On the Ordination of Women
Novak, Michael
I I ON THE ORDINATION OF WOMEN MICHAEL NOVAK The has chosen a prudent and m thentic lIu Cce, holic course Much of the weight of the argument for the ordination of women rests upon one's...
...But it is not, in fact, the only way...
...The flesh does make a difference, a difference worth defending, crucial to defend, for men and for women alike...
...In general, those who emphasize the liberations of Christianity, its impulse to free us from various earthly constraints, tend to believe that the ordination of women will lead us to a higher plane of spiritual awareness, beyond the confines of mere flesh...
...They agree, too, that America's famous silent majority and the Congress it elects are firmly opposed to serious tampering with our present macho military machine...
...Profound changes in racial relations, yes...
...Such a change would mark a profound breach of every tradition...
...The spirit of antinomianism tends to follow gnosticism...
...Against the conventional image of the male, the priesthood was a sign of contradiction...
...The women wish to open up the administrative powers of clericalism to more women...
...The judgment is ex opere operante, as the old books used to say: it depends simply upon the work of the worker...
...There are three aspects of the women's movement that deserve special theological inquiry...
...On the contrary, the military establishment grew and continues to grow ever larger (there are today more general officers in the armed forces than there were during World War II...
...If one judges that "the sisters" are essentially an advance-guard for the slower members of the human race or if, instead, one judges that "the sisters" carry with them, too, some of the diseases of the times, one's judgment is likely to be significantly different...
...The ministerial roles are roles of service, and the sole judgments to be made about them are pragmatic: how well is the work done, the service performed...
...Typically, Christianity makes high what was low, and low what was high, and operates by standards opposite to worldly standards...
...If it is not limpidly clear that women are not men, and men not women, then nothing is clear...
...The hidden premise of most contemporary theological arguments is that in "the development of doctrine," God is speaking through current events, insights, and movements...
...The common feeling seemed to be that although war is deeply deplorable it is nS less deeply human...
...In practice, only the pool of persons in holy orders has been drawn upon for administrative positions...
...It appears to be torn somewhat in the "low church," somewhat in the "high church," direction...
...Most descriptions of the priest favor his role as "servant" of the people and lay special emphasis, not upon the ontology of grace (the emphasis of a bygone age), but upon the primacy of social service...
...Enormous contempt, based upon hostility and anger, is spewed upon laws and structures, forms and boundaries...
...And not by inadvertence...
...Young men simply did not want to fight and die in a far off land in a war of obscure origins and purposes...
...One can imagine a Catholic Church opening up the administrative power of clericalism to men and women alike...
...The spirit of antinomianism is generic rather than specific...
...But, of course, false prophets are eloquent as well...
...3) In what way is it not morally fixated upon questions of power...
...We fight with Rome, argue, provoke, and 8 July 1977:426 are provoked--but, in the end, we go together, down through the ages...
...The question of the admission of women to all but one of the ranks of holy orders is also an easy one to solve...
...When otherwise critical, even cynical, people accept the passions of the moment at face value, a deepening of argument is called for...
...Those who tend to emphasize the incarnational structure of Christianity, tend to believe that the singular ordination of males is a typical and critical lesson in how to find transcendence within the bonds and the limits of the flesh...
...I am not, to be sure, perfectly certain where the Episcopal church stands with respect to sacramental theology...
...The world does not always "develop" morally...
...The sole serious question arises about the conferring of one rank of holy orders--the priesthood--upon women...
...One wonders why...
...When the lottery system liberalized the draft the peace movement visibly weakened...
...Ordination, qua ordination, is virtually without meaning...
...Consider each of these in turn...
...It rests, in particular, upon one's interpretation of the moral and humane health of "the movement...
...As a Catholic of liberal mind and conservative temperament, I see no difficulty at all in the ordination of women ministers in Protestant churches...
...The primary energy is not aimed at new modesty, new limits, new boundaries, but at the removal of the old...
...It is quite necessary, in a small quiet space in the surrounding din, at least to raise them...
...It is a scandal to the enlightened of every age...
...On this perhaps evanescent, perhaps long-term, issue, persons oriented toward two different poles tend to divide...
...The selection of males alone as eligible for one role among the Christian people --the sole bearers of the marks of priesthood--4s a bulwark against gnosticism...
...17, 1976] but certain ways of approaching these questions seem to be both heterodox and lacking in integral humanism...
...For one thing, the war-protesters were more sincere than self-serving (as they were in the earlier race struggles that they spearheaded...
...Priesthood has been overlaid with clericalism...
...Does it suggest a rebirth of more ancient respect for the sacramental efficacy of holy orders...
...For one thing, many Americans see the anti-war movement of the Sixties as a passing protest of youth, basically prompted by self-serving interests...
...These are Strong traditions arguing for the ordination of women as acolytes, lectors, exorcists and deacons...
...The United States Congress seemed, even during the rolling Sixties, to reflect this sentiment...
...2) In what way is it not antinomian...
...How, then, can even dedicated pacifists insist that a peace revolution was generated during the Sixties, and is at work today...
...Truly like death and taxes, it is actually or potentially always with us, an ineradicable part of the human experience...
...This makes the very conceptmrevolution against war-silly...
...It is on this point that theologians, particularly in the Catholic tradition, ought to dwell for a moment, before rushing to one side or the other...
...I have put forth a sit, niflcant practical proposal of this sort...
...Indeed, sacramental theology would be immediately enhanced by such a development...
...There is a major source of confusion embedded in the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church...
...Meanwhile, those who disagree on this issue should keep arguing...
...The difficulty for those who hold the former position is that they seem to be asserting their ownmoral superiority over those who have preceded them...
...The men wish to sharpen the difference between sacramental priesthood and clericalism, rescuing the former from the heavy hand of the latter...
...In altering this practice, many opponents of clericalism, both men and women, can be and are jofned as comrades...
...When even the liberalized draft was suspended in favor of an all-volunteer army the ranks of war-protesters thinned almost to the vanishing point...
...The distinction between sacramental orders and administrative clericalism would be made more visible...
...Yet one is hard pressed to recall any recent writings on the subject...
...In practice, up until the present (not without exception, like the administrative power invested in abbesses, presidents of women's colleges, and the like), the two quite distinct lines of sacramental efficacy and administrative power have been joined...
...One faces here a basic watershed...
...Those who believe in the reality of the fourth front agree that the lottery draft and its subsequent suspension weakened the drive of youth against both the war and the war system...
...Rise of a wadess world--hardly...
...It is possible that they do...
...We might as well get used to the divisions...
...Its drive is totalistic, not limited...
...The restriction was explicit, universal, and canonized from earliest times...
...The peace revolution, or fourth front, is not...
...The difficulty for those who hold the latter position is that, for the most part, they can "feel" the importance of their position, but find it difficult to find conclusive arguments for it...
...I have written earlier about a dual-sex ordination [Commonweal, Dec...
...If I could be convinced that the signs of Christian holiness were the moving forces behind the desire of some women to be ordained, I would be inclined, to say the least, to be open toward the voice of God...
...One listens in vain for the sacramental theology that underlies such a desire...
...In Italy, where I once studied, urchins in the streets shouted "petticoatsF' at priests, who always wore "skirts" (cassocks...
...In other words, just at a time when ordination is held in the lowest esteem it has been held in many generations, some women ardently desire it...
...I I ON THE ORDINATION OF WOMEN MICHAEL NOVAK The has chosen a prudent and m thentic lIu Cce, holic course Much of the weight of the argument for the ordination of women rests upon one's reading of the "signs of the times," upon one's ability to "discern the Spirit...
...Is "the ordination of women" a Christian, or a worldly demand...
...One might argue that this tradition was "culturally conditioned," i.e., due to an inferior state of Christian perception...
...Thirdly, the worldly spirit is concerned with power (even under the euphemism of "the power to shape the decisions that affect one's life...
...Perhaps this is the real spirit behind the ordination of women...
...Despite the noisy antics of I I JOHN L. STIPP, proJessor emeritus o/ history at Knox College in Illinois, has edited works on Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia and is senior author o[ the text, Rise and Development of Western Civilization...
...It is not necessary, of course, to attempt to answer such difficult questions in a short space...
...And, to those on both sides, the motives of the other are suspect...
...A sharp distinction is preserved between the sacramental efficacy of holy orders and the merely juridical power of administration...
...That the priesthood should continue to be a sign of contradiction to the power-oriented female stands not in the least outside the ancient and honorable tradition...
...That is, it appears at times to veer toward a conception of orders in which the priest is little more than a minister, and at times to veer toward the ancient Catholic conception of "orders"--of a jump in sacramental efficacy, conferred by God in a mystical and unnatural way, independently of the human work of the worker...
...All of history," "the whole pattern of institutions," must be re-done...
...THE HIDDEN REVOLUTION JOHN L. STIPP The anti-war movement was more than a passing protest The cultural explosion of the Sixties erupted along four fronts...
...Gnosticism, nonetheless, would like to make as little of this differentiation as possible...
...Consider: ours is not a period, either theologically or in popular culture, distinguished by its respect for the grace and efficacy of the sacrament of holy orders...
...Their behavior was indeed the behavior of idealist revolutionaries...
...Great strides in the liberation of women, yes...
...Women recognized as abbesses and as prioresses, as saints and as doctors of the Church, and even the women closest to Jesus and to the apostles, have never in history been so ordained...
...Even more telling, for those who argue its superficiality, the peace movement at no time achieved ground swell dimensions among the general populace...
...Those that involved blacks, women and sexual attitudes and behavior are generally accepted as bona fide revolutions...
...youthful dissenters, Congress at no time showed signs of dismantling the Pentagon...
...I) In what way I I I I MICHAEL IqOVAK is Ledden-Watson Distinguished Professor o/ Religion at Syracuse Unicersity...
...Is '~vomen's liberation" a moral, or a regressive movement...
...The challenge of the hidden premise must be faced...
...One opinion alone, of course, counts for very little in the vitality of the Catholic people...
...But fourth fronters believe that although such evidence is real enough, it is overbalanced by conditions and developments destined to mold tomorrow for all their being little perceived today...
...Serious rending of the fig-leaf way of life, yes...
...Nothing in sound theology would prevent this...
...At least in this instance the bumper stickers that stridently read "AmcricamLove It or Leave It" probably did and still do represent the sentiments of the country at large...
...sadly so, perhaps, but so nonetheless...
...is its anthropology not gnostic...
...Those who argue in terms of "equality of power" prove their position not to be Christian, as do those who believe ordination makes any male--or the male in general~superior...
...People who basically seek to serve their own interests don't Commonweal: 427...
...In order to do this, it sometimes seems that the sacramental ordination of women is the only practicable way...
...For it is an oddity of the present moment that men (a) are not rushing into holy orders, these days, and (b) that even those who are in holy orders are often left wondering what, precisely, it is that has been added to their lives by these orders...
...Or one can argue that something fundamental and unalterable is at stake...
...More than that, I would be eager to support those modest experiments in praxis that might allow the entire Catholic people to become convinced through experience about the workings of God...
...At the present moment, however, I believe that the Vatican has chosen not only a prudent course but the authentically Catholic course...
...The fundamental drive of gnosticism is to deny sexual differentiation and the ordinary, obvious demands of human flesh, in favor of a spiritualized, sexually undifferentiated view of human nature...
...Rome is our center, now as ever...
...Do such orders identify one more closely with the poor, or make one more effective in tending to the sick, or enhance one's pedagogical skills in the classroom, or make one a better Commonweal: 425 counselor...
...This practice, of course, is particularly frustrating to many women, and to many men, as well...
Vol. 104 • July 1977 • No. 14
