An early
supporter of women's ordination, Sr. Butler says she came to the conclusion,
after much theological research, that she could support the Church’s teaching. She
recently published The Catholic Priesthood and Women: A Guide to the
Teaching of the Church, (Hillebrand Books, 2007), a strong defense of Ordinatio
Sacerdotalis, the document in which Pope John Paul II set forth the
reasons for the Church’s teaching that only males may be priests. Here is the
transcript of the interview.
Sister Sara
Butler, professor of dogmatic theology at St. Joseph's Seminary in New York,
has written a well-researched, tightly reasoned, and cogently crafted study of
what is, for Catholics, a settled issue: women cannot properly be ordained to
the ministerial priesthood.
Sister
Butler's analysis is far more theologically persuasive than this--but, at its
heart, her thesis is that one can examine the Catholic priesthood either
socially or sacramentally. A merely "social" examination--which is
based upon a manifestly defective understanding--sees the priesthood as an
office of leadership, to which women have a claim equal to that of men.
A
Protestant view of the priesthood, in fact, may well confirm this
understanding. Sister Butler, however, points out that the priesthood is not a
social or leadership role (or a "career" [see p. 42]), but is,
rather, a sacrament of apostolic ministry in which those who are ordained serve
as "signs" or icons of Christ.
The Church
has no authority to change the priesthood by ordaining women, for the Church
must be true to Christ's will (see pp. 2, 15, 46), and Christ chose for the
priesthood "those whom He wanted" (Mark 3:13).
Along the
way, Sister Butler addresses the common objections to Church teaching, such as
the notion that Jesus chose no women to be Apostles because of the culture in
which He lived (but Jesus never compromised the Truth by conforming to societal
constraints and surely would not have been intimidated as He established His
Church [see p. 67]); that the Church is oppressing women (but the 1983 Code of
Canon Law is clear that Catholic women have essentially the same juridical
status as Catholic men [see pp. 31, 60]); and that--always offered in a
somewhat tongue-in-cheek manner--the Church should ordain only Jewish males
(but once it was clear that Gentiles could be admitted to Baptism and the
community, there was, of course, no such controversy, tongue-in-cheek or not:
"[W]hile there is no theological or canonical tradition concerning the
admission or exclusion of Gentile converts from priestly functions, there is a
tradition concerning the exclusion of women from priestly ordination" [p.
103]).
Referring
to a number of key Church documents, Sister Butler points out the four
fundamental reasons barring women's ordination: the unbroken, universal
tradition of ordaining men; the rootedness of this tradition in Christ's deeds
and His apostolic selections; apostolic fidelity to Christ's choice of men to
be Apostles; and the normative tradition of the Church.
A
particularly powerful passage in the book, referring to Cardinal Newman's
concept of doctrinal development, contends that if an idea conforms to the
Gospel, has been witnessed to and practiced by the Apostles (and the Church
Fathers [on this, see Rod Bennett's book entitled Four Witnesses]), and has
been preserved without interruption in the Catholic Church, it is a valid
"development" and not a "corruption" (pp. 109-110).
Those who
demand that women be ordained--and who stridently object to what is now
definitively settled Church teaching that women do not have a "social
right" to ordination--"end up questioning the Lord's intention with
respect to the priesthood, the Church's hierarchical constitution, and even its
foundation" (p. 111).
In short,
insistence that women must be ordained is, to use Cardinal Newman's term, a
"corruption." Sister Butler is adamant that ordaining only men
"does not imply a negative judgment on women" (p. 59), pointing out
that the Church, which regards men and women as equals in Christ (cf. Gal 3:28
and see p. 33), "rejects the idea that the equalization of rights requires
the identical treatment of women and men" (p. 26).
The book
offers a compelling understanding of both marriage--for example: is the wife to
be submissive? "In Christ, the submission is not unilateral but
bilateral" (p. 37)--and of the overarching idea of sacrament, a concept
alien to secularists and, very regrettably, even to many Protestant Christians.
Until
SACRAMENT is understood, PRIESTHOOD cannot be understood. Sister Butler makes a
very strong contribution to the religious education needed by Catholics,
Protestants, and non-Christians.
This is a
book which deserves a wide and attentive audience. Although it is brief (112
pages of text), it demands a careful, close reading, and it is helpful to read
the texts of the documents (e.g., Inter insigniores and Ordinatio Sacerdotalis)
upon which she depends and from which, among many others, she draws
heavily--testimony to her thorough research. (The book offers an extensive
bibliogaphy and is indexed.)
By the way,
Sister Butler herself, at one point in her life, supported the ordination of
women; she changed her mind, for she had "failed to take into account the
implications of Catholic teaching on the nature of Holy Orders as a
sacrament" (p. ix).
Although
the issue of women's ordination is, for faithful Catholics, a settled one,
there remain "political" questions among non- and nominal Catholics
about the judgment of Pope John Paul the Great with regard to this matter.
The late
Pope pointed out that the Church is not free--the Pope did not have the
authority--to change the practice of ordaining only men because it is rooted in
the will of Christ.
For the
skeptics, that will never be reason enough; for Catholic Christians, it is
always reason enough (see CCC #890-892). And Pope John Paul might well have
said, with St. Paul, "Am I now currying favor with human beings or God? .
. . If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a slave of
Christ" (Gal 1:10; cf. John 12:43).