THE ORDINATION OF WOMEN IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: Unmasking a cuckoo’s egg tradition by John Wijngaards. DLT £10.95 (0-232-52420-3)
by Bruce Stewart
The Catholic Citizen is the English language edition of the Journal of St. Joan’s International Alliance.
Those who never heard of a debate about women priests quite as much as those battered by the abiding argument, may safely address themselves to John Wijngaard’s new book. A theologian, scripture scholar, patristic student, Vatican-watcher (and also member of SJIA), Wijngaards has in the past contributed much to the whole question of women and orders, but here he provides us with a definitive status quaestionis.
Wijngaards’ thesis is that we have all been deluded by a ‘cuckoo’s egg’ tradition. The official Church keeps up its opposition to women protests because ‘tradition’ has long forbidden them, but in fact the Church in this area has been overtaken and occupied by a non-Christian idea of womanhood and the function of women. This alien egg was sneaked into the nest long years ago, its natural parents being Roman law and Aristotelian physiology. The chick became so strong that it eventually edged the rightful offspring out of the nest.
Roman law, effectively the foundation on which the historical Church was built, required women to be subject to their husbands. The husband possessed patria potestas, which amounted to the power of a master over his slaves. While Paul and others sought to ‘distinguish’ and correct this dominance, it made little difference in practice. Women were socially under the thumb and soon found themselves theologically squashed too.
Aristotle, sharing the ancient notion that the male alone passed on life through his seed (the woman was but the field to bear fruit), thought that the seed which failed to produce its precise likeness, i.e. another male, was ‘weak’. Thus a woman of her nature was a ‘failed man’, and that made her automatically inferior.
The troubling, (if faintly surprising) thing, Wijngaards holds, is that this thinking persists in the Church to the present day. Nobody of course precisely maintains that women are ‘subject’ any more, but in as much as Christ did not include a woman among the apostolic twelve, that makes it clear that females were meant to follow rather than to lead. And while women as ‘failed men’ would hardly rate a theological gold star these days, it is explicitly held by the Congregation for Doctrine that the reason women cannot represent Christ as priests is precisely because they are females.
Having identified the cuckoo’s egg still in the nest, Wijngaards sets about cracking it and scrambling it for breakfast. His demolition of existing defensive arguments is both subtle and lethal. Just because Christ did not appoint female apostles is no reason to think he thus necessarily forbade them. His technique as a rule was to leave doors open rather than close them, so that those who came after could make the operative decisions.
He did not, for instance, set up the Church qua organisation. Nor, having established sacraments, did he specify anything precise regarding Confession, Confirmation, Marriage , the Anointing of the Sick. He did not even leave instructions about the writing of the four Gospels. Yet his silence on these (faintly more important?) matters has never been construed as a norm against them.
Similarly, is it really as important as the official Church like to make out that Jesus was of the male sex? The theology of the Redemption is that God became a human being. Wijngaards points out that a woman may not be a photo-image of Christ, but she can be – and indeed cannot not be-in Christ’s image. Did not St Paul write: “In Christ Jesus you are all children of God, through faith. For all of you -who were baptised into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave not free, there is neither male nor female. For you all are one in Christ Jesus.” (Wijngaards underlines in his quote ‘have put on Christ’.)
It may be asked why, if this is all so clear, the Church has for so long seemed to be opposed to women priests. There have been instances, which the book quotes, of women being ordained deacons, but they are comparatively few and ‘early’. Wijngaards admits there is a difficulty here, but does not accept that it automatically indicates the prohibitive action of the Holy Ghost. He quotes the cognate cases of slavery and the salvation of non-Catholics.
For 19 centuries, for instance, the Church held that slavery was ‘not against Divine Law’. The last affirmation of this was issued by the Congregation for Doctrine as late as 1866. Similarly, until 1854, the official teaching was that non-Catholics were damned, because outside the Church there was no salvation. Both of these postures were formally rejected by Vatican II. If we hold that Vatican II was the action of the Holy Ghost, then the Third Person had taken a time to get round to revealing the enduring truth. Might not the same be said in the matter of women priests?
The official Church at the moment has tried to silence debate on female ordination, and maintains that the matter has been decided ‘infallibly by the ordinary universal magisterium’ Wijngaards in a long passage establishes that this is theological nonsense, and unhappily, can only be regarded as bully-boy tactics.
He finds this a time for those with responsibility to speak out. Women priests are ‘psychologically required’ for a healthy spirituality in the Catholic Church. This is a claim that could have done with further development, as also the observation – mentioned only in passing – that women cannot simply be ‘inserted’ into the clerical structure as it exists.
But there will be more books to discuss these consequent matters, and we can only hope, if we are lucky enough, that John Wijngaards will write them.
Bruce Stewart
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