The potentially disruptive controversy over the ordination
of women to the priesthood, which is becoming widespread within the Church,
should have at least one beneficial effect. It should lead us to a deeper
understanding of the mystery of woman. The fifth chapter of Ephesians and the
twelfth chapter of the Book of Revelation, among other Biblical texts, attest
to the crucial importance of this mystery for a right interpretation of the
Gospel. However, it has not yet received the attention it deserves. The
exploration of this mystery offers, without doubt, the most positive way to
confront the current flood of sexuality which is even more unbalanced than
unbridled.
It is certainly no coincidence that the calling into
question of the constant refusal of Jewish and Christian tradition to allow a
feminine priesthood (or rather an asexual priesthood, open to women and men
without distinction), is taking place precisely in an era which is so obviously
unsettled with respect to sex roles. The strangely sophisticated motives
alleged by the partisans of radical change, their ignorance and evident
misunderstanding, bear clear witness to the depth of the general uncertainty
regarding the true place and essential role of women in society: in a word, of
what constitutes feminine dignity, a concept completely alien to what one
hardly dares any more to call our civilization.
To examine and criticize these false lines of reasoning,
the worst not always being the oldest, would seem the simplest and most natural
way to clear away the prejudices which encumber the issue. From there one may
proceed to reexamine the mystery of woman in all its authentic aspects.(1)
1.The most complete treatment of this problem, leading to
what we see as the solution, has been furnished, we think, by the symposium
edited by H. Karl Lutge, Sexuality, Theology, Priesthood, to which
Anglicans, Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants have contributed, published by
“Concerned Fellow Episcopalians” (1973). A debate for or against, in
the framework of a general revision of the theology of the priesthood, was
organized, also by Anglicans, in San Francisco. The principal contributions
appeared in another anthology, To Be a Priest (1976). Particularly
notable is the contribution of Michael Marshall, now Anglican bishop of
Woolwich, which was of great help to us.
