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Letter of Pope Paul Vl to Donald Coggan, Archbishop of
Canterbury, 30 November 1975
Numbering of the paragraphs and italics by John
Wijngaards
3. “Your Grace
is of course well aware of the Catholic Church’s position on this
question. She holds that it is not admissible to ordain women to the
priesthood, for very fundamental reasons. These reasons include: the example
recorded in the Sacred Scriptures of Christ choosing his Apostles only from
among men; the constant practice of the Church, which has imitated Christ in
choosing only men; and her living teaching authority which has consistently
held that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is in accordance with
God’s plan for his Church. ”
For the full text, see: Correspondence with Canterbury
From ORDINATIO SACERDOTALIS (May 22,
1994):
Pope John Paul II
4. Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to
men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the
Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at
the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to
debate, or the Church's judgment that women are not to be admitted to
ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force. Wherefore, in
order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a
matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of
my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the
Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and
that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful.
For the full text see Ordinatio Sacerdotalis
From Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s official reply
to a ‘Dubium’, October 28, 1995
“This teaching requires definitive assent, since, founded on the
written Word of God, and from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in
the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the
ordinary and universal Magisterium (cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic
Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium 25, 2). Thus, in the present
circumstances, the Roman Pontiff, exercising his proper office of confirming
the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32), has handed on this same teaching by a formal
declaration, explicitly stating what is to be held always, everywhere, and by
all, as belonging to the deposit of the faith.”
For the full text, see Dubium.
"It is a matter of full definitive assent, that is to say, irrevocable,
to a doctrine taught infallibly by the Church. In fact, as the Reply explains,
the definitive nature of this assent derives from the truth of the doctrine
itself, since, founded on the written Word of God, and constantly held and
applied in the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the
ordinary universal Magisterium (cf. Lumen Gentium, 25). Thus, the Reply
specifies that this doctrine belongs to the deposit of the faith of the Church.
It should be emphasized that the definitive and infallible nature of this
teaching of the Church did not arise with the publication of the Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. . . . In this
case, an act of the ordinary Papal Magisterium, in itself not infallible,
witnesses to the infallibility of the teaching of a doctrine already possessed
by the Church."
Letter by Cardinal
Ratzinger, October 28, 1995.
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