From: covert@COVERT.ENET.DEC.COM (John R. Covert 11-Nov-1992 0842)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.catholic
Subject: Ordination of Women -- Inter Insigniores -- Part 1 of 2
Date: 11 Nov 92 13:42:29 GMT
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Apparently-To: catholic@american.edu


			Inter Insigniores


	Declaration of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of
    the Faith on the question of admission of women to the ministerial
	priesthood, 1976.


	1. The Church's Constant Tradition

	The Catholic Church has never felt that priestly or episcopal
	ordination can be validly conferred on women. A few heretical sects
	in the first centuries, especially Gnostic ones, entrusted the exercise
	of the priestly ministry to women: This innovation was immediately
	noted and condemned by the Fathers, who considered it as unnacceptable
	in the Church. It is true that in the writings of the Fathers, one
	will find the undeniable influence of prejudices unfavourable to
	woman, but nevertheless, it should be noted that these prejudices
	had hardly any influences on their pastoral activity, and still
	less on their spiritual direction. But over and above these
 	considerations inspired by the spirit of the times, one finds expressed
	- especially in the canonical documents of the Antiochan and Egyptian
	traditions- this essential reason, namely, that by calling only
	men to the priestly Order and ministry in its true sense, the Church
	intends to remain faithful to the type of ordained ministry willed
	by the Lord Jesus Christ and carefully maintained by the Apostles.
		The same conviction animates medieval theology, even if
	the Scholastic doctors, in their desire to clarify by reason the
	data of faith, often present argumentson this point that modern
	thought would have difficulty in admitting, or would even rightly
	reject. Since that period and up till our own time, it can be said
	that the question has not been raised again for the practice has
	enjoyed peaceful and universal acceptance.
	   The Church's tradition in the matter has thus been so firm in
	the course of the centuries that the Magiterium has not felt the
	need to intervene in order to formulate a principle which was not
	attacked, or to defend a law which was not challenged. But each
	time that this tradition had the occasion to manifest itself, it
	witnessed to the Church's desire to conform to the model left her
	by the Lord.
		The same tradition has been faithfully safeguarded by the
	Churches of the East. Their unanimity on this point is all the more
	remarkable since in many other questions their discipline admits
	of a great diversity. At present time these same Churches refuse
	to associate themselves with requests directed towards securing
	the accession of women to priestly ordination.


	2. The Attitude of Christ.

	Jesus Christ did not call any women 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 millieu, and he deliberately and courageously broke
	with it.
	  For example, to the great astonishment of his own disciples Jesus
	converses publicly with the Samaritan woman (Jn 4:27); he takes
	no notice of the state of legal impurity of the woman who had
	suffered from haemorrhages (Mt 9:20); he allows a sinful woman to
	approach him in the house of Simon the Pharisee (Lk 7:37); and by
	pardoning the woman taken in adultery, he means to show that one
	must not be more severe towards the fault of a woman than towards
	that of a man (Jn 8:11). He does not hesitate to depart from the
	Mosaic Law in order to affirm the equality of the rights and duties
	of men and women with regard to the marriage bond (Mk 10:2; Mt 19:3).
		In his itinerant ministry Jesus was accompanied not only
	by the Twelve but also by a group of women (Lk 8:2). Contrary to
	the Jewish mentality, which did not accord great value to the
	testimony of women, as Jewish law attests, it was nevertheless women
	who were the fist to have the privilege of seeing the risen Lord,
	and it was they who were charged by Jesus to take the first paschal
	message to the Apostles themselves (Mt 28:7 ; Lk 24:9 ; Jn 20:11),
	in order to prepare the latter to becaome the official witnesses
	to the Resurrection.
		It is true that these facts do not make the matter immediately
	obvious. This is no surprise, for the questions that the Word of
	God brings before us go beyond the obvious. In order to reach the
	the ultimate meaning of the mission of Jesus and the ultimate meaning
	of Scripture, a purely historical exegesis of the texts cannot suffice.
	But it must be recognised that we have here a number of convergent
	indications that make all the more remarkable 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 an 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.'


	3. The Practice of the Apostles.

	The apostolic community remained faithful to the attitude of Jesus
	towards women. Although Mary occupied a privileged place in the
	little circle of those gathered in the Upper Room after the Lord's
	Ascension (Acts 1:14), it was not she who was called to enter the
	College of the Twelve at the time of the election that resulted
	in the choice of Mathias: those who were put forward were two disciples
	whom the Gospels do not even mention.
		On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit filled them all,
	men and women (Acts 2:!, 1:14), yet the proclamation of the fulfilment
	of the prophecies in Jesu was made only by 'Peter and the Eleven'
	(Acts 2:14).
	  When they and Paul went beyond the confines of the Jewish world,
	the preaching of the Gospel and the Christian life in the Greco-Roman
	civilisation impelled them to break with Mosaic practices, sometimes
	regretfully. They could therefore have envisaged conferring ordination
	on women, if they had not been convinced of their duty of fidelity
	to the Lord on this point. In fact the Greeks did not share the
	ideas of the Jews: although thier philosophers taught the inferiority
	of women, historians nevertheless emphasize the existence of a certain
	movement for the advancement of women during the Imperial period.
	In fact we know from the book of Acts and from the letter of St.Paul,
	that certain women worked with the Apostle for the Gospel (Rm16:3-12;
	Phil 4:3). Saint Paul lists their names with gratitude in the final
	salutations of the Letters. Some of them often exercised an important
	influence on conversions: Priscilla,Lydia and others; especially
	Priscilla, who took it on herself to complete the instruction of
	Apollos (Acts 18:26); Phoebe, in the service of the Church of Cenchreae
	(Rm 16:1). All these facts manifest within the Apostolic Church
	a considerable evolution vis-a-vis the customs of Judaism. Nevertheless
	at no time was there a question of conferring ordination on these
	women.
		In the Pauline letters, exegetes of authority have noted
	a difference between two formulas used by the Apostle: he writes
	indiscriminately 'My fellow workers' (Rom.16:3;Phil 4:2-3) when
	referring to men and women helping him in his apostolate in one
	way or another; but he reserves the title of 'God's fellow workers'
	(1Cor. 3-9; 1Thess 3:2) to Apollos, Timothy and himself, thus
	designated because they are directly set apart for the apostolic
	ministry and the preaching of the Word of God. In spite of the so
	important role played by women on the day of the Resurrection, their
	collaboration was not extended by St.Paul to the official and public
	proclamation of the message, since this proclamation belongs
	exclusively to the apostolic mission.


	4. Permanent Value of the Attitude of Jesus
	   and the Apostles.


	Could the Church today depart from this attitude of Jesus and the
	Apostles, which has been considered as normative by the whole of
	tradition up to our own day ? Various arguments have been put forward
	in favour of a positive reply to this question, and these must now
	be examined.
	  It has been claimed in particular that the attitude of Jesus and
	the Apostles is explained by the influence of their milieu and their
	times. It is said that, if Jesus did not entrust to women and not
	even to hi Mother a ministry assimilating them to the Twelve, this
	was because historical circumstances did not permit him to do so.
	No one however has ever proved- and it is clearly impossible to
	prove- that this attitude is inspired only by social and cultural
	reasons. As we have seen, and examination of the Gospels shows on
	the contrary that Jesus broke with the prejudices of his time, by
	widely contravening the discriminations practiced with regard to
	women. One therefore cannot maintain that, by not calling women
	to enter the group of the Apostles, Jesus was simply letting himself
	be guided by reasons of expediency. For all the more reason, social
	and cultural conditioning did not hold back the Apostles working
	in the Greek milieu, where the same forms of discrimination did
	not exist.
	     Another objection is based upon the transitory character that
	one claims to see today in some of the presriptions of Saint Paul
	concerning women, and upon the difficulties that some aspects of
	his teaching raise in this regard. But it must be noted that these
	ordinances, probably inspired by the customs of the period, concern
	scarcely more than disciplinary practices of minor importance, such
	as the obligation imposed upon women to wear a veil on their head
	(1 Cor11:2-16); such requirements no longer have a normative value.
	However, the Apostle's forbidding of women to speak in the assemblies
	(1 Cor 14:34-35; 1Ti, 2:12) is of a different nature, and exegetes
	define its meaning in this way: Paul in no way opposes the right,
	which he elsewhere recognises as possessed by women, to prophesy
	in the assembly (1 Cor11:15); the prohibition solely concerns the
	official function of teaching in the Christian assembly. For Saint
	Paul this prescription is bound up with the divine plan of creation
	(1 Cor11:7; Gen2 18-24): it would be difficult to see in it the
	expression of a cultural fact. Nor should it be forgotten that we
	owe to Saint Paul one of the most vigorous texts in the New Testament
	on the fundamental equality of men and women, as children of God
	in Christ (Gal 3:28). Therefore there is no reason for accusing
	him of prejudices against women, when we note the trust that he
	shows towards them and the collaboration that he asks of them in
	his apostolate.
		But over and above these objections taken from the history
	of apostolic times, those who support the legitimacy of change in
	the matter turn to the Church's pratice in her sacramental discipline.
	It has been noted, inour day especially, to what extent the Church
	is conscious of possessing a certain power over the sacraments,
	even though they were instituted by Christ. She has used this power
	down the centuries in order to determine their signs and the conditions
	of their administration: recent decisions of Popes Pius XII and
	Paul IV are proof of this. However, it must be emphasized that this
	power, which is a real one, has definite limits. As Pope Pius XII
	recalled: 'The Church has no power over the substance of the
	sacraments, that is to say, over what Christ the Lord, as the sources
	of Revelation bear witness, determined should be maintained in the
	sacramental sign.' This was already the teaching of the council
	of Trent , which declared: 'In the Church there has always existed
	this power, that in the administration of the sacraments, provided
	that their substance remains unaltered, she can lay down or modify
	what she considers more fitting either for the benefit of those
	who receive them or for respect towards those same sacraments,
	according to varying circumstances, times or places.
		Moreover, it must not be forgotten that the scramental signs
	are not conventional ones. Not only is it true that, in many respects,
	they are natural signs because they respond to the deep symbolism
	of actions and things, but they are more than this: they are
	principally meant to link the person of every period to the supreme
	Event of the history of salvation, in order to enable that person
	to understand, through all the Bible's wealth of pedagogy and
	symbolism, what grace they signify and produce. For example, the
	sacrament of the Eucharist is not only a fraternal meal, but at
	the same time a memorial which makes present and actual Christ's
	sacrifice and his offering by the Church. Again the priestly ministry
	is not just a pastoral service; it ensures the continuity of the
	functions entrusted by Christ to the Apostles and the continuity of
	the powers related to those functions. Adaptations to civilizations
	and times therefore cannot abolish on essential points, the sacramental
	reference to constitutive events of Christianity and to Christ himself.
		In the final analysis it is the Church through the voice
	of the Magisterium, that, in these various domains, decides what
	can change and what must remain immutable. When she judges she cannot
	accept certain changes, it is because she knows 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.
		The practice of the Church therefore has a normative character:
	in the fact of conferring priestly ordination only on men, it is
	a question of unbroken tradition throughout the history of the Church,
	universal inteh 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.
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