Cup 4 Change

Skip to content

Sun05202012

Last update06:00:00 PM GMT

Women and the Priestly Role

George Pieczonka

This article was responded below by Marjorie Reiley Maguire, Ph.D., J.D.

Women and the Priestly Role
by
Marjorie Reiley Maguire, Ph.D., J.D.
< This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

The August 6 issue of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (p. 3J) published an article by a Catholic seminarian living in Rome, which criticized the ordination of eight women as Roman Catholic priests and four as deacons on July 31 in Pittsburgh. Joseph Shimek was not at the ordination. I was. As a Catholic woman theologian, I can attest to the validity of the ordination of these women and to its solid grounding in history and Scripture.


What Mr. Shimek overlooked is the Roman Catholic theology of apostolic succession. This is a kind of ecclesiastical genealogy whereby every Roman Catholic bishop can trace back to at least the early centuries of the Church (although not as far as an actual apostle) the bishops who were in the direct line of the bishop who ordained him by the laying on of hands. It is this apostolic succession that Catholics believe gives a bishop the authority to ordain priests. It is this authority which will validate Mr. Shimek's own ordination when that occurs.

The women bishops who performed the ordinations in Pittsburgh are also part of this line of authority. They were ordained bishops by an unnamed, male bishop in Europe, who presides over a diocese and is in full communion with the Vatican. Two other male bishops assisted. This male bishop had the courage to act on his belief that the Church needs women priests at this time and also needs women bishops who can ensure that the ordination of women will continue. When this male bishop ordained the women bishops, he solemnly said over them, "This is not being done for you. This is so the work of justice may continue in the Church."

The papers proving the ordination of the women bishops and the episcopal genealogy behind it are locked in a bank vault in Europe until the unnamed male bishop dies. This in itself is a sad commentary on the state of the Church.

Because the women in Pittsburgh were ordained by three women bishops who are in the long line of apostolic succession of bishops, the ordinations are valid. The eight women are truly priests. They can celebrate Mass. They can change bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. However, the ordinations are illicit, or unlawful, because the Vatican has not yet approved the ordination of women in its canon law. Thus, none of the women expects to be assigned to parish work by the local bishop.

As an argument for his criticism of the women's ordination, Mr. Shimek repeated the erroneous historical claim that women have never been ordained priests in the history of the Church. However, modern scholars have shown the opposite. For instance, Biblical scholar and archeologist, Dorothy Irvin, has published archeological and textual evidence from throughout Europe testifying to women's ministries as both priests and bishops in the early Church. As late as 820 A.D. there was a Bishop Theodora whose icon with her title can still be seen in the Church of St. Praxedis in Rome. Unfortunately, Mr. Shimek is probably not being taught this history in his seminary classes in Rome.

The claim of Mr. Shimek that the twelve apostles were the only ones Christ originally called to be priests is also erroneous. Catholics trace the institution of the priesthood to the Last Supper, not to the call of the twelve apostles. In spite of the influence of artists who have shaped the popular imagination by picturing only twelve men at the table with Jesus, the Gospels actually say that Jesus celebrated the Last Supper with his "disciples." The priest at a Catholic Mass solemnly says that Jesus said the words of Consecration over the bread and wine to his "disciples." In the Orthodox liturgy, the priest says that Jesus said these words to His "holy apostles and disciples." Women were among the "disciples" of Jesus. Thus women were among those ordained by Jesus as the first priests at the Last Supper.

Perhaps the most disturbing claim of Mr. Shimek, but not unique to him, is the claim that only a man can be a priest because only a man can be an icon of Jesus. This extremely radical theology reduces Jesus to phallus par excellence, instead of human par excellence. It also reduces the priesthood to a phallic symbol.

The women I saw ordained in Pittsburgh are holy, bright, and dedicated women. Most of them are mothers and grandmothers. Most of them have yearned for ordination for years. They have gotten theological degrees at their own expense while raising families or doing healing work in the community. They have not enjoyed the luxury of study in Rome paid for by the local bishop from diocesan funds.


It would be scandalous if a Church which has not excommunicated priests who are child molesters were to excommunicate these good women priests or deny them communion at their parish churches. It is also scandalous for anyone in the Church to continue to claim that God is not free to call these good women to the priesthood.


Marjorie Reiley Maguire, Ph.D. (Catholic University), J.D. (University of Wisconsin) is a Catholic theologian and attorney in Milwaukee.