About James Carroll's "witty disposal" of the Church's stance...

... on women's ordination:

Rich Harlow, writing in The Boston Globe, revels in the wit and wisdom of former Catholic priest, James Carroll, whose new book, Practicing Catholic, apparently could have been titled Practicing, Part-time Catholic:

"Practicing Catholic" could just as easily have been titled "Conscience of a (Theological) Liberal." It distills its religious outlook from its author's personal history: his Catholic youth, ordination, his excitement over Vatican II's reforms and disillusion with the church's backpedaling therefrom, and finally his decision to trade the priest's collar for the writer's pen.

As a Catholic of Carroll's persuasion, I find the intellectual ammo he brings to bear potent. Traditionalists will have a big problem with him, though thoughtful ones will recognize the need to confront his arguments, since on many matters the majority of American Catholics stand with Carroll, not the Vatican. He wittily disposes of the argument against women's ordination, which is premised on the fact that the Twelve Apostles were all men: "No Celts were among Jesus's Apostles, but the Irish can be ordained."

I guess Harlow has a rather generous definition of "dispose"; or maybe he is simply disposed to facile arguments. Perhaps he will be dazzled by the following argument:

1. Peter was a fisherman.
2. Peter was chosen to be one of the Twelve Apostles.
3. Therefore all of the Twelve Apostles had to be fisherman.

And, to carry on the silliness:

4. Only fishermen can be ordained.

Of course, these brilliant and stunning lines of argumentation would stand up to scrutiny only if the Apostles and their successors in the early Church (and to this day) had ordained exclusively fishermen or Jewish men. But ethnicity obviously was not an issue in the matter. However, whether or not you were a man was an issue. Why? The simple answer is articulated clearly by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the document Inter Insigniores ("Declaration On The Question Of Admission Of Women To The Ministerial Priesthood") issued on October 15, 1976:

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 unacceptable in the Church.7 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.8

The same conviction animates medieval theology9, even if the Scholastic doctors, in their desire to clarify by reason the data of faith, often present arguments on 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 Magisterium 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. (par 1)

Sister Sara Butler, MSBT, once a supporter of women's ordination, makes an important distinction in her book, The Catholic Priesthood and Women: A Guide to the Teaching of the Church (Hillenbrand Books, 2007), between this "fact of sacred history" (or "fundamental reason"), and various theological arguments, such as theories of complimentarity (pp 48-50). She notes that while in recent decades, especially since the Second Vatican Council, there has been much focus on theological arguments (especially nuptial symbolism; see part 5 of Inter Insigniores), the fact of Jesus' decision has often been downplayed or simply ignored. This, in turn, has muddied the waters and led to an imbalanced, skewed perspective.

Carroll's argument, of course, is hardly new. Fr. Manfred Hauke, in Women In The Priesthood? (Ignatius Press, 1988), notes its use by Herbert Richardson, Hans Küng, and Gerhard Lohfink, and states, "The widening of the office is already implicitly contained in Jesus' missionary commandment, which initiates the program for extending the Church to all peoples [Mt 28:19; Lk 24:47; Act 1:8]. Therefore, there was never any controversy about the pros and cons of admitting Gentile Christians to apostolic office but only about the question of observance of certain Jewish customs by new members [Gal 2:3, 7-9; Acts 15]." (p 334).

Carroll has made it clear that the deeper issue for this and all of his other objections is Church authority: what is it? who has it? how should it be used? under what circumstances? and so forth. But as Hauke points out, it goes even deeper than that—and in doing so comes full circle, back to the "fundamental reason"—for the essential issue at hand is the veracity and meaning of Jesus, his actions, and his teachings. At stake are matters such as the divinity of Christ, the divine knowledge of Christ, and the nature of the authority granted by Christ to the Apostles and their successors.

"To the early Church," writes Hauke, "it was thus self-evident that the law from the hand of Jesus was also binding on the new religious community. It is not Christ who has to conform to the Church but rather the Church to Christ. Obedience to a command of the Lord is not dependent on ever-changing sociocultural circumstances, but is obligatory until the Day of Judgment" (pp 476). (Unless, I suppose, you decide that the Day of Judgment is only for Jews since there were no Gentiles present at the Olivet Discourse.) In the words of Inter Insigniores:

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 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. (par 4).

Related IgnatiusInsight.com Articles and Excerpts:

• Women and the Priesthood: A Theological Reflection | Jean Galot, S.J. | From Theology of the Priesthood
• Who Is A Priest? | Fr. Benedict Ashley, O.P.
• The Real Reason for the Vocation Crisis | Rev. Michael P. Orsi
• Pray the Harvest Master Sends Laborors | Rev. Anthony Zimmerman
• Priestly Vocations in America: A Look At the Numbers | Jeff Ziegler
• Clerical Celibacy: Concept and Method | Alfons Maria Cardinal Stickler | From The Case for Clerical Celibacy
• The Religion of Jesus | Blessed Columba Marmion | From Christ, The Ideal of the Priest
• The Priest as Man, Husband, and Father | Fr. John Cihak
• The Role of the Laity: An Examination of Vatican II and Christifideles Laici | Carl E. Olson