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by Ida Raming (bibliography)
from Theology Digest 42:3 (Fall, 1995) pp.
235-238; earlier published as “Ungenutzte Chancen für Frauen im
Kirchenrecht: Widersprüche im CIC/1983 und ihre Konsequenzen,”
Orientierung: Katholische Blätter für weltanschauliche Information
58:6 (March 31, 1994) pp. 68-70; here republished with permission of the
author and publisher.
In
canon 204 para. 1 and canon 208 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law basic norms are
provided for “the people of God” as they choose a life’s
vocation. The basic principle of these canons is the equality of all of
God’s people. However canon 1024 limits the ministerial priesthood to
baptised males. How, asks Ida Raming, are we to understand this contradiction?
Is canon 1024 theologica/ly justifiable? What does “canonically
suitable” (c. 1026) mean ? Are we not to respect God’s Spirit which
“allots to each one as he/she chooses” (1 Cor 11:12)?
Editors’ note: When Ordinatio sacerdotalis was published
over a year ago it raised questions about the nature of ministry in the church.
The following article which was part of that discussion was written before the
Responsum of November 18, 1995 from the Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith.
Vatican II (1962-65) advised the creation of new legal norms that would conform
with the Council’s resolutions. Pope John XXIII provided the initial
impetus (1959) for the reform of the 1917 code of canon law, and numerous
Council documents were also very important, above all the Dogmatic
Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium). This document developed an
ecclesiology which—despite all limitations— proceeded from the idea
of the community of all believers as the “people of God.”
Therefore, the chosen People of God is one: “one Lord, one faith, one
baptism” (Eph. 4:5). As members, they share a common dignity from their
rebirth in Christ. They have the same filial grace and the same vocation to
perfection. They possess in common one salvation, one hope, and one undivided
charity. Hence, there is in Christ and in the Church no inequality on the basis
of race or nationality, social condition or sex, because “there is neither
Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor freeman; there is neither male nor
female. For you are all ‘one’ in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28, Greek
text; cf. Col. 3:11). (LG 32).
The
express acknowledgement here of the fundamental equality of all of God’s
people—above and beyond all distinctions—has found expression in the
1983 code in canons 204 and 208. Canon 204, 1 contains the Council’s
statement concerning the common priesthood of all believers, and emphasizes
their call in relationship to the church’s mission.
The
Christian faithful are those who, inasmuch as they have been incorporated in
Christ through baptism, have been constituted as the people of God; for this
reason since they have become sharers in Christ's priestly, prophetic and royal
office in their own manner, they are called to exercise the mission which God
has entrusted to the Church to fulfill in the world, in accord with the
condition proper to each one.
Canon
208 emphasizes the similarity of all believers on the basis of their
“rebirth in Christ.”
In
virtue of their rebirth in Christ there exists amongst all the Christian
faithful a true equality with regard to dignity and the activity whereby all
cooperate in the building up of the Body of Christ in accord with each one's
own condition and function.
A
comparison of canon 208 and the text cited above fiom Lumen Gentium
shows that canon 208 lacks the words , “Hence, there is .... no inequality
on the basis of race or nationality, social condition or sex ....”
However, the words were in part of the early formulations (1971) of the Lex
Ecclesiae Fundamentalis (LEF). But later versions of the (LEF) (1976) omitted
them. The majority of the members of the canon law reform commision (which had
no female representatives) rejected the words without explanation. Why? Was it,
asks R.Puza, because the commission wanted “to cement the unequal
treatment of the sexes in canon law?”
Canons 204, 1 and 208 deal with basic legal norms that apply to all
members of “God's people”. They function as guiding principles for
the interpretation of the rest of the canons. In accord with Vatican II and
Lumen Gentium’s image of the church as the “people of
God” the thought of the equality of all members stands in the foreground.
Thus, one needs to question whether existing inequalities can be reconciled
with the principle of equality and, if they cannot, they need to be
abolished.
The
priciple of the fundamental equality of all believers (c.208) is the basis for
the individual rights of all church members (cc. 212, 2, 3; 213-220). These
rights flow from people's dignity as “children of God.” These canons
circumscribe a spiritual freedom which guarantees the individual believer the
right to actively participate in the church's mission: “All the christian
faithful have the right to be free from any kind of coercion in choosing a
state in life” (c.219). The right “in choosing a state in life”
in this canon is comparable to the general human right of choosing a profession
in the “profane” realm. But what ecclesial “states in life”
are presumed in this law? They are: married or clerical, consecrated or
apostolic life, e.g., orders.
Limitations on women’s rights
This
basic right to freely choose one's state in life (c.219) is essentially
exercised for women in the church. Canon1024 says that despite baptism,
confirmation, theological education and finally, despite a prevailing religious
vocation, women are classified as legally incapable of ordination:
“Only a baptized male validly receives sacred ordination.” Women,
even if they believe and are baptized, are a priori excluded from the
offices of deacon, priest and bishop. (All presume a sacramental
ordination.)
But
according to Christian Huber, c.219 is not based on the subjective right to
ordination. It presumes that every believer has the same possibility to
choose a definite state in life—including the clerical state. But
c.1024 has radically eliminated this possibility for half of the faithful. The
question concerning the rclationship between c.219 and c.1024 is not a matter
of the possible violation of a subjective right, but threatens the preservation
of all basic rights and the fundamental equality of all the faithful set
down in c.208. If, then, all women are excluded from the possibility of
choosing the clerical state, then c.1024 deals with a legal inequality on
the basis of sex. The norm of c.1024 also militates against the fundamental
right of c.219 that on the basis of c.208 must be valid equally for all
believers. The implications of all this for the discussion of women’s
ordination is not insignificant. It is not the critics of church praxis who are
compelled to present an argument. Rather, the praxis itself needs theological
justification.
In
this connection Huber points to the enormous importance of the sacrament of
ordination and the establishment of (clerical) service in church politics.
Important decisions in the church are bound to offices that presume sacramental
ordination. The limitation of the valid reception of ordination to men means at
the same time that women cannot participate in all important church decisions
at the highest level. The breakthrough, says Huber, of the principle of
equality with respect to receiving ordination also has practical consequences
for the church’s life, as well as for individual lives. The restriction of
the sacrament of ordination to men (c.1024) runs counter to the equality of the
faithful (c.208) established on the fundamental right of believers (c.219) and
thus unconditionally needs valid theological grounding.
Consequences
However, church leaders have not advanced a “compelling theological
justification”—anything but. The theological attempt to establish or
justify the exclusion of women from the sacrament of ordination and from
(priestly) office proceeds from the superior position of men over women which
is supported by biblical texts and texts from church tradition (patristics,
Middle Ages). The historical conditionedness of these texts is not questioned.
They are considered divine revelation. Thus, the prohibition against
women’s ordination cannot continue without “misogynist
theology.” As long as women are not admitted to all church offices, the
violence, hatred of women and theological heresy will continue. Consequently,
official magisterial pronouncements lose their binding claim (e.g., Inter
insigniores [The Declaration On the Admission of Women to the Ministerial
priesthood]) because it is men who exclusively presume competency to
describe women’s “nature,” and thus delimit women’s sphere
of ecclesial activity and develop a “theology” of men for women.
There
are no valid theological grounds for excluding women from ordination. Women, as
members of the “people of God,” must have the guaranteed right to
freely choose their state in life (c.219), including the clerical state. On the
basis of the principle of equality (c.208; LG, 32) women have a
“structural claim” (not to be equated with a personal, subjective
claim) to the priesthood. This means that women must have access to this office
“under the same conditions and circumstances” as men. If men of the
church “who have the power and the right to make decisions, forbid women
access to the priesthood, they bear objective guilt” (D. Mieth). In the
choice of a state in life the faithful respond as members of the church to
their specific vocation and thus concretize their Christian vocation and
participate in thc church’s mission. Thus the ecclesial community does not
have the freedom to revoke the spiritual gifts and vocations that daily appear
in its midst. On the contrary, it is to accept them (cf 1Cor 12:1-11, 12-25:
1Thes 5:19). The choice of a definite state in life also should not be
“unjustifiably hindered” (Huber). According to c.233, 1, the entire
Christian community has the “responsibility” to foster spiritual
vocations “so that sufficient provision is made for the needs of the
sacred ministry throughout the entire church.” In a special way the bishop
is responsible for fostering spiritual vocations, above all for “priestly
and missionary vocations” (c. 385). According to c.1026 no one
“canonically suitable” should be prevented from receiving
orders.
And
what does “canonically suitable” mean? How is it recognized? The
valid criterion is: religious vocation to the spiritual office, i.e., the free,
religiously motivated desire to undertake what one is capable of, and what the
church needs. But as long as the qualities we have mentioned (especially the
spiritually motivated vocation to spiritual office) are denied women and they
are prevented from holding responsible office in the church, and as long as
they are consigned to the lay state contrary to the basic right to freely
choose a life state, one does not heed either the human or personal dignity of
women, nor respect the freedom of God whose Spirit “allots to each one as
he/she chooses” ( 1Cor 12:1 1). By contrast, the one and only attitude
demanded for the free operation of the Spirit’s divine power is respect.
The official church bears the responsibility to see to it that the various
God-given charisms can completely develop for the church’s edification.
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