Title: Why Can't the Church Ordain Women?
Headings: WHY CAN'T THE CHURCH ORDAIN WOMEN?
WHY CAN'T THE CHURCH ORDAIN WOMEN?
Related Articles on This Web Site:

Content: Yet our Faith is not sexist! The Catholic Church teaches that women are equal to men in human dignity, capacity for salvation and potential for spiritual growth and holiness - not bad for a "patriarchal" religion. She also teaches that the highest creature is the Blessed Virgin Mary - a woman! It is difficult to find "sexism" in such doctrines. Though a few medieval writers tried to argue against women priests on the basis of an allegedly "inferiority" or "state of subjection" to man, this was only their personal opinion, not the Church's official dogma. In 1977, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released its Declaration of on the Question of the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood (Inter Insignores). This document, which rejected the idea that women could be priests, also stated that "the Scholastic doctors, in their desire to clarify by reason the data of faith, often present arguments on this point (women's ordination) that modern thought would have difficulty in admitting or would even rightly reject" (2). This is a clear reference to any argument which would posit some alleged "female inferiority"! Finally, consider all the liturgical roles which the Church has opened to women and girls in the past few decades. Many Catholic parishes currently have female readers, special ministers of the Eucharist, parish coordinators, even altar servers.