The Church position that women cannot be ordained is a point of contention in Europe and the Americas, where Catholic women have seen other Christian churches accept female ministry. Catholics in these parts of the world are alarmed at the dearth of young men willing to train for the priesthood. Many women are willing to take on the ministry, and some have become better trained than many priests.

Women played important roles in the Church throughout its early history as martyrs for the Christian faith, saints, and members of religious orders. However, they appear to have lost their leadership positions in the Church around the sixth century.

Women began to ask for a more prominent role in the Church in the 1960s, with the advent of the women's liberation movement. In 1976, the Pontifical Biblical Commission reported that it could find no support in the biblical evidence for the exclusion of women from the ordained priesthood. The Bible provides no ready answer to the role of women. Both the pope and the American bishops have written letters saying the ordination of women is not justified. The issue continues to be hotly debated.

Changing Attitudes

The Church has already shifted its perception of women and their roles. Women are seen as equal in human dignity with men. They are no longer subject to men, nor are they expected to obey male authority. In 1995, Pope John Paul II said there was an urgent need to achieve equality in every area, including equal pay for equal work, protection for working mothers, fairness in career advancement, and access to the rights of citizenship. He further wrote that the process of women's liberation has been substantially positive.

As lay ministers, women are already taking on tasks that were once limited to men. They contribute to pastoral teams, administer in parishes where there are no priests, and take jobs as chaplains in hospitals and prisons. They run Catholic schools and charities, do legal work, and minister to the poor. They serve as ministers of the Eucharist, lectors, servers, and chancery and tribunal officials. Women take training in theology and other aspects of ministry right up to the point where laws against ordination prevent them from continuing further.

There are already widespread examples of ordained women in the Protestant churches, including the Anglican and Episcopalian, which are the closest in beliefs and liturgy to the Catholic Church. Feminist theology is now part of the curriculum in Catholic academia, and women may even teach in seminaries. Female theologians re-examine the Scriptures with fresh insights, reflecting how Jesus himself rejected the narrow subservient role of women that was the norm in his day, and how he treated women with great respect and compassion.

The Main Arguments

The argument the Church makes against ordination of women is that Jesus did not select any women to serve among his Twelve Apostles. Since the hierarchy of the Church draws its authority from being the spiritual descendants of the apostles, it follows that like the apostles, the clergy should be male. When serving the Eucharist, the priest acts as the representative of Christ. A woman cannot fill this role because Jesus was not a woman. Any movement to ordain women would meet deep opposition among laypeople as well as the clergy.

The counterargument is that Christ did not ordain anyone to be a priest, man or woman. Furthermore, he had many women among his followers; after his resurrection, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene. Many Catholics say that priests suffer in their understanding of the world by being cut off from close relationships with women, because they cannot marry, are trained separately, and work in a collegial atmosphere mainly with other priests. While many parish priests develop an understanding of the problems of women's lives by ministering to women within their congregation, those who rise highest in the Church are much more isolated, a condition that some say leads to condescending and antifeminist attitudes.

The exclusively male hierarchy of the Church leads to decisions being made without any discussion from a female point of view, and this tends to work against the ordination of women. The Vatican II charge that the Church should become the whole people of God is contributing to a push for new understanding. If people are the Church, they might be able to affect a change, as long as they continue to seek ministry among women. If Christ calls everyone to use his or her skills to serve the Church, then women must follow this call as faithfully as men.