Why not female priests?
by Kenneth Bagnell
A friend insists that a saying of Yogi Berra hasn’t been recorded: “One thing is certain: the obvious should be obvious.” It came back to me as I pondered aspects of today’s essay on why women should have the right to the priesthood. To me it’s obvious. And so it is to a lot of Catholics. Mind you I’m Protestant so some readers may say it’s none of my business. But wait! I happen to have been a journalist all my adult life and to a journalist everything is a journalist’s business. And today’s business is a major, major matter: the entire female population of the Catholic world are victims of deep and hard discrimination if they ever aspire to the high calling of the priesthood. They have been for many centuries, on the evidence, the cornerstones of congregational Catholicism. But their numbers are waning. We all should care. One true story will be the window on what I’m writing:
Many years ago, a young Catholic girl named Janice Sevre-Duszynska, an American, sat alone in the church sanctuary of her family. She was just a child but a very devout one. In the silent sanctuary, she thought of how wonderful it would be if she could become a priest. She moved to sit in the priest’s chair behind the pulpit, even rising to speak a few words as if she actually was a priest reciting the liturgy. As she grew, Janice also began to show growing and sincere concern for the poor and the marginalized. She called them the “voiceless.” In time she earned her university degree from a Wisconsin University. Her vision of the priesthood still attracted her. In time she decided she would become a priest. She did, being ordained by a visiting European Catholic Bishop, a man who saw absolutely no reason why women should not become priests. (His name and others who also ordained women are protected secrets.) Many other women supported female ordination and, in time, formed a fairly large group called: The Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests. The association has, in part, this principle: “The ordination of Roman Catholic Women Priests are valid because of our apostolic succession within the Roman Catholic Church… The principal consecrating male bishop who ordained our first women priests is a bishop with apostolic succession in the Roman Catholic Church in communion with the Pope…” As for Rev. Janice Duszynski, she sadly was excommunicated, partly for her public statement, carried in the media, to the press in Rome a few years ago: “There are 150 female priests in the world. The people are ready for change.” In the main that’s what left her excommunicated. So never mind her devotion to her faith, her commitment to Christ, her ambitions to further social justice for the poor and the forgotten. She made a faith declaration and that lead to the end of her priesthood.
Why, despite years and years of women seeking to become priests and being rejected, it’s only natural to ask why. The official reply is that in Jesus day on earth males were policy makers and that was that. Men made the rules and men applied the rules and men fulfilled the rules. One of the first female ordinands in Canada put it this way years ago: “Religion is a male purview, a male model. Women need to do what they are told to do, because the men know best. So we can’t have female priests. Why? Because the rules say that. And who made the rules? The men.” I get the point but have to say that in Christianity there are many, many women ministers, especially, in Canada, in the United and Anglican Churches. (To see Pope Francis firm rejection of women as priests google: “Francis again rejects women priests,” Sept. 28, 2015)
But there’s hope that the issue is not lost. There are in both parishes and global Catholicism, male priests. scholars and progressive Catholics who stand up for more women. And along with that, some ordinary parish priests have the character and courage to speak up. For example, one is Austrian Rev. Helmut Schuller, who has been vigorous in support of women’s right to ordination. For doing so he was banned by the Vatican from using the title “Monsignor” before his name. But he is still courageously active. He is, for example, a founder of a group of 400 priests who have issued an “Appeal to Disobedience.” The New York Times regards him with respect and admiration: “That is no small feat in the small Alpine nation… which is a laboratory for liberal ideals and reform initiatives.” Indeed. One of the group’s principles is this: “Take every opportunity to speak up publically for the admission of women and married people to the priesthood.” That’s both courageous character and on the right side of history. They have wide and credible response from illustrious Catholic theologians including the renowned Hans Kung, who gives his support vigorously.
Hence by now at last women are gaining ever growing support in their search. For example, it’s theologically ridiculous that the Roman Catholic church has so many and respected female theologians in universities and seminaries. How can the church justify banning some of these highly qualified women from ordination with all the possibilities and potential they offer? How? The major reasons for this broad injustice were originally based on the malehood of Jesus and his disciples. No scriptural passages can be stretched to support it; it’s just the tradition and the ancient theology. There are numerous examples of university and seminary scholars who are also female theologians but are never ordained to the priesthood. Obviously there’s now room to mention but one of many: Elizabeth A. Johnson CSJ – meaning Sister of St Joseph.
Dr. Johnson is on the faculty of one of the most respected universities in the US, Fordham, founded by the Jesuit order. A basic fact will indicate Dr. Johnson’s intellectual gifts. She was the first women to be chosen as President of the American Theological Society. For those who know the names of highly renowned theologians I list a very few of the Presidents who preceded her, each of whom I had the privilege of meeting and interviewing: Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, Carl Henry and Harold Dewolf. (The latter was Martin Luther King’s professor at Boston University Seminary.) If Dr. Johnson is gifted enough to be President of such an intellectually rich theological culture, how come she’d be declined if she ever sought to enter the basic priesthood? To me the Albertan Catholic feminist is right. As she said men made the rules for many centuries. In an institution so vast and so complex, it will be a longtime – perhaps a very longtime — before those policies are radically reformed. Maybe someday in the far future they’ll have become so encrusted they’ll just crumble, because of a large and vast uprising by laity and most clergy. Sorry to say, just don’t expect the change in a short time.
Past blogs are archived on my website. Your comments are welcome there: www.kennethbagnell.com.