female-ordination

Miscellaneous Thoughts on Difficult Church Teaching and the Holy Spirit

Deacon Douglas McManaman

I remember one of my email correspondences with Eve Tushnet, who is the brilliant author of Gay and Catholic and Tenderness. I had written a piece for my students which was an attempt to support and explain as clearly and pastorally as possible the Church’s teaching on same sex marriage. We certainly see eye to eye on this issue, because she adheres to Catholic teaching on the nature of marriage and sexuality, but I didn’t quite “seal the deal” for her with respect to my contention that a same-sex relationship cannot be a one flesh union (in that a one flesh union means becoming reproductively one organism in the sexual act). My article left her unconvinced. In the end, she stressed the importance of urging students to “trust the Church”– and by this I gather she did not mean trust in a group of male celibates, many of whom–she is fully aware–have proved themselves to be untrustworthy. Rather, I believe she meant trust that Christ is working in and through the Church. I found it interesting not to mention praiseworthy that she finds it in herself to trust Catholic teaching, despite what she sees as a weakness in what I see as the heart of the matter.[1] 

I’ve written quite a few articles over the years (600+), many of which have vanished from memory. On a few occasions I stumbled across some of these forgotten articles and after reading some of them over again, I wondered to myself how I was able to acquire certain insights, given that I did not know then what I know now, and yet what I wrote then was in perfect agreement with what I have come to know now only as a result of experience. It’s not that I have the charism of infallibility–there are many articles I’d written that I would like to remove from the internet permanently, but I don’t have the nerve to ask the editors to remove them after they put time and effort into publishing them. But despite my stupidity, limitations, sinfulness, and other imperfections, the Holy Spirit seemed to have helped me say what I otherwise would not have been able to think of saying, for the sake of my students. 

In 1980, upon discovering that the Catholic Church teaches that contraceptive means of birth control are morally wrong, I became very interested in why that is the case, because at first it struck me as terribly out of date and closed minded. I was fortunate that some of my professors did not think so and encouraged me to think about it more. I remember where I was standing in Waterloo, Ontario when the light bulb went on (Waterloo and Phillip), the moment I believe I came to see why contraception is morally problematic. From that point on, I was determined to uncover the reasons for this so that I could explain this difficult teaching to others, especially my future students. Initially, I found the explanations of many who defended Humanae Vitae to be rather unsatisfactory; I knew they would not persuade skeptics that taking the pill or wearing a condom or sterilization (for contraceptive reasons) is morally wrong, while NFP can be legitimate and morally justifiable. It was only after meeting Dr. Joseph Boyle in Toronto that I discovered what I thought was the most persuasive and logically coherent presentation on why every marital act must remain open to new life and what that meant. I worked hard to make this intelligible for my young students and taught this over the years. Their reaction was very much like their reaction to Leibniz’s modal proof of God’s existence (If MLp, then Lp, or “If the Necessary Being is possible, then the Necessary Being exists”) – some students simply did not understand it, others understood it but found it uncompelling, while a minority understood it and found it compelling. 

I am not an “all or nothing” thinker. I don’t believe that if a person gets something wrong over here in this area, then they cannot be trusted in what they say over there in that area. I do love Hans Kung, for example, especially when he writes on the Reformation, Luther, Erasmus, and Vatican II, but I have never been able to understand the issue he has with Catholic morality, specifically abortion, cohabitation, and contraception. And he’s not the only one whom I can study and enjoy in one area, but scratch my head when it comes to the difficulties they seem to have with these moral issues in particular. I’ve spent a great deal of time over the past 46 years studying the fundamentals of ethics only because I was a teacher of young adolescents, and you have to get morality right when you are teaching students of this age group. There’s only so much time in a day, and if one is devoting a great deal of time to the study of Church history, perhaps there isn’t much time left for ethics. Could that be the reason Kung and others appear to be a little off on sexual ethics? I don’t know for certain, but I wonder. 

John O’Loughlin Kennedy has written a brilliant, well-researched, and very interesting work entitled The Pope is the Curia and why it cannot listen. In it, he discusses the history surrounding Humanae Vitae, the work of the Birth Control Commission that was initiated by Pope John XXIII, not to mention a rather brilliant analysis of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. Without knowing what I know now about sexual ethics and the nature of contraception, I could easily be persuaded by his presentation that Humanae Vitae was a complete disaster and the product of clerical stubbornness. But it was as a result of studying this issue for many years that I came to believe that the Church is indeed guided by the Holy Spirit; for in my mind there is no chance a bunch of celibates in Rome could have figured this out on their own, especially when the Western world was capitulating.

In 2009, I wrote an article for my students entitled A Concise Account of Why Women are Not Ordained, and it was just that, a concise summary of the reasons for the non-ordination of women. Seventeen years later, however, after exposure to a number of rather brilliant feminist thinkers, I am less than enthusiastic about this article and would not be inclined to use it or recommend it to students. Moreover, within my eighteen years as a Deacon, I have seen more than my fair share of clerical misogyny, especially in recent years. That is why I was inclined to write Thoughts on the Influence of Old Prejudice, which began with an account of an experience I had one day that to me suggested some interesting things about the psychology of prejudice and unconscious bias. Naturally, I began to wonder whether the Church’s position on the non-ordination of women could turn out to be little more than a residue of centuries of old prejudice (misogyny) and patriarchy. But, could Kennedy’s brilliant and critical analysis of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis in this same work turn out to be similar to his historical analysis of Humanae Vitae in the sense that reason and common sense at this time would lead to one obvious conclusion, while the Holy Spirit working in and through the hierarchy lays down the contrary conclusion, despite the weakness of the hierarchy’s arguments supporting it? In other words, in my mind, one side wins the argument hands down, at least up to this point in time, namely the side that argues that the exclusion of women from Holy Orders is indefensible. Could it be the case that the Holy Spirit–who works in and through the Magisterium made up, in part, of limited and even self-centered prelates [2] scattered among a good number of genuinely holy and wise prelates–has led the Church, through that hierarchy, to the right position, despite the fact that the side arguing for the ordination of women puts forth the better arguments, while the other side scrapes for reasons that in the end come across as tortured and as durable as a thin water balloon? I’d have to say that it is indeed possible and highly plausible. If it can happen in my own individual life, how much more so in the life of the Church as a whole? 

Perhaps this is ultimately a matter of trusting that the Holy Spirit does indeed work in and through a Church made up of flawed individuals. As Eve Tushnet said in that same email correspondence to me: “In the end our faith is not founded on whether we accept the arguments we’ve heard for particular doctrines, you know? It’s founded on a personal relationship with Christ as given to us through His Bride the Church, our Mother and Teacher.”[3] And I do believe that at this time in our history, it is better not to say “trust the Church”, only because for many people that conjures up images of having to trust a bunch of men, many of whom are emotionally abusive, negligent, self-centered, sometimes haughty and incompetent. It is much better to say “trust in the Holy Spirit” that descended upon the Church at Pentecost, who is the “soul of the Church”, the “spirit of truth” (pneuma tes aletheias) and who will lead the Church to the complete truth (Jn 16, 13), certainly through our efforts but despite our dullness of intellect. 

Of course, this does not mean that Church teaching does not develop and that her current understanding of certain theological matters must remain forever unchanged. Nor does it mean that her common teaching that is not a constituent part of the deposit of faith but may pertain to it is irreversible. Much less does it mean we must resign ourselves to current ecclesial structures and practices that may stifle the Spirit (1 Th 5, 19) – structures and practices have changed throughout history and will continue to change, albeit rather slowly. And so, we still need theology to push the envelope and test certain hypotheses, for it is not always clear what does and does not belong to the deposit of faith [4]. That is why open discussion (Synodality) is utterly important–shutting it down retards the development of doctrine and only harms the Church, especially the prospects of ecumenical unity.  

But Jesus did say “I am with you always, until the end of the age” (Mt 28, 20). What does this mean if not that despite our own limitations, short sightedness, intellectual sluggishness and incompetence, somehow collectively as a body he will not allow us to be led astray on the most important issues. In this case it is not so much a matter of grace building on nature, but grace superseding nature, as it were, that is, overcoming nature if you will. The gates of hell will not prevail against it (ekklesian), he said (Mt 16, 18). How can he err in that promise? In the end, the Spirit has to win out, otherwise what good is that promise?

Notes

1. She very wisely wrote: “I personally didn’t think you quite “sealed the deal” on why a same-sex relationship can’t be a one-flesh union; or at least, if the reason for that is, “‘one-flesh union’ refers to becoming a biologically-reproductive organism,” I don’t then know why only biologically-reproductive organisms can offer one another complete love. It seems to me that we have often seen examples of deep, self-sacrificing love, e.g. during the AIDS crisis in gay communities, where there did not seem to be any love held back, if you see what I mean, among those who nursed their partners through their last days. Or their friends–sex seems neither necessary to a full gift of self, nor in some visible way deleterious to it. Service is a way of loving someone with your body, I think….But I do think it would help advance the purposes of your speech to just give a defense of obedience! Basically tell your students that it is actually ok if they and/or the people they shepherd don’t understand the reasons for specific commands, as long as they understand why the Church is worthy of our complete trust. That in itself is a big ask, esp nowadays when we all know how untrustworthy so many Catholics have been.” Eve Tushnet, email message to author, March 14, 2022.

2. Pope Francis writes: “There should be no place in the Church for a worldly mentality. The worldly mentality says: “This man took the ecclesiastical career path, he became a bishop”. No, no, in the Church there must be no place for this mindset. The episcopate is a service, not an honour to boast about. Being a bishop means keeping before one’s eyes the example of Jesus who, as the Good Shepherd, came not to be served, but to serve (cf. Mt 20:28; Mk 10:45) and to give his life for his sheep (cf. Jn 10:11). Holy bishops — and there are many in the history of the Church, many holy bishops — show us that this ministry is not sought, is not requested, is not bought, but is accepted in obedience, not in order to elevate oneself, but to lower oneself, as Jesus did who “humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8). It is sad when one sees a man who seeks this office and who does so much just to get there; and when he gets there, he does not serve, he struts around, he lives only for his own vanity.” General Audience. Wednesday, 5 November, 2014. The following year Francis wrote: “Remembering that you have been chosen from among men and constituted on their behalf to attend to the things of God, exercise the priestly ministry of Christ with joy and genuine love, with the sole intention of pleasing God and not yourselves. It is unseemly when a priest lives for his own pleasure and “struts like a peacock!” Homily of His Holiness Pope Francis. Vatican Basilica, Fourth Sunday of Easter, 26 April 2015.

3. Tushnet, email message, March 14, 2022.

4. “On January 24th Cardinal Ratzinger offered an important clarification regarding the CDF Responsum, specifying that it did not intend to say that this teaching was a part of the deposit of faith but rather that it pertained to the deposit of faith. This ambiguity resulted in part from poor English translations of the Latin”. Richard Gaillardetz. “Infallibility and the Ordination of Women”, Louvain Studies 21 (1996): 3-24.

Thoughts on the Influence of Old Prejudice

@Where Peter Is

Deacon Douglas McManaman

One day I was driving a fair distance to a York Regional Forest Trail to walk my dog and realized I’d forgotten my phone, so my only other option besides silence was to listen to AM talk radio. I tuned into a talk show about Vache Canadienne (Canadienne Cattle), and their guest was a French scientist from the University of Montreal, where I had studied theology. She spoke of a number of her French colleagues and all that they are involved in regarding the latest research on the Vache Canadienne, and of course she spoke with a strong Quebecoise accent. 

I was raised on the West Island of Montreal and studied Theology at the University of Montreal, an all French university. I love Montreal and Quebecoise culture, not to mention the accent. But as a young boy raised on the Anglophone West Island, I was exposed to a rather pervasive anti-Quebecoise prejudice, and as an ignorant and impressionable  young boy I acquired a good dose of it myself: I saw the French as dumb and somewhat backward. By the time I was an adult, married for only a few years, I like to think I was completely over this, but my priest-friend from Washington D.C., on a few occasions, expressed a certain dismay at my rather cynical remarks about the French. So it took a bit more time for me to fully appreciate the irrationality of the prejudice that took root in my childhood. I like to think I have arrived, and I do believe so. However, during this radio talk show on the Vache Canadienne, I became aware of a layer buried deep within me, like an early layer of soil underneath multiple layers formed centuries later; this was an old layer of prejudice that, when allowed to speak without the censorship of a conscious and enlightened mind, quietly suggested that these people are not really scientists in the true sense of the word, but “pretend” scientists, at best secondary scientists, trying to emulate the English ones. Now, this is a completely irrational thought which has no place in my conscious assemblage of convictions, but I was intrigued to sit back in silence and watch it spontaneously rear its ugly head. I was amazed at how enduring are the childhood prejudices picked up from the adults in one’s young life. 

Perhaps that is why many people believe we are a rather long way away from the ordination of women to the diaconate–and centuries from ordination to the priesthood. In other words, perhaps it has everything to do with ancient prejudice and that the “Roman system” is fundamentally misogynistic. Many women feel they are viewed and treated as second class–after all, they are not permitted to read the gospel at Mass, they cannot preach a homily–but can in certain circumstances give a reflection, which must however be preceded by a short homily by the priest followed by an explanation that what follows is only a reflection. Women do ministry work, but they cannot receive the sacramental graces in order to carry out that ministry as effectively as they would had they received those graces through ordination–otherwise, what does ordination and sacramental grace really mean in the end? And we typically don’t see women on the sanctuary, and all this because those in question are female. 

The best arguments put forth to preserve the status quo can indeed sound more like theological rationalizations than sound theology rooted in Scripture. For example, the Marian vs. Petrine Principles employed to keep women from Holy Orders appear to some as a theological instance of the fallacy of begging the question (the Petrine principle represents the male hierarchical/governmental aspect while the Marian principle represents the Church’s spousal, maternal, and receptive nature). Mary, who is a person, somehow became a principle; so too Peter, a person, but somehow he becomes a principle employed to necessitate a certain conclusion. Is this principle anything other than a “construct”? One woman asked some interesting questions regarding the use of this principle to keep women out of Holy Orders: “If the concept of the Petrine is used to close off authority and governance to women, what does the Marian close off to men? …Is vonBalthasar and, through its use of his theology, the hierarchy, saying that men are excluded from love and receptivity? That they may not be receptive? Is that why the Church (being male/Petrine governed) is struggling with Synodality which seems to require receptivity?”  

This is a very interesting series of questions. I am inclined to wonder that if the Marian principle has a bearing on me (a male) –not to mention every other member of the Church, cleric or otherwise–, could not the Petrine principle have a bearing on women? 

Another puzzling anomaly is that a baby is baptized and anointed with sacred chrism, anointed priest, prophet and king, and gender is entirely irrelevant–we don’t just anoint male babies priest, prophet and king, but female babies as well. A baptized woman exercises a real priesthood (the royal priesthood of the faithful), and gender is clearly not a factor. Certainly Christ is the bridegroom, and the Church is bride and mother, and yet, in the evening prayer for Thursday within the octave of Easter, the Church prays: “Almighty God, ever-living mystery of unity and Trinity, you gave life to the new Israel by birth from water and the Spirit, and made it a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a people set apart as your eternal possession. May all those you have called to walk in the splendor of the new light render you fitting service and adoration.” The entire Church is a “chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, to proclaim the virtues of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Pt 2, 9). 

Hence, the Church as a whole is a priestly people and at the same time bride and mother (female); for it is the entire congregation that offers gifts to be consecrated. The entire congregation is not simply a group of passive observers, but active agents, priests offering their gifts, their labors, their sufferings and toil, their bread and wine, placed at the foot of the altar; the ministerial priest offers it on behalf of the entire congregation, of which he too is a part. Christ receives those gifts and changes them into himself, and returns them to us as our food. The priest can be seen both as our own representative (representing the bride of Christ) and as Christ’s representative (representing the bridegroom). However, the priest may also represent Christ the mother who feeds us–providing food and drink is, in Scripture, woman’s work, and Yahweh takes on that role. As women fetch water for their families, i.e., Gn 21, 19; 24, 11; Ex 2, 16ff, etc., so too the Lord supplies water in the desert for the people, and Jesus offers us the living water (Jn 7, 37-39). Mothers feed their household, as we read in Proverbs 31, 14-15, or Genesis 18, 6; 27, 9; or 2 Sam 13, 7-10, so, Yahweh prepares manna and quail for the children of Israel,[1] and of course Jesus is the Bread of Life who feeds us.

Jesus is the new Moses (see Mt 5, 1ff), and yet Moses addresses a series of questions to the Lord: “Did I conceive all this people? Did I bring them forth, that you should say to me, “Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries the sucking child, to the land which you swore to give their fathers”? (Num 11, 12). The implications here are interesting. Yahweh was certainly a mother and nurse of the wandering children in the desert. Or consider Nehemiah 9, 21: “Forty years you sustained them in the desert, and they lacked nothing; their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell”. The Lord takes on the role of dressmaker, as we see also in Gn 3, 21. As a woman clothes her family (Proverbs 31, 21ff), so too the Lord clothes us.[2] Or consider Isaiah: “Now I will cry out like a woman in labor, I will gasp and pant”, or: “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you” (Is 49, 15). Or, “Shall I bring a mother to the point of birth, and yet not let her child be born? says the Lord. Or shall I who bring to birth yet close her womb? says your God” (Is, 66, 9). Or, “As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you. (Is, 66, 13). Christ came for the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Mt 15, 24), and in Luke he is compared to a woman searching for her lost coin: “What woman having ten coins and losing one would not light a lamp and sweep the house, searching carefully until she finds it? And when she does find it, she calls together her friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found the coin that I lost’” (Lk 15, 8-9). But for some historical reason, the ministerial priesthood, which is a sign of Christ, is reserved for males. 

Scripture scholar Phyllis Trible writes: 

Although the Old Testament often pictures Yahweh as a man, it also uses gynomorphic language for the Deity. At the same time, Israel repudiated the idea of sexuality in God. Unlike fertility gods, Yahweh is neither male nor female; neither he nor she. Consequently, modern assertions that God is masculine, even when they are qualified, are misleading and detrimental, if not altogether inaccurate. Cultural and grammatical limitations (the use of masculine pronouns for God) need not limit theological understanding. As Creator and Lord, Yahweh embraces and transcends both sexes. To translate for our immediate concern: the nature of the God of Israel defies sexism. [3] 

And so I am compelled to wonder: Could it be that those in the Church who are not misogynists have made a special effort to rise above an ancient layer of prejudice that centuries of misogyny have established? And are they few and far between? 

Concluding Thoughts

I’d certainly be a hypocrite if I were to suddenly encourage others to sow seeds of dissent among the faithful in the congregation or in the classroom, for I continue to point out to my students that teachers who sow seeds of dissent among their students are engaging in a kind of false advertising–insofar as the school advertises itself as Catholic on the one hand, and on the other hand undermines a basic trust in the teaching office of the Church. Furthermore, one reason I began reading Where Peter Is is that I became very tired of writers of Catholic journals bellyaching about Pope Francis and the cognitive dissonance he caused in others who were far too doctrinaire in their approach to Catholicism as it is, as though the Church were not a living organism that continually develops her self-understanding in light of new information, insights, and the lived experiences of the faithful. As we read in Dei Verbum, 8: “This happens through the contemplation and study made by believers, who treasure these things in their hearts through a penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities which they experience, and through the preaching of those who have received through Episcopal succession the sure gift of truth. For as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her”. 

We do owe a “loyal submission of will and intellect”, even when it comes to common teaching. But common doctrine is not irreversible, unlike statements of faith,[4] and some great theologians have argued rather persuasively that this issue is not at all closed to discussion and debate.[5] Most importantly, students, the vast majority in fact, are less and less persuaded by the standard arguments that exclude women from Holy Orders, and our task as teachers is to welcome their doubts, questions and opposing arguments, to listen to them carefully, and acknowledge their brilliance when they are indeed brilliant–not to mention put forth by women who are clearly smarter than we are, such as Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse, Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, Elisabeth Behr-Sigel, and others.[6] Perhaps the theological situation we are in with respect to the issue of the ordination of women is comparable to the basic theological argument found in Humanae Vitae, which was not strong enough to convince the average couple about to be married in the Church that closing the marital act to new life is to be avoided–thank goodness for thinkers like Germain Grisez, Joseph Boyle, John Finnis, and William May, who put forth a far more convincing and persuasive analysis of why doing so is morally problematic.[7] In other words, perhaps a much better series of arguments explaining the reasonableness for the non-ordination of women is just around the corner.

Or, perhaps not. Perhaps this is nothing more than a case of rationalizing the tolerance of a practice that is in the end indefensible, as was the Church’s centuries long tolerance of slavery and the death penalty. Regardless, a synodal Church is a listening Church, and listening to challenging objections from our students makes teaching all the more exciting–except for those brought up on an old and outdated pedagogical model that refuses to encourage critical insight, opposition, and push back.

Notes

1. Phyllis Trible. “Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation”, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Mar., 1973, Vol. 41, No. 1, Mar., 1973, pp. 31-35. 

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid., p. 34

4. See “The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised”. International Theological Commission. Section 34. 2007. <https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html#*&gt;

5. Richard Gaillardetz writes: “It is my contention that appeals to the infallibility of the ordinary universal magisterium are ill-suited for resolving controversial matters related to the Christian faith precisely because of the inevitable ambiguities involved in verifying the fulfillment of the conditions for the exercise of the ordinary universal magisterium as outlined in Lumen gentium # 25.2. Given these ambiguities, it should not be surprising that even after the publication of the CDF Responsum questions linger regarding both the assertion that this teaching belongs to the deposit of faith (particularly in the light of the study of the Pontifical Biblical Commission) and the assertion that it has been infallibly taught as such in the unanimous teaching of the college of bishops. Given the gravity of the matter (the determination that this teaching is a dogma of faith) theologians would appear to be within their bounds to look for a clear substantiation of these assertions. It may be appropriate at this point to recall the canonical principle cited at the beginning of this article: “no doctrine is understood to be infallibly defined unless it is clearly established as such.” I infer from this canon that the burden lies with the ecclesiastical magisterium, not only to assert that the church’s teaching on the exclusion of women from the priesthood has been taught infallibly by the ordinary universal magisterium but to “clearly establish” that fact. The questions which I have raised in this article suggest that the claims of the CDF, at this date, have not been “clearly established.” Richard R. Gaillardetz, “Infallibility and the Ordination of Women”. Louvain Studies 21 (1996): 3-24.

6. See Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse. “Patriarchy and the Ordination of Women”. Towards a New Theology of Ordination: Essays on the Ordination of Women, ed. by Marianne H. Micks and Charles P. Price, Virginia Theological Seminary, Greeno, Hadden &Company Ltd. Somerville, Mass., 1976, pp.71-89. <https://womenpriests.org/articles-books/barnhou2-patriarchy-and-the-ordination-of-women/>. See also Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse, “Is Patriarchy Obsolete?” in Male and Female: Christian Approaches to Sexuality, New York: Seabury Press, pp. 223-235, and her article entitled, “On the Difference Between Men and Women”, Ibid., pp. 3-13. 

7. See Germain Grisez, Joseph Boyle, John Finnis, William E. May. “Every Marital Act Ought to be Open to New Life”: Toward a Clearer Understanding. The Thomist: The Catholic University of America Press. Volume 52, Number 3, July 1988, pp. 365-426.