Concilium

1999/3: The Non-Ordination of Women and the Politics of Power

Introduction: They Can't Kill the Spirit

Were I a non-Aryan or a not purely Aryan Christian I would be ashamed to belong to a church in which I could only listen but not speak.1

In his Apostolic Letter Ordinatio sacerdatolis, which was promulgated in May 1994, Pope John Paul II insists that the church has no authority to ordain wo/men to the priesthood. Moreover, he asserts that this teaching is grounded in the unbroken tradition of the church. On 18 November 1995 the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith [CDF] published a reply or Responsum to the question whether the teaching presented in the Apostolic Letter is to be understood as belonging to the deposit of faith. The CDF's response does not raise the teaching of Ordinatio sacerdotalis to the level of an ex-cathedra promulgation but insists that the teaching is 'founded on the written word of God', and been 'from the beginning continually preserved and applied in the tradition of the Church' and has been 'set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium'. In the face of contrary results of theological scholarship and ecumenical practice, such an authoritarian rhetoric invites an investigation into the interests motivating this discourse of power.

Hence, the focus of this issue of Concilium is not the question of the ordination of wo/men but rather the non-ordination of wo/men and its impact on the selfunderstanding and practice of church. We are not interested so much in taking up once again the arguments for and against the ordination of wo/men as though wo/men were the problem. Rather we seek to explore the politics of power that has led to the most recent authoritarian assertions of Rome.

The issue at hand is no longer a 'woman's problem', the question goes to the very heart and integrity of church and theology. Hence this issue of Concilium focusses on questions such as: What kind of theological and ekklesial self-understanding comes to the fore in the prohibition of wo/men's ordination? How is the Roman discourse of power constituted and what is its motivating force? What is the social location of this categorical [viii] prohibition and what are its theological ramifications? Why does Rome resort to strategies of censure and repression instead of argument and persuasion? What are the fears that continue to motivate wo/men's exclusion from the sacred?

Is Roman Catholic self-understanding and ordained leadership inescapably defined in and through the second-class citizenship of wo/men? What makes it theologically acceptable to reason that wo/men cannot represent Christ, the Man? What makes it theologically admissible to argue that wo/men cannot be ordained because Jesus did not ordain wo/men although it is historically well documented that Jesus did not ordain anyone? What are the educational and institutional discourses which insist and guarantee that ordained ministry must be exclusively male? Why do bishops collaborate in silencing theologians and whole church communities who raise these questions? Is it the lack of faith that is always compelling the Grand Inquisitor to control or is it the fear of wo/men in power that motivates the men in the Vatican?

Why is it that the struggle for wo/men's full citizenship in the church provokes such misogyny? While working on this issue I saw a short notice in a Catholic newspaper that in a Catholic high school a girl had been chosen to perform the role of Jesus in the musical Jesus Christ Superstar. Because of right-wing pressures the principal vetoed her performance and insisted that a boy had to fill the role of Jesus. Her response was telling: 'I did not want to be a man,' she was quoted as saying, 'I just wanted to proclaim the gospel as Jesus did.'

This story reminded me of my visit with retired Cardinal Kim of Seoul several years ago. When I asked him how he is theologically able to defend the Roman politics of wo/men's exclusion from holy office, he told me that he had received a letter several months ago from a young girl asking him the same question. The letter was still unanswered, the Cardinal confessed. Whenever he tried to recount the Vatican's position he was not able to do so because he did not want to crush this young wo/man's faith and vocation. If there is no acceptable theological-pastoral response to a young wo/man's plea to serve the church and to preach the gospel, why then have bishops all around the world not taken a public stance against the Roman politics of power that is so destructive of the ekklesia?

Taking the questions of young wo/men seriously, the articles in this issue circle in different ways around the question of power and the theological selfunderstanding of the Roman church that comes to the fore in the authoritarian prohibition of wo/men's ordination. The first [ix] section explores the refusal to ordain wo/men. Hermann Haring opens the discussion with a very balanced ideology-critical investigation into the rhetorics of the Apostolic Letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis. He shows that the Roman position is theologically complex but consistent. The church is understood as a sacramental church, which is hierarchically structured, fixated on male gender and ordered in a monocratic fashion. This kyriocratic understanding of church is taught and reinforced as if it were infallible. As the following article by Acebo underscores with a quotation from Plus X: 'It is the duty of the herd to accept that it is ruled and it must submit to the injunctions of those who are ruling it.'

The second part of this issue of Concilium investigates the clash of ecclesiologies that comes to the fore in the problem of the non-ordination of wo/men. Leonardo Boff begins by tracing the vision of church as the people of God back to the Second Vatican Council. He is followed by Gregory Baum, who reflects theologically on power in the church and argues for a vital Spirit-impelled dialectic between three distinct teaching authorities: the authority of the hierarchy, the authority of theologians, and the authority of the people, authorities which are not parallel but intrinsically interrelated. Mary Condren approaches the question of power from a different direction. She argues that it is not accidental that wo/men are excluded from the sacred power mediated through ordination in churches that are shaped by the theological culture of sacrifice. Finally, my contribution suggests tongue in cheek that under different conditions one might be inclined to accept the argument of Rome that because of scripture and tradition the hierarchy has no authority to ordain women as priestesses or deaconesses. This argument would be believable if the Pope would elevate wo/men to the office of cardinal, an office that cannot resort to scripture and apostolic tradition for its legitimation. Of course, as long as bishops have to be male, all cardinals who elect the future pope should be female.

The argument in part three shifts from a critical investigation of the nonordination of wo/men and the question of the politics of power to the ekklesial agency of wo/men. Melanie May not only tracks the global struggle over ‘wo/men's place’ in society and religion but also highlights wo/men’s ecumenical practices for transformation. In a similar fashion Hedwig Meyer-Wilmes does not approach the question of ordination as a dogmatic topic but rather positions it within cultural-political debates on modernity and postmodernity. She points to the emerging variegated forms of church ministry and office in a postmodern church, which would be open for diverse strategies in order to engender wo/men’s [x] ekklesial leadership. Finally, Mary Hunt proclaims ‘We Wo/men Are Church’. Rather than arguing for a modification of existing structures she details the different ways in which Roman Catholic wo/men claim their authority to create and shape new and exciting practices of ministry and theology.

The issue concludes with a critical analysis and documentation of the debates around the ordination of wo/men in former Czechoslovakia and with some concluding reflections of Hermann Häring elaborating five fruitful and encouraging aspects of new forms of ministry and ecclesiology that wo/men ministers and theologians offer as a gift to the whole church today. We end on such a positive note in order to encourage readers to claim their own spiritual authority as ekklesia and to continue the struggle for a more just church that is truly Catholic and able to appreciate the talents and spiritual gifts of all its citizens for creating communities and societies of justice. We are confident that if the next pope is elected by wo/men cardinals, s/he will find a way to shape ekklesial office in such a fashion that it represents the ministry of Jesus which was inclusive of wo/men and of all those marginal to the society and religious institutions of his day.

Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza
Hermann Häring

Note

1. Rudolf Bultmann as quoted by H. Jackson Forstman, ‘A Chapter in Theological Resistance to Racism: Rudolf Bultmann and the Beginnings of the Third Reich’, Douglas A. Night and Peter J. Paris, Justice and the Holy. Essays in Honor of Walter Harrelson, Atlanta 1989, 268, who point out that already in 1933 Bultmann advocated the application of this principle to wo/men as well.

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