Why doesn't God want women to be priests?

[NevermoreLenore]

men are callous and object-oriented enough to better hold onto and maintain socially unpopular doctrines.

This behaviour is not exclusive to men, and many men are compassionate and emotional. I have a more ‘male’ type personality and because society expects certain things of a woman I have been misunderstood a lot, usually by other women. They see my focus on the task at hand as being stuck up but I feel duty bound to complete the job and not spend time chitchatting. I’m not into gossip, celebrity, clothes, shoes, etc and would rather read, go fishing, connect with others one on one, or watch a football game. There are so many different personalities and it would be really interesting to see how men and women would interact if we weren’t pigeonholed into our typical gender roles.

I realize this might sound sexist but it is a fact that men and women are psychologically not the same

I don’t think you are sexist. I would, however, offer that the whole ‘men are from Mars women are from Venus’ idea is false and John Gray’s ideas are popular but have zero evidence or research to back it up. Psychologically, men and woman are not intrinsically different, but have been conditioned into certain roles and behaviours consistent with the society to which they belong.

Concerning the priesthood, I think that women would be capable and perhaps excel even as priests if it was allowed within the church. But it is not and even if we don’t understand why the priesthood is exclusive to men, we are still required to obedience. I’ve seen up close many evangelical churches collapse under the authority of men, in large part (IMO) because of cult of personality and arrogance. One of several things that drew me into the Catholic Church was that priests are rotated–they serve a parish and then are moved (in our diocese it’s usually cycles of three and six years). The parish life revolves around the local people and Christ, and a priest serves for a period of time. This is one of the wisest aspects of church leadership that avoids the pitfalls of cults of personality and individual pastoral authority to interpret doctrine (it was a source of considerable angst, even as a child, that pastor A interprets scripture one way, pastor B another, and both insist that they’re correct–who do I follow? Since becoming Catholic, I feel at home and know that priests have been taught the same throughout the ages from Peter forward). Because priestly formation is a literal marriage to the church, a man’s life is ordered around that calling. Whilst I think women could be completely capable of being good priests if that were a permissible role, I cannot imagine how the years of formation would be possible in a mixed group.

I think the OP asks a fair question and it may be unsatisfying to hear that God set the precedent and we are bound to obey His authority, but really, that’s the correct answer.

 

[Guest1]

 

[PeterT]

Let me first start of by saying that I 100% assent to the church teaching that woman cannot be priests and I’m sure there’s a good reason behind it. Jesus didn’t ordain women after all. I am just curious as to why this is so. I know God created men and women to be different, and there surely is some reason why He chose the priesthood to be for men. I have found that not just knowing what the church teaches, but also understanding why it teaches what it does has been extremely helpful to me for growing in faith. I always accepted masturbation and contraception were wrong, but when I came to truly understand why the church teaches they are wrong, it made a lot more sense. Is there a similar good explanation for why God doesn’t want women to be priests?

The simple explanation (that theologians can expand in greater detail) is that men and women were created to act in two distinct and different vocations: fatherhood and motherhood.

God gave women the ultimate vocation of creators of human life. Only women can have babies. There’s simply no possible way that a baby can be conceived inside a man.

In turn, God gave men the vocation of fatherhood. Since the earliest days of Judaism, it was the father of a family who had the priestly vocation, not the mother. The ultimate role of fathers (and priests) is the one of sacrifice, sacrifice for the family and for priests offering sacrifice for the parish community.

So simply put, God created men for the vocation of fatherhood and women for the vocation of motherhood. Therefore men can never be true mothers and women can never be true fathers (including being priests).

 

[Lea101]

The ultimate role of fathers (and priests) is the one of sacrifice, sacrifice for the family and for priests offering sacrifice for the parish community.

Don’t Catholics often use the word sacrifice with regards to motherhood more? Because pregnancy/labor is her body ‘given up to you (child)’

I don’t think there’s an actual theology that OP is asking for. Every time we talk about this topic if always ends with ‘because God says so’. (I’m not refuting the church, I’m just saying that the proper reasoning isnt there, or at least, not discussed yet)

 

[Zaccheus]

If Jesus didn’t call women to be “official” disciples, is it a proper inference that women could for eternity never be priests?

Jesus did call women to be disciples. The priesthood is not the only way to be a disciple.

 

[Zaccheus]

At this point and any point God never supported women priests regardless of human ‘threats’ to walk away from Him.

Many therefore of his disciples, hearing it, said: This saying is hard, and who can hear it?

Heh. I’m reminded of the time Christ asked the Twelve: “Will you also depart?”
Peter said: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words that give eternal life.”

 

[TK421]

I think the OP asks a fair question and it may be unsatisfying to hear that God set the precedent and we are bound to obey His authority, but really, that’s the correct answer.

I’m not a believer in the idea that Jesus sets unsatisfying precedents… There is always a good and satisfying reason, even if it isn’t always understood at first.

 

[Bluebright]

Firstly, curiosity is not always a good thing. Secondly ask God in prayer and say you accept his will, if he shows you the answer then you will know if he doesn’t then accept that it is not your place to know the ways of The Father. If it is good for us God will reveal it, if not He won’t. We don’t know what is good for us, we are children. Only God knows what is good for us.

 

[stpurl]

Right. Some people.

The idea is that there is not one “one-size-fits-all’ totally encompassing and perfectly humanly logical for all time ‘reason’. There are many reasons that all together support the Church’s teaching (that it has no authority to ordain women) plus the fact that God, being God, can have a reason that is perfectly fair and just (since He’s God) but that we absolutely cannot understand (because we’re people. Not perfect omniscient etc. Etc.)

God does not ‘have to’ give us any reason at all for what He does. But He chooses to allow us to use our own minds and to give us as much understanding as our finite human brains can take in. Since we are human some of us are going to be ‘better’ at understanding than others; also some of us are going to be worse, and some are going to be deliberately obtuse and try to mess it up or distort.

The main point is, however perfect and wonderful we think something is, whether it is God, or “justice”, or “love’, we absolutely do not have as ‘perfect’ or as ‘good’ an understanding as God does. So for people living in 2020 America whose understanding of equality is “woman can and must do any ‘job’ a man can, men are Catholic priests therefore women must be too else it is not ‘fair and equal’ their understanding of all sorts of things is not the equivalent of God’s understanding, and therefore can be flawed in many ways. For example, what if the so-called ‘job” (priesthood) is something beyond any other job? What if calling me is not because they are ‘better than women” or superior, but because in certain understanding they are ‘worse’ and need to be ‘made better’ and that’s how God chose to do it? What if there is something higher and greater than ‘human understanding’ and according to THAT, what God has taught through the Church is far more ‘right and true’ than what humanity at this point in our ‘time’ has determined?

 

[Elf01]

This is not church teaching but my observations. It seems that women are very involved in all aspect of church life, willingly and joyfully serving in many capacities. There are many times I wonder where the men are. If the women are doing it, it seems like they are happy to step aside and let that continue. This culture also seems to have many fatherless families. I think we are in the midst of a crisis of fatherhood. Good, loving and serving Christian fathers. This is a time when we really need shining examples of men serving in all kinds of capacities, and certainly as a priest on the altar. Both our boys and girls need this modelled to them.

A man who doesn’t get involved in something because women can do it too is not someone I could respect.

 

[Vico]

… Is there a similar good explanation for why God doesn’t want women to be priests?

Catechism of the Catholic Church

1548 … Christ is the source of all priesthood: the priest of the old law was a figure of Christ, and the priest of the new law acts in the person of Christ.25

1577 "Only a baptized man ( vir ) validly receives sacred ordination."66 The Lord Jesus chose men ( viri ) to form the college of the twelve apostles, and the apostles did the same when they chose collaborators to succeed them in their ministry.67 The college of bishops, with whom the priests are united in the priesthood, makes the college of the twelve an ever-present and ever-active reality until Christ’s return. The Church recognizes herself to be bound by this choice made by the Lord himself. For this reason the ordination of women is not possible.68

25 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh III,22,4c.
66 CIC, can. 1024.
67 Cf. Mk 3:14-19; Lk 6:12-16; 1 Tim 3:1-13; 2 Tim 1:6; Titus 1:5-9; St. Clement of Rome, Ad Cor. 42,4; 44,3G 1,292-293; 300.
68 Cf. John Paul II, MD 26-27; CDF, declaration, Inter insigniores : AAS 69 (1977) 98-116.

 

[Zaccheus]

Some people argued here that the reason women cannot be priests is because Jesus did not call women to be disciples.

To which I answer that one may be a disciple without being a priest. Christ had many female disciples, including His own mother.

 

[Aulef]

Sure. Whenever a man didn’t delegate authority or leadrship in cases it belongs to him.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Women and men are disciples.

However, Jesus called 12 men to be Apostles and priests in the Catholic Church are successors to the Apostles. Jesus didn’t call everyone to be Apostles.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

It wasn’t her opinion only, but her experience as a woman priest in the Episcopal Church.

The fact is, in the Episcopal Church, the first was ordination of women. That was followed by ordination of active homosexuals followed by making a gay man who was actively involved in a homosexual relationship a Bishop.

Also, as women in the Episcopal Church began to take control as they did, they brought with them a feminist agenda which drove most men away.

The fact is, it wasn’t a good transition in ordaining women in the Episcopal Church as this women explained.

 

[Lea101]

The fact is, in the Episcopal Church, the first was ordination of women. That was followed by ordination of active homosexuals followed by making a gay man who was actively involved in a homosexual relationship a Bishop.

Also, as women in the Episcopal Church began to take control as they did, they brought with them a feminist agenda which drove most men away.

It would be because of the progressive nature of the Church, as opposed to woman’s ordination in itself. The latter implies that women have a tendency to lead the church astray. Former basically implies that when you make decisions based on culture, further decisions and opinions will be formed by it as well (as opposed to seeking the Truth). That would happen if the Church were to give in to something else, like abortion, not just women priests.

The Church ordaining women to “give in” and The Church ordaining women because it’s permitted by God will have different effects, basically. Which is why I found that article to be silly in some of their points, and fair in others.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

When women were ordain, the progressive nature fast forwarded.

It’s not different than in society itself. As women’s rights became the focal point, so did left wing ideology, i.e. abortion, same sex marriage and now girls are attracted to identifying as transgender, because it’s trendy and draws attention to oneself.

 

[Lea101]

When women were ordain, the progressive nature fast forwarded.

When women are ordained to appease the progressive culture*.

If say, women were ordained from the very beginning because that’s what God wants, the church wouldn’t necessarily be more progressive today (in fact my guess would be less so).

 

[JimR-OCDS]

“IF” is an illusion, it does not exist.

God didn’t want women to be ordained.

If women really want God’s will to be done on the issue, we’d hear them asking for prayers on the issue rather than demanding the Church ordain them.

 

[stpurl]

The bottom line though is that neither scenario will happen. The Church will neither “ordain women to give in’ NOR ordain because it’s permitted by God, because God does not change. Just as He stated that marriage is between male and female, the Church cannot change to make it between male and male or female and female. Just as He stated that the Eucharist is wheat bread and grape wine, we cannot change to focaccia and Perrier (or to beer and tortillas, or sake and rice balls, etc.).

There really is no wiggle room here. While some disciplines or understandings can deepen (for example, the age for reception in the Latin Church has gone up and down; 150 years ago it was around age `12-14, today it is 7, and in Eastern Catholic Churches it can be given to infants), or we can understand ‘membership’ in the Catholic Church not to be limited only to those who are baptised but to also include at least as a potential every human being, and while from the beginning God saw and taught male and female as equal in soul and dignity, He also gave a constant history which itself ‘flew in the face’ of most other religions in having only men in the priesthood, whereas others had either women only or a mixed male-female priesthood. He also gave His Church authority to interpret, to pass on, and while we hear of ‘bind and loose’ there is no authority to bind something which GOD has loosened (or vice versa). Since God has already ‘bound’ priesthood to men, the Church (and this has been iterated verbally and in writing) simply has no AUTHORITY to ordain women, now or ever.