Sir, - Rosemary Swords's article inviting us to forget about women priests (July 2nd) shows that pursuing postgraduate studies in theology is no guarantee against simplistic or fundamentalist thinking.
She states quite categorically that "it was Christ who decided to choose only men for the priesthood", but when it came to ordaining non-Jewish men, these were allowed "because the apostles were quite clear on the difference between the essence of Christ's message on the one hand and their own cultural baggage on the other".
It is an extraordinary claim to be able to discern a "decision" by Jesus so clearly, and even more so to assert that the apostles were not only aware of their own "cultural baggage", but actually capable of leaving it behind. This is to forget that when the church speaks in God's name it has no direct communication from Him.
The word of God in the Bible is always expressed in human words. There is no word of God in pure, unadulterated form, a-temporal and a-cultural. God's word comes in human words, and every word, from the moment when humans first learned to speak, is culturally conditioned, reflecting the experience and culture of the speakers.
Considerable biblical expertise is needed to explain the savage picture of God in the Old Testament, a God who exhorts his people to slaughter their enemies in thousands, a God who has no objection to polygamy or slavery.
In the New Testament, the concept of priesthood is never applied to the ordained ministry. In the Letter to the Hebrews it is applied to Jesus Christ, the only true priest. Next it is applied, by participation or communion in Christ, to all believers. But nowhere in the New Testament, not even once, where bishops or presbyters or deacons are mentioned, are they referred to as priests, or in sacerdotal terms, or as having special sacerdotal functions.
The English word priest comes from the Greek presbyteros and the Latin presbyter, both of which mean elder. Bishop comes from episkopos, meaning supervisor, and deacon is the English for diakonos, meaning servant or waiter.
In fact, in the New Testament and early church the priest was presbyter, elder, but this came to mean something totally different later on, namely sacerdos, priest.
Christian communities were originally small and the bishop usually presided at the Eucharist. With the expansion of the Church, bishops were fewer and far between, and the usual celebrant was a presbyter, shortened to priest, and people thought of him as sacerdos, the one who offered the holy sacrifice.
Some people imagine that at the Last Supper Christ ordained the apostles to the priesthood (in the modern sense), giving them everything except Roman collars. New Testament scholars agree that during his earthly life Jesus did not envisage the church, and he did not leave any instructions about it.
He preached the kingdom of God. The church was founded by the Risen Christ pouring out God's Spirit for that purpose. But the first two or even three generations of Christians did not have any clear idea of the church going on and on; they expected the Lord to return very soon, so they were not concerned about structures. Indeed, nobody seems to have been in charge at Corinth when Paul sent his letters there.
The simple message from all of this is that we cannot look to the New Testament for patterns of organisation "laid down from the beginning". As for the future, only God knows. In the meantime, truth cannot be decreed and imposed, but only discovered and shared. It is up to us to remain "open to the Spirit", who will lead us into all truth. - Yours, etc.
Father Seβn Fagan S.M., Lower Leeson Street, Dublin 2.