priesthood – eyebeleave

Benedict XVI on celibacy, priesthood and much more

Benedict

2073 words, 11 min read

As the events surrounding the introduction of Cardinal Sarah’s book “From the Depths of Our Hearts” unfolded last week, I felt no desire whatsoever to write about them. Instead, seeing Pope emeritus Benedict XVI, for whom I have the highest regard and to whom I am deeply grateful, being dragged into that mess was a real source of suffering for me, also on the back of having watched a recent documentary about him done by Bavarian television from which it was clear that his health is much deteriorated and that he is coming to the end of his life. The events surrounding this book, of which he at first was alleged to have been a co-author, simply did not make sense and were not consistent with the great theologian whose wisdom has been and remains a source of light for me. As events unfolded, it emerged that Benedict had only written one of that book’s chapters and I was keen to get hold of it to see what he had actually said about the topics of the priesthood and of celibacy.

A few days ago, the German edition of CNA then published Benedict’s chapter in full (in German) and I would here like to share a rough translation of some of its passages.¹ The chapter is 5903 words long (including 3 footnotes), is entitled “Die Gestaltwerdung des neutestamentlichen Priestertums in der christologisch-pneumatischen Exegese” (i.e., “The taking shape of New Testament Priesthood in Christological-Pneumatic Exegesis”) and is dated 17th September 2019. What follows will be well short of a full reflection on the text and will focus on the parts that either most spoke to me or that most puzzled me. The chapter overall focuses on the question of how the priesthood brought about by Jesus is in continuity with the priesthood of the people of Israel that precedes it and that, Benedict argues, it brings to its fulfilment. Far from being the central question of this chapter, celibacy is only one of a variety of aspects of the priesthood that Benedict speaks about here. The central focus here, as in all of Benedict’s thought, is Jesus and his invitation to us, as humanity, to become one with him.

Early on in the chapter, Benedict speaks about how the Jewish priesthood was viewed differently in Jesus’ time, with the Pharisees being its proponents, while the Essenes opposing its then-current form that they wanted to see purified. In that context, Benedict writes:

“This means that Jesus sees the destruction of the temple as a result of the misguided attitude of the ruling priest hierarchy. God, however, uses the misguided attitude of people, as at all corner points of salvation history, as a means for his greater love. In this respect, Jesus obviously sees the destruction of the current temple ultimately as a step of divine healing and interprets it as a final redesign of ritual worship. In this sense, the cleansing of the temple is the announcement of a new form of worshiping God and thereby affects the nature of ritual worship and priesthood as such.”

What radiates from Benedict’s words here is God’s love and and a thinking whose stage is that of eternity and universality. This is also apparent from my favorite passage, where he offers an astonishingly beautiful exegesis of the last supper, the crucifixion and resurrection:

“It is important to consider that the same Jesus who stands among the disciples surrenders himself to them in his flesh and blood and thus anticipates the cross and resurrection. It would all be pointless without the resurrection. The crucifixion of Jesus is not in itself an act of ritual worship, and the Roman soldiers who carry it out are not priests. They carry out an execution, but do not even remotely think of preforming an act of ritual worship. That Jesu, in the Upper Room [and] for all time, gives Himself as food, means an anticipation of his death and resurrection and the transformation of an act of human atrocity into an act of devotion and love. Thus Jesus himself performs the fundamental renewal of ritual worship, which remains decisive for all time: He transforms people’s sin into an act of forgiveness and love, into which future disciples can enter by participating in the foundation of Jesus. This explains what Augustine called the transition from the Last Supper to morning offering in the church. The Last Supper is God’s surrender to us in the forgiving love of Jesus Christ and enables humanity in turn to take up God’s gesture of love and to return it to God.”

Benedict then continues with setting out the significance of the cross and its relationship to the Eucharist, which he presents with reference to not only the Church but to all of humanity and he concludes with reflecting on the relationship between New Testament priesthood and the priestly office of Israel.

“The cross of Jesus Christ is the act of radical love, in which the reconciliation between God and the sinful world takes place in reality. Therefore this, which is in no way an event of ritual worship, is nevertheless the highest worship of God. In the cross, the katabatic line of the descent of God and the anabatic line of the devotion of mankind to God became one single act that made the new temple of his body in the resurrection possible. In the celebration of the Eucharist, the Church, indeed humanity, is repeatedly drawn into this process. In the cross of Christ, the prophetic criticism of ritual worship has reached its goal once and for all. However, at the same time, new ritual worship is established. Christ’s love, which is ever present in the Eucharist, is the new act of worship. Accordingly, the priestly offices of Israel are “raised up” into the service of love, which at the same time means worship of God. This new unity of love and ritual worship, of a criticism of ritual worship and the glorification of God in the service of love is, of course, an unheard-of assignment for the Church, which has to be renewed in every generation.”

After setting out the role of New Testament priesthood as existing in a tension between the cross and worship, and as being preceded by and bringing to fulfilment the priesthood of Israel, Benedict turns to the question of celibacy by first reflecting on its Old Testament nature:

“In the general awareness of Israel, it was apparently clear that priests were obliged to practice sexual abstinence during the times when they were involved in ritual worship, that is, in contact with the divine mystery. The connection between sexual abstention and worshiping God was entirely clear in the general awareness of Israel. As an example, I would only like to bring to mind the episode in which David asks Ahimelech for bread while fleeing from Saul. “The priest replied to David, “I have no ordinary bread on hand, only holy bread; if the men have abstained from women, you may eat some of that.” David answered the priest: “We have indeed stayed away from women.”” (1 Sam 21, 5f). Since Old Testament priests only had to devote themselves to ritual worship at certain times, marriage and priesthood were perfectly compatible.”

It seems to me that this is a curious argument and one that lacks the sharpness and deep insight of the earlier part of the text. Instead of going to the heart of the matter, like in the case of his profound reflections on the relationship between Jesus’ crucifixion and ritual worship, this passage effectively says: during Old Testament times it was obvious to everyone that priests had to abstain from sex during times when they were involved in ritual worship, and it offers as Scriptural foundation a passage where a priest (Ahimelech) tells King David that his soldiers may only consume bread used in ritual worship if they (the solders) have abstained from sex during some preceding period of time².

What follows immediately after the above is a paragraph on how New Testament priesthood differs from the Old Testament one:

“For the priests of the Church of Jesus Christ, the situation was fundamentally changed due to the regular or in many cases daily celebration of the Eucharist. Their whole life stands in contact with the divine mystery and thus demands an exclusivity for God, which excludes another, life-encompassing bond like marriage alongside itself. From the daily celebration of the Eucharist and from the comprehensive service for God that comes with it, the impossibility of a conjugal bond arose by itself. One could say that functional abstinence had by itself become ontological. This changed the reasons for it and its meaning from the inside. Today, however, the objection immediately arises that this is a negative valuation of the body and of sexuality. The accusation that priestly celibacy was based on a Manichaean worldview was raised as early as the 4th century, but was immediately rejected by the fathers with determination and then fell silent for some time. Such a diagnosis is wrong already because in the Church marriage was considered from the beginning to be a gift given by God in Paradise. But it required the human person as a whole and the service for the Lord also requires the human person completely, so that both vocations appear as not realizable at the same time. In this way the ability to forgo marriage to be fully present for the Lord had become a criterion for priestly service.”

This also strikes me as a peculiar argument since it suggests that married people could not wholly devote themselves to serving God or that married priests would in some way also be incomplete in their service (a long list of counter examples here includes St. Hilary, 4th century bishop of Poitiers and Doctor of the Church, who was married and had a daughter – St. Abra). It is also at odds with a 4th century magisterial text of the Catholic Church – the Apostolic Canons, where canon #6 declares “Let not a bishop, a priest, or a deacon cast off his own wife under pretence of piety; but if he does cast her off, let him be suspended. If he go on in it, let him be deprived.” In no way do I mean to argue against the value of celibacy here – its choice is certainly a gift that one can be called to make and a gift that also flourishes and becomes an ontological part of priesthood for celibate priests. But, post hoc does not imply propter hoc, and an argument for ontological unity between celibacy and the priesthood for a person who made the beautiful choice of giving themselves wholly to God in celibacy does not imply that it is a necessary prerequisite.

I really have mixed feelings about this text, where some of its parts brightly radiate with Benedict’s genius and are on par with the masterful magisterial writings from his time as Pope Benedict XVI, while other passages seem intellectually sluggish and superficial – adjectives I could not apply to any of his other writings …

Let me conclude with a translation of a brief passage from later on in the chapter, which made my heart burn within me, like the hearts of the disciples on the road to Emmaus:

“It is the temptation of mankind time and again to want to be completely autonomous, to follow only one’s own own will and to think that only then will we be free; that only in such freedom without barriers is a person wholly human. But that’s precisely how we position ourselves against the truth.

Because the truth is that we have to share our freedom with others and that we can only be free together. This shared freedom can be true freedom only if we place ourselves into the measure of freedom itself, into the will of God.”

¹ I will again favor as literal a translation of the text as I can manage, over polish or readability. All mistakes in the translated text here are exclusively mine.
² In the Hebrew original it says “about three days”, which is rendered as “yesterday and the day before yesterday” in the German translation used in this passage’s original, while a variety of English translations, like the New American Bible (Revised Edition) I used in my translation here, make no specific reference to duration.

Viri probati: priesthood for married men

It looks like Pope Francis has started testing the waters for the possibility of reintroducing the option of having married priests in the Roman Catholic Church. In an audience with him,¹ Erwin Kräutler, the bishop of Xingu in the Brazilian rainforest, raised the challenges of the shortage of priests. Bishop Kräutler told the Pope about only having 27 priests for 800 communities with 700 000 faithful in the Amazonian rainforest, which means that each parishioner only has access to the Eucharist 2-3 times per year.

Francis’ response was that local bishops know the needs of their people best and that they must be courageous and make proposals for new solutions. Bishops mustn’t act alone and should instead first agree in their local bishops’ conferences about proposals for reform, before then bringing them to Rome. This was followed by the topic of the possibility of ordaining married “viri probati” (“proven/tested men”) as priest,² which lead Pope Francis to sharing the situation in a Mexican diocese, where there is a married, permanent deacon in every parish, but many do not have a priest. These 300 deacons, however, cannot celebrate the mass. How could this continue? It is here that bishops should make proposals.

That, in a nutshell, is Bishop Kräutler’s account of his conversation with Pope Francis, which The Tablet reported on 10th April in an article entitled “Pope says married men could be ordained – if world’s bishops agree.” Not exactly the letter of the original report, but, I’d say, in agreement with its spirit (the audience with Pope Francis points to a broader consultation process than just a yes/no about ordaining proven married men to the priesthood, and by the sounds of it, it was Kräutler who brought up the topic).

During the following days there then came a number of statements by bishops regarding the question of “viri probati,” in general being in favor of it. Among them are three English and Welsh bishops: Thomas McMahon, the previous Bishop of Brentwood, in whose diocese there were 20 former Anglican married priests, who said:

“I would be saying personally that my experience of married priests has been a very good one indeed. I think people in those parishes where they have been placed have taken to them very well indeed. People look to their priest as a man of God, to lead them to God. If he is a real pastor at their service then it is rather secondary as to whether he is married or not.”

Bishop Seamus Cunningham of Hexham and Newcastle also expressed his support and Bishop Tom Burns of Menevia (Cardiff) said that “These married men would bring a wider experience and understanding to priestly ministry.” A couple of days ago, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin also expressed his openness to considering the proposal, while emphasizing the importance to act in unity with the whole Church and with the Pope.

There have also been voices of support for this option in the past: Bishop Manfred Scheuer of Innsbruck in Austria declared himself in favor in 2011, while pointing out his skepticism about whether this would be a measure for addressing the shortage of priests though. Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, in the book-length interview, stated that he could see the priestly ordination of viri probati happening, but that he too had reservations about it being a solution to current shortage.

And, let’s not forget Pope Benedict XVI himself allowing for the future priestly ordination of married men in in the context of the Personal Ordinariate established by the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus (as opposed to only considering it a transitory measure for the initial transferees from the Anglican Communion).

The concept of “viri probati” dates back to the first century, where it is referred to in a letter (§42:4) by Pope St. Clement I, albeit in a different context – that of candidates for being appointed bishops and deacons in general. The idea there was that the men in question had a track record of living a Christian life, before they were considered for ordination. This is already what is in place for married permanent deacons (a practice re-introduced by Vatican II and having resulted in 16 000 married men being ordained and active as deacons today in the US alone), where the minimum requirement (Can. 1031 §2) for a candidate is the age of 35 years (and the consent of his wife! :).

Essentially this new proposal sounds to me like an opening of priestly ordination to those who today are married deacons or who would become married deacons in the future.

Personally I think this is a good idea, but – like Bishop Scheuer and Cardinal Dolan – I don’t believe it would make a dramatic difference to the number of priests. It is not like there are huge numbers of married men vying for the priesthood and I believe vocations among them are going to be scarce. Not only will they need to have had the vocation to receive the sacrament of marriage (as opposed to just have gotten married) but they will then also need to feel the subsequent call to the priesthood. By probability theory alone I would expect this to be a small number. However, for that small number – even if it only ever applied to one – I’d be in favor of admitting them to the priesthood. Why? Mainly because Jesus did so himself – among the apostles, at the very least St. Peter (the first pope! and a viro very much probato) was married (cf. Matthew 8:14) and chances are that some of the other apostles were too. If it was good enough for Jesus, it sure is good enough for me!

What I find by far more encouraging – and a source of joy – is the process that has already taken place and that is being put into practice by Pope Francis: a bishop comes to see him, shares a concern with him and proposes a solution. Francis encourages him, invites him to consult with his brother bishops and asks him to then escalate the proposal to the universal Church’s level, for discernment by himself. Francis also emphasizes the importance of unity and invites the expression of opinion by others. Other bishops step forward and express their views. All of this within the course of days and in the absence of any formal process and without intermediaries and bureaucrats wedged between the Bishop of Rome and his brother Bishops from around the world. This is what collegiality is about, as Vatican II presents in in Lumen Gentium (§22), and it is finally being put into practice. Ad maiorem Dei gloriam!

¹ The news was also picked up by the German branch of Vatican Radio some days later.
² Note, that this is not the same as opening up the possibility of getting married to priest – a practice that has never existed in the Catholic Church. The question on the table is about married men being ordained priests, not vice versa.

Married priests: a hermeneutic of choice

That the Catholic Church should allow for married men to become priests (or for priests to marry) is frequently put forward as a must and as a sure-fire way to address the current dearth of priests in many parts of the world. Celibacy, it is argued, is an outmoded idea and one that presents an obstacle to otherwise great candidates for the priesthood. And, it is suggested that having married priests would both make them better understand their parishioners and avoid crimes like pedophilia, which are laid at the feet of celibacy. The hope then is that a “modern” pope, e. g., like Francis, would finally see sense and do the right thing.

As should be obvious from the tone of the above, I have never seen these as being good grounds for changing the practice of requiring Roman Catholic priests to be celibate (for that is all it is – practice, not dogma, and the desire for its change is furthermore directed primarily at the Roman rite and not, e. g., the Eastern Catholic ones, where married priests have always been an alternative to celibate ones).

First, I don’t believe having married priests would lead to more priests (the low numbers today deriving from what Pope Francis has called a “fascination with the temporary”, equally affecting the sacrament of marriage). Second, I consider celibacy to be a treasure – different from, yet equal to marriage in its potential for sanctification. Third, I have my suspicions about those who today would opt for the priesthood in the Roman rite if only it allowed for marriage too (note the specific wording of this point). Fourth, I don’t believe that shared experience is a necessary prerequisite for understanding – it can help, but it is not what is essential (otherwise – via reductio ad absurdum – understanding would be impossible – see Nagel’s bats). Fifth, linking pedophilia to celibacy is a red herring, and, sixth, you can bet your bottom dollar that Francis will do the right thing – it’s only its level of “modernity” that remains to be seen.

And then there is probably the most serious reservation I have about married priests – that it is just too hard! Being married asks for 100% of one’s capacity and, I am sure, so does being a priest. Even with the above I wouldn’t have said that I am against married priests though, as I have seen great ones both in the Catholic Church an the Anglican Communion. It undoubtedly is challenging, but I wouldn’t exclude its being an option just on those grounds.

A couple of weeks ago I read a book chapter about this subject (in the book “La grande meretrice”) and it changed my mind. Its author, Prof. Lucetta Scaraffia, a historian from Rome’s La Sapienza University, presents the history of priestly celibacy in the Catholic Church and has the following to say about the reasons for allowing priests to marry that were put forward in the Church’s early days:

“The problem of clerical celibacy, and its eventual imposition, clashed with another point that was one of the principal innovations of Christian culture: the value of free choice, especially in the context of spiritual life. […] The high regard enjoyed by chastity meant that, since the first centuries, many clerics spontaneously practiced celibacy, especially in the West, where it was particularly valued. But the Church has not declared a norm with regard to it. The married state too, in fact, had a religious and spiritual value, which made it difficult to exclude clerics from it without provoking its devaluation.”

What struck me about the above was that the argument pivoted around an insistence on the fundamental value of choice and therefore on freedom. It was an argument that decidedly was not pitting celibacy against marriage but presented this important choice as being both orthogonal to that of the priesthood and as having great importance, which in turn placed equal value on the two choices: celibacy and marriage. How strongly this was believed is exemplified by the following canons of the Synod of Gangra in 340 AD:

“Canon 1: If any one shall condemn marriage, or abominate and condemn a woman who is a believer and devout, and sleeps with her own husband, as though she could not enter the Kingdom [of heaven] let him be anathema.

Canon 4: If any one shall maintain, concerning a married presbyter, that is not lawful to partake of the oblation when he offers it, let him be anathema.

Canon 9: If any one shall remain virgin, or observe continence, abstaining from marriage because he abhors it, and not on account of the beauty and holiness of virginity itself, let him be anathema.

Canon 10: If any one of those who are living a virgin life for the Lord’s sake shall treat arrogantly the married, let him be anathema.”

Not only were married priests to be treated as the equals of celibate ones and marriage be afforded with reverence, but anyone who acted contrary to this teaching was anathema and therefore subject to excommunication.

While the above is a strong argument already, what really clinched it for me is the realisation that Jesus himself called married men to the priesthood, while he could have just as easily chosen only unmarried ones. St. Peter was certainly married (the Gospel referring to his mother-in-law, cf. Matthew 8:14-15) and in all likelihood so were more of the apostles. Even being sure only of St. Peter’s married state is sufficient for knowing that Jesus called married men to go out in His name and proclaim the Good News. St. Peter having been the first pope further underlines the deliberate character of Jesus’ choice and it can’t be argued that only some peripheral apostle was married and that this was some anomaly (and even that would be a weak argument). As it stands though, we have Jesus call a married man to be not only a priest and bishop but also the first pope.

There are certainly challenges with opening up the choice between celibacy and marriage to priests (both practical and psychological), but I am left with standing on the side of those in favor of it, predominantly because Jesus himself chose to stand among them too (as he chose to stand among those in favor of celibacy (e.g., cf. Matthew 19:12). In no way is this in opposition to celibacy though, which I consider to be a great good when chosen for the sake of giving one’s life to God. Neither is this a call to disobedience with the Church’s norms or a demand for a change. Instead, it is a (albeit minuscule) contribution to a discussion of the topic and, I believe wholly consonant with the magisterium of the Church. For example, the Vatican II decree Presbyterorum Ordinis clearly states that celibacy “is not demanded by the very nature of the priesthood, as is apparent from the practice of the early Church and from the traditions of the Eastern Churches” (§16). Pope Francis too has spoken on this subject in a way that is open to discussion, while being clear about the norm in force today, when he said that priestly celibacy “is a matter of discipline, not of faith. It can change, [but] for the moment, I am in favor of maintaining [it], with all its pros and cons, because we have ten centuries of good experiences rather than failures” (On Heaven and Earth). Even though I don’t dispute at all that priestly celibacy is working well “for the moment,” an understanding of the reasons for having it co-exist with priestly marriage in the Early Church has made me understand that this co-existence was a “discipline” practiced for profound, and to my mind, very strong reasons of choice and freedom.

Skin and heart, not antiques or novelties

Where does Pope Francis stand on the perennial question of reform versus continuity, progress versus tradition? His sermon during yesterday morning’s Chrism mass made it very clear – like Benedict XVI, who referred to it as “reform in continuity,” Francis too rejects a focus on tradition alone (calling it “antiques”) as well as on progress alone (“novelties”) and instead calls us to “put [our] own skin and [our] own heart on the line” and to live in the midst of our communities, sharing the life of our neighbors. Another way of reading the popes’ position is to cast it in terms of past, present and future, with a firm focus on living in the present moment instead of a nostalgia for a past Golden Age or a putting off of life until a bright future dawns.

While it contains a clear position on where Francis’ priorities lie, yesterday morning’s sermon – which I recommend highly in full – will, in my opinion, go down as the founding moment of a renewal of the priesthood, with the following being its key moments:

“[T]he anointing that [priests] receive is meant in turn to anoint God’s faithful people, whose servants they are; they are anointed for the poor, for prisoners, for the oppressed.[…]

A good priest can be recognized by the way his people are anointed. This is a clear test. When our people are anointed with the oil of gladness, it is obvious: for example, when they leave Mass looking as if they have heard good news. Our people like to hear the Gospel preached with “unction”, they like it when the Gospel we preach touches their daily lives, when it runs down like the oil of Aaron to the edges of reality, when it brings light to moments of extreme darkness, to the “outskirts” where people of faith are most exposed to the onslaught of those who want to tear down their faith. […]

We need to “go out”, then, in order to experience our own anointing, its power and its redemptive efficacy: to the “outskirts” where there is suffering, bloodshed, blindness that longs for sight, and prisoners in thrall to many evil masters. It is not in soul-searching or constant introspection that we encounter the Lord[…]

Those who do not go out of themselves, instead of being mediators, gradually become intermediaries, managers. We know the difference: the intermediary, the manager, “has already received his reward”, and since he doesn’t put his own skin and his own heart on the line, he never hears a warm, heartfelt word of thanks. This is precisely the reason why some priests grow dissatisfied, become sad priests, lose heart and become in some sense collectors of antiques or novelties – instead of being shepherds living with “the smell of the sheep”, shepherds in the midst of their flock, fishers of men. […]

It is not a bad thing that reality itself forces us to “put out into the deep”, where what we are by grace is clearly seen as pure grace, out into the deep of the contemporary world, where the only thing that counts is “unction” – not function – and the nets which overflow with fish are those cast solely in the name of the One in whom we have put our trust: Jesus.”

Wow! What a wake up call! And before you think: “Yeah! Them priests better get their act together,” let me just remind you (as I remind myself) that we all share in Jesus’ royal priesthood! When I heard Pope Francis say these words, I felt that he was addressing me. Do I share in the life of those around me? Do I live in their midst or am I withdrawn into introspection? These are undoubtedly great challenges, but ones that, I believe, will help all of us Christians to be more faithful followers of Jesus.

As is his trademark, Pope Francis proceeded to put his model of the priesthood into practice straight-away, by celebrating the Maundy Thursday mass in a juvenile detention center. Not only that, but he chose – against present liturgical law!¹ – to wash the feet not of 12 men (which in the case of the popes’ Maundy Thursday masses have been priests), but of a group of youths, among whom were women as well as men and Muslims as well as Christians. This a shepherd in the midst of his flock, a fisherman putting “out into the deep”!

Not only his actions, but his words too, during the sermon of the same Maundy Thursday mass, illustrate his closeness and adaptation to the specific people he is with. The message he shares is universal, accessible to all and obviously comes from his heart:

“Help one another. This is what Jesus teaches us. This is what I do. And I do it with my heart. I do this with my heart because it is my duty, as a priest and bishop I must be at your service. But it is a duty that comes from my heart and a duty I love. I love doing it because this is what the Lord has taught me. But you too must help us and help each other, always. And thus in helping each other we will do good for each other.

Now we will perform the ceremony of the Washing of the Feet and we must each one of us think, Am I really willing to help others? Just think of that. Think that this sign is Christ’s caress, because Jesus came just for this, to serve us, to help us.”

This universality and at the same time specificity of his approach also shines through in his inviting ten parish priests from around Rome for lunch earlier that same day. One of the guests – the parish priest of the San Giacomo church in central Rome – reports:

“At first there was a bit of awkwardness – he is the pope after all – but he put everyone at ease. […] He didn’t want us to kiss his hand – instead he kissed each one of us. We asked him whether we could tell our parishioners that we had lunch with him and Francis told us to greet and bless them in his name. […] He also had a word of advice for each one of us. Since my parish is an inner city one, he invited me to keep my church open, as he already said during Wednesday’s general audience: “how sad to see closed churches!”. He told me that if the door is open, when someone passes by, they may enter and if they they also find a priest who is ready to hear their confession, it becomes an occasion for meeting Jesus and the Church.”

¹ Although, personally and individually being the Catholic Church’s supreme and ultimate legislator, this is a moot point.

Serving the Church

I am starting from scratch after having written a lengthy post on this topic already and realizing – after talking to my besties YYM¹ and PM – that I was approaching the topic all wrong. I can still use all the research, but the tone had to change from the playful and partly sarcastic to what I am going to try next.

I feel that my being married, working at a tech company and being a lay person allows me to seek God without limits, to fully participate in the life of the Church and to have the path to sanctity wide open to me. At the same time I realize though that some of my Catholic sisters suffer from feeling the call to the priesthood and being faced with (a now final) barrier to it:

“I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.” (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, §4)

At first sight (and maybe even after repeated reading) this might sound like an aspect of Church teaching that is simply out of date, that needs to catch up with the times and that can be summed up with the following:

“[T]here is an urgent need to achieve real equality in every area: equal pay for equal work, protection for working mothers, fairness in career advancements, equality of spouses with regard to family rights and the recognition of everything that is part of the rights and duties of citizens in a democratic State.” (Letter to Women, §4)

Now, maybe this will come as a surprise, but the author of both of the above quotes is the same person: Blessed Pope John Paul II, and you may ask yourself how he can at the same time talk about women’s rights and slam the door shut on the question of women priests. I believe the answer lies in the following (and, yes, it too is by John Paul II):

“If Christ […] entrusted only to men the task of being an “icon” of his countenance as “shepherd” and “bridegroom” of the Church through the exercise of the ministerial priesthood, this in no way detracts from the role of women, or for that matter from the role of the other members of the Church who are not ordained to the sacred ministry, since all share equally in the dignity proper to the “common priesthood” based on Baptism.” (Letter to Women, §11)

When I first saw this, a light went on in my mind after I read the words “an “icon” of his countenance.” Priests are Jesus’ proxies and transmit to us his presence in the Church and his being the source of the sacraments. When I attend mass, I experience a man saying the words that bring about the Eucharist, like I would have, had I been at the Last Supper; when I go to confession, I speak to a man, as I would have, had I been among Jesus’ disciples. Jesus having come into the world as a man rather than a woman is not an accident, nor is it a consequence of social conventions. I believe, that God became flesh as a baby boy, to use the male gender in a specific way, just like he sought consent from a girl to become His mother, again because of the specifics of the female gender. To read this as in any way discriminatory against women is incomprehensible to my mind, but I’ll leave that to another post.

Let me now put my last card on the table with regard to the priesthood. God’s call is ultimately the same for all of us: to choose Him as the first priority in our lives and to follow his new commandment of love. Placing something above a love for one’s neighbor and for God is a mistake, even if that something is the priesthood. If love for God and neighbor are missing, the priesthood becomes a millstone (“The road to hell is paved with the skulls of erring priests, with bishops as their signposts.” St. John Chrysostom) and if they are present, then it becomes secondary and one seeks specifics with humility. To come at the argument from a perspective of rights is also a category mistake. No one has the right to be made a priest, whether man or woman, and it is in all cases a gift that is received rather than an entitlement that can be claimed.

For now, let it suffice that my argument is this: the priesthood is only open to men, because Jesus was a man and because he indicated to us from the very beginning that it was through men that he wanted certain aspects of his ministry to be perpetuated. In this way, his ministers’ being male is integral to their being Jesus’ proxies and no matter what social or other developments ensue, the priesthood in the Catholic Church is going to remain restricted to them.

This is not the end of the story though, since we are ultimately all being called to be Jesus’ proxies: to be the means by which He can show His love to all. As a married, lay person I don’t feel in any way limited in the extent to which I can strive to imitate Jesus’ love for humanity, even if I don’t become a priest. But, and there is a but, there is a variety of other ways in which Jesus can be imitated and and in which Catholics can serve the Church (which is fundamentally also what the priesthood is about: service). Two of these, which today are not open to women, are the diaconate and the office of cardinal, and I would like to argue that they may both one day (hopefully soon) be conferred on women.

Bishop Emil Wcela has just published a very interesting article (that I recommend in full), entitled “Why not women?” It starts where the final word on women priests in the Catholic Church ends: by making a case for exploring the possibility of ordaining women as deacons. Wcela presents a compelling case, starting with evidence for deaconesses dating back right to the time of the apostles (giving the example of St. Phoebe, whom St. Paul calls a diakonos in his letter to the Romans (16:1) – although the meaning of the term is disputed) and dotted through the history of the church (including Pope Benedict VIII writing to the bishop of Porto to give him authority to ordain deaconesses). He the proceeds to give the example of deaconesses in other Christian churches, but is also clear about the fact that this is not the case in the Catholic Church at present.

Nonetheless, there has been a desire to explore its possibility since the Second Vatican Council, including a raising of the issue by the US bishops in a pastoral letter from 1992. 2009 then saw an important change to Canon law, which differentiates between the nature of the priestly and episcopal order and that of deacons, stating that bishops and priests “receive the mission and capacity to act in the person of Christ the Head; deacons, however, are empowered to serve the People of God in the ministries of the liturgy, the word and charity.” (Canon 1009 of the Code of Canon Law). This change removes the constraints that previous legislation placed on the diaconate and historical precedent further supports a future change in this area. Bishop Wcela finally notes that women already participate extensively in the Church’s ministry and that ordaining them as deacons would provide greater official recognition, confer the grace of the sacrament on them and give them access to ecclesiastical offices that require ordination. The article ends with a call to raising awareness of this opportunity and I would personally like to add my voice to it.

On a related note, Cardinal Timothy Dolan stated in an interview last March, that the office of cardinal is in principle open to women, since it does not require priestly or episcopal orders. He then proceeded to tell the story of how someone once suggested to Pope John Paul II to make Mother Teresa a cardinal, to which he replied: “I asked her – she doesn’t want to be one.” While the John Paul II – Mother Teresa story may be little more than an anecdote, it nonetheless expresses both the Church’s newfound openness and Mother Teresa’s humility beautifully. What is key here is the acknowledgement by one of the cardinals that his office is in principle not restricted to women.

I hope it is clear what I am getting at: the role of women in the Church is certainly not what it ought to be, but I see clear signs of a desire to change that, including at the highest levels. What it won’t be is an opening of the priesthood to women, but the diaconate and the office of cardinal are both on the horizon (hopefully even in my own lifetime). One point I would like to emphasize though is that the role of women in the Church needs to be all-pervasive and not only constrained to “women’s issues.” When one of the 23 women present at the Second Vatican Council – one of the Council Mothers – was asked what topics were discussed that related to women, she responded “We are now interested in everything.” As Fr. Fabio Ciardi, who was taught by Rosemary Goldie (another Council Mother) during his time at the Lateran University, said: “The temptation is to constrain women in the Church to dealing with topics that are about women, not knowing that all topics are about them and that they have a contribution to make to all of them.”

¹ Thanks to YYM also for giving me probably the most acceptable label: “progressive orthodox.” It may sound like an oxymoron, but I shall wear it with pride :).