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Women too share in the human nature Christ assumed at
the Incarnation
Rome attributes special theological meaning to Christ having been
incarnated as a man, as a male person.
“ Christ is of course the firstborn of all humanity, of women as
well as men . . . . Nevertheless, the incarnation of the Word took place
according to the male sex: this is indeed a question of fact, and this
fact, while not implying an alleged natural superiority of man over woman,
cannot be disassociated from the economy of salvation: it is, indeed, in
harmony with the entirety of God’s plan as God himself has revealed it,
and of which the mystery of the Covenant is the nucleus.” Inter Insigniores § 28
This is a dangerous statement from a theological point of view as
Elizabeth Johnson has pointed out. The crucial role of Jesus's maleness in
Rome's argument places the notion of representation in the heart of the
Incarnation itself. However, this has consequences according to the Church's
orthodox Christological tradition .
The Cappadocian rule of faith "what is not assumed [into Christ's
humanity] is not saved" defined the proper understanding of the human
persona in the fourth-century controversy on the humanity of Christ. Any notion
of the humanity of Christ that excluded anything essentially human from his
existence was judged an inadequate notion according to this rule, since the
excluded human dimension would not share in the hypostatic union and so not
enjoy the union's saving effects. "If maleness is constitutive for the
incarnation and redemption," Johnson observes, "female humanity is not assumed
and therefore not saved."
Giving Jesus' maleness a privileged status as Inter insigniores
does, particularizes the human notion of persona in a way that puts it at odds
with the ancient rule of faith, thus destroying both the Christian notion of
human person implicit in the rule and any possibility of its legitimate
representation, even and perhaps especially if the object of representation is
the person of Christ. “An egalitarian anthropology that holds that women
and men are equally created in the image of God, and are equally one in Christ
through the waters of baptism offers a more adequate resource for considering
the issue of priestly ordination.”
Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist
Theological Discourse, Crossroad, New York 1992, p. 153.
Women can ‘image’ Christ because they share
the same human nature
Most Catholics instinctively feel that the notion: ‘only a male
priest can represent Christ’ offends against women's shared humanity with
Christ, leave alone their sharing in his spiritual life.
“When the pope writes [in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis] that he
also embraces the "other theological arguments" of Inter insigniores, it
is unclear whether he means to include the assertion in Inter
insigniores that women are not and cannot be ‘in persona
Christi’: since women cannot bear a natural (sexual) resemblance to Jesus
Christ, women cannot be a sacramental sign of Christ. I have written elsewhere
of my suspicion that the authors of Inter insigniores might wish they
had never made this argument, since it is patently inconsistent with the
church's own sacramental theology and prior tradition . It is also the argument
that has generated the greatest amount of pain, frustration, and cognitive
dissonance for so many Catholics. My undergraduate students, hearing this
argument after spending three months learning about the riches of the doctrine
of the Trinity for theological anthropology, were dumbstruck and deeply
dismayed. Given the deliberate continuity of the pope's apostolic letter with
Inter insigniores, does the Vatican intend to claim still that women are
not in persona Christi? If not, this would be a very significant correction to
Inter insigniores and should be made explicit. But if so, then the
Vatican is still declaring that it is God's will for women that women may never
sacramentalize Christ, never represent Christ, never stand in the person of
Christ, at the Eucharist!”
Catherine Mowry LaCugna, ‘Women's ordination’,
Commonweal 121 (July 15 '94) p. 10-13. LaCugna is professor of theology
at the University of Notre Dame, and author of God for Us: The Trinity and
Christian Life (HarperCollins, 1991).
“This declaration has clearly lost sight of the crucial
theological question, that is whether the minister's resemblance to Christ
resembles one's sexuality, or one's humanity. Obviously when this declaration
was made no reference was made to Galatians Ch.3, nor to the fact that the
minister's resemblance to Christ resides in one's humanity and not in one's
sexual gender as the basic requirement for being a minister of the
Church.”
Yuri Koszarycz , ‘Ethics and Feminism’.
“ Is Inter insigniores saying that having women at the
altar would be the equivalent of using pizza instead of bread, or Coke instead
of wine? Are we being told that the sign-value would be defective because women
are of a fundamentally different nature than men, and therefore of Christ? Are
we to understand that a woman cannot resemble Christ sufficiently for the
faithful to see Christ in her, for her to become a sacrament of Christ? Surely
that is not what is being suggested. I say surely, because any denial of the
power of Christ through his passion, death, and Resurrection to transform a
believer into his image is irreconcilable with the Tradition . What would be
the reaction if one said that a particular race or nationality could not
adequately image Christ? And yet in another age and among certain groups, this
too would have been acceptable. The sacramentality of the priesthood cannot
demand a male presence in the same way that the celebration of the Eucharist
requires the elements of bread and wine. Christ is the destination and ultimate
identity of each human being, and all are called to be remade in his image.
Thus women are not called to be lesser images of Christ than are men.”
Rose Hoover, ‘Consider tradition. The case for women's
ordination’, Commonweal 126 no 2 (Jan. 29, 1999), p. 17-20. Hoover
is on the retreat staff of the Cenacle in Metairie, Louisiana.
To insist on Christ's sex in his representation, is to
reduce a symbol to a stereotype
This has been explained very well by Thomas More Newbold.
“The ‘natural resemblance’ of a
‘natural symbol’ does not require that the symbolic person or
function or object be a literal copy of the person, function or object
symbolized. As Jung has pointed out, the symbolic manifestation or expression
of an archetype loses both vigor and viability, meaning and vitality if it
becomes a stereotype. To understand the ‘natural resemblance’ of
‘natural symbol’ in this reduced sense would impoverish its meaning
and threaten its viability, making it a stereotype that fails to represent the
full range of both meaning and possibility. Thus, it is certainly a fact, as
the Declaration asserts, that Christ the Lord, in His male Personhood,
is the archetypal symbol of priesthood; but to conclude that this fact requires
an exclusively male priesthood is stereotypical reductionism when considered in
the context of the symbolism of human sexuality and personhood.”
“Before all else, a man is a male PERSON and
a woman is a female PERSON. This means that both men and women
have always in common that capacity for full humanness and for the full range
of symbolic action and function that the primacy of personhood involves. The
value and validity of the symbolic approach to human sexuality lies precisely
in this: that it never denies the anatomical destiny of being male and female,
but at the same time it never loses sight of the primacy and meaning of
PERSONHOOD in both men and women. To cherish that value and respect that
validity require, therefore, that the symbolism of sexuality be applied to
ministerial status and functions, not within the limited sexual-anatomical
perspective but within the larger and more adequate context of the
personal.”
Thomas Newbold, ‘Symbolism of Sexuality: Person, Ministry and
Women Priests’, in Women and Priesthood. Future Directions,
Liturgical Press, Collegeville 1978, pp. 133-141; here pp. 138-139.
John Wijngaards
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