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A FEW WORDS ON AN ADMITTEDLY
TIRED BUT VEXSOME TOPIC
The topic is this: “Don’t you think that, even though
the Catholic Church does not currently permit the ordination
of women to the priesthood, nevertheless, someday and somehow,
when we have a more open-minded Pope, the Church will relent
and will say that the time has finally arrived for us to ordain
women to the priesthood?”
Or words to that effect.
Would you like a really good answer to that question? I mean
an answer that is 100% totally and absolutely reliable. I mean
an answer that you can give that will not later come back to
haunt you or leave you with egg on your face. I mean an answer
that is definitive and absolute. I mean an answer that is true
not just for now but for all time. I mean an answer that will
be just as true in the fourth and fifth millennia (and beyond!)
as it was in the first and second millennia and is true here
at the beginning of the third millennium? An answer that will
be true at the Second Coming of the Lord! If that is what you
have been looking for, then look no further. Here is the answer
to your question. It is an answer from no one less than Pope
John Paul II. It comes from his Apostolic Letter entitled Ordinatio
Sacerdotalis, dated 22 May 1994.
"Wherefore, in order that all doubt
may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter
which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in
virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Luke 22:32),
I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer
priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be
definitively held by all the Church's faithful."
After this document was issued, inquiries
were sent to Rome about whether or not this declaration that
the Church cannot ever ordain women to the priesthood was or
was not INFALLIBLE. (If a teaching is declared “infallibly”,
it admits no possibility whatsoever of being revoked or revised
or tweaked at some future time.
Here is the response to the inquiries. It was issued by the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, signed by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger,
the Prefect of the Congregation, approved by Pope John Paul II
and, on 28 October 1995, ordered by him to be published.
“This teaching requires definitive
assent, since, founded on the written Word of God, and from the
beginning constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of
the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary
and universal Magisterium (cf. 2nd Vatican Council, Dogmatic
Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium 25, 2). Thus, in the
present circumstances, the Roman Pontiff, exercising his proper
office of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32), has handed
on this same teaching by a formal declaration, explicitly stating
what is to be held always, everywhere, and by all, as belonging
to the deposit of the faith.”
So, in case you are ever involved in a discussion
about the possibility that perhaps, someday, the Church will
ordain women to the priesthood, please do not get all hot and
bothered, do not shout and scream or jump up and down. Do not
go into cardiac arrest.
Just say clearly and confidently: Nope! It will never happen!
Not now, not next year, not next century, not next millennium.
It cannot happen. It is a settled issue. It is de fide definita
(a defined teaching of the Faith). Roma locuta, causa finita!
(Rome has spoken and the matter is settled!) And because the
Church speaks in such matters for the Holy Spirit of God: Spiritus
Sanctus locutus, causa finita! (The Holy Spirit has spoken and
the matter is settled!) |
Saturday, 05
June