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by Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco, well-known writer, in a little book entitled "Belief
in what?" (Rivages Poche/Petite bibliothèque, 1998), takes a "prince" of
the Church, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, bishop of Milan, to task and quotes
Thomas Aquinas’ discussions on a priesthood exclusively reserved for
men.
Translated for Women’s Ordination / Catholic
Internet Library from the French by Joanna Waller (see credits).
I have never been able to find, in doctrine, any convincing reasons for
excluding women from the priesthood (…). I have never found any reason in
Scripture (…). The argument from symbols is unsatisfactory. So too is the
archaic argument according to which a woman, at particular times in her life,
generates impurity (…). When I feel lost in doctrinal questions, I turn
to the only person I trust, that is, Thomas Aquinas. Now Thomas, who before
ever he was the evangelical doctor was a man of extraordinary good sense,
several times considered the question of whether the priesthood is an
exclusively masculine privilege. Just looking at the Summa Theologicae, this
matter is discussed in II, 11, 2, and he deals with the Pauline statement (even
the saints are not perfect) in which he says that in the church assembly, women
must remain silent, and may not teach. But in Proverbs, Thomas finds the words
"Unigenitus fui coram matrem meam, ea docebat me". How can this be
resolved? Accepting the anthropology of his time (he could not do otherwise):
the female sex must be subject to the male sex, and women are not perfect in
wisdom.
In III, 31, 4, Thomas wonders whether the matter of the body of Christ
could be taken by a female body (there were, of course, gnostic theories
current according to which the Christ passed through the body of Mary, like
water through a pipe, purely as a conduit, without being affected by her,
without being soiled by any immunditia relating to the physiology of
childbirth). Thomas recalls that the Christ must be a human being
convenientissimum tamen fuit ut de foemina carnem acciperet because,
Saint Augustine notes, "humanity’s redemption must appear in both sexes".
He does not, however, succeed in overcoming his contemporary anthropology, and
he maintains that the Christ must be a man because the male sex is the most
noble.
But Thomas does manage to reach beyond the inevitable anthropology of
his own era. He cannot deny that men are superior to women, and more inclined
to wisdom, but several times he struggles to understand why, in this case,
women were given the right to prophesy, and abbesses the direction of souls as
well as teaching, and he extricates himself by means of neat, matter of fact
arguments. He does not seem convinced, however, and with his usual shrewdness,
answers indirectly, pretending to forget that he had already answered this
point in 1, 99, 2: if the male sex is better, why did God allow women to be
born in the primitive state before the fall? Because, he says, it was right
for men and women to appear in the primitive state. Not to guarantee continuity
of the species - since humanity at that time was immortal, there was no need to
create two sexes for the sake of survival of the species. It was because (cf.
Supplementum 39.1, the text is not in his hand, but he uses the same
argument elsewhere) "sex does not reside in the soul": for Thomas, sex was
actually an accident, happening at a late state in gestation. It was
necessary and right to create two sexes because (this is clarified in
III,4, respondeo) there is a pattern to the generation of human beings:
the first man was conceived without male or female, Eve was born from the male
without the contribution of a woman, the Christ was born from a woman without
the contribution of a man, but all other human beings are born from a man and a
woman. Apart from these three admirable exceptions, this is the rule, and this
is the divine plan.
In III, 67,4, Thomas wonders whether woman can baptise, and he easily
settles the objections offered by tradition: it is the Christ who baptises, but
since "in Christo non est masculus neque foemina" (Thomas is inspired by
Paul’s letter to the Colossians 3:11, but this is stated more clearly in
the letter to the Galatians 3:28), if a man can baptise, then a woman can also
baptise.
He then concedes (the power of public opinion!) that if men are present,
the woman may not baptise, since "caput mulieris est vir". However, in the
first place he establishes a clear distinction between what is not "permitted"
(in terms of custom) to a woman, and what she "may" do (in terms of law). In
the third place, he states that, if it is true that, in the earthly order,
woman is the passive principle, and only man is the active principle, on the
other hand in the spiritual order, since both man and woman act by virtue of
the Christ, this hierarchical distinction is no longer valid.
However in Supplementum 39.1 (though I know it is not in his
hand) questioning whether woman can receive priestly orders, he replies in
terms of the symbolic argument: the sacrament is also a sign and, to be valid,
the "thing" alone is not enough, there must also be "the sign of the thing",
and as in the female sex, no distinction is ever signified, since woman lives
in a state of subjection, orders therefore cannot be conferred on a woman.
It is true that, in a question I do not remember, Thomas also uses the
propter libidinem argument: in other words, if the priest were a woman,
the faithful (men!) would become aroused on seeing her. But since the faithful
are also women, what about the young girls who may be disturbed at the sight of
a "handsome priest" (remember the account by Stendhal in the Charterhouse of
Parma on the unrestrained passions aroused by the preaching of Fabrice del
Dongo)? The history of the university of Bologna contains the story of a
certain Novella d’Andrea, who occupied a chair in the XIVth century, and
was obliged to teach behind a veil in order not to distract the male students
by her beauty. I tend to think that Novella was not necessarily so intolerably
charming, but that the young people were inclined to be indisciplined, as
students are. It was therefore a question of educating the students, or of
educating women in gratia sermonis.
It is my impression, ultimately, that Saint Thomas himself could not
say precisely why the priesthood should have been a male prerogative,
except by allowing (as he did, and could not do otherwise, given the ideas of
his time) that men were superior to women in intelligence and dignity. This is
not, as I well know, the present opinion of the Church. It is rather the view
of Chinese society, which as we have learnt recently with horror, prefers to
eliminate girl babies and keep boy babies alive.
These are my concerns. What are the doctrinal reasons for forbidding
women the priesthood? If it is simply a question of history, of the appropriate
symbols, because the faithful are used to a man as priest, there is no reason
for disrupting the Church, which has all the time in the world (that said, I
would like to have a date, nonetheless, before the Resurrection of the
Body).
Of course, it is not my problem. I am only being curious. But the other
half of Heaven (as the Chinese say) is perhaps more impatient to know.
Umberto ECO
- Read also: Thomas Aquinas on the Ordination
of Women, John Wijngaards;
- Aquinas on Women. If only he knew
what we know by John Wijngaards.
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