 |
 |
 |
|
|
|---|
|
by Elizabeth Carrol R.S.M.
From Theological Studies 36 (1975) pp. 660 -
687
Republished on our website with the necessary permissions
The Women’s Movement constitutes a call of the Church
to profound renewal in its ministry, a renewal which broadly affects the
structures of the Church and asks for a deep conversion in persons.
Before Vatican II, Catholics who thought
“Church” thought hierarchy. This emphasis had placed laymen and all
women, so far as social expression of Church was concerned, in a passive
stance, dependent upon the initiatives and continuing directives of the
clerical order. Movements resulting from lay persons’ dynamic relationship
with God in prayer and reflection on daily experience were deflected into roles
and limited by rules which expressed the perceptions of a totally male
hierarchy and sense of ministry. Vatican II stirred hearts by its insights,
steeped in biblical tradition’ into the nature of the Church. The Church
is mystery, is a sacrament of union with God and of unity of persons, is people
related to God through Christ, (1) is ever anew responding in the Spirit to the
signs of the times. from(2)
Women in particular resonated with this benching,
experiencing a sense of being Church in a dimension which was new to them. The
earlier emphasis on roles which had separated women from the Church as
hierarchy gave way before the Council’s teaching on “the exalted
dignity proper to the human person.” “The rights and duties” of
the person “are universal and inviolable.” These include “the
right to choose a state of life freely . . . the right to education . . . to a
good reputation . . . to activity in accord with the upright norm of one’s
own conscience ....(3) The call to end discrimination by reason of sex.(4)
indicated that woman was to be included in the full dignity to he accorded the
person.
These teachings, together with the whole cultural movement
towards a fairer valuation of woman, (5) awakened in women a new consciousness
of their potential. As they grew in self-respect, they experienced a new sense
of responsibility as Church. Many women felt called to the Scriptures, where
“the Father who is in heaven meets His children with great love and speaks
with them.”(6) With new eyes they found in the Gospels evidence which
challenged their previous mind-sets. They noted that Jesus had broken through
all the categories and taboos at His times to reveal what respect He had for
women, what expectations He placed upon them. With awe, yet with courage drawn
from His promptings, many women experienced an urgency to render the
institutional Church more revelatory of its redeeming Lord, more responsive to
peoples’ needs.
Though the Council spoke of “a variety of
ministries”(7) and stated that all believers share in the mission of
Christ,(8) the ministers recognized in the documents were primarily bishops,
then priests and deacons. These ministers, organized hierarchically, were set
apart from the rest of the Church by a graded participation in holy orders.(9)
Some women felt a call to this life of orders. But for most women, the pressure
was that of the vision which had been clearly set forth: the Church of witness,
of community, of ministry.(l0) They were conscious of needs, of the aspirations
of people for a better life, a more human self-understanding, a deeper
relationship with God and with one another. People were there to be served.
When the whole Church did not move decisively in these directions those women
whose consciousness had been raised tended to make decisive choices: either
they departed the Church, surrendered to apathy, or, confident in the Spirit,
they deepened their experience of the Word, particularly as found in the
Gospels. Here these latter found the essential insights on ministry.
This paper will attempt to chronicle this odyssey, to
explicate (1) Jesus’ revelation about ministry, his assimilation of women
into that ministry: gospel; (2) the forces within the early Church and
subsequent history which seem to have been at work in diminishing the
participation of women in ministry: tradition; (3) the dynamic of the
contemporary women’s movement as it may affect ministry: hope.
GOSPEL
The gospel of Jesus is word and deed. Luke portrays for us
Jesus, filled with the Spirit, announcing his program of ministry in the
passage from Is 61:1-2 which is fulfilled in him:
The Spirit of’ the Lord is upon me.
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor,
to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind
He has sent me to set at liberty those who are
oppressed,
to proclaim the acceptable year of the
Lord.(11)
The Evangelists, Luke in quite a literal way, present Jesus
fulfilling that program among the poor, the sick, outcasts, and women. Wherever
there is need or prejudice, Jesus breaks through categories, rejects taboos,
declares himself “Lord of the Sabbath,” and offers freedom of spirit
as the weapon against oppressive roles and limiting roles.(12) Repeatedly Jesus
empowers the weak and patiently points out to his disciples that his (and
their) mission is not to be greater than others but to serve them.(13)
The key to the ministry of Jesus appears succinctly toward
the end of Mark’s “Way Passage,”(14) where Jesus says: “For
the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as
a ransom for many.”(15) On the Way, women as well as the Twelve
accompanied Jesus, going with him that eventful journey from Galilee to
Jerusalem.(16) The verb diakonein “to serve,” appears
infrequently in the Gospels.(17) Nevertheless, it is a very important term, for
Jesus uses it to characterize and identify his mission and what he expects of
his followers.(18) The contexts in which this verb appears and its restricted
use are especially significant. It describes the criterion to be used at the
Last Judgment and expresses Jesus’ reason for coming;(19) in the course of
Jesus’ life he serves or ministers to many people. But besides Jesus, only
angels and women are listed as the subject of this verb, and only angels and
women are “ministers” to Jesus himself.(20) Jesus asked for and
accepted services in public from women; this was unorthodox for a Jewish man in
his day,(21)
Ministry as discipleship. To be a disciple was to
learn from Jesus, to absorb his teachings into a life pattern, and to teach
them to others. Women were surely among the disciples of Jesus. Mary the mother
of Jesus is described by Luke as one who “heard the word of God and kept
it.”(22) Witness also Mary of Bethany, who “sat at the Lord’s
feet and listened to his teaching.”(23) Mary won approval from Jesus in
the act of repudiating a “Women’s role” and appearing to Martha
to violate a rule of hospitality. Martha too must be counted a disciple of the
Lord; for she shared with him his precious dialogue on the resurrection of the
dead and made her declaration of faith: “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are
the Christ, the Son of God.(24) .... To Mary she communicated the message
“The Teacher is here.(25)
Just as Mary of Bethany broke womanly tradition to join
herself as a disciple to Jesus, even more did the woman from Samaria violate
conventions (and Jesus with her), speaking to and learning, in a public place,
from a Jewish man.26 This Samaritan woman, autonomous and rational, drew Jesus
and was drawn by him into an ever deeper conversation. He taught her of the
gift of inner life which he brought, led her to a state of conversion, and
declared himself the Messiah. And the woman proclaimed him: “Many
Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s
testimony.”27 Some of the most important elements of Jesus’
self-revelation were spoken in these discourses with women: the resurrection
(to Martha), the life of grace (to the Samaritan).
Women are represented not only as hearing but as
remembering the Lord’s words. Lk 2:52 tells us this of Mary who “kept
all these things in her heart.” Of the message at the tomb it is recorded
of the women that ‘’they remembered his words.’(28) Jesus gives
no hint of a repudiation of women as unable to hear or understand or remember
his word. He testified to the discipleship of his own other when he
complemented her role of physical motherhood, elevating and universalizing her
relationship as among those who “hear the word of God and do it.”(29)
The great lesson of discipleship was the Cross: “If
any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and
follow me.”(30) How graphic must have been this Gospel challenge to the
women after they had succored Jesus along the Way of the Cross! Even in these
terrible straits he had responded to their sympathy and anguish by teaching
them, preparing them for the days when their discipleship would be tested.(31)
In fact, the response of the women who accepted the invitation to follow Jesus,
to be with him on the Way and in his sufferings, is the one point of relief
from the otherwise consistent emphasis in the Gospels on failure in
discipleship.
Ministry as witness. The early Church verbalized a
criterion for witness of Jesus: those “who have accompanied him during all
the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us....”(32) Women
fulfilled this requirement, for they accompanied Jesus and his disciples on
that decisive last journey from Galilee to Jerusalem.(33) “He journeyed
through towns and villages preaching and proclaiming the good news of the
kingdom of God. The Twelve accompanied him, and also some women,” Mary
Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna, and many others.(34) There is no evidence in the
Gospels that any one of these women faltered when the apostles failed Jesus. It
is among the Twelve, chosen personally by Jesus (men, to symbolize the New
Israel as representative of the Twelve Tribes(35), that we find those who
deserted, denied, betrayed him. According to the fourth Gospel, the women with
the Beloved Disciple stood firm, witnessing the crucifixion.(36) Women watched
Jesus’ burial.(37) Women were singled out as the first witnesses to the
Resurrection,(38) the first to whom the risen Lord appeared. It is amazing that
the Gospels (written when the attitude toward women in the early Christian
community was already tightening) recorded these facts. The story of
Jesus’ choice of women, told by all four Evangelists, accentuates the
apostles’ disbelief, even as it reinforces Jesus’ habit of
disregarding a limiting tradition (the Jewish nonacceptance of women as
witnesses).(39)
Ministry as apostleship. During the lifetime of
Jesus the term “apostle” seems not to have been used. It came into
use only alter the resurrection of Jesus, particularly through the influence of
Paul. The Twelve were then called apostles, “those sent.” But others
besides the Twelve were also called apostles.(40) Paul applied the term not
only to himself and many other men, but perhaps even to a woman.(41) The
Samaritan woman, one of the earliest persons recorded by John as receiving an
important revelation from Jesus, became a self-appointed apostle, with her work
blessed by the Lord.(42) Certainly women were sent on the most important
mission of all: they were commissioned by Jesus to “Go and tell my
brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me (43)
Ministry as service. Jesus accepted from women the
kind of service which the Church has continually recognized as fitting for
women to give: the ministry of providing for bodily needs in the form of food
and those ameliorations of environment which make living more human. Certain
women, we are told, “used to follow him and look after him...,”
assisting him and his followers out of their own resources.(44) Jesus not only
accepted this service from women but performed miraculous cures which enabled
women to serve him. He healed the mother-inlaw of Peter, who then “got up
at once and began to wait on him.”(45) Of the women who provided for Jesus
Luke remarks: they “had been healed of evil spirits and
infirmities.”(46)
Ministry as receiving Jesus’ power and becoming
instruments of the Spirit. Women attracted the power of Jesus in
cures,"(47) in being raised from the dead,(48) and in forgiveness of sins.(49)
The woman with a hemorrhage drew power from Jesus apparently without his
consciously willing it.(50) At Cana, Mary the mother of Jesus was an instrument
of Jesus’ clarification for us of his power, even to the point of
anticipating his “hour” of glorification.(51) In periods relating to
crucial events in Jesus’ life, women were the recipients of heavenly
messages empowering them: Mary at the Annunciation, to bring forth Jesus;
Magdalene and the women at the empty tomb, to proclaim the risen Lord.(52)
Women also are represented as receiving the Spirit of Jesus directly, most
notably Mary his mother,(53) but also Elizabeth.(54) Women were present at the
Pentecostal effusion of the Spirit.(55)
Ministry as offering intercessory prayer and worship.
In Matthew’s Gospel many people “came to Jesus,” some to
test him, some to ask a favor for themselves or others, some to offer Jesus the
respect and honor he deserves. Women are never numbered among those who test
Jesus, but, perceiving his real identity, they come to Jesus to make
intercession or to offer him praise and adoration. The prayerful message of
Martha and Mary evoked a favorable response from Jesus when he raised Lazarus
from the dead.(56) Jesus yielded to the persevering, humble prayer of even a
non-Jewish woman, a Canaanite,(57) who desired to feed from the crumbs. In the
parable of the unjust judge, Jesus chose a woman as a model for perseverance in
prayer.(58)
The proclivity of women to worship is graphically presented
in the confessions of Martha and Mary(59) and in the public praise of him by
the
woman crippled for eighteen years.(60) Presence with him at
his sacrifice on the cross, reverence for his body,(61) were so important that
they took precedence over all the fears which the women must have had. The
watchful presence of the women and Beloved Disciple at the cross is symbolized
in the celebration of the sacraments by the accepting Church.(62) Women who
greeted and worshiped the risen Lord responded in faith to this new form of
Presence among them. They gave immediate “obedience of faith”(63) by
bearing their Good News to the incredulous disciples.
Ministry as predictions of the future sacraments. In
explaining why Jesus is happy to associate with sinners, Luke presents him
teaching three parables. Between the parable of the lost sheep 64 and that of
the prodigal (65) he inserts one on the woman searching for and rejoicing in
the recovery of a small coin.(66) The mercy of God is allegorized through the
activity of women as well as of men. Women as well as men are encouraged to
seek out and promote the conversion of sinners. These figures of God’s
mercy prepare the way for the sacraments of baptism and penance. The Gospels
also present women as ministers of unction.(67) Mary won Jesus’ acclaim
for having at great expense anointed his body before he died.(68) After
Jesus’ death, it was the women who were preoccupied to purchase spices and
go to the tomb to anoint him.(69) This association of anointing with preparing
the body for death and for burial may well have influenced the rite of the
Anointing ot the Sick.
The peak of sacramental ministry inheres in the offering of
the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Theological manuals used to teach that the priest
“confects the body and blood of Jesus.” The question was seriously
asked, and answered negatively, whether woman can perform such a function.(70)
If the Spirit utilized the female powers ot Mary’s body to incarnate the
Son of God, the Church may well recognize His will to use other female powers,
for example in orders, to symbolize that incarnation.
The Eucharist celebrates the entire paschal mystery and
re-presents the mission of’ .Jesus. Related to his mission at each step
was the participation of a believing community. Jesus’ ministry as a call
to discipleship presented models for the sacramental life of the Church. Those
partaking with Jesus at the Last Supper’ the women and the Beloved
Disciple at the cross, and the women after the Resurrection offered that
presence, memory, loving faith. and service which are integral to the
Eucharist.(71)
The various forms of ministry performed by women may seem
dimly related to the ordered functions of preaching, teaching, administering
the sacraments, and organizing the community of followers of’Jesus until
we remember that these forms were inchoate also in terms of’ male
disciples and even the Twelve.(72)
In the post-Resurrection period women equally with men
received the charisms of the Holy Spirit.(73) Paul’s insistence that
Gentiles need not be circumcised before embracing Christianity opened to women
the possibility of baptism and full membership in the Church. Doctrinally and
in appreciate the equal status of women with men in Christ. But the pressures
brought to bear against this equality must have been overwhelming, especially
as regards the difficult Corinthians. Clearly, women were early represented
among the prophesiers.(75) Their homes may well have served as churches.(76)
Widows constituted a special group, as in Judaism, as the
recipients of’ food and social services. The fact that these widows later
became an established order in the Church indicates that they may well have
performed individual ministry in gathering the community together,
communicating the message of the risen Lord, praying, and prophesying.(77)
Chronologically, the first reference to any term later applied to order in the
Church is that of “deacon,” used for Phoebe, a woman deeply respected
by Paul. He urges the Christian community to receive her and help her in every
way possible because of’ the role of’ leadership she has exercised in
the Church. Whatever the “deacon” meant in Paul’s lifetime, the
same Greek term is used for men and women.(78) The Pastorals witness to an
organization of widows and the continuance of’ woman as deacons.(79) By
the third century the Didascalia indicated that bishops, presbyters,
deacons, and deaconesses had clerical office, while widows and virgins were
recognized as of’ nonclerical status.(80) When minor orders were
enumerated in the Apostolic Constitutions, that of deaconess was
included. It seems apparent that women played an immense and irreplaceable role
. . . in the growth of the early Church. “(81)
The evidence of women in roles of discipleship, witness,
apostleship, serving, being empowered, worship, and symbolic actions cuts
across the tradition presented by all four Gospels. Jesus’ ministry to and
acceptance of women must have been a very important part of the gospel,
preserved even “against the grain” of the Jewish and later the
Gnostic influences that tended to reduce Jesus’ startling freedom with
women. The presentation of this material suggests that it was such an integral
part of the Gospel tradition that it could not be rejected or weakened. As is
said of the woman who anointed Jesus, “whenever this gospel is preached in
the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”(82) The
Gospels talk about the words and works not only of Jesus but of women as well.
TRADITION
“Venerable tradition”(83) has been proffered as
the reason for excluding women from official ministry, even of a lay
character.(84) Such tradition is not static. Its validity may be measured by
such characteristics as the following: whether it ( 1) derives from the example
of Jesus, (2) is constant, (3) is revelatory of sound doctrine, (4) cannot be
changed. When the women’s issue is studied in the light of these
questions, a firmer basis for the influence of tradition on women’s
ministries may be achieved.
Example of Jesus
The exclusion of women from ministry does not derive from
the example of Jesus. There is one saying of Jesus which is most consistently
quoted in the Gospels and the writings of Paul: the “great
commandment” or the “love command.” Both Paul and the
Evangelists attempt to show the growth and development of the early Church as
evidence of the Christian community’s effort to interpret the love
command. Fidelity to this command provided the criterion for resolving new
disputes as the Church confronted new issues.(85)
Paul demonstrated a prophetic understanding of the role of
this mandate when he challenged Peter and the other Jewish Christian
authorities for their refusal to allow the Gentiles free entrance into the
Church.(8ó) Paul chastises Peter for submitting to convention and thus
failing to apply the lesson of Jesus’ central teaching.(87) This
confrontation and its settlement emphasized the love command as the absolute
criterion for settling disputes in the Christian Church. As such, it presents a
meaningful model for resolving the question of the role of women in the Church,
both as to ways of proceeding and as to content.
No mention is made in the New Testament of any dispute
over the baptism of women. But if the narrower view had prevailed and
circumcision of the foreskin of males had been made a prerequisite for baptism,
women would have been denied Christian baptism. It is interesting that the
great Pauline doctrinal proclamation of equality is thought to be part of a
baptismal formula:(88) “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither
slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ
Jesus.”(89)
The exclusion of women had its origin, however, early in
Christian history when the young Church was unable to continue the radicalism
of Jesus’ position against the ingrained customs of society.(90) The
Gospels hint that the male followers of Jesus had difficulty in understanding
and assimilating Jesus’ concept of women.(91) Consideration of the depth
and extent of antifeminism in the Jewish world of the first century A.D.(92)
causes the “remembering” (inclusion in the writings which became the
New Testament) of the respectful, nonpatronizing attitude of Jesus toward women
to be a miracle in itself—a testimony to biblical inspiration. Jesus’
approach to woman as person is to be distinguished from both streams of thought
about women apparent in the Old Testament, that of the accursed temptress and
that of the embodiment of heavenly wisdom.(93) To some extent in St. Paul and
certainly in the Pastorals, Jesus’ attitude toward women was being
submerged.(94) A critical turning point in the history of the Church was in
process.
Although Paul taught clearly that Christ’s redemptive
acts broke into history and destroyed the effects of the sin of Adam, his
writings reflect an awareness that these effects still dominated society.(95)
Accordingly, comments ascribed to him on the text of Genesis 1, where male and
female are declared, as humankind, to be the image and likeness ot God, are
ambiguous. Is the passage which claims that man “is the image and glory of
God; but woman is the glory of man.... Neither was man created for woman, but
woman for man”(96) an ironic repetition of the argumentation of
Paul’s times? In the next verses Paul stresses the interdependence of man
and woman.(97) Christian tradition, however, did not see this dictum as irony
(if it was) but allowed it to deflect from or deter efforts to realize the
ideal of Gal 3:27-28. So also, the injunction that “the women should keep
silence in the churches”(98) is in contradiction to his testimony to women
as prophesiers and coworkers with him.(99) The Pauline community later
registered doubts about Paul’s Christological vision for all humankind and
the freedom of women in ministry which he had promoted. The first letter to
Timothy(100) contradicts Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians 11:7-10 in
attributing sin solely to Eve and thus missing the point of Paul’s
theology: “Sin entered the world through one man" (Adam-humankind) whose
countertype is Christ, the savior of all humankind.(101) This letter also
indicates that woman is to be saved by childbearing (by the fulfillment of her
curse), not by baptism.(102) The letters to Titus and to Timothy make no
mention of prophecy (testified to as an office of women in Acts and
Corinthians),(103) but rather forbid women to teach(104) and restrict widows
and deaconesses to the totally private functions common in Jewish society in
the first century A.D.(105)
Unfortunately, such positions were put forward at the
period when the Church was organizing, beginning to institutionalize its
ministry.( 106) The exclusion of women which had been so marked in Hellenistic
Jewish religion therefore affected Christian patterns decisively(107)
The ministry of women through the ages developed under the
shadow of sexual bias in society reinforced by the institutionalization in the
first and second centuries of an all-male hierarchical priesthood. This shadow
blighted the development of a tradition of equality of sexes as achieved
through baptism.
Inconstancy of the Tradition
The tradition of the exclusion of women from official
ministry in the Church is not constant. It is not constant because at root
there are two traditions: that of Jesus and the earliest Church, which had some
partial echoes in history, and that of the institutionalizing period ot the
Church (about 60 to 100 A.D.), which limited women in ministry and excluded
them from priesthood. In the first tradition is Phoebe, revered by Paul as
coworker and prostasis (one who has authority, who rules) in the Church.
This tradition is partially continued in the diaconate of women. It is revived
in the Middle Ages in the attribution of powers of episcopal jurisdiction to
certain abbesses. But most ecclesiastical practice has followed the second
tradition. The Church has been unable to incorporate women into its government
structures.
A strong constant in ecclesiastical structures has been the
need to separate the sexes, modified by the responsibility the Church assumed
to provide “care of souls.” Strongly affecting that constant and
affected by it is the presumed inferiority of women. It was segregation of
sexes and the need to care for women in ways which would not threaten the
purity of priests which led to the development of orders of widows and
deaconesses, widows dominantly in the Western Church, deaconesses in the
Eastern. The widows, (108) gathered at first as recipients of the Church’s
bounty, grew in importance from apostolic times through the third century as
the Church’s chief representatives into the world of women: teaching,
nursing, praying, providing works of charity.(109) Though within the limits
specified the widows exercised a ministry broad and useful, honored by the
Church, they had no part in the sacramental system, no influence upon the total
structure or policies of the Church, and depended for their livelihood upon the
charitable contributions of the faithful as dispensed by the clerics.
In the Eastern Church segregation of women extended even
to the sacramental system. Therefore deaconesses,(110) besides undertaking a
ministry to women like that of the widows in the west, were also deliberately
incorporated into the clerical rank alongside the deacon to assist with
ministry to women. The deaconesses were chosen and ordained by the bishop with
imposition of hands, and prayer invoking the Holy Spirit for grace to discharge
the office properly. Their main liturgical function was assisting at the
baptism of women, though they also distributed Communion to women and children,
administered extreme unction to women, and performed auxiliary tasks at the
Eucharist. Their service was directed always to women, instructing them for
baptism, providing spiritual guidance, visiting the sick, nursing, acting as
their advocate and companion in approaching the bishop or deacon.(l1l) Like the
widows, the deaconesses were obviously a response to the social segregation of
the sexes.
That the deaconesses were not to be given any assignment
which gave them authority outranking man (112) is a manifestation of male
superiority not quite in the spirit of Christ; that they were not to function
at the altar
during the consecration of the Eucharist(113) may well
have been a continuation of the Old Testament menstrual taboo(114) Nonetheless,
from the third to the sixth centuries women played a vital role in the
extensive and intensive missionary and charitable activity of the Church; some
(deaconesses) served within the ordained clergy.
The ascetical ethos which elevated chastity as the
Christian priority began to assume structural forms in the third century. The
‘companies of virgins,"(115) begun as a positive response to the gospel
call to virginal discipleship of Christ, interacted with and finally absorbed
the orders of widows and deaconesses, giving promise of fruitful patterns of
clerical and nonclerical service.
The persistent tradition of woman as temptress was,
however, given new life, accompanied by the myth that man, though powerful
against the devil, was powerless before a woman. (116) As celibacy became a
more pronounced ideal for the clergy, (117) the easy solution was to banish
women from their companionship and even their sight. Separation from the world
became not only a spiritual and psychological self-perception; it was
materialized into a habit, wall and enclosure. (118) Theoretically, all
channels to active ministry were closed to women. Yet the medieval ruralism
provided even for cloistered nuns opportunities for social and religious
influences. Some abbesses, continuing the tradition of deaconesses, exercised
ecclesiastical as well as manorial jurisdiction of towns and parishes. (119) As
the cloister became less common for men religious, it was formally imposed on
all women wishing officially to serve the church.
With the rise of’ cities, the functions which
monasteries had performed for people on their own estates became irrelevant.
Yet new structures to allow women to make a contribution as Church of social
and spiritual assistance were frustrated.(120) During the Renaissance, women
tried to respond in forms like the Oratory of Divine Love. where men and women
devoted themselves to the appallingly bad social conditions of Italy.(121)
Despite the needs of society and the good work accomplished by women, the
Council of Trent reiterated the imposition of cloister Upon all women who
wished to serve the Church.(122)
The long struggle of women in the Church from the
seventeenth to the nineteenth century for greater opportunities for service
eventuated in the recognition within canon law of’ “active”
congregations of’ women religious—still, however, dominated by a
cloistral mentality.(123) Their position in the Church never rose above that of
“widows,” did not even attain the ecclesiastical importance of
deaconesses. The opportunity for higher ecclesiastical studies was closed to
women.(124) All theology and canon law have been solely male in source and
outlook. Official documents since Vatican II have reiterated the exclusion of
woman from ministry or assigned them an inferior place within it.(125) It is
this second tradition that is becoming untenable. Events, including concern for
human rights and for the fullest implementation of justice as part of the love
command, call for a re-examination of the first tradition.
Sound Doctrine
The tradition of the exclusion of women from official
ministry in the Church does not rest upon sound doctrine. This structure of the
subordination of women and their exclusion from the active ministry of’
the Church flourished upon a substructure of scriptural commentaries and
canonical legislation(126) which helped the men of the Church to justify their
exclusivism and the women of the Church to interiorize their inferiority.
Though certainly no one today would teach as sound, unchanging doctrine views
such as these of Thomas Aquinas (admittedly taken out of’ context), they
do represent a chain of’ commentary which has persisted through the ages
and is therefore bound to influence attitudes, even unconsciously.
[Woman is] something deficient or accidental. For the
active power of the male intends to produce a perfect likeness of itself with
male sex. If a female is conceived, this is due to lack of strength in the
active power, to a defect in the mother, or to some external influence like
that of a humid wind from the South(127)
Nature has given men more intelligence.(128)
The reason why women are in a subordinate and not a
commanding position is because they lack sufficient reason which a leader above
all needs.(129)
It was necessary for woman to be made. as the Scripture
says, not as a helpmate in other works than generation, as some say. since man
can be more efficiently helped by another man in other works, but as a helper
in the work of generation.(130)
. . . since it is not possible in the female sex to signify
eminence of degree. for a woman is in the state of subjection, it follows that
she cannot receive the sacrament ot orders.(131)
Contemporary women are reminded of’the thought of
Duns Scotus: “The Church would not presume to deprive the entire female
sex, without any guilt on its part, of’ an act which might licitly pertain
to it [Scotus is speaking of ordination], being directed toward the salvation
of women
and of others in the Church through her. For this would be
an extreme injustice, not only toward the whole Church but also toward specific
persons."(132) So huge is the injustice that Duns Scotus cannot conceive of the
Church being responsible for it. He traces its source to the inscrutable will
of Christ. The solution of an unjust God is unacceptable as a doctrinal basis
for the continued exclusion of women from official ministry.
Tradition Not Unchangeable
The tradition of the exclusion of woman from ministry is
not unchangeable. It is response to the world and its antifeminine culture that
caused the Church to delimit the role of woman from what it had been with Jesus
and in the earliest Church. It is response to the world and the cultural
aspirations of personhood, equality, and feminism which should lead the Church
to reconnect its tradition with its earliest sources.
The Church cannot be taken seriously as being “in the
modern world” unless it takes the aspirations of women seriously. Vatican
II (unintentionally indeed) forced on the Catholic mind the issue of
transformational reform, discontinuity(133) The Church must examine sinfulness
and grace in its own structures as well as in persons and worldly society.(134)
HOPE
The women’s movement affords a providential
opportunity for the Church to move into a better confrontation with the gospel
concerning both women and ministry. The fundamental dynamic of the movement in
its Christian aspects stresses personhood as a value for women and men, and
envisages structures respectful of persons(135) It thus seems consonant with
God’s design in creating humankind, male and female, “in the image
and likeness of God.” It affords our Church the opportunity to become
“a clearer revelation of Christ” by imitating Jesus in cutting
through societal role fixations and dealing with persons, male and female, as
real and gifted human beings. Pope Paul has said: “In the contemporary
effort to promote ‘the advancement of women’ the Church has already
recognized a ‘sign of the times’ and has seen in it a call of the
Spirit.(136)
Call of Women to Personhood
The women’s movement calls woman to define herself as
a human person, equal in capacity, in aspiration, and in sinfulness with men.
Modern women reject definition of themselves by role and are unwilling to have
their physiological differences from men serve to express their total reality
or to limit it arbitrarily. Aware of the potential for diverse human
development which they share with men, they see their sexuality as a gift but
do not accept the role limitations of “the feminine” imposed upon
them by Church and society. Created, equally with men, as image of God, to
exercise creative intellect, freedom of choice, and affectivity in a wide
variety of roles, they think of themselves as autonomous,(137) not merely
relational. As autonomous, they strive to build honest relationships and to
fulfil vocational roles as free persons.
Contemporary Catholic women have felt impelled by the
Spirit to respond to human needs, not only in the personal expression of prayer
or in other interpersonal spheres of immediate care and concern, but in the
public domain. They seek to be sharers of interpersonal grace and channels of
societal grace, whether this grace is shown forth in ecclesiastical or in
secular forms.
Women are actually serving as associate pastors, members of
pastoral teams, and even as administrators of parishes. In many parishes they
act as directors of religious education, conducting much of the preparation of
adults as well as children for the sacraments. Many undertake programs for the
elderly which include community organizing, personal counseling, prayer, and
liturgical participation. As extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, many
women bring the Sacrament to the aging and bedridden. Hospital chaplaincies and
campus ministries include and are often headed by women. The preaching of
retreats, work with the Christian Family Movement, Cursillos, Marriage
Encounter groups, teen-age organizations, and charismatic prayer groups engage
the skills of many women. Hispanic women and black women offer general and
specialized ministry to their people. Some women, particularly in campus
ministry, preach homilies, distribute Holy Communion, arrange and participate
in communal penance services, prepare students for marriage, teach inquiry
classes. plan liturgies, do private and group counseling.
With the same motivation of ministry, other women are
studying and seeking to change the political, economic, and social structures
which anonymously and pervasively cause great poverty and alienation. They
undertake advocacy roles for the poor, for prisoners, for the dependent and
helpless. Whether through Catholic Charities or in a federal or state office or
staff position or in a public interest capacity, women undertake to put into
practice the goals of the Call to Action of Pope Paul and the Synod of
1971 (138)
Through the demands of such ministries women become aware
of their personal needs and weaknesses, out of which, if they are able to be
faithful, they must grow. In a less artificial setting than formerly
characterized women, they find in openness to pain and struggle an access to
the grace of the Spirit which alone makes ministry effective.
Call of Men to Personhood
The women’s movement looks upon men as victims of
role distortion equally destructive to them as to women.(139) The masculine
image sets priority upon being in control, dominating, winning. The economic
system asks men that they be single-mindedly competitive and profitoriented.
They are expected to be the all-successful providers for wife and family, with
work as their justification for living. Such roles must be questioned. Men in
ministry will ask whether the roles established for them in the Church are
derived from social custom or from the gospel.
The women’s movement calls men to accept their
sexuality,140 to deal with it in ways which do not entail the exclusion or
belittlement of women. It asks them to deal honestly with women as human beings
with the same human range of hopes and fears, capabilities and defects,
sensitivities and goals as they have. Whereas in women the imaging of God in
freedom and intellectual development has often been hindered, in men it is the
affective which society tends to crush. Sensitivity to the feelings and needs
of others must be seen as neither male nor female, but as human. Intuitional as
well as rational forms of intellectual process must be respected.
Call of Women and Men to New Relationships
The appeal of the women’s movement to Christians is
the hope it holds forth of translating into concrete experience Jesus’
command to human beings to love one another.
When relationships between men and women are not truly
mutual, relationships among women as well as those among men are distorted. If
men are cast in a role which expects of them that they “put down”
women face to face or among their male friends, their respect for themselves
and for each other is bound to be diminished. If they feel they can only praise
women for performing in ways that are essentially subservient or anonymous,
then women’s attitudes toward one another will be negatively affected and
men may base their self-respect on a false superiority.
The consequences of this lack of genuine mutuality in
male-female relations are not insignificant. Distortions in relationships bring
about distorted personalities. Women become deviously submissive or hostile in
a desperate effort to survive psychically. Men become insensitive, even violent
in their modes of self-expression.
Because women suffer from an all-pervasive domination by
men, they have learned to retrieve some sense of mastery by manipulating men.
Manipulation is nondevelopmental for the one who practices it and the one on
whom it is practiced. If Christian values (and the ideals of the women’s
movement) are to inform male-female relations, both the need to manipulate and
the act of manipulation must be overcome. Otherwise man and woman are treating
each other as things.
The alternative for both man and woman is the cultivation
of a basic reverence, an approach to each other in mutual honesty and trust.
There seems no reason why men and women who are mature in their sexuality,
faithful to the commitments they have made, should not enter into relationships
of deep friendship and build support groups for one another. This would seem to
be a natural step to the ideal of community which Jesus preached and lived.
Mutuality of spiritual direction could be immensely helpful in promoting the
wholeness of both men and women.
Such mature honest, developmental relationships are
indispensable if real co-operation in the ministry is to be attained. Women
must be accepted as working with others for the promotion of the
kingdom, not working for men. ‘The call of the women’s
movement, then, which at least in this regard coincides with Jesus’ call
to love and to community, urges women and men so to assimilate their sexuality
that they can look upon one another as persons, partners in the divine
enterprise ot promoting charity.
Call of Church to Structural Reform in Ministry
Human beings create structures.141 Structures are ways of
being together (or not being together) and of working together (or not working
together) which in their origins are subject to all the manifold motivations of
humankind. Structures readily become objectified, take on a life of their own,
and to a great extent control the human beings within them. Structures become
interiorized to such a degree that alternative ways of relating seem
unthinkable. Yet, as persons break through societal myths which have formed
them, they find themselves in tension with the structures. The women’s
movement is provoking such a tension.
The Church is a social structure, formed and reformed by
human decisions through the ages.(142) Christ founded the Church on men and
women who responded to his call, determined in particular ways how they would
pray and celebrate the Eucharist, how they would be ministered to and
governed.(143) Vatican II profited from a new historical consciousness to make
radical changes in the Church’s selfunderstanding (144) and thereby
performed the most human (and divine) task a community can undertake: to create
structures wherein persons are freed for responsible action in service,
justice, and love. The Council modeled or eulogized such qualities as freedom
of spirit, respect for persons, community, and such processes as subsidiarity,
collegiality, and an accountability which is growth-productive.
Despite striking initiatives toward change, the image
still projected by ministry in the Church is that its structures promote fear
and apathy rather than freedom of spirit. In law, the Church is identified with
the clergy. “Office” means hierarchical office. Elements which do not
have an “official” character are neglected. Societal demands of
position, advancement, power, the responsibilities of hierarchical control
appear to weigh heavily upon and to limit personal fulfilment of ministry. The
attribution of jurisdiction only to the clerical order successfully eliminates
laymen and all women from decision-making roles in the Church. The
relationships are those of a power structure, wherein conformity is rewarded
and obedience becomes the primary virtue
Women who wish to minister hesitate to move into this
structure. They consider it depersonalizing, destructive of the Christian
spirit of ministry. They find that Jesus directed his most frequent warnings
against the manifestations of this structural model. In alternative personnel
models proposed, obedience is not discarded but emphasis is placed upon each
person’s obedience to God through searching out “the needy and the
poor,” through internal submission to the Spirit in identifying talents
and weaknesses, and through confirming the personal and communal discernment
with appropriate person or board. Personal responsibility for choices is thus
established. The will of God becomes the object of a dynamic search into self
and into the needs of Church and society. Initiative and zeal are set free. The
“mission spirit” is not restricted to foreign lands. In such a
process, authority performs the absolutely necessary function of setting free
and developing the talents of others, of establishing a climate in which
freedom before the Spirit and co-operative endeavors can grow.
As those who minister experience the effects of such a
climate, the fostering of community will become a more realizable goal.
Expectations upon ministry will change as churchgoers discover what it means to
“be church.” Those individual ministries will thrive which have their
basis in concern tar humanizing persons as well as perpetuating sacramental
channels of grace.
In a setting of respect for persons and personal
decisions, subsidiarity will allow many needs to surface and be met by
co-operative effort in a small localized area. Collegiality in goal-setting and
decision-making flourishes in an atmosphere of trust. This total freeing up of
persons through confidence in them and trust in God’s working with them is
not a neat, orderly process, but it can be unified, as the level of
self-responsibility rises, to a system of accountability which is not
fear-filled but looked upon as a means to further growth.
If the Church would reorganize its structure in a model
such as this, the integration of women would be facilitated, and women would
greatly strengthen ministry. If discernment and full development of talents as
related to needs is the goal, each member of a team, man or woman, does what he
or she is most skilled in. Leadership is not fixed, but shifts as special
expertise is needed. As the Church takes seriously its functions of service,
proclamation of the word, and community building as a necessary base for the
administration of the sacraments, it will have to legitimize the ministry of
women. Such a legitimation, involving change of one of’ the oldest
mind-sets in the Church, can be accomplished only if there is profound trust in
the Holy Spirit and awareness of the discontinuity which has been as much a
providential mark of’ the Church as has continuity.(145)
The hierarchical order is itself a structure devised by men
over the ages. Jesus did not establish orders of priesthood.(146) He taught,
encouraged, ordered persons—men and women—to serve. He established a
community of “priestly people” symbolized as the New Israel by the
Twelve. In various local churches the Christians developed methods of’
organizing themselves, in some places through collegial bodies of’
“overseers,” the presbyteroi-episkopoi, in others through
leaders appointed by Paul and his disciples. The development of this ordering
was especially marked in the second century. During the third century a
redistribution of ecclesial functions was undertaken, entailing the creation of
the entire lower clergy, priests, deacons, deaconesses, and the minor orders
(only recently discontinued).
A first step required if women are to be fully integrated
into the Church is to legitimate their present ministries. The kind of
legitimation that is needed is not a paraliturgical or even a liturgical
service. What is primarily needed is a forthright and total acceptance of woman
in the positions they occupy as human persons with human and professional
rights and responsibilities, including the right to education. Furthermore,
women need that legitimation which enables them to complete, vis-à-vis
those they serve, the ministry they exercise toward those in need. Women
serving in ministry to the dying teach, counsel, comfort, inspire, then step
aside for the often mechanical rendering of the sacrament of the sick by a
priest. Women in counseling of youth or the alienated enter into a truly
sacramental relationship of sharing and are prevented from the sacramental sign
of absolution. Women whose ministry is to the sick and the aging need to be
legitimized as extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, so that the reception
of the body of’ the Lord might, in the context of an already established
relationship of shared faith and prayer, be a real communion.(147) The
sacraments would thus fit naturally into the whole movement of conversion and
humanization which is the object of ministry, and would be rescued from the
magical interpretation that commonly results from the often too hurried and
formal intervention imposed on the ordained priest
The ordained minister functions in an especially symbolic
way in the Eucharist. The bishop and later the priest were seen to act in the
person of Christ, especially in pronouncing the words of institution.(148)
Women were said to be excluded from these offices because only males were
thought to be able to represent the male Jesus.(149) This line of thought would
lead logically to the conclusion that women do not share in the redemptive acts
of Jesus, a view which the Church never embraced. The reality of the presence
of Christ in the Eucharist, however, derives from his resurrection as the
culmination of his self-offering and sacrifice on the cross. It is the risen
Christ who is rendered present by the Spirit evoking faith from the
“faithful” at the Eucharist.(150)
The president draws together the faith expression of the
assembly in helping them to be present to the word of God proclaimed, to
remember the saving acts of Jesus, and to deepen confidence that the Spirit
will bring the risen Christ to reality within and among them.(151) The
president then represents Christ because and to the extent that he represents
the faith of the Church.(152)
From this insight into the Eucharistic mystery it follows
that the faith of the whole Church would be better represented if women as well
as men were called forth to preside.153 Such a representation would fulfil the
many initiatives of Jesus in associating women as well as men with his
ministry. It would be for women a validation of’ their personhood, a
legitimizing of whatever partial ministrations of sacraments might he accorded
to their particular form of service.
This vision of the Eucharist and of the place of women in
its ministry provides a wholeness to theological anthropology which is
otherwise lacking. Avery Dulles, for instance, writes: “Man shares in the
divine life, not in a divine, but in a human way, consonantly with his nature
as man.(154) But man is male and female. Since ”sacraments have a dialogic
structure,"(155) they must not perpetuate the dominant-submissive structure
of’ man-woman relations. If “man” shares in the divine life in a
human way, through “the body with all its movements and gestures,156 it
must be through the female as well as the male body.
Women are disaffected from the institutional Church
because it represents a power relationship and because this power is often
insensitively administered. Many women have discovered talents in themselves
for building community. In visitation to the aging, in youth retreats and
counseling, they experience the fulfilling quality of the ministry of service.
The ministry of justice involves them in confrontation with the powers of
Church and state and business establishment. Women are gaining confidence in
paraliturgical prayer and reflection on the gospel message. All these factors
combine to forecast a gradual separation from the Church as sacrament and
proclamation of the word if these remain the forbidden land for women as
ministers. As sacrament and word are now administered within the law of the
institutional Church, they are almost entirely prerogatives of the Church of
imposing structures and minimal community, where the faithful congregate, not
the Church as service and community model. If men remain the sole
representatives of the Church of sacrament and word, and women predominantly
the ministers in the Church of service and community, and if man/woman
relations in the Church continue to deteriorate, a serious break within the
ministry will occur.
Women were created by God as sharers in the same human
nature as men. Both men and women were intended to show forth the image of God.
The dominance of men over women, however first arrived at, is expressed in
Genesis as one of’ the effects of sin. That Jesus overcame sin is a
promise that the effects of such sin will be eliminated through the
grace-filled efforts of human beings. Christ’s transforming power has been
at work through the ages: Jewish male circumcision ceased to be a necessary
prerequisite for reception of baptism, which therefore was available also to
women; Christians now admit the structural and human evils of slavery; the full
empowerment of woman becomes a similar possibility. The Gospels are very much
concerned to present women as authentic persons, as dependable witnesses to
truth and faith. Jesus promised the action of the Holy Spirit in his Church.
The Spirit inspired Peter and Paul to demand the non-Judaizing of Christian
Gentiles; the Spirit inspired numerous Christians to end slavery as a
creditable Christian institution; the Spirit today is believed by many women to
be calling them to the priesthood. Justice would seem to require that these
women who feel called by the Spirit to priestly office should have their
charisms personally tested, not categorically dismissed. Rejection of women
from the ordained ministry by men seems to women an obvious contradiction of
the gospel.
The renewal of the Church would profit from the renewal of
ministry brought about by the full acceptance of women into ministry. The
fostering of more honest relationships between men and women, wherein women
would be freed from the need to manipulate and men would be freed from the
need to dominate, would reveal new sources of energy and fresh ways of looking
at structures. The Church in its humility, its sense of serving persons, the
love it would thereby witness, would give, as is its profound destiny, a
clearer revelation of Christ.
1. Constitution on the Church. no. I (tr. The Documents
of Vatican 11, ed. W. M. Abbott (New York, 1966) pp. 14-15; no. 10 (P.
27).
2.Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, no. 4
(Documents, p. 201).
3. Ibid., no. 26 (Documents, p. 225).
4.lbid., no. 29 (Documents, pp. 227-28). It
is noteworthy that Vatican II, while giving a direction toward the value
of’ personhood, did not develop the application of this teaching to woman
or deal with women in the Church.
5 The contemporary women’s liberation movement traces
its origins to Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (New York, 195:3), and
Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York, 1963) A superb
historical treatment of women in the Church is George Tavard’s Woman in
Christian Tradition (Notre Dame, 1973)
6.Constitution on Divine Revelation, no. 21 (Document. p.
125).
7. constitution on the Church, no. 18 (Documents. p. 37)
8.lbid., no. 10 (Documents, p. 27); Decree on the
Apostolate of the Laity, no. 2 the laity share in the priestly, prophetic, and
royal office of Christ,’ (Documents, p. 49).
9. Constitution on the Church no. 20 (Documents p. 40). Cf.
Raymond E. Brown. Priest and Bishop: Biblical Reflections (NewYork,
1970) pp. 5:3-65.
10. Constitution on the Church, no. 10 (Documents, p. 27);
no. 9 (p. 25); constitution on the Church in the Modern World, no. :32
(Documents, p. 290).
11 Lk 4:18 RSV.
12 See Margaret Brennan, “Disturbing the Perceptual
Patterns: A Reflection on the Liberation of Men,” Origins, July 17,
1975, pp. 97-100.
13 Mk 9:35; 10:43-44; Mt 20:26-27; Lk 22:24-27.
14 Mk 8:22—10:52.
15Mk 10:45.
16 Lk 8:1-3; 24:10; Mk 15:40-41; 16:9; Mt 27:55-56; Jn
19:25.
17 The verb only appears 18 times among the four Gospels.
It is “not found in the Septuagint or other Greek versions of the Old
Testament including the Apocrypha” (A Concordance to the Greek
Testament, ed. W. F. Moulton and A. S. Geden [4th ed. rev.; Edinburgh, 1963
pp. 202, xii*).
18 Lk 12:37; cf. 17:8; 22:26-27.
19 Mt 20:28; Mk 10:45; Lk 22:27.
20 Cf. Mk 1:13; cf. Lk 22:43; 8:3; Mt 8:15.
21 Donald Senior, Jesus: A Gospel Portrait (Dayton,
1975) pp. 74-75.
22 Lk 11:27-28; 8:19.
23 Lk 10:39. The lesson of Lk 10:38-42 (Mary and Martha) is
enveloped by Lk 10:25-37 (the good Samaritan) and Lk 11:1-4 (the Lord’s
Prayer). Like Acts 6:1-4, these passages emphasize that human services must be
complemented by prayer and service of the word. On discipleship see Brown, op.
cit., pp. 21-26; D. Senior, “The Mother of Jesus and the Meaning of
Discipleship,” Sign, May, 1975, pp. 5-8; Jean Delorme, ‘
Diversité et unité des ministères d’après le
Nouveau Testament," in Le ministère et les ministères salon le
Nouveau Testament, ed. Delorme (Paris, 1973).
24 Jn 11::20-’27.
25 Jn 11:28.
26 Jn 4:7-42. See Bruce Vawter, "The Gospel according to
John," in Jerome Biblical Commentary (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1968)
63:76, p. 431.
27 Jn 4:39.
28 Lk 24:8. Memory is regarded by contemporary theologians
as an integral part of the act of faith. See Edward J. Kilmartin,
“Apostolic Office: Sacrament of Christ,” THEOLOGICAL STUDIES 36
(1975) 255.
29 Lk 8:21.
30 Mt 16:24-25; Mk 8:34; Lk 9:23-24.
31 Lk 23:27.
32 Acts 1:21. The text 1:21-22 makes explicit the choice of
a male because the place of Judas among the Twelve is to be filled. The
expression “from the baptism of John” probably does not literally
imply the presence of the Twelve but is a reference to the . . beginning of the
gospel; see Mk 1:1-4.
33 Mk 15:40-41.
34 Lk 8: 1-3.
35 David M. Stanley and Raymond E. Brown. “Aspects of
New Testament Thought,” Jerome Biblical Commentary 78:173, p. 797.
36 Jn 18:15-18, 25-27; 19:25-27.
37 Mt 27:61; Mk 15:47; Lk 23:55.
38 The message to the women is rendered in Mt 28:1-10 by an
angel, then Jesus; in Mk 16:9 by Jesus; in Lk 24:1-11 by two men; in Jn 20:1-18
by two angels, then Jesus. Though Luke does not record Jesus’ appearing to
the women, he does acknowledge women as witnesses of Jesus resurrection,
presents them as remembering Jesus’ message (given to them in Galilee) and
reminding the disciples.
39. See Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life
and Institutions (New York, 1961) p. 156.
40 Stanley and Brown, JBC, p. 798
41 1 Cor 1:1; 15:5-7; James: Gal 1:19; Barnabas: Acts
14:14; 1 Cor 9:6; 4:9; Gal 2:9; Andronicus and Junias: Rom 16:7. Junias
(Iounian) can be translated Junia (or some mss. Iulia) and was thought by
Chrysostom and others to be a woman. See Stanley and Brown, JBC 78:179, p. 798;
Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Letter to the Romans," JBC 63:138, p. 330.
42 Jn 4:7-42.
43 Mt 28:10. See Brown, op. cit., p. 28: ‘in the
Jewish notion of apostolate the one sent . . . represents the one who sends,
carrying not only the sender’s authority but even his presence to others."
44 Lk 8:3
45 Mt 8:14-15; Lk 4:38-39; Mk 1:29-31.
46 Lk 8:2.
47 Lk8:43-48; 13:10-13.
48. Lk 8:49-56; Mt 9:18-26; Mk 5:21-43.
49 Lk 7:48.
50 Mt 9:20-22.
51 ‘Jn 2:1-11. John uses his typical literary method
of dialogue and represents Mary as evoking Jesus’ power and inviting him
to anticipate his’ "hour" of glory.
52 Lk 1:26-38; Mt 28:1-8; Mk 16:5-8; Lk 24:5-7.
53 Lk 1:26-38
54 Lk 1: 39-45.
55 Acts 1:14; 2:1-4.
56 Jn 11:3-5; 43-44. In the dialogic form common to John,
the prayerful message of Lazarus’ sisters arouses Jesus’ concern. The
spoken faith of Martha in his ability to heal Lazarus is built upon by Jesus to
evoke her deeper expression of faith in the resurrection of the dead and his
own manifestation of power over death.
57 Mt 15:22-28
58 Lk 18:2-8
59 Jn 11:21-27; 20:16-18.
60 Lk 13:11- 13.
61 Mt 27:55-56; Lk 23:55-56; Mk 16:1-3.
62 Mk 15:40 41; Lk 23:49; Jn 19:25-:10. See John H.
McKenna, ‘’Eucharistic Epiclesis: Myopia or Microcosm’?"
THEOLOGICAL STUDIES 36 (1975) 267: “Christ’s sacramental offer of
himself finds its complete realization only in the sacramental acceptance of
this offer by the faithful.”
63 Rom 1:5; 16:26.
64 Lk 15:3-7.
65 Lk 15:11-24
66 Lk 15:8-10.
67 Lk 7:46; Jn 11 :2; 12:1 3; Mk 14 :8; 16:1.
68 Mt 26:13
69 Mk 16:1; Lk 23:66.
70 See Haye van der Meer. Women Priests in the Catholic
Church? (Philadelphia, 1971) pp. 143-5.3.
71 When .Jesus describes his ministry along the Way to
Jerusalem as ..I have come not to be served but to serve and to give my life as
a ransom for many" (Mt 20:28). he invites the disciples to be like him. In
Mark’s account of the Last Supper these latter words are echoed as a
concrete example of Jesus’ sacrificial ministry (Mk 14:24). The fulness of
discipleship implies that every level of human life is touched by Jesus’
own saving ministry. No comparison of Gospel texts makes this more obvious than
the accounts of the Last Supper events in the Synoptics (Mt 26:26-28; Mk
14:22-25: Lk 22:14-20) and Paul (I Cor 11:24) taken together with that of’
John (Jn 1:3:1-14). Paul and the Synoptics preserve the tradition of the
Passover meal, Paul and Luke especially underlining the commemorative aspect of
this meal in the words of Jesus “Do this in memory of me.” John omits
the account of’ the offering of Jesus’ body and blood, but retains
the formula ‘As I have done, so you must do," applied in this instance to
Jesus’ humble service of washing his disciples’ feet. John apparently
desires to widen the scope of’ the commemorative action of the Church,
reminding Christians that a Eucharistic celebration without service to others
is meaningless and empty, that the Eucharist and service cannot be separated.
John does not neglect the Eucharist, as the discourse of Jesus on the Bread of
Life in chap. 6 shows. This context emphasizes how closely Jesus linked human
service (in multiplication of loaves that prompted the discourse) with the
fulfilment of spiritual needs. Paul, too, inserts his account of the Eucharist
into the context of’ the mutual concern the members of a community should
have for one another. Luke makes the same point with his banquet theme, where
the poor, the outcasts, and women are opposed to the rich, the revered, the
Pharisees.
72 See Brown, op. cit., pp. 13, 17 20, 34-43.
73 Acts l:14; 2:1-4.
74 Gal. :3:27-28; Rom
72 See Brown, op. cit., pp. 13, 17 20, 34-43.
73 Acts l:14; 2:1-4
74 Gal. :3:27-28; Rom
75 Acts 21:8-9; cf Eph 2:20. See The Jerusalem Bible,
ed. Alexander Jones (London,, 1966) p. 221, note m: particular individuals
are so specially endowed with the charisma that they are always referred to as
‘prophets’, Ac 11:27; 13:1; 15:’32; 21:9, 10. These normally
occupy the second place after the apostles in the order of charisma, I Co
12:28-29: Ep 4:11; but cf. I Co 12:10; Rm 12:6; Lk 11:49; this is because they
are the appointed witnesses of the Spirit. Rv 2:7, etc., I Th 5: 19-20. whose
‘revelations’ they communicate, I Co 14:6,26,;30; Ep :3:5; Rv 1:1,
just as the apostles are witnesses to the risen Christ, Rm 1:1+; Ac 1:8+, and
proclaim the kerygma, Acts 2:22+." The prohibition against women prophesying,
women should keep silent in all such gatherings" (I Cor 14:33b-35) is
considered by a growing body of commentators to be an interpolation influenced
by a post-Pauline reaction to certain heretical groups; see A. Feuillet,
“La dignité et le rôle de la femme,” New Testament
Studies 21 (1975) 163, n. 2.
76 Acts 12: 12; Rom 16:5. Six of the persons greeted in
Rom 16 are women. The word used for Phoebe in Rom 16:2 is prostasis, a
noun derived from the verb prostaosso, meaning “to order
validly,” pertaining to those who have the right to command" (p. 37). It
asserts, as it is used, e.g., in Acts 10:33, authority and also dependence on
God (p. :38); cf. C. Friedrich, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New
Testament 8 (Grand Rapids, 1972) 37-39
77 Mary Lawrence McKenna, Women of the Church (New
York, 1967) pp. 35-62,
78 Rom 16:1. The same Greek noun is used for a man. Cf.
Phil 1: 1; I Tim 3:11.
79 Tim 5::3 16; :3:1 1. See Peter Hunermann. "Conclusions
regarding the Female Diaconate ." Theological STUDIES :36 (1975) :325-33;
McKenna. art. cit., pp. 35-ó:3
80..McKenna art. cit., p. 66
81 Hünermann. art. cit., p. :325.
82 Mt 26:13
83 See Constitution on Divine Revelation, no. 10
(Documents, pp. 117-18): “Sacred tradition and sacred Scripture form one
sacred deposit of the word of God.... [The] teaching office is not above the
word of God but serves it." No. 8 (p. 116): “This tradition which comes
from the apostles develops in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. For
there is a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which
have been handed down."
84 Paul Vl, “Motu Proprio on Minor Orders,”
Origins, Sept 21, 1972, p. 203.
85 E.g., Mt 5:44; 19:19; 22:37-39 and par.; Jn 13:34-35;
Gal 5:6; 1 Cor 13; 1 Jn 4. See Victor Furnish, The Love Command. in the New
Testament (Nashville, 1972); Ceslaus Spicq, Charity and Liberty in the
New Testament (Staten Island, N.Y., 1965); id., Agape in the New Testament
(St. Louis, 1963); Gerard Gilleman, The Primacy of Charity in Moral Theology
(Westminster, Md., 1959).
86 Acts 15:1-31; Rom 2:25-29; 3:30; 1 Cor 7:17-19; 8:1-13;
Gal 2:1-10; 6:15.
87 Cal 2:11-21.
88 See Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “The Letter to the
Galatians,” JBC 49:24, p. 243.
89 Gal 3:17-28.
90 Jewish society honored women only within the home in
subjection to husband or father; cf. de Vaux, op. cit., pp. 39-40. Philo wrote:
“The women are best suited to the indoor life, which never strays from the
house, within which the middle door is taken by the maidens as their boundary,
and the outer door by those who have realized full womanhood” (De spec.
Ieg. 3, 169). Josephus insisted: “The woman, says the Lord, is in all
things inferior to the man. Let her accordingly be submissive, not for her
humiliation but that she may be directed; for the authority has been given by
God to the man” (In Flaccum 89). The common physiological knowledge
of the time emphasized the inferiority of woman, her passivity in procreation,
and the need of the female for longer embryonic development; see Tavard, op.
cit., p. 62. The dualistic philosophy ot Plato exaggerated the differences
between men and women, leading later to St. Augustine’s conclusion that
spirit was symbolized by man, flesh by woman (Expositio in Joannem 1, 13 [PL
35, 13951).
91 Jn 4:27; Mt 26:7-10; Lk 24:9-11. Note the apocryphal
Gospel of Thomas: “Simon Peter said to them, ‘Let Mary go out
from among us, because women are not worthy of the Life.’ Jesus said,
‘See, I shall lead her, so that I will make her a male. that she too may
become a living spirit, resembling you males. For every woman who makes herself
a male will enter the kingdom of heaven”’(E. Hennecke, New
Testament Apocrypha, Logion 14, pl. 99, 18-26, ed. W. Schneemelcher
(London, 1963) p. 299).
92 See de Vaux, op. cit., pp. 39-40.
93 See Tavard, op. cit., pp. 17-26.
94 Paul: 1 Cor 11:3-10; 14:33b-:36: Col 3:18; Eph 5:22-24;
Pastorals: Tit 2:3-5; 1 Tim 2:11-16. Robin Scroggs. “Paul: Chauvinist or
Liberationist?” Christian Century 89 (1972) 307, considers I Cor 14:33b-36
as a post-Pauline gloss. He also considers Col and Eph deutero-Pauline.
95 Gn 3:1-16. See Tavard, op. cit., p. 31. Note ibid., p.
45: ‘’the advent of the New Creation has, in principle, restored
mankind to a paradisiac, prelapsarian state. The Christian woman is no longer
under the curse by which she was made servant to her husband and bound to a
chain of painful pregnancies triggered by her desire for him." Cf. Robin
Scroggs, “Paul and the Eschatological Woman,” Journal of the
American Academy of Religion 40 (1972) 291.
96 I Cor 11:7,9. See the commentary of Scroggs, “Paul
and the Eschatological Woman,” pp. 294-95, 297-303.
971 Cor 11:11-12.
98 I Cor 14:34; see note 75 above
99. Rom 16; I Cor 11:5; Phil 4:2-3; see also Acts 21:9.
100 Tim2:14.
101 See Tavard, op. cit, pp. 31 35.
102 1 Tim 2:15.
103 Acts 21:9; 1 Cor 11:5.
104 1 Tim 2:12.
105 Tim 5:3 16; 3:11.
106 The pastoral letters reflect the complex situation of
the Church between 60 and 100 A.D. Of this period Tavard comments:
‘’The liberty recognized by Paul must now be channelled through
regular institutions: that of widowhood stands out, that of’ matrimony
offers the only proper way of life, since it is through motherhood that they
will obtain salvation" (op. cit., p. 35). See Brown, op. cit., pp.
35-38.
107 For worship, Jewish women entered only the outer court,
the women’s court of Herod’s temple; see de Vaux, op cit., p 317.
108 M. L. McKenna, op. cit (n. 77 above) pp. 35-63; H.
Leclercq, Veuvage, Veuve," DA CL 15/2, 3015.
109 In some circumstances, as in the entourage of St.
Jerome, these women became really learned in the Scriptures and courageous in
the scope of work undertaken; see M. L. McKenna, op. cit. ,pp. 126-29
110 Deaconess" (diakonissa) is an ecclesiastical
term deliberately coined in the third century; cf. M. L. McKenna, op. cit.,pp.
64-94; also Hünermann, op. cit.,pp. 325-33. The deaconesses never became
popular in the West, though some canons deal with them. See M. L. McKenna, op.
cit.,pp. 129-40.
111 M. L. McKenna, op cit., pp. 69-73, 76-79. See
Constitutiones apostolorum 3, 2, 3 (ed. F. X. Funk [Paderborn, 1905] p.
185)
112 Hünerman, art. cit., p. 328.
113 Epiphanius, Aduersus haereses 79 (PG 42, 743
f.).
114 Lv 15:19-29. Origen forbids women to enter a church
building at the time of their menstrual period; see Tavard, op. cit., p.95;
Roger Cryson, Les origines du célibat ecclésiastique
(Paris, 1970).
115 M. L. McKenna, op. cit., pp. 95-110
116 Tertullian’s “you are she who enticed the man
whom the devil dare not approach” (De cultu feminarum 1, 1)
continues on even into the twentieth century; see van der Meer, op. cit.,
p. 50.
117 Legislation forbidding priests to have intercourse
began as early as the fourth century in regional councils. In 1050 Pope Leo IX
began the effort to abolish the marriage of priests throughout the Church. In
1123 ordination became an impediment nullifying marriage. Clerical celibacy was
reaffirmed by the Council of Trent. See Tavard, op. cit., p. ll9.
118 See Valentine Schaff, The Cloister (Cincinnati, 1921)
pp. 26-56. The sixth-century rule for women of Caesarius of Aries prescribes
strict cloister. Before the twelfth century, regulations of cloister were
issued by various regional councils. Boniface Vlll imposed perpetual cloister
on all women who had made profession. The Council of Trent confirmed the
legislation of Boniface VIII and extended it to all women religious. Efforts to
enforce and tighten this legislation were made by Pius V. In 1900 bishops were
directed to enforce cloister even on sisters in simple vows.
119 Joan Morris, The Lady Was a Bishop (New York,
1973); see van der Meer, op. cit., pp. 106-128. for discussion on the
nature ot this jurisdiction.
120 Women associated with both St. Francis and St. Dominic
were strictly cloistered and did not participate in the peripatetic preaching
of men. Yet, in the thirteenth century large numbers of women participated in
new forms of ‘apostolic life," in chastity and poverty. These groups
perplexed the Church, because they did not fit into established categories. A
struggle ensued. Pressure was brought on the Curia to recognize and incorporate
these women into the Church. The Curia sought to place them under the
jurisdiction of the male orders. When these latter opposed such an arrangement,
the Curia eventually turned to the bishops to provide pastoral care and impose
discipline. See Brenda M. Bolton, “Mulieres sanctae.” in Sanctity
and Secularity: The Church and the World,ed. Derek Baker (Oxford, 1973) pp.
77-95. Bolton concludes: ‘’The general ecclesiastical attitude to
women was, at best, negative if not actively hostile. Nor, indeed, was a
women’s vocation necessarily regarded in a serious light." See also R. W.
Southern, Western Societyand the Church in the Middle Ages (Baltimore,
1970) pp. 240-272.
121, Richard L. De Molen, “The Age at’
Renaissance and Reformation,’’ in The Meaning of the Renaissance
and Reformation, ed. De Molen (Boston, 1974) pp. 22-23.
122 Session 25, De regularibus, c. 5. Yet see
Georges Goyau, La femme dans missions (Paris, 193:3) for a survey of the
beneficent missionary work of women religious.
123 See Leon Joseph Suenens, The Nun in the World
(Westminster, Md., 1963). The struggle of women religious against this
cloistral mentality since Vatican 11 has influenced the proposed New Code for
Religious, where equality is posited between men and women save for
contemplative women, who still have obligations not imposed on contemplative
men. See Review for Religious 34 (1975) 63-65.
124 Pontifical faculties of theology have been opened to
women only in the last decade.
125 Paul Vl, “Motu Proprio on Minor Orders,”
Origins, Sept. 21, 1972, p. 203
126 Canon 968 1: ‘A baptized male alone can validly
receive sacred ordination."
127 Sum. theol. 1, q. 92, a. 1, ad Im.
128 Ibid., ad 2m.
129 In 1 ad Cor. lectio 7, Super ep.s. Pauli lectura (ed R.
Cai [Rome, 1953] 1, 402
130 Sum. theol. 1, q. 92, a. 1.
131 Ibid., Supplementum, q. 39, a. 1.
132 John Duns Scotus, In librum 4 sententiarum, d.
25, q. 2, scol. 2 (Opera omnia, ed. L. Vives |Paris, 1894] 19, 140).
133 Cf. Walter J. Burghardt, “A Theologian’s
Challenge to Liturgy,” THEOLOGICAL STUDIES 35 (1974) 235; Michael A.
Fahey, “Continuity in the Church amid Structural Changes,” ibid.,
pp. 427-28.
134 Fahey, art. cit., p. 421. Note General
Catechetical Directory, nos. 65-67.
135 Dorothy L. Sayers, Are Women Human? (Grand
Rapids, 1971); Sally Cunneen, Sex: Female; Religion: Catholic (New York,
1968) esp. pp. 22-46.
136 Paul Vl, “Address on International Women’s
Year,” Origins, May 1, 1975, p. 718.
(137) For this approach to herself, modern woman finds
confirmation in the attitude depicted in the Scriptures of Jesus toward women.
In the preparation for his incarnation, Mary is approached not relationally, as
a minor, through her father or her fiancé, but as an autonomous woman,
fully capable of an intelligent, free, loving response. Jesus expresses the
desire that she be revered not because she is physically his mother but because
she is a woman of faith. So also with other women. We know nothing of the
marital status of Mary and Martha. What was important to the Evangelists was
that Jesus loved them, trusted them, taught them, found them worthy to share
his ministry. Reverence for the Samaritan woman even in her sinfulness caused
Jesus to ignore roles and to encourage her initiative and sense of
responsibility.
138 M. Thomas Aquinas Carroll, Experience of Women
Religious in the Ministry of the Church (Chicago, 1974).
139 Walter Farrell, The Liberated Man (New York,
1974); Jack Nichols, Men’s Liberation (New York, 1975); Gene
Marine, A Male Guide to Women’s Liberation (New York, 1972).
140 See esp. Don Goergen, The Sexual Celibate (New
York, 1975)
141 Andrew Greeley, “Sociology and Church
Structure,” Concilium 58 (1970) 26.
142 Ibid., p. 27: “the greatest problem the
Church as an organization faces is the pervasive human temptation to canonize
as essential relationship patterns that evolved to meet the needs of one
era.... ” See William F. Ryan, “Mindsets and New Horizons for
Discernment,” in Soundings (Washington, D.C., 1974) pp. 4-6;
William R. Callahan, “The Impact of Culture on Religious Values and
Decision Making,” ibid., pp. 8-12.
143 Brown, op. cit.; cf. the biblical evidence in Acts on
Peter, who “went here and there among them all,” obviously exercised
authority (9:32), but in conjunction with “the apostles and the
elders” (14:2)
144 Cf. Burghardt, art. cit., p. 235
Cf. Fahey, art. cit., pp. 426-28.
146 Brown, op. cit., pp. 13-20
147 At one time in the Church, women were not permitted to
baptize even in emergencies when a layman might. This discipline has been
altered. Women are acknowledged as ministers of the sacrament of matrimony.
148 Kilmartin, art. cit., p. 244.
149 Van der Meer, op. cit.. pp. 128-43
150 Kilmartin, art. cit., p. 264
151 The ordained minister may be seen "as a sort of
symbolic point ot convergence where Christ’ s offer of himself and the
assembly’s believing response to this offer find expression. Nevertheless,
it is the whole assembly which, through the ordained minister, calls upon God
to make His presence felt here and now. It is through the whole assembly that
God realizes the Eucharist" (.l. H. McKenna, art. cit., p. 272).
152 Ibid ., pp. 25ó-58
153 Ibid .. p. 26,1.
154 Avery Dulles, Models of the Church íNew
York, 1974), p. 60.
155 Ibid., p 62
You may also like to see by Sr Elizabeth Carroll, her chapter
Women in the Life of the Church from, Women Priests,
Edited by A and L Swidler.
Index of Classic
Texts
Support our
campaign
Sitemap
Contemporary
theologians
Join Campaign
activities
Go back to home
page
Join our Women Priests' Mailing List
for occasional newsletters:
An email will be immediately sent to you
requesting your confirmation.
Please, credit this document
as published by www.womenpriests.org!