Women and the Priesthood
Marianne Palacios
“But WHY!?” The righteously angry 10-year-old girl asks me, “WHY CAN’T WOMEN BECOME PRIESTS!?”
In my role as a Religion teacher, every year, without fail, a child would ask me this question. Usually, I roll my eyes and say “the patriarchy,” but sometimes I try to give a real answer.
According to the Catholic Church, there are two primary reasons priesthood isn’t open to women. First, according to the Gospels, Jesus did not anoint any female apostles, therefore women cannot participate in priestly ministry.
This argument is weak. The accounts we have of Jesus’s ministry were written many years after his death, and they were written by and for men who were interested in demonstrating Christianity’s continuity with Hebrew tradition by depicting Jesus’s 12 male followers representing the 12 tribes of Israel.
In addition to the apostles, Jesus had important female followers. Biblical scholars contend that Jesus’s ministry and the early Church would have been impossible were it not for the ministry and leadership from women. When all of Jesus’ male disciples fled during the crucifixion, the women remained. While the men cowered in secrecy, it was the women who went to care for Jesus’ body at the tomb.
Women were the first disciples to whom the risen Christ appeared. Women were the people who first proclaimed the Gospel — the good news that Jesus had risen from the dead.
A second reason given for why the priesthood isn’t open to women is that Jesus was male, and priests perform their ministry in persona Christi, meaning they stand “in the person of Christ.”
This argument is offensive, theologically narrow, and lacking in imagination. If Jesus is a man, and only men can be priests, does that mean that men are inherently holier than women? Are men naturally closer to God than women? Of course not! God’s grace reaches men and women alike.
The Holy Spirit gives the gifts of teaching and ministry to women. What’s important about Jesus is that God became human to redeem broken humanity. Sex and gender are incidental to the kingdom of Heaven, and God’s gifts do not discriminate according to anatomy. We are all one body in Christ. It is simply untrue that a woman cannot be a priest because she lacks access to God that men have. God became human in the person of Jesus — he became one of us. He did not simply become male.
We must demand change. It is our duty as practicing Catholics to recognize this injustice within our Church and to do something. The Church is failing millions of people around the world. Don’t accept the weak arguments spoken by weak men. It’s past time to speak up. We owe it to the irritated children who want to know why they can’t be leaders in their own faith.
