'On the Ordination of Women': An Exchange Of Views
an exchange o f v i e wx ( c o n t d . ) 'On the Ordinotion of Women' Berkeley, Calif. To the Editors: I understand that your decision to publish an article does not mean you agre.e with it,...
...Ask Mary Daly how much leadership theologians gave her...
...it "operates by standards opposite to worldly standards...
...and that thinking "from the bowels" is a strength of Hebraic, as distinct from Greek, thought...
...On all these things, I have cut across his bow...
...This theme was important not only in the gnostic schools but also within orthodox tradition...
...Naturally, a fully modernized priest wouldn't want all that fascinans et tremendum...
...Perhaps Father Egan is merely being coy in suggesting that "heterodox" and "lack, ing in integral humanism" are today serious accusations...
...In truth, facing Commonweal: 591 unexpected complexities, a new sort of realism is being born in ~he heart of liberalism...
...These urgent inarticulate feelings have prompted Novak, in the past, to defend a certain amount of racism in Boston, and to argue that homosexuals should not enjoy the equal protection of law...
...There is contempt "spewed" on laws and structures, forms and boundaries, even in the gospels...
...The critical lesson in how to find transcendence within the limits of the flesh is in the example of Christ, and in that painful, crisis-provoking and "spiritualized" view that we are not merely the slaves of our own prejudices, habits, and deep feelings, and of the ordinary, obvious demands of human flesh...
...And, yes, in reading the gospels and epistles, in the context of the historical people of God, it is "the call for new limits," and not antinomianism, that strikes me...
...Happily, Father Egan concedes that my way of using the word "gnostic" has "some precedent . in the Fathers...
...Paul also favored a "spiritualized" view of human nature, and even (in Galatians 3:28) a "sexually undifferentiated view": "All baptized in Christ, you have all clothed yourselves in Christ, and there are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, but all of you are one in Christ Jesus...
...You see how deep the argument is getting...
...Next, the weight of scholarly opinion in any given generation is certainly instructive, but a firm sense of historical orthodoxy also warns that it must always be taken with a grain of salt...
...When the "oppressed" preach humility, the message is not as clear...
...Graduate Theological Union Iichael Novak's Reply Father Egan might have addressed me as a potential convert to his cause (my articles show that I am on the brink), and offered me good reasons for following him rather than Rome...
...Three years ago, Wayne A. Meeks published a fine article on the subject in History of Religions (13, 3...
...Father Egan, not I, can write about "packets of sacramental efficacy...
...Both living and praying come before articulation and theologizing, and I look to the former as sources of judgment upon the latter (and to ~he latter as judges upon the former...
...The Catholic understanding of ecclesial office has not in fact suffered from this "sharp distinction," as though the self-administration of the Church could be conceived on the basis of purely secular models and carried on by people without theological education, pastoral experience, or ecclesial acceptance and "ordaining...
...In time, Father Egan will no doubt learn the hang of it...
...In other words, do they work like magic...
...It is a bulwark, by the way, that did not keep the gnostics themselves from gnosticism, so we may well hesitate to trust it here...
...You see how that clears the matter up...
...One generation's scholarly certitudes often become the objects of scorn to a later generation...
...Father Egan need not be coy...
...His letter goes on to show just how I am lacking in both orthodoxy and integral humanism...
...Solid argument and evidence of the Spirit moving in our daily lives may one day overcome that tilt...
...If I understand correctly what he means by a basic watershed, I agree...
...It seems a little premature to say what, if anything, the "fundamental drive" of gnosticism is...
...Indeed, so far as tradition and authority bind our fidelity, the argument at present is tipped to Rome's side...
...As if "this rank" could possibly have occurred to them...
...and that the basic question is not "how much" but "what" to make of sexual differentiation...
...I would contend that these people are asking themselves the wrong question...
...Concerning specifics, Father Egan actually knows well which "movement" I mean...
...I see no reason why these standards should be set aside for an article by a "well known" author...
...ROBERT J. EGAN, S.J...
...Criticism must itself be criticized, for liberal views are not always correct...
...but in its disdain for flesh and experience it is one of the manifestations of the gnostic spirit...
...16 September 1977:592 Holy orders, it was my point to show, do work "like magic...
...This particular tune we have all heard before...
...The second is that this "movement" involves only certain women thought of as a dissident minority group...
...He is a celibate, agitated about homosexuality...
...Do such orders identify one more closely with the poor," he asks, "or make one more effective in tending to the sick, or enhance one's pedagogical skills in the classroom, or make one a better counselor...
...Egan asks...
...Though he was once able to write with conviction about the pure desire to know, his recent writing has been largely devoted to rehabilitating prejudice and explaining, as it were, what was right all along about thinking in stereotypes...
...The article purports to be an exercise in discernment: answering the question, "Is 'the ordination of women' a Christian, or a worldly demand...
...Novak does not, in fact, mention Christ in his article, but relies instead on his own version of Catholic folk wisdom, a ~sort of tune in his blood...
...To take his position would automatically make me a hero in important quarters, among many who read and applaud...
...He has sworn special obedience to Rome, but is embarrassed by Rome's position on the ordination of women...
...To top off the irony, Novak reminds us that Christianity "typically" makes high what was low, and low what was high...
...And the sole judgments to be made about them are "pragmatic...
...There is some precedent for this use of the word in the Fathers, but the large and growing literature on gnosticism should, by now, give reasonable people pause before they make sweeping statements about it, at least in print...
...But ordination to the priesthood is no matter of moral right nor of justice...
...Father Egan is historically incorrect to think me deaf t o "all those voices [in the Church] intent on maintaining power...
...What Novak seems to be finding in the bonds and limits of the flesh is not transcendence but the past conceived of as an object...
...It is an example of religious paradox running the wrong way...
...This is for Novak "a basic watershed...
...Your readers' ability to take Commonweal seriously presupposes this judgment that the articles you publish deserve a serious reading...
...It seemed to me in 1964 that the Spirit moved rather among the "liberals" than among the "conservatives...
...Gladly do I receive a priest's blessing...
...In trying to discern the difference between "worldly" and "Christian" demands, is it really possible that the Christian demand is the "more modest," the cozier nothingmuch-needs-changing one...
...To put the question on sharply moral grounds, as Faher Egan does, to go to the "moral" while disdaining "the tune in one's blood," may not be antinomian...
...The recent writing dismissing the cultic role of the priest and exalting the merely ministerial role seems to me to constitute a temporary overreaction...
...it is another to loathe her past as a strucure of injustice...
...In any case, given but a short life, one must do one's best to decide which way to turn amid conflicting currents...
...In discussing racism in Boston and the political rights of homosexuals, and in some other matters, I have tried to show that liberals are as capable of stereotypes as are conservatives...
...Could they be used by Rome today except against conservatives...
...These take the form of questions: "(1) In what way is its anthropology not gnostic...
...But if these are topics for "special" theological inquiry, let us consider them one at a time...
...This is one paradox too many...
...We can only wish Mr Novak, "Godspeed," in his search for "new modesty" and "new limits...
...It reminds me of the paradox revealed by one Vatican official a few years ago who explained that: yes, "ministry" means "service" but that the bishops "serve" by "ruling...
...Like the others, Father Egan offers nothing for a doubter to lay hold of...
...Niebuhr and many others have explained why this would be comforting, and why it is always an illusion...
...Is there something "gnostic" about this view of sacrament...
...Let me play back to him a little of his own tone of contempt...
...This used to be considered a serious accusation (back in the days when words meant something...
...The same Church that taught me Oalatians 3:28 also taught me that the male symbolized Christ (and the female the Church) in an important way not lightly to be dismissed...
...Either one might argue that the systematic exclusion of women from ecclesial office was "culturally conditioned" and conclude that its perpetuation serves the spirit of the world rather than that of the gospel: Or one might argue with Novak that "something fundamental and unalterable is at stake" which can be "felt" but which cannot be expressed in con16 September 1977:~90 vincing and intelligent discourse...
...This is based on their understanding of the New Testament...
...The "priests" meanwhile would presumably be free to distribute packets of sacramental efficacy...
...Does he realize that whatever ordaining Jesus did do did not include any Gentiles...
...When you publish articles on important issues facing the Church today, issues which require reflection and decision, the standards you use should be especially high, reflecting your best judgment about the quality of discourse needed in the Church...
...This distinction enables him to say: "In practice, only the pool of persons in holy orders has been drawn upon for administrative positions...
...But "blowing kisses to Rome," indeed...
...His theological understanding of ministry in the Protestant traditions is summed up in his remark about "low church" Episcopalianism "veering" toward "a conception of orders in which the priest is," as he says, "little more than a minister...
...The former voices are, of course, the unchristian ones...
...More than the bare New Testament reveals---and it says much about the culr priestliness of Christmthe traditions of the Catholic people rightly see special cuttic power in the priest, a power sufficient on occasion to move us to tears...
...Novak's ear is sharp for voices demanding "equal power," but deaf to all those voices intent on maintaining power...
...This kind of thinking he characterizes as "incarnational...
...he knows exactly how the Catholic traditions on this point have differed from those of the evangelical churches_9 Eerie, strange, a form of voodoo---so have many Protestant campus ministers explained to me their observations about the peculiar position of the Catholic priest among the Catholic people...
...Theologians are here, plainly, followers and they have many rewards to reap for going along, much abuse to take for raising questions...
...In this article, for instance, he is suggesting that some unnamed people either are or are in danger of being "both heterodox and lacking in integral humanism...
...He is a very serious theologian (he can remember how to cite an article by Warren Winks from several years ago, even in a Letter to the Editor), agitated by journalists...
...The commandments of Jesus are not antinomian...
...The only "serious question," of course, is about this one particular "rank" of holy orders, not all the other ranks to which, presumably, women one day might legitimately aspire (there are fewer of these than he thinks...
...Among many enlightened Catholics, indeed, hostility toward their own people, toward Rome, and toward their tradition has come to represent an early warning about their own center of gravity...
...Surely, there are better arguments for ordaining women...
...Some preliminary matters...
...Novak is a good example of the tendency in American journalism to view all issues that arise for thought either as political tactics or publicity gimmicks...
...Such temptations are common enough at all times...
...I see no reason to believe that if it has one such drive it is adequately expressed as one "to deny sexual differentiation...
...2) In what way is it not antinomian...
...The third is that the argument for the ordination of women "rests, in particular, upon one's interpretation of the moral and humane health" of this "movement...
...The first is that the growing conviction among many Catholics, men and women, that women should be eligible for ordination to the presbyterate is adequately understood as "the movement...
...the balance will come back in time...
...There are many new things under our sun...
...I suppose those who favored the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century were also in danger of "asserting their own moral superiority...
...It is equally difficult to know what Novak means by "antinomianism...
...The answer is: No, they do not work like magic...
...will be lucky if it is not in the future regarded as a sterile new scholasticism...
...The male is not the better, deeper, or truer Christian, but he is, alas, the more surprising witness...
...In fact most of the serious arguments that have been in favor of the ordination of women have been made explicitly on moral grounds, i.e...
...Will Father Egan forgive me if I confess that I do not yet hear the Spirit in his words, as he does not in mine...
...This is not, then, "antinomianism...
...It is true that I have rather more trust in "Catholic folk wisdom, a sort of tune in my blood," nourished for centuries by drinking the blood of Christ and trying to be faithful to his word...
...Not even the women closest to Jesus and the apostles, he tells us, had this rank conferred on them...
...And on this, whether Novak recalls it or not, there has been, in fact, much recent writing...
...You'll no doubt recall examples from the ministries of Commonweal: 589 Jesus and Paul...
...It is one thing to wish to see her develop historically, unfolding truthfully and in fidelity to her past...
...Specifically, I would be pleased to change my mind on the question of the ordination of women...
...A number of our best leaders have left the Church...
...He also knows that all women are not in it, nor does it speak for all...
...Christian life is supposed to be a sign of contradiction, but not a contradiction of the gospel...
...Our answer to this question ought not be based on the ordinary, obvious demands of human flesh alone, but also on the light that comes from Christ...
...he chose for "the twelve" males and not females, and gave them functions and powers he did not give r women, although neighboring traditions of priestesses, and the patent virtues of his women followers might easily have so inclined him...
...I would agree that it is "limpidly" clear that women are not men and men not women...
...It is one thing to love the Church, another to endure her in cold hostility...
...But it is obvious that I am under his skin for a whole series of reasons that go far beyond my inquiries on ordination...
...I have never held that "nothing much needs changing" in Church, state, or even in me...
...So in a world dominated by men, administered by men, governed by men, Christianity proves itself to be "a sign of contradiction" by institutionalizing, defending, and ideologizing male-dominance...
...I have been cheered, and I have been hissed, cheering is nicer...
...Most contemporary theologians do, certainly, "favor" that understanding of the Catholic priesthood that emphasizes "his role as 'servant' of the people...
...Those who believe that women should be eligible for presbyteral office are told that their "difficulty" is that "they seem to be asserting their own moral superiority over those who have preceded them...
...And perhaps that will be the happy ending, women preaching to the women's movement and to the rest of us the ancient Christian language of service...
...Those who argue in terms of 'equality of power,' " we are told, "prove their position not to be Christian . . . . " Is it your judgment that these charges deserve a serious reading...
...Now to answer the first question it would be helpful to know what is meant by "gnosticism...
...In "a small quiet space in the surrounding din" what he calls for is "a deepening of argument...
...Some evidence will be required for this...
...Does this "merely" add a note of "gnosticism" to his viewpoint...
...This deepening begins with three groundless assumptions...
...But can we believe that the primary energy of Christ aims at new boundaries...
...He then goes on to claim that a "sharp distinction is preserved" in the Catholic tradition between "the sacramental efficacy of holy orders" and what he calls "the merely juridical power of administration...
...Novak singles out three aspects of what he calls "the women's movement" that deserve "special theological inquiry...
...What does he think the word "orders" re~ fers to...
...The enormous amount of careful scholarship in Biblical studies, historical theology, and pastoral theology, that has been done on this subject in recent years, and the pastoral and ecumenical importance of this question, deserves more intelligent treatment in your pages...
...Over and above one's skills and talents, orders do carry special graces through the hands and actions of priests, in a way distinct from those that affect the rest of us...
...It would, of course, be comforting to think that only "worldly" spirits had to be "concerned with power," and that we good Christians could wash our hands of the matter...
...It's just something one feels, influenced, no doubt, by tactical structures and practices...
...Like Rabbi Gordis [Sept...
...Christ in entering this world came as a male rather than as female...
...Father Egan makes a good point against me on my argument about the "moral superiority" of the present...
...Conferring this rank on women, as he puts it, "would mark a profound breach of every tradition...
...He is holy in a special way, set aside, not in the way saints are holy (although, let us hope, in that way, too), but as a special sign set in our midst by God...
...His theological understanding of the Catholic position is summarized in this way: "a jump in sacramental efficacy, conferred by God in a mystical and unnatural way...
...Novak then goes on to give us a sample of his own special theological inquiry on the subject of ordination itself...
...This is not what it deserves to be called...
...The use of power, in the Church as well as in the world, must be of concern to all of us: the de facto use of power, its institututionalizations, and its rationales...
...One could make this accusation about Moses, Isaiah, Jesus, Francis of Assisi, or the second Vatican Council...
...We should lay to rest the fear that there is some "movement" in American Catholicism to deny the reality of the flesh, or claiming that men and women are indistinguishable...
...This does not mean, as Novak claims, that ordination "qua ordination" is now "virtually without meaning...
...My reply to Gordis should also suffice for him...
...When women priests arise and say: "Be ye meek and humble, and serve others...
...It also depends upon how one reads the spirit of our age...
...It requires us to think...
...And, as to what constitutes fidelity, that is the question about which both of us--and all the Catholic people---wrestle in the dark...
...Novak claims to speak on behalf of all those "who tend to emphasize the incarnational structure of Christianity" and tells us that all these people "tend to believe that the singular ordination of males" is what he calls "a typical and critical lesson in how to find transcendence within the bonds and the limits of the flesh...
...It means only that its meaning has yet to occur to Novak...
...MICHAEL NOVAK Commonweal: 593...
...The priest is a cultic figure_9 A priest is a minister of service as well as a cultic figure, but one dimension of his service, raising it above all others, is its cultic base...
...I suppose Novak realizes that Jesus did not ordain any "priests...
...This would be alarming enough, but the fact that he always makes his appeals in the name of the orthodox Catholic Christian tradition requires some critical attention...
...As to specifics, Father Egan's scholarship is far vaster and deeper than mine, and so if he believes that "equality of power" is the Christian mission, he must be right...
...In any case, the argument for the ordination of women requires more from us than our impressions of its advocates...
...It is not only the spirit of antinomianism but the spirit of the gospel which drives people to think and hope about "all of history" and "the whole pattern of institutions...
...In ordaining women, the people of God would be learning from "the spirit of the age," not (at first) from biblical scholars or theologians...
...Even blowing kisses to that lovable old abstraction, "Rome," does not insure that one's theological understanding reflects the living "orthodox" faith of the Catholic Church...
...Such vast appeals, in any case, have a triumphalist ring...
...A priest is a gift to the community...
...Its drive to deny, as he says, "the ordinary, obvious demands of human flesh" it has in common with many other religious and moral systems, including of course Pauline Christianity...
...I would not agree that the question is "how much" to make of this differentiation but "what" to make of it...
...Be as the little children _ 9 "The meek shall inherit the earth _ 9 "; '~l'urn the other c h e e k . . . " and other central themes of Christianity, it will certainly be a sign of contradiction to the women's movement_9 Without that movement, the question of the ordination of women might not have arisen in our era...
...Now that the former have gained virtual total ascendance, the Spirit, it is possible, has deserted them...
...For nineteen hundred and seventy years, it was not felt to violate the gospels...
...Novak describes himself as a Catholic "of liberal mind and conservative temperament," and his writing in recent years seems to indicate that his mind is fighting a losing battle with his temperament...
...And have...
...A reader might, at this point, have a glimmer of what deepening the argument is going to mean and begin to wonder "in what way" Mr...
...But even if all of them had succumbed to such temptations, would the force of their argument against slavery be nullified...
...he also concedes that attitudes toward the body have an "important" role in gnostic traditions...
...His name is Egan and he is embarrassed by the "racists" of South Boston...
...Special reverence is rightly paid to the grace operating through him...
...Since the arena of present argument between us is the liberal press, Father Egan may forgive me for thinking his side has at present ,the greater worldly power...
...I prefer the word "priestly...
...REV...
...On the central matter at hand, Father Egan gives the entire game away in the following sentence, which deserves to be italicized: "Most of the serious arguments in favor o/ the ordination o/women have been made explicitly on moral grounds, i.e., on the ability to distinguish right from wrong, justice from injustice, and fidelity from betrayal...
...Daniel Cailahan once remarked that, since anti-Catholicism is the anti-semitism of the intellectuals, those Catholics who appear to be "liberal" are accorded favor in the press, as if for helping to bring the Church into positions accepta.ble, say, to the editors of the New York Times...
...It would be naive to assume that all critics of the Church will still be within it a decade hence...
...The questions that have been raised in regard to the ordination of women should be the concern of all members of the Church...
...on the ability to distinguish right from wrong, justice from injustice, and fidelity from betrayal...
...For these reasons, I was dismayed to find in your recent issue [Jult' 8] an article by Michael Novak entitled "On the Ordination of Women...
...The answer Novak seems to give is that it is "a bulwark against gnosticism...
...One of the things I learned from Scripture, indeed, is that the "wisdom l~terature" grew out of the experience of the people...
...Following the pure desire to know, which Father Egan also praises, I will then happily agree that on this matter he led and I followed...
...A decade of my life was spent criticizing those voices of power and I do not fear them now...
...So also, for continuing symbolic reasons, the male is the more scandalizing and ,telling symbol of Christianity...
...The question is: Why should only men be eligible for presbyteral office...
...But this is absurd...
...Novak obviously uses the word to mean (Humpty-Dumpty style) whatever he chooses to mean by it...
...I had rather thought that Christ's language of humility and service (to mention no other) accePted the differential powers of daily life, as between authorities and subjects, sick and well, old and young, etc...
...Perhaps there is something new to be noted...
...Why should only men be eligible for presbyteral office...
...and that only male priests could represent Christ at the eucharist...
...Still, perhaps he is right...
...You can see how he pictures it when he says that very few are "rushing into holy orders" these days, and even those " i n holy orders are often left wondering what, precisely, it is that has been added to their lives by these orders...
...Novak criticizes his imaginary movement for having a "primary energy" which is "not aimed at new modesty, new limits, new boundaries, but at the removal of the old...
...Not by dialectics are God's people saved...
...Novak has stopped beating his wife...
...I recognize that the crux of this argument depends upon a particular anthropology, and on a particular reading of sexual symbols in many cultures...
...and that the argumen~ for women's ordination grows up inextricably linked with the ideologies, anthropologies, and politics of that movement...
...One learns early in life not to argue logic with a Jesuit...
...I could construct some myself...
...I humbly apologize...
...Since no one is named and no literature cited, it is hard to know which argument Novak is "deepening...
...You'll no doubt be able to think of many other contexts in which this argument could be useful...
...In reading the gospels and epistles, is it the call for new limits that strike us...
...Such exclusion occurs in the events of the gospels, so it is hard to see how it violates the gospels...
...And if the decade now beginning is to find me criticizing persons of power like Father Egan--his press is better than the Pope's---it is because he must be one of the few people remaining on earth who do not see how weak Rome has become, and how theologians now ~tand outside of all check-and-balance in the public press...
...The third question of being "fixated upon questions of power" is probably the most important...
...Could this lesson be learned equally well through the "singular" ordination of women, or Italians, or redheads...
...Father Egan holds that the systematic exclusion of women serves the spirit of the world rather than that of the gospels...
...Nonetheless, I would kneel for his blessing...
...To the Editors: I understand that your decision to publish an article does not mean you agre.e with it, but it must mean at least that you judge the article to be responsibly and carefully written and worth reading and thinking about...
...3) In what way is it not morally fixated upon questions of power...
...The enormous amount of careful scholarship in Biblical studies, historical theology, and pastoral theology, that has been done _9 . . in recent years," as Father Egan describes it (may I claim to have added a few modest grains to the mountains of its annual harvests...
...Part of the symbolic power of the Christian message depends on its emanating from males rather than from females, is one answer...
...He represents Christ in a way those of us who are not priests do not...
Vol. 104 • September 1977 • No. 19
