men should be priests.

I do not really understand why it is necessary to explain it this way, though. For Christ was also fully God, yet obviously a mere mortal man can represent him. Why is the sex of Christ essential to representing him? Why not other factors, like age, or ethnicity?

My concern is the history of this theology. This modern theological justification for a male-only priesthood is much friendlier than saying, like Paul did, that women should be subordinate.

The concern is that the early church may have started out with a male-only priesthood with one justification, then the later church kept the tradition of male-only priesthood, but has a **different justification **for it. So ultimately, it is possible that the reasoning no longer applies - and surely the reasoning matters.

As an aside, I think this general concern applies to any doctrine or practice in the church. For example, is the reason we oppose contraception today the same reason that the Old Testament did, or the same reason that early church fathers did, etc? We as Catholics pride ourselves on doctrinal consistency, but surely the “WHY” we believe (the justifications for it) are essential to having a correct evaluation of the teaching.
 
Somebody else may be able to answer the question of the history of the theology of the male priesthood, but I really don’t think it has changed much from the beginning. The Old Testament priesthood was male. The Redeemer was male, and he is our high priest offering sacrifice for sin. Those acting in his persona must also be male. It is in his human nature that Christ suffers and dies for us.

If the Word had become incarnate as a woman, men could not become priests. They could not in that case act in persona Christi.

If a woman tries to father a child, nothing happens.
If a man tries to give birth to a child, again, nothing happens.
If ordination is attempted on a woman, nothing happens.

It seems to me that the doctrine on contraception similarly relates to the essential ontology of the male and female. There is a teleology involved in the presence of two sexes, leading to the conception of children. Contraception violates that teleology, inherent in the nature of the sexes.
 
JimG said:
Somebody else may be able to answer the question of the history of the theology of the male priesthood, but I really don’t think it has changed much from the beginning. The Old Testament priesthood was male. The Redeemer was male, and he is our high priest offering sacrifice for sin. Those acting in his persona must also be male. It is in his human nature that Christ suffers and dies for us.
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Were there other limitations places on women in the Old Testament? Could not this restriction of men to the priesthood have been a cultural circumstance?
If the Word had become incarnate as a woman, men could not become priests. They could not in that case act in persona Christi.
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But why does the **sex **of Christ matter in order to act in persona Christi? Why not other characteristics – even other biological ones, like his ethnicity?
It seems to me that the doctrine on contraception similarly relates to the essential ontology of the male and female. There is a teleology involved in the presence of two sexes, leading to the conception of children. Contraception violates that teleology, inherent in the nature of the sexes.
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Did the Old Testament speak of contraception in terms of ontology?
 
The Church teaches what it learned from Christ. She is his visible body on earth. She teaches and preaches only what he did. Remember, not everything Jesus taught his Apostles is in the Gospels. St. John told us:

John.21[25] But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

We trust that what the Church teaches is correct because Christ established the Church, gave her her teachings, and promised the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Having written that, though, there are reasons why the male priesthood is ontological beginning with Adam and Eve. In the creation accounts, Adam was created first, which means he was to be the head of the human family, and therefore responsible for all its members. Eve was created to be “the mother of all the living.” Also a huge responsibility, but of a different kind. Both kinds of responsibility complement each other and were meant to.

When Eve gave in to temptation and offered that temptation to Adam, instead of taking it, as she had, he should have offered his life in recompense for her sin, since he was responsible before God for her. But he didn’t do that. Rather he too gave in, shirked his responsibility. Since the male was responsible and denied his responsibility when it was most needed, the man, who is head of his family, has to make reparation for it. Thus, the male has this duty, not the female. Jesus, as the Second Adam took on himself the duty of reconciling humanity to the eternal justice of the Father–it’s why he became a man and not a woman in his Incarnation. It all has to do with what happened in the Garden of Eden, who messed up what and why, you see.
 
catholic1seeks said:
Were there other limitations places on women in the Old Testament? Could not this restriction of men to the priesthood have been a cultural circumstance?
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I’m no expert here, but I doubt it. There were plenty of female priests in pagan religions, none in Judaism.
But why does the **sex **of Christ matter in order to act in persona Christi? Why not other characteristics – even other biological ones, like his ethnicity?
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Why does gender matter? I don’t know, but it does. Otherwise, the Church would have no problem with us praying a Trinitarian prayer to the Mother, the Daughter, and the Spirit, but it does. Even neutral terms for the Trinity such as the Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, are not allowed in Trinitarian prayers. For human beings, our sex is a part of our identity far more essential than ethnicity. I think that the term “in persona Christi” has a deeper meaning than simply playing the part of Christ, even symbolically. It is rather like allowing Christ to use our person as his, but that’s just my own thought.
Did the Old Testament speak of contraception in terms of ontology?
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I don’t know; but it does seem that the Church has always viewed the matter from a natural law perspective—i.e., that there are men and women, and that they are sexually complementary for a purpose.
 
I have a close female cousin who is Disciples of Christ minister – a pastor of her own church, to be exact. She’s quite a popular figure over on the Patheos’ Progressive Christian section. I can’t imagine her doing anything else than what she is currently doing, so it is hard for me to integrate my understanding of the male Catholic priesthood with, say, non-Catholic Christians who see ministry as open to both men and women.

It is hard for others to understand the reasoning in purely Catholic theological terms, for many Christians do not have the same sacramental understanding that Catholics do. So for many Christians, being a minister or pastor comes down, fundamentally, to (1) being “pastoral” in the sense of caring for church members and (2) preaching. And surely women can be both pastoral in that sense and be good preachers.

The Catholic perspective is then sometimes seen as behind-the-times or archaic, sexist, and patriarchal. How can we better illustrate the Catholic perspective to those, say like my cousin, who is surely a wonderful non-Catholic minister?
 
We should put the shoe on the other foot and ask why they believe they have the authority to be ministers on par with Catholic priests.

What your cousin is doing is laudable, but it’s not the priesthood–and I’m sure she’s aware that it isn’t the priesthood. She has no power to confect Holy Communion, no power to hear confessions, no authority to be preaching in the place of a deacon or priest or bishop, etc.

We have to remember that it is the Protestants who tossed out centuries of Christian belief and practice to set up on their own–with no authority from God to do that.

This is not to say that what they do with what they know and have received via God’s grace is a bad thing, in and of itself, but it’s not what God intended, therefore, it is they who have to explain themselves, not those who remained true to Christ’s Church as he founded it and meant it to be.
 
catholic1seeks said:
I’ve never really understood this illustration. First of all, that women, not men, become mothers is a biological reality. That men, not women, can only be priests refers to an alleged “ontological” reality about “maleness.”
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Both are God’s choice.

-Tim-
 
catholic1seeks #2
Can anyone provide some insight into the developments in the theology of the male-only priesthood? Especially throughout history.
#25
How can we better illustrate the Catholic perspective to those, say like my cousin, who is surely a wonderful non-Catholic minister?
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Why did Christ never ordain any women – not even His Blessed Mother – the Queen of the universe?

St. Paul admitted that he himself was not married (I Cor 7:8).

When Jesus teaches on divorce and remarriage in Matthew 19, the disciples are convinced that it is better to not be married (Matthew 19:10). Jesus responds with a teaching on being celibate for the sake of the Kingdom of God:
“Not all can accept this word, but only those to whom it is granted. Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of God. Whoever can accept this ought to accept it” (Matthew 19:11-12).
See Priestly Celibacy:
catholicbasictraining.com…setexts/4g.htm

An excellent historical and theological overview of the question can be found in a little book published in 1993 by Austrian cardinal Alfons Maria Stickler, who died in Rome in 2007 at the age of 97, at the time prefect of the Apostolic Vatican Library:
Alfons Maria Stickler, The Case for Clerical Celibacy. Its Historical Development and Theological Foundations, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1995.
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it…/1343466?eng=y

“A wealth of information on the history of celibacy for the clergy of the Catholic Church-in the East and the West. Particularly impressive are his arguments showing that celibacy is necessarily connected to the priesthood of Jesus Christ. It is refreshing to find a book on celibacy that is rooted in Scripture, the Fathers of the Church and the Magisterium.”
[Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J., Editor, *Homiletic & Pastoral Review]

**The Apostolic Norm was recognized by the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, in Non latet (1858):
“Whoever ponders diligently the true tradition of celibacy and clerical continence will indeed find that, from the first centuries of the Catholic Church, if not by a general and explicit law, at least by behavior and custom, it was firmly established that not only bishops and priests, but [all] clergy in holy Orders were to preserve inviolate virginity or perpetual continence.”
**[Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, instr. ad Archiep. Fogarasien. et Alba-Iulien. Graeci ritus Non latet Amplitudinem Tuam (24 martii 1858), in Collectanea S. Congregationis de Propaganda Fide seu Decreta, Instructiones, Rescripta pro Apostolicis Missionibus, in 2 vols., (Romae: S.C. de Propaganda Fide, 1907) doc. n. 1158, I: 627-630, at 628].
canonlaw.info/a_deacons.h…ra_Congregatio

“….the Directory on the Ministry and Life of Priests, issued in 1994 by the Congregation for the Clergy. Section 59 affirms (that) the Church, from apostolic times, has wished to conserve the gift of perpetual continence of the clergy and choose the candidates for Holy Orders from among the celibate faithful (cf. 2 Thess. 2:15; 1 Cor. 7:5, 9:5; 1 Tim. 3:2-12, 5:9; Tit. 1:6-8)”, and cites several of the early councils which mandated continence for married as well as unmarried clergy.”
cuf.org/2003/05/priestly-…estly-celibacy

The disciplinary canons of the Council of Elvira in 305 are the Church’s earliest record regarding priestly celibacy. The council gave no explanation of its rulings, which were ancient and presumably well-known. Canon 33 forbade all married bishops, priests, and deacons from having sexual relations with their wives and begetting children. The council reminded the married clergy that they were bound by a vow of perpetual continence. Penalty for breaking that vow was deposition from the ministry. Commenting on this council, Pope Pius XI said that these canons, the “first written traces” of the “Law of Ecclesiastical Celibacy,” "presuppose a still earlier unwritten practice. " (Ad Catholici Sacerdotii , 43, 1935).

“Clerics were often chosen from among married older men. After ordination they were required to abstain from conjugal intercourse. In effect then, they were not married. Qui habent uxores, tamquam non habentes sint. “Let those who are married live as if they do not have wives”. Pope Leo the Great in 458 AD borrowed those words of Saint Paul in order to describe the celibacy of the clergy.” *. The Origin Of Priestly Celibacy, by Hugh Ballantyne, June 2003].

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, as Cardinal Ratzinger, in The Theological Locus of Ecclesial Movements, explains the unity existing with and from the apostles, including priestly celibacy.
“That priestly celibacy is not a medieval invention, but goes back to the earliest period of the Church, is shown clearly and convincingly by Card. A.M. Stickler, *The Case for Clerical Celibacy: Its Historical Development and Theological Foundations *(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995). Cf.also I: Cochini, *Origines apostoliques du celibat sacerdotal *(Paris-Namur, 1981); S Heid, *Zolibat in der friihen Kirche *(Paderborn, 1997).” (p 483 n 2)
[Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, The Theological Locus of Ecclesial Movements. Communio (Fall 1998), footnote 2, p. 483].
 
JimG said:
I’m no expert here, but I doubt it. There were plenty of female priests in pagan religions, none in Judaism.

Why does gender matter? I don’t know, but it does. Otherwise, the Church would have no problem with us praying a Trinitarian prayer to the Mother, the Daughter, and the Spirit, but it does. Even neutral terms for the Trinity such as the Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, are not allowed in Trinitarian prayers. For human beings, our sex is a part of our identity far more essential than ethnicity. I think that the term “in persona Christi” has a deeper meaning than simply playing the part of Christ, even symbolically. It is rather like allowing Christ to use our person as his, but that’s just my own thought.

I don’t know; but it does seem that the Church has always viewed the matter from a natural law perspective—i.e., that there are men and women, and that they are sexually complementary for a purpose.
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Jesus, as God, chose only men. It had nothing to do with the culture of his time.

Jewish female rabbis? Sure.

jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/women_rabbis.html

Ed
 
catholic1seeks said:
I have a close female cousin who is Disciples of Christ minister – a pastor of her own church, to be exact. She’s quite a popular figure over on the Patheos’ Progressive Christian section. I can’t imagine her doing anything else than what she is currently doing, so it is hard for me to integrate my understanding of the male Catholic priesthood with, say, non-Catholic Christians who see ministry as open to both men and women.

It is hard for others to understand the reasoning in purely Catholic theological terms, for many Christians do not have the same sacramental understanding that Catholics do. So for many Christians, being a minister or pastor comes down, fundamentally, to (1) being “pastoral” in the sense of caring for church members and (2) preaching. And surely women can be both pastoral in that sense and be good preachers.

The Catholic perspective is then sometimes seen as behind-the-times or archaic, sexist, and patriarchal. How can we better illustrate the Catholic perspective to those, say like my cousin, who is surely a wonderful non-Catholic minister?
Click to expand...
Read this:

w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/1994/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_19940522_ordinatio-sacerdotalis.html

Archaic? God established it this way without regard to the culture of his time.

Sexist? Men can’t have babies. Is that sexist?

Patriarchal is a radical feminist concept more akin to creating two Marxist-style warring camps composed of two groups: Men, the eternal enemy, and women the eternal victims of men. Nonsense.

Ed
 
JimG said:
Women rabbis apparently beginning in the 1970’s according to the article. But the question is not about rabbis, but priests. Were there female Jewish priests authorized to offer sacrifice in the Temple?
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Rabbis are the modern day equivalent of the biblical scribes. Jewish people no longer have sacrifice and so there is no need for a priesthood.

Your point is well taken however, because neither priests nor scribes were women. Men were scribes, not women.

-Tim-
 
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