Women fit to partake fully in church's life

Roman Catholic women want to discuss why they are infallibly defined as unfit for priestly ministry. Father Avery Dulles SJ, (Irish Times, March 24th) offers no more than his version of the "our hands are tied" argument: "the church has no authority to confer priestly orders upon women". Why? Father Dulles answers that the traditional teaching is based on fidelity to the sources of revelation and this cannot be changed without impairing the authentic Christian understanding of God, of Christ and of the church.

This is no more than argument by assertion. If this institution persists in a teaching of exclusion, in its refusal to listen to women with a mind open to the possibility of conversion, then it manifests a fundamental lack of respect for all women despite its assertion of the "absolutely fundamental truth of Christian anthropology, the equal personal dignity between men and women" (Gaudium et Spes, 29). To refuse to discuss is ultimately to insist on polarisation. Polarisation occurs when a real question arises only to be dismissed as a question that "cannot be held as debatable" (Vatican Information Service, November 18th, 1995) or trivialised as "internal wrangling" (Father Dulles). Individual women, like myself, who insist on discussing this question are not, as charged, seeking personal power or superiority. What we seek is an admission of collective equality, that women as a group are equal to men as a group. In terms of human history this might be a somewhat novel request but happily it is becoming an increasingly acceptable one.

What we have received to date from Rome is at worst a door slammed in our faces and at best logical slippage and obfuscation: of course your "special nature" is equal, you have "ample scope" within the "lay apostolate" to access sanctity. What we are told we lack is the ability to interrogate revelation, assess the continuing validity of traditions, the grace to discern the mind of God and finally male anatomy. Admittedly Jesus was a male but to act in persona Christi is to minister within a theological construct.

We are all too familiar with the argumentation. The most recent statement issuing from Rome (October 28th, 1995), proclaims authoritatively its lack of authority. Women are unfit for ordination and "this teaching requires definitive (defined as "irrevocable") assent, since, founded on the written word of God, and from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium. This teaching is to be held always, everywhere, and by all, as belonging to the deposit of the faith".

Infallibility has often been debated as if it is a self-justifying position that asserts direct and exclusive access to the mind of God. It presupposes that a teaching can never be in error or inadequate. Thus, there can be no revision or repentance.

If there is no repentance then there can be no openness to divine grace and so infallibility becomes "the sin of sins: a sin against the Holy Spirit". This is a matter of importance far exceeding considerations of law and authority.

Concerning Scripture, there is no text in the New Testament that confers ordination on men or women. "Do this in memory of me" (Luke 22: 17-19) does not confer ordination on the 12 as Jesus did not name himself "priest" but the Son of Man.

It is only towards the end of the third century that the ordination to a priestly ministry comes into being. When Pope Paul VI sought the opinion of the Pontifical Biblical Commission on this matter the reply stated that "the New Testament by itself alone could not settle in a clear way and once and for all the problem of the possible accession of women to the Presbyterate".

The argument most usually relied upon is from Tradition. We are told that Jesus chose 12 men only and thus it is argued that maleness becomes determinative. However, we read in the New Testament that "you (the 12) shall sit on 12 thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel" (Matthew 19:28 and Luke 22:30).

Reputable theologians agree that this refers to the restoration of Israel to its original condition of the 12 tribes and is not a decision for males only. Further, we are told in this context that Tradition is immutable. Throughout the centuries the Church taught that women were naturally inferior and of debased nature.

Faced with the increasing global acceptance of the equality of the sexes, the Pope has recently felt obliged to jettison this part of our tradition by making a formal apology to women (July 1995). When it suits the context some traditions are binding (12 men) and some are not (women's natural inferiority). A selective appeal to tradition both undermines the argument from Tradition and also makes it more difficult to be convinced of the sincerity of an apology when women are to be forever excluded from full authority within the church.

Standing beyond the pale in a field of dreams are many Christian feminists like myself, working for a new and inclusive articulation of the Christian message within the church. Many women are bleeding away from this patriarchal church; those who continue to speak do so passionately, refusing a silence that might be mistaken for acquiescence. Christian feminism requires a new self-understanding from the church that reflects, not only in its theory but also in its structures and practices, a mutuality between women and men that recognises that we are equal not only in soul but also in body. It requires an end to the articulation of sexual difference as institutionalised hierarchy that places women "always and forever" in an inferior position. Without the reform that institutes a feminist theology for all in place of a patriarchal theology for half, the church will continue to be the last bastion of patriarchy in the Western world and as such it will become increasingly irrelevant.

I cannot, will not, ever assent to an understanding of myself that I am unfit to partake fully in the life of the church. In justice, I must refuse a papal teaching that requires definitive assent to the proposition that not being a man, like Jesus of Nazareth, I be held always, everywhere and by all, inferior. It is not for this that I was created in the image and likeness of God, or for this that Jesus challenged the priestly institutions of his day.

Gail Grossman Freyne is a family therapist and mediator, and a research associate with the women's studies department at University College Dublin.