Why can’t women be priests?

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Psalm30

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I’m looking for concrete reasons women can’t be priests. Is there an official Church teaching about it? Is it merely tradition? Is it something that can be changed by the Church or is it considered something instituted by Jesus that cannot be changed?

Please note, I’m not advocating for women priests. In fact, I’m against it. I’m just wondering if there’s something in Catholic teaching that can back the claim.

@edward_george1 @Diaconia
 
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The priesthood is necessarily linked to the male sex and fatherhood.

Peace.
 
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If Mary, Mother of God, was not ordained a priest by Jesus then clearly Jesus meant for the priesthood to be composed of men.
 
Pope John Paul II definitively declared that only men could be ordained 26 years ago in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. The way it was written leaves no doubt that it is an infallible, and therefore unchangeable, teaching.
 
Good answers citing Saint Pope John Paul II and Bishop Robert Barron have already been giving. Here’s a simpler way to look at this:

God created men and women differently with different set of attributes. God created men and women in such a manner that only women can become mothers and only men can become fathers (priests).
 
Why can’t women be priests?

Simple. Because the Church says so!!! Full stop. For two millennia the Church has declared this, quite emphatically I might add. Why on earth would she change now? Because this deeply flawed world says she should??? Good luck with that line of thinking!
 
1 Timothy 2:8. Begin
8 I will therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.
9 In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;
10 But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.
11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.
15 Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.
Dominus vobiscum
 
And that would be a good (maybe the best) scriptural reference, even before JP2’s declaration. They can’t argue “Oh the pope made it up because Catholics want to suppress woman.”
Dominus vobiscum
@Psalm30
 
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More specifically, the church fathers held this view. Now if some protestant group wants to disagree even with the 1st-2nd century Christians, then they should take a long hard look at what religion they belong to… but hey, what do the Apostles and their disciples know?
 
Mark121359 said:
Why can’t women be priests?

Simple. Because the Church says so!!! Full stop. For two millennia the Church has declared this, quite emphatically I might add. Why on earth would she change now? Because this deeply flawed world says she should??? Good luck with that line of thinking!
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Well, the person I was debating with wasn’t convinced with that answer so I needed a little more to back up the claim.
 
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Yes. Thats why I figure show them the text in their own bible. Let them argue with that. Everything else can be dodged as opinion, or “Thats not what they meant”. Read it, then they might see the problem or ask their teacher.
Dominus vobiscum
 
God created Adam and Eve ⚖️

When they sinned the scales were imbalanced (Eve is subject to Adam & has pain in childbirth vs Adam made to work by the sweat of his brow).

Our Lady was exalted more than any creature because she is the Mother of God.

AND

Our Lord humbles himself (Phil. 2: 5-11) and tells the Apostles that the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve… (Mk. 10:45 - 5th Sunday of the Great Fast gospel) and ordained the Apostles as bishops at the Last Supper.

True trivia tidbit: The papal title “Servant of the Servants of God” comes from Mk. 10:45. 😁

Women do so much in the Church right now. If women were priests 😱!, what would men do?

I’m the lay cantor at my parish. We used to have 2 (!) men who were cantors. Both passed away. I started doing it because none of the men wanted to and our UGCC services are sung. I have to beg the men to read the Epistle! If no man who wants to do it is around, guess who does it? Me. 😬

Men need to get some backbone and start getting involved in church again.

OK, enough venting for now.
 
Well hopefully they were convinced. I mean, while it is quite true that the Church does not introduce NEW dogma (it can expand but never to the point that any expansion would invalidate any former dogma, I.e. an expanded understanding of “the Trinity’ that would make it ‘the Trinity is four people’ just would invalidate the constant dogma that the Trinity is three), and so the Church saying, “Women cannot be priests because this has been the teaching and it has been part of the deposit of Faith and has been in modern times assented to by one Pope that the Church has no authority to ordain women—and never had, and never will—and further corroborated by another Pope that this IS the correct teaching, and has been, and will be. . .So it’s ‘pretty definitive’

The problem is the adolescent attitude that an authority (even God Himself) saying that something IS, will elicit a knee jerk reaction of “prove it’, “how can you say it won’t change’, ‘who’s the authority’, ‘how do you KNOW they are really speaking for God’, etc.

If people won’t accept authority because they feel that all authority, even God, is suspect, or can change, and that there is nothing that is stable, unchanging, and reliable, there really isn’t much that they will ‘accept’. . .until THEY change THEIR hearts.
 
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