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Lesson seven
Church Law and ‘Women Priests’
- * read the narration column
first
- * then do the exercises
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Reading
Read the following chapter in our Textbook, The Ordination of
Women, etc.,
- chapter 21, ‘Unmasking the Intruder’, pages
170-176.
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The witness of Church
law
From early times, Councils and Synods laid down rules and
regulations that were followed by Christian communities in various regions, but
the Church itself did not have a book of law until the Middle Ages. When
it began to be drawn up, however, this law book incorporated social, cultural
and theological prejudices against women.
Church Law was prejudiced in its roots
The Congregation for Doctrine's Commentary on Inter
Insigniores makes this admission regarding the Decretum Gratiani,
which was the beginning and main source for the Church's official Law, the
Codex Iuris Canonici from 1234 AD until 1916 AD:
“ ‘Quia mulier est in statu
subiectionis.’ A similar formula is found earlier in the Decretum
of Gratian (in Caus. 34; q. 5, c. 11), but Gratian, who was quoting the
Carolingian Capitularies and the false Decretals, was trying rather to justify
with Old Testament prescriptions the prohibition - already formulated by the
ancient Church ( Council of Laodicea, can. 44; St Gelasius, Epist. 14, ad
universos episcopos per Lucaniam, Brutios et Siciliam constitutos, 11 March
494, no. 26) - of women from entering the sanctuary and serving at the
altar.” Commentary, § 29.
The CDF claims that the exclusion of women from ordination in
ancient Church Law was for a proper theological reason:
“ From the moment that the teaching on the
sacraments is systematically presented in the schools of theology and canon law
writers begin to deal ex professo with the nature and value of the
tradition that reserved ordination to men, the canonists base their case on the
principle formulated by Pope Innocent III in a letter of 11 December 1210, to
the bishops of Palencia and Burgos, a letter that was included in the
collection of Decretals: ‘Although the Blessed Virgin Mary was of higher
dignity and excellence than all the apostles, it was to them, not her, that the
Lord entrusted the keys of the kingdom of heaven.’(Decretal. Lib. V.
tit. 38, De paenit., can. 10). This text became a locus communis
for the glossatores ( e.g., Glossa in Decretal. Lib. 1, tit. 33,
c. 12 Dilecta, Vo Iurisdictioni.” Commentary, § 34.
Reply
The truth, however, is this: the Decretum Gratiani and the
rest of Church Law throughout the centuries has been steeped in the ancient
prejudices against women.
- Church Law accepted the presumed
inferiority of women as a proven fact.
- Church Law agreed with the state of punishment
for sin which women were supposed to be in.
- Many laws in the Church's Code of Law were
based on the presumed ritual uncleanness of women.
- The letter of Pope Innocent III, 1210 AD, on
abbesses was just one ‘theological reason’ with which the prejudices
were covered up in later writers.
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| Section One |
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The presumed inferiority of women can be seen from all these
passages in the Decretum Gratiani. Remember that the Church's official
Law, the Codex Iuris Canonici was based on this from 1234 AD until 1916
AD!
The legal situation of women under the Corpus Iuris
Canonici (1234 - 1916 AD) that depended on the Decretum Gratiani has
been summed up as follows:
- “By a principle of civil law, no woman can exercise a
public office. By Church Law women are equally barred from all spiritual
functions and offices.”
- “A woman can, therefore, not receive any ecclesiastical
ordination. If she receives one, the ordination will not imprint a sacramental
character . . . .”
- “No woman, however saintly she may be, may either preach
or teach . . . .”
- “A wife is under the power of her husband, the husband not
under the power of the wife. The husband may punish her. A wife is obliged to
follow her husband to wherever he decides to fix his residence.”
- “A woman is bound to greater modesty than a
man.”
- “A woman is sooner excused on account of fear than a man.
She is dispensed from going to Rome to obtain absolution from an
excommunication.”
L'Abbé André, Droit Canon, Paris 1859, vol.
2, col. 75.
The Codex Iuris
Canonici, promulgated in 1916, still contained many canons that
enshrined women's inferior status:
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| Section Two |
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The Decretum Gratiani
took over the judgement by Ambrosiaster that ascribed a woman's state of
subjection to her role in sin.
“ Ambrosius (=Ambrosiaster) says: ‘Women must cover
their heads because they are not the image of God. They must do this as a sign
of their subjection to authority and because sin came into the world through
them. Their heads must be covered in church in order to honor the bishop.
In like manner they have no authority to speak because the bishop is the
embodiment of Christ. They must thus act before the bishop as before Christ,
the judge, since the bishop is the representative of the Lord. Because of
original sin they must show themselves submissive. ” Decretum
Gratiani
Causa 33,
qu. 5, ch. 19.
 In a classic of contorted theological reasoning, the
Decretum Gratiani even states that in the New Testament (which is a
state of more perfect grace) women are allowed less than in the Old
Testament, because now they have to carry the responsibility for their share in
original sin! This reasoning is directly tied to the ban against women's
ordination! To understand the following passage, one must distinguish
questions (by a presumed outsider) and answers by Gratian
himself.
[Question] “May a woman lay an accusation
against a priest?”
[Answer] “It seems not because
as Pope Fabian says, neither complaint nor testimony may be raised against the
priests of the Lord by those who do not have, and cannot have, the same status
with them. Women cannot, however, be promoted to the priesthood or even the
diaconate and for this reason they may not raise a complaint or give testimony
against priests in court. This is shown both in the sacred canons (=Church
regulations) and the laws (=Roman & civil laws).”
[Question] “But then it would seem that whoever can be a
judge may not be prevented from being a plaintiff and women became judges in
the Old Testament as is clearly shown in the book of Judges. So those cannot be
excluded from the role of plaintiff who have often fulfilled the role of judge
and who are not forbidden by any word of Scripture to act as plaintiff . . .
.”
[Answer] “No, in the Old Testament much was
permitted which today [i. e., in the New Testament] is abolished, through the
perfection of grace. So if [in the Old Testament] women were permitted to judge
the people, today because of sin, which woman brought into the world, women
are admonished by the Apostle to be careful to practice a modest restraint, to
be subject to men and to veil themselves as a sign of subjugation.”
Decretum Gratiani
Causa 2,
question 7, princ. |
| Section Three |
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Online Readings
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The presumed ‘ritual uncleanness’ of women entered
Church Law especially through the Decretum
Gratiani (1140 AD), which became official Church law in 1234 AD, a
vital part of the Corpus Iuris Canonici that was in force until 1916.
The ritual prohibitions against women under the Corpus Iuris
Canonici (1234 - 1916 AD) can be seen in the following examples:
The ridiculous prohibition for women to ‘sing in church’
was reiterated more than once by the Sacred Congregation for Liturgy. Girls or
women could not be members of any church choir (decree 17 Sept. 1897).
“Women should not be part of a choir; they belong to the ranks of the
laity. Separate women's choirs too are totally forbidden, except for serious
reasons and with permission of the bishop” (decree 22 Nov. 1907).
“Any mixed choir of men and women, even if they stand far from the
sanctuary, is totally forbidden” (decree 18 Dec. 1908).
The Codex Iuris
Canonici, promulgated in 1917, still contained the following canons
based on a woman's presumed ritual uncleanness:
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| Section Four |
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Exercise
- Did the people who formulated the laws act out of spite against
women?
- Jesus fought against the pharasaic understanding of Law in his
time. Paul taught that we have been liberated from the Law ( Gal 4,1-5; Rom
8,1-4; etc.). Do such texts apply here?
- What are the dangers of ‘law’ in a Christian
context?
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Pope Innocent's letter ran as follows:
“Recently some news has come to our ears, which has caused
no small amazement, namely that abbesses, resident in the dioceses of Burgos
and Palencia (in Spain), bless their own nuns, hear their confessions on
crimes, and reading the Gospel give public sermons. Since this is both
incredible and absurd, and not to be tolerated by us, I am sending to your
discretion, through these apostolic writings, the order to suppress this firmly
with apostolic authority so that it does not happen again. For although the
most blessed Virgin Mary was so much more worthy and excellent than all the
Apostles, the Lord did not entrust to her, but to the Apostles, the keys of the
kingdom of heaven.” Innocent
III.
The argument in the letter, borrowed from
Epiphanius,
was, indeed, used by later ‘Glossatores’ as a theological reason to
justify the ban on women priests. The underlying reasons, however, were the
standard prejudices of the time. They can be found clearly in the writings of
the theologians
who were instrumental in drawing up Church Law.
The argument itself is very weak precisely because, in the
spiritual consciousness of the Church, Mary has always been seen as embodying a
true ‘priestly office’ in her person and in her work.
This awareness revealed
a true and ‘latent’
Tradition of the Church, implying that gender is not a determinative
element in the requirements for Jesus' sacramental priesthood.
Conclusion
From its inception with the Decretum Gratiani, the Law
of the Church has been formulated on the basis of prejudice against women,
often disguised behind specious ‘theological’ or
‘scriptural’ reasons. This is still the true, but hidden, reason
underlying the present Law's ban against the ordination of women. |
