Elsie McGrath and Rose Hudson, the two women recently “ordained as Catholic women priests,” have created quite a buzz in St. Louis-the three articles in The University News last week join two articles in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the lead article of The Riverfront Times from weeks before. This issue has struck a chord in me, generating a greater din than I would have anticipated, and I feel I must speak: as a Catholic male member of the laity and as scholar of the law.
Both the commentary “Controversy, hope surrounds ordination,” and a letter to the editor, “Ordination of Women,” last week chastised the “obstinacy of Rome” for upholding “old-fashioned, patriarchal” attitudes regarding women and ordination. I humbly submit that many of the people who share similar attitudes do not understand the issue. How can someone judge what he or she does not understand?
Greater experts than I in the field of theology will undoubtedly respond to this issue, so I will only use it sparingly. Both canon law and papal proclamations have stated that it is not an issue of the Church being unwilling to canonize women, but, rather, the Church is unable to do so. Authority was not given to the Church for this, and the Church has upheld this tradition from the beginning. Just like the other sacraments, Holy Orders require the proper elements: a baptism is not valid without water and the right words; beer and cookies cannot be hosts for the Eucharist; marriage requires one man and one woman; Anointing of the Sick requires a person who is ill; a person cannot confess and be absolved of a sin they have not committed; Confirmation cannot be valid if it is coerced. Likewise, women cannot receive Holy Orders.
Rejecting this proposition creates the following inferences: First, the Church’s current position is wrong; second, the clergy either are unaware they are wrong, or they are aware and yet reject the truth for political or selfish motivations; or third, a 2,000-year-old tradition is essentially arbitrary and ought to be modernized.
I refer to the Second Great Awakening of the 1800s, the roots of which still affect us to this day. This movement was a surge in Protestant revivals in the 19th century. In part, this movement was characterized by some common ideas: that progress is both inevitable and good, and, because of this, citizens (especially Christians, who by speeding up the progress speed on toward the Second Coming) have an obligation to oppose, assail and tear down any tradition or establishment that impedes this “good progress.”
It was this mentality that partially gave rise to the temperance, abolition and the suffragette movements. It is no wonder that this age saw the birth of Christian Restorationism (e.g. Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Scientists, Shakers) who said, “they’ve had it all wrong all this time.”
The Catholic Church both resisted this movement and was assailed by it. That assault continues to this day. The Church is more than just the clergy, but it is also more the mere reading of the Bible and appeal to our inner conscience. The Catholic Church derives its authority from its Apostolic tradition: that the clergy has continued in an unbroken line down from Christ himself. The Holy Spirit guides this authority, and every Protestant (whether they are aware of it or not) acknowledges this fact to one degree or another. They have to, or they’d better go find another Bible to read (but that is another commentary).
The contempt demonstrated by Irwin and by John Nolan (in “Controversy, hope surrounds ordination) for the clergy is palpable. Nolan talks about the “obstinacy of Rome” and the “prophetic” nature of the recent ordination. Curiously, the two women mentioned as being “shaped by their faith tradition” one moment and then decries the “ancient tradition” of the Church as being out of date (i.e. “the fact that something has been done a certain way in the past does not justify its continuation”). This suggests not only the progress-is-always-good mindset, but is also completely illogical: two women adhering to their “faith tradition” is praiseworthy, but the clergy doing just that is “obstinacy?” I would point out, too, that both of these women were Protestants for the majority of their lifetimes. Only late in life did they convert, and therefore they-perhaps more so than cradle Catholics-ought to appreciate what they were coming into.
Irwin’s letter seems to contend that a simple justification for ordaining women is allegedly lackluster numbers of men seeking ordination. This relies on the notion that the proscription is arbitrary, which fits into the theme of both her letter and Nolan’s. What evidence of this is offered? The closest either person offers is the hearsay of one Jesuit theologian from half a century ago. Nowhere is the question of whether the Church is actually being guided by the Holy Spirit brought up.
Christians are called to be a light to the world. We are not supposed conform to the world, but rather call the world to be more like us. The Catholic Church is not a church that needs to reinvent itself “for this generation.” It is the church Jesus himself made for all generations. Nowhere in the Gospels do you find Jesus writing down so much as his own name-he placed his trust his followers, and that trust is the pillar that supports our Church to this day. Anyone may disagree with the clergy, but there is no point in being Catholic if you believe they violate a trust to bear witness to the truth as best they (with the aid of the Holy Spirit) understand it.
Tim Wright is a second year student in the School of Law.
