“Wait till you see what Thomas Aquinas thought about women!”
Not male dominated
CHRIST’S IDEA OF AUTHORITY, synodal reflection no 9
by John Wijngaards
‘When Jesus had given thanks, he broke the bread and said: “This is my body which is for you. Do this in memory of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in memory of me”.’ (1 Corinthians 11,24-25)
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I got to know Claire Daurelle, a French lay minister, who served from 1978 to 1999 in the diocese of Lyon, France. Trained as a catechist she was first put in charge of a chaplaincy. Later she was appointed to help a priest run a parish.
She described her work: “I preach. I conduct funerals. I can say with true honesty that I fulfil my function absolutely everywhere. I do exactly the same that the parish priest does. We share the work, the tasks, in an absolutely equal fashion, except for the sacramental rites. I prepare couples for marriage, and for the baptism of a child. I celebrate with the priest, though it requires his presence.”
And then she mentions her thoughts about priestly ordination . . .
“During the Summer which had preceded my arrival in the parish, the summer of 1987, a question appeared in me which was totally new and about which I had not strictly thought before: ‘Why can’t I be a priest?’ I tried at first to avoid this question. I thought that it was a useless question because there was no solution in the Catholic Church. But as the question grew on me, I wrote about it to my bishop and I asked him for ordination. I received his answer by return post. I know it by heart. It ran as follows: ‘I know that you know what the Catholic Church says with regard to this question. I do not want to add to it, but I ask you to live with it in faith’. I am trying to do so. I do as much as I can. And I can truly say that during the seven years from that moment until his death – Mgr. Decourtray died last year – this bishop has truly given me pastoral support with regard to that question. He has never taken me for granted. Every time when I telephoned him in order to arrange a meeting, he agreed to it immediately. For him it was very important to give me pastoral support in my priestly vocation. He never tried to extinguish it in me. He never told me: ‘Think about something else. Forget about it’.”
What was Jesus’ intention?
The many testimonies of Catholic women who feel called to the priesthood are sad indeed, especially when we study the facts.
Recent Popes, like Paul VI and John-Paul II have repeated the ban on women’s ordination, basing it on Jesus’ words at the Last Supper. “When Jesus said: ‘Do this in memory of me!’, he addressed the command to the apostles”, they said. “Jesus only chose men to be apostles. Only men can receive priestly ordination.”
A careful scrutiny of the text presents a different picture. The Last Supper was a paschal meal for Jesus and the whole family had to be invited to take part in it. We can be sure that Jesus’ mother Mary and other women were present on that occasion.
The Catholic Church has always accepted that when Jesus stated: “Take this bread and eat!”, he invited all disciples, including women to communion. Why would his “Do this in memory of me!”, be a commission restricted to the apostles only?
Have church leaders forgotten the real historical grounds for excluding women from the priestly ministry? The early Church was dominated by Greek and Roman culture. For the Greeks women were inferior by nature. Romans put women firmly under control of their fathers or husbands. Women could not hold official positions of authority. Their testimony was invalid in court.
And medieval St Thomas Aquinas, hailed by the same Popes as the leading Doctor of Orthodox Doctrine, spelled it out neatly in his Summa Theologica (1485-1486).
“The image of God is found in man in a special way, and not in woman: for man is the beginning and end of woman; as God is the beginning and end of every creature … For man is not of woman, but woman of man; and man was not created for woman, but woman for man.”
“(In creation) man is ordered to a still nobler vital action, and that is intellectual operation … woman is naturally subject to man, because in man the discretion of reason predominates.”
“(To the question: why are some humans born as women?) “With regard to the specific cause [i.e., the action of the male semen], a female is deficient and unintentionally caused. For the active power of the semen always seeks to produce a thing completely like itself, something male. So if a female is produced, this must be because the semen is weak or because the material [provided by the female parent] is unsuitable, or because of the action of some external factor such as the winds from the south which make the atmosphere humid. But with regard to general Nature the female is not accidentally caused but is intended by Nature for the work of generation. Now the intentions of Nature come from God, who is its author. This is why, when he created Nature, he made not only the male but also the female.”
“The male sex is required for receiving Orders … even though a woman were made the object of all that is done in conferring Orders, she would not receive Orders, for since a sacrament is a sign, not only the thing, but the signification of the thing, is required in all sacramental actions. Accordingly, since it is not possible in the female sex to signify eminence of degree, for a woman is in the state of subjection, it follows that she cannot receive the sacrament of Order …”
Do we need to say more?
Questions
Would Jesus have agreed to the misguided reasonings of Greek, Roman and medieval scholars? Did he, when he conferred spiritual power on his successors in the ministry, not clearly intend to include women?