Newsgroups: bit.listserv.catholic
Date:         Sat, 3 Oct 1992 19:08:43 -0400
From:         Eric James Ewanco <ewanco@MLO.DEC.COM>
Subject:      Re: Women are unclean

> Eric says: "Jesus chose only men as Apostles."

> Jesus chose only Jews as Apostles.  That means all our priests should be
> Jews. Anyone not a Jew is unqualified.

That's correct.  All priests must be Jews; anyone who is not a Jew is not
qualified to be a priest.

Now if you read the Bible, you will see that as Christians we belong to the New
Israel.  We are spiritual Israelites, and hence Jews by faith.  We are grafted
into the tree of Israel.  Priests must be Christians; hence priests must also
be Jews.

Scripture makes no mention that presbyters and bishops must be descended from
Abraham, but it does imply that they must be men.  The Church has the authority
to recognize which characteristics must be met by candidates.  It has always
restricted the priesthood to men, and time and time again has stated that women
cannot be priests.  Among its official reasons, it does indeed include the
reasoning that Christ did not appoint female apostles, most notably, his own
Mother, whom we honor above all other humans.  Yet she was not admitted to the
ministerial priesthood.

According to Inter insigniores, Declaration on the Admission of Women to the
Ministerial Priesthood (15 October 1976), while pointing out the great
contribution women have made to the church, even pointing out that St.
Catherine of Siena was made a Doctor of the Church, says, "the Sacred
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith judges it necessary to recall that
the Church, in fidelity to the example of the Lord, does not consider herself
authorized to admit women to priestly ordination."  "The Catholic Church has
never felt that priestly or episcopal ordination can be validly conferred on
women.  A few heretical sects in the first centirues, especially Gnostic ones,
entrust the exercise of the priestly ministry to women: this innovation was
immediately noted and condemned by the Fathers, who considered it as
unacceptable in the Church. (Lots of references.)" . . .
    "Jesus Christ did not call any woman to become part of the Twelve.  If he
acted in this way, it was not in order to conform to the customs of his time,
for his attitude towards women was quite different from that of his milieu, and
he deliberately and courageously broke with it." . . .
    "It is true that these facts do not make the matter immediately obvious. .
. . But it must be recognized that we have here a number of convergent
indications that make all the more remarkable the fact that Jesus did not
entrust the apostolic charge to women.  Even his Mother, who was so closely
associated with the mystery of her Son, and whose incomparable role is
emphasized by the Gospels of Luke and John, was not invested with the apostolic
ministry. This fact was to lead the Fathers to present her as the example of
Christ's will in this domain; as Pope Innocent III repeated later, at the
beginning of the thirteenth century, 'Although the Blessed Virgin Mary
surpassed in dignity and in excellence all the Apostles, nevertheless it was
not to her but to them that the Lord entrusted the keys of the Kingdom of
Heaven." . . .
    "In the final analysis it is the Church, through the voice of her
Magisterium, that, in these various domains, decides what can change and what
must remain immutable.  When she judges that she cannot accept certain changes,
it is because she knows that she is bound by Christ's manner of acting.  Her
attitude, despite appearances, is therefore not one of archaism but of
fidelity; it can be truly understood only in this light.  The Church makes
pronouncements in virtue of the Lord's promise and the presence of the Holy
Spirit, in order to proclaim better the mystery of Christ and to safeguard and
manifest the whole of its rich content.
   "This practice of the Church therefore has a normative character: in the
fact of conferring priestly ordination only on men, it is a question of an
unbroken tradition throughout the history of the Church, universal in the East
and in the West, and alert to repress abuses immediately. This norm, based on
Christ's example, has been and is still observed because it is considered to
conform to God's plan for his church."

[It goes on to present, not for demonstrative purposes but for purposes of
clarification, how the priest acts in the place of Christ in the Mass and that
since Christ was and remains a man, the priest, too, must be a man.]

"This does not stem from any personal superiority of [men] in the order of
values, but only from a difference of fact onthe level of functions and
service." . . .
   "It is sometimes said and written in books and periodicals that some women
feel that they have a vocation to the priesthood.  Such an attraction, however
noble and understandable, still does not suffice for a genuine vocation.  In
fact a vocation cannot be reduced to a mere personal attraction, which can
remain purely subjective.  Since the priesthood is a particular ministry of
which the Church has received the charge and the control, authentication by
the Church is indispensable here and is a constitutive part of the vocation:
Christ chose 'those he wanted' (Mk 3:13).  On the other hand, there is a
universal vocation of all the baptized to the exercise of the royal priesthood
by offering their lives to God and by giving witness for his praise.
    "Women who express a desire for the ministerial priesthood are doubtless
motivated by the desire to serve Christ and the Church.  And it is not
surprising that, at a time when they are becoming more aware of the
discriminations to which they have been subject, they should deisre the
ministerial priesthood itself.  But it must not be forgotten that the
priesthood does not form part of the rights of the individual, but stems from
the economy of the mystery of Christ and the Church.  The priestly office
cannot become the goal of social advancement; not merely human progress of
society or of the individual can of itself give access to it: it is of another
order."