Infallible Teaching?

Someone actually asked me to post this on my blog. A "request" for a blog? Go figure. But, here it is, my argument for the ordination of women...

     Within the global religious "marketplace", Christianity claims the most adherents at over 2 billion. Of these, 1.3 billion are Catholic, two-thirds of whom live in developing countries. Ten percent of the world's Catholics live in Africa, where the number of Catholics has tripled in the past thirty years.  This staggering rise in numbers may signal a vocational crisis for the Catholic Church which has seen a recent dearth in vocations to the priesthood.  Yet, even faced with this global vocational crisis the Church continues to deny half of its membership the opportunity to serve in ordained ministries.

     The non-ordination of women by the Catholic Church is old news. What may come as a surprise to many however, is that the debate was summarily and quietly put to rest in 1995 when the Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (headed by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI) declared the practice a matter of faith and therefore an "infallible teaching".  According to the Vatican Council II Document Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church, if the pope and bishops are in agreement regarding a matter of faith or morals, the teaching is to be held definitively and is taught infallibly. The declaration of the non-ordination of women as part of that deposit of faith then, places it within the realm of infallible teaching.  That the declaration was not accompanied by the fanfare that might have ensued had Pope John Paul II spoken ex cathedra, that is, when in the exercise of his office as pastor and teacher, does not make the teaching any less "infallible" nor binding upon the members of the Church.  

     With the emergence of feminist theology and feminist biblical reconstruction, the traditional arguments for the Church's insistence on an all-male priesthood have been scrutinized and have been found wanting.  Perhaps the most often cited argument for an all-male priesthood was the presence of "the Twelve" at the Last Supper, the night on which Jesus is considered to have "instituted" the priesthood.  Biblical scholar Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza speaks of the need for a "hermeneutic of suspicion" when approaching androcentric texts which place men in the center of action. She reveals a stunning but obvious characteristic of androcentric texts: simply because women are not mentioned, does not mean they are not there. That Jesus "took his place with the twelve" (Matt. 26:20), does not signify that ONLY the twelve were present.  In fact, it is highly unlikely that Jesus, who had women as disciples and close companions throughout his ministry would have chosen to exclude them at the Passover meal the night before he died. In Luke 22:14, it was simply "the apostles" with Jesus and in John, "the disciples", plural forms that in other texts are used in reference to both men and women (eg., Romans 16:7).  The implication is obvious. There is no conclusive evidence for judging as valid the Church's argument that the Last Supper was a "males only" event.

     Another traditional claim made by the Church in its defense of an exclusive male clergy regards the priest as he acts in persona Christi in the performance of the duties of his office of preaching the Gospel and presiding at divine worship.  The argument follows that since the priest presides in the "person of Christ" and since Jesus was male, a priest must also be male.  The most profound objection to this argument is that it ignores the transformative and transcendent power of the Resurrection. On the third day, according to the tradition, Jesus rose from the dead to take his place beside the Father. Jesus of Nazareth "became" Jesus the Christ. This Christic event is mystical and eschatological and cannot be sustained within the exclusive realm of Jesus' physicality.  Jesus' physical body became the "Mystical Body of Christ". The Resurrection renders Jesus' body irrelevant.  Additionally, because of this Christic event, the entire Church is called upon to be the Body of Christ on earth.  This presumably includes women.  If, however,  women cannot image/represent the Body of Christ on the altar, then neither can they do so in the world. The implication is that women cannot be Christians at all.  It is obvious why the Church found it necessary to abandon this argument.

     Finally, when faced with these scriptural and theological arguments the Church turned, out of desperation, to the appeal to tradition saying essentially that they would not ordain women because they have never ordained women.  As any first-year philosophy student well knows, it is always a fallacy to argue for the continuation of a behavior or action on the basis of its always having "been that way".  But this is the Church. And where others may appeal to tradition, they appeal to Tradition, and thereby claim a sacrality of history that is paramount even to justice.  It can also be argued that the ordination of women is not unprecedented in Church history.  Acts 6:6 is traditionally regarded as the text that records the appointment of the first deacons, now a major order within the hierarchy of sacred consecration.  The first deacons are commissioned (ordained) by the Apostles who "laid their hands on them".  In Romans 16, Paul "commends" to the community in Rome, Phoebe, a "deacon of the church at Cenchreae".  The term is diakonos in reference to Phoebe. But do not run to check your English Bibles.  In many English versions of Christian Scripture, whenever the word diakonos is used in reference to a man it has been translated "deacon".  When the same word is used in reference to Phoebe it is most often given the diminished translation of "servant", or "helper" (the NRSV*, a notable exception).  Phoebe was diakonos and until proven otherwise, there is no reason to suspect that she would not have received "a laying on of hands" in the same way as her male counterparts. 

     The designation of the practice of the non-ordination of women as a matter of faith by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1995--thereby rendering it an infallible teaching--essentially closed the door of debate on the issue.  Yet, the denial of full participation in the ministry of the Church solely on the basis of sex cannot be judged as anything less than sexism. The Church it would seem suffers from a persistent inability to live up to its own vision of itself; it is a two thousand year-old tension.  For just as Paul envisioned a discipleship of equals as expressed in the Letter to the Galatians, so too in 1 Corinthians 14 we read of his inability to free himself from the sexist practices and patriarchal biases of his time: "As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church."  Ironically, the Vatican Council II Document Lumen Gentium cites Paul when it states, "There is therefore in Christ and in the Church no inequality on the basis of race or nationality, social condition or sex, because 'there is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither bond nor free; there is neither male nor female, for you are all One in Christ Jesus'" (Gal. 3:28).  Yes, and the Emperor has new clothes.