Why can’t we have women priests?

Dear Mason & Teo,
My cousin is an ordained minister at an Episcopal Church. She does what the priest does in the Catholic Church. Why can’t women be priests in the Catholic Church? (Just Wonderin’)

Dear Just Wonderin’,

Jesus instituted the Catholic Church and he instituted the all-male priesthood to fulfill his plan of salvation for everyone. Jesus is the bridegroom who laid down his life for the sake of his bride, the church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) states that men who, through the Sacrament of Holy Orders, participate in Christ’s priesthood and carry on this bridegroom role, act “in the person of Christ the Head” on behalf of the faithful (CCC 1548).

Christ’s teaching on the ordained priesthood should not be misunderstood as discrimination or an ancient cultural prejudice, now outmoded. In fact, during Jesus’ time, women priests were common in many Greco-Roman religions. Indeed, Jesus was certainly unafraid to go against cultural taboos. In reality, Jesus did things and said things that shocked his contemporary followers, such as, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53).

The Catholic Church has consistently taught that men and women have equal dignity in the eyes of God and that each, though different, have complimentary roles and functions in living out God’s plan of salvation for humanity.

Ordination into the priesthood is a Sacrament of Holy Orders. It is not about giving a man “permission” to perform the functions of a priest. Anyone can do pastoral, teaching, preaching or administrative work. These activities, however, are not the essence of the priesthood. The essence of the priestly office is the celebration of Christ’s Sacrifice in the Mass.

It is about the sacrament — an outward sign, instituted by Christ to give grace. It is an action that not only does what it symbolizes, but symbolizes what it does.

In Baptism, for example, the sacrament is administered through water, and only water, the symbol of cleansing and new life. One cannot substitute another liquid, such as milk. Likewise, in Holy Eucharist, Jesus’ original choice of bread and wine cannot be switched with other food and drink, even if another food might seem more culturally accessible.

Water is the right “matter” for the Sacrament of Baptism; bread and wine is the right “matter” for Eucharist.

In the Sacrament of Holy Orders, the priest is imparted with an indelible, permanent spiritual character that makes him a priest. His male gender is the right “matter” for this Sacrament.

Christ teaches that he is the “bridegroom” to the church’s “bride” in the great marriage feast of the Kingdom (Matthew 25:1-13). And every Mass is a local “Marriage Feast of the Lamb” in which we enter into the self-sacrificial love of that cosmic bridegroom for his bride.

It is not that a man is “superior” to a woman in being “matter” for the priesthood. It is that a man is the proper symbol of the bridegroom, and a woman is not. The priest does not simply administer the Mass; he is actually one of the symbols of the mystery of the Mass.

Ordination, therefore, is a gift, never a right. Like all the other Sacraments, its symbols matter. Because the sacraments were instituted by Christ himself, the church has no power to change the symbols in their fundamental form. The tradition of the ordination of men goes back unbroken to Christ and the Apostles. God revealed what the “matter” should be and the church simply obeys (CCC 1577). “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you” (John 15:16).

The priesthood in the Sacrament of Holy Orders is not granted as an honor, or for the advantage of the priest, but for the service of God and the church. It is a Sacrament of service, a vocation and a free gift to the church.

The seven sacraments — Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Reconciliation, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony — are the “powers that comes forth from the Body of Christ, which is ever-living and life-giving. They are actions of the Holy Spirit at work in his Body, the Church. They are the masterworks of God in the new and everlasting covenant” (CCC 1116).

As church, we are simply to receive and respond to this loving gift by safeguarding it and allowing these gifts to bear abundant fruit.