Why Not Ordain Women?

by Sebastian R Fama

That God has chosen a minority of men for the servant role of priest, does not make them superior to women. Are men inferior to women because they cannot bear children? Of course not. On occasion, God, who is perfectly just, determines that men and women are to have different roles. That is not sexism, that is diversity. Hence the Church rejects the radical feminist notion that women have no worth unless they are exactly like men.

Women have just as much intrinsic value as men do. In fact, the greatest Christian who ever lived was a woman, (Mary) and yet, she was never ordained to the priesthood. God has a plan of service for everyone. Humbly seek His will in your life. For “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6).

The priesthood is a vocation. A vocation is a calling. In this case, a calling from God. If God calls you to do something and you say yes, it gets done. Only you can frustrate God’s will in your life. If God chose to call women to the priesthood, we would have had them all along. But we have never had any. Therefore, we can conclude that God either has not called any women to the priesthood, or He did and they all said no.

No man is more powerful than God and thus no man can prevent God from accomplishing His will. It is true that tyrants have jailed or killed priests and seminarians. And so yes, in a limited sense, God’s will can be frustrated. But to allege that an important part of his plan for his Church has been suppressed for 2000 years by sinful men, is just too much to be believed. Remember that he said he would guide the Church into all truth (John 16:12). He also promised to protect and safeguard his Church (Matthew 28:18-20).

If Jesus has not done what He promised, he is a liar. If that is true then we do not need Him. And we do not need His Church. And we certainly would not need any priests be they male or female. But it is not true! And so, we do need Jesus. And we do need His Church. And we do need His priests. Furthermore, we need to be obedient to His Church as He endowed it with His own authority (Matthew 16:18-19, Luke 10:16).

In his encyclical Ordinatio Sacerdotalis Pope Saint John Paul II wrote: “I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful” (no. 4). In other words, the matter is settled.