The argument is that exclusion exists without good reason, and in the face that women, in terms of gifting, are gifted in such a way that they could act as ordained ministers. . .
It is a particularly modern and secular attitude to reduce life to functions and not to see the depths of nature, be it of the creation or of human nature.
No surprise if this spills over to the Mysteries of the Church and conflicts with them. When that happens, the person can realize the conflict of visions and adjust their own to the divinely revealed one and so be corrected by God’s view of things from one’s own erroneous assumptions and judgments. This is one of the many ways the Church saves us from ourselves. Protestantism, otoh, believes that individual judgment of the Church is superior and ends up in deep error which has inevitable consequences for human life down the road, as the modern functional individualism which destroys communion and ravages nature attests to when the inevitable secularism results and has full sway. Of course, it takes time to see all the consequences. Denial of a deeper level of existence below functions is quite secular.
- Jesus was a man, therefore only men can represent him as priests.
Jesus was a circumcised, Arabic Jew, under 35. Therefore only circumcised Arabic Jews under 35 can be ordained. The logic doesn’t follow
Yes, your response is one that can be anticipated. 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.
Remember, 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. Again, this is not to say that men are better or superior to women - we are certainly equal in dignity - but we cannot accept the fallacious idea of modern radical feminism that says there are no differences between men and women. There are two sexes, not one.
Further, suggesting that whether a priest is a man or a woman is a superficial question implies being a man or a woman is a superficial difference with regard to the Incarnation of God, and that implies being a man or a woman is a superficial difference as such. But such is a superficial understanding of human nature, the Incarnation, and so the symbolism of the Sacrament of Holy Orders, for the Church considers it a very deep question as part of Divine Revelation.
This really gets to the root of the problem, as proponents of priestesses think (as you have done) to point to the difference in ethnicity in the ordained as a reason to overcome the admitted Tradition of ordaining only males, namely that Our Lord chose only Jews as Apostles, but the Church did not stick to that, likewise. . .etc.
The Church is teaching, otc, that the difference between being a man or a woman goes to the heart of the Divinely-revealed Mystery of the Incarnation of God as a Man, or to put it in reverse, that the basic Mystery of the Incarnation is necessarily connected in fact with Our Lord choosing only men to be Apostles (as opposed to the ethnic difference of Jew/non-Jew) since the Twelve are to be icons or living images of this Man Jesus in being His priests. That distinction is not important for Baptism or Confirmation, but it is for Holy Orders.
continued. . .
