Why are the functions for man clear in the Catholic Church leading and decisive hierarchy, but there is no corresponding function for women?

Question

Aside from the functions that both man and women can take in the Church (they can be lay members of the congregations- single or married, they both can be consecrated single persons, they can be religious brothers same as women can be religious sisters), there are some specific and honorable functions in Catholic Church designed only for men- whole decisive hierarchy of the Church.

It seems, that even if we reject the idea of female priesthood, there is still no "corresponding" specific function in the Catholic Church for women, that only they could do in the Church.

Is it possible that Jesus handed over only precise functions only to the men, and had no precise idea for the women in his Church, or is it rather the disciples and evangelists, who, as being men of these times, cared little for whatever concerned women, and simply ignored the role designed for the women, and focused on developing a patriarchal structure of the Church?

Where will I find reliable resources to dig on that topic? What can be done in order to provide more recognition of female role in Catholic Church?

I was raised in very conservative Catholic family, and for a long time I was simply accepting that it is the way it must be if it was always so. But since some this model disturbs me more and more and does not help at all to endure in catholicism. I would appreciate if some compassionate person wold be willing to help me in my struggles, I am not trying to fight anybody here, I smimply try to understand. I hope to find some understanding among you, thank you in advance

Answer 1

The question assumes the woman is just a 'copy and pasted' man, or interchangeable with man, whereas when God took woman out of man, He didn't intend for equality or sameness, because he made a physically and mentally different creature, designed to be compatible with, complete, and be completed by, the man. We are both created in the image of God - high, intelligent moral beings - but created for slightly different purposes. Man was not intended to be ruled over by a woman, but the woman by man. That may grate the ears of modernists, but it's the Catholic faith both as viewed magisterially and scripturally.

Women have one of the highest callings possible - motherhood. And not just within the immediate, nuclear family, but more generally, too: to bear, feed, educate and raise the next generation of mankind. Women have the capacity to hold back the torrent, as it were, of the moral decay of a society; on the other hand, when the women begin to show degeneracy, that evinces extreme moral rot, and the impending destruction of moral society (which we see today - women wanting to butcher their infants on the altar of exercising choice and autonom for its own sake). And to perpetuate the human race. Fathers, traditionally, only support the mother in her role as such. Women whose calling is to chastity can find themselves the leaders of convents - Mother Superiors and the like.

For a Catholic grounded in theology (not 'patriarchal misogyny') it is repugnant for a woman to have authority over men, just as it is for children to teach adults - although not in the same way (I'm using an analogy - don't blame me if you can't distinguish between an analogy and a direct comparison or equation). The stronger cannot be reformed and moulded by the weaker, but the weaker by the stronger, to use a crude example from nature.

People who deny a fundamental difference in men and women ignore physical and doctrinal reality both (i.e. even if you denied the Catholic faith, you'd still be denying basic biology and science). The Catholic Church admits of no conflation of genders, and never can. In fact, it would be a modernistic heresy to say otherwise: and modernism is a heresy.

It's nigh unthinkable that if Jesus intended for women to be interchangable with men in leadership, He would not have chosen one of the many holy women - chief among whom would be His own mother - to be apostles and priests. It's not as if He wasn't revealing hard to bear things already - such as the command to eat His body and blood.

Answer 2

I understand your concern. And I understand the frustration. Biblically, the Catholic Church follows the model laid out in the Old Testament priesthood. But I dont think that's really the question.

As a man, I just read it from a different point of view. In the Bible, Eve sins first, but Adam receives the blame.[Gen 3:6, Rom 5:12-21] After being removed from the Garden, punishment for the woman is difficulty in childbirth.[Gen 3:16] The punishment for man is... to do everything else![Gen 3:17] The man is to be the farmer, the hunter, the gatherer, the priest, the ruler, the judge, etc. He sends us wandering in deserts, fighting wars, hunting, building temples, governing, judging, tilling, bartering, etc. It is exhausting! As presented biblically, it takes all sorts of things for men to do to enter Heaven or God's graces.

Think about it. The Apostles follow Christ all over the place, and He is constantly chastising them! (did you ever notice they never bring anything to eat?!) Yet a certain "woman" [Lk 7:36-50] puts oil on his feet just one time, and he goes off telling everyone how great she is!

But there is a great lesson there, to me. There is great freedom in NOT being required to do something. Women just be what they were made to be, and it's as if its a free ride to eternal life!![1 Tim 2:15] Ask any woman about being a mother and they will tell you its a full-time job. That's right -- a full-time job was built right into her DNA!! Men have nothing comparable. If you can shovel dirt, no reason you can't flip a burger, or be a priest, or a hunter, or wash dishes, etc. Therefore the job that men's bodies were built for is.... everything else!

I was complaining in front of a priest once and his response was basically, "Gen 2:18 says the woman was made as a helper, which means that your job is... everything!" I've done the dishes ever since without complaint. Brutal for men; freeing for women.

Hope that was the charitable response you were looking for...

Answer 3

Why are the functions for man clear in the Catholic Church leading and decisive hierarchy, but there is no corresponding function for women?

I am answering this question the best I can and do so desiring not to get into a debate on the issue. The reservation of priestly ordination to men is perhaps one of the most misunderstood and seemingly controversial teachings of the Church.

Jesus could have chosen women to be priests, but he did not. Surely the first woman chosen would have been his very own mother, the Most Holy Virgin Mary.

Jesus, the second Person of thr Blessed Trinity, knew exactly what he was doing when he instituted the priesthood and the Holy Eucharist. Nevertheless, proponents of a female priesthood will always say that Jesus Christ was only acting according to the customs of his times, but that goes against the solid teachings of the Catholic Church.

Simply put, the Church believes that Christ willed it so.

Although there is still no "corresponding" specific function in the Catholic Church for women, that must not be looked on the Church leaders or even Our Lord love women any less. As Catholics, we believe that the ecclesiastical roles within the Church are different as willed by the Divine Trinity. Women should not be looked on as inferior or loved less.

Keeping all this in mind, we can see that Christ choosing only men as Apostles was a deliberate action. As Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger noted before his election as Pope: “One forgets that in the ancient world all religions also had priestesses. All except one. The Jewish. Christianity, here too following the ‘scandalous’ original example of Jesus, opens a new situation to women: it accords them a position that represents a novelty with respect to Judaism. But of the latter, he preserves the exclusively male priesthood.” What Cardinal Ratzinger is pointing out here is that if Jesus did choose women to be priestesses, it would not have been as much as a shock as people think. All religions had priestesses. The astonishing thing was that they were absent from the community of Jesus Christ. As clearly stated in Scripture, Jesus broke many Jewish customs; however, here he deliberately retains it.

We must also look at the Priesthood as a Sacrament. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each Sacrament.” The Sacraments are outward “signs” which represent spiritual realities. For example, washing with water at Baptism signifies cleansing from sin, regeneration, and participation in the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection. The water is an outward “sign” of what is really taking place spiritually. In the incarnation, Christ was born male and the priest is a sacramental sign or “icon” of Jesus Christ. Pope John Paul II alludes to this when he states that the apostles and their successors were given the mission of “representing” Christ. The Priest at Mass stands in Persona Christi (in the person of Christ); and Christ the Head and Mediator is male; therefore, the priest who represents Him must be male. Bonaventure adds to this a theological argument based on the long-standing tradition of regarding the bishop as the “spouse” or “bridegroom” of his diocese. Because of this, only a male should receive priestly ordination. Crucial to this theological argument is his suggestion that the sacramental symbolism of the priesthood reflects the bishop (or priest) in relationship with the Church, the “Bride of Christ”.

I would like to close with an excerpt from “Light of the World,” an interview with Pope Benedict XVI. In this book Pope Benedict XVI explains the Church’s position on the matter. “John Paul ll’s formulation is very important: The Church has ‘no authority’ to ordain women. The point is not that we are saying we don’t want to, but that we can’t. The Lord gave the Church a form with the Twelve and, as their successors, with the bishops and the presbyters, the priests. This form of the Church is not something we ourselves have produced. It is how He constituted the Church. Following this is an act of obedience. This obedience may be arduous in today’s situation. But it is important precisely for the Church to show that we are not a regime based on arbitrary rule. We cannot do what we want… Incidentally, women have so many great and meaningful functions in the Church that there can be no question of discrimination.” Finally, if there is any doubt of the Church’s respect for women, we need only look at Our Holy Mother, whom the Church formally declared to be the Queen of Heaven (Oct. 11, 1954, Pope Pius XII).

We can see that in the Early Church, women deaconesses existed. However, we must keep in mind that such deaconesses were non-ordained deaconesses. This role for women was instituted by some Church leader to aid in areas to help in where the employment of women would be more prudent than the usage of male deacons.

At this point, attentive readers of the New Testament will note that in a few cases, women are called diakonoi, which is the term that came to be used for members of the first degree of holy orders (i.e., deacons). For example, there is Romans 16:1:

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant [diakonon] of the church at Cenchreae (ESV).

The problem is that, as the ESV suggests, the term “diakonos” was much broader in meaning in Koine Greek than it is today: it essentially meant “servant.” (For example the servants who fill the water jugs at the wedding at Cana, in John 2:5, are also called diakonoi.)

There is evidence that the early Church had orders of “deaconesses” who would, for example, assist adult women in their full-immersion Baptisms (which was the norm back then). It is clear by all accounts, however, that the deaconesses never received the Sacrament of Holy Orders through the imposition of hands, as (male) deacons do. Again, the term “deaconess” was applied before the term “deacon” came to have the technical use it has today. (There is a good summary of this issue in the old Catholic Encyclopedia).

The International Theological Commission: From the Diakonia of Christ to the Diakonia of the Apostles explains that the role of deaconesses was one of service, yet were not ordained as their male counterparts were.

The Ministry of Deaconesses

Deaconesses should carry out the anointing of women in the rite of baptism, instruct women neophytes, and visit the women faithful, especially the sick, in their homes. They were forbidden to confer baptism themselves, or to play a part in the Eucharistic offering (DA 3, 12, 1-4). The deaconesses had supplanted the widows. The bishop may still institute widows, but they should not either teach or administer baptism (to women), but only pray (DA 3, 5, 1-3, 6, 2).

The deaconesses were named before the sub-deacon who, in his turn, received a cheirotonia like the deacon (CA 8, 21), while the virgins and widows could not be "ordained" (8, 24-25). The Constitutiones insist that the deaconesses should have no liturgical function (3, 9, 1-2), but should devote themselves to their function in the community which was "service to the women" (CA 3, 16, 1) and as intermediaries between women and the bishop. It is still stated that they represent the Holy Spirit, but they "do nothing without the deacon" (CA 2, 26, 6). They should stand at the women's entrances in the assemblies (2, 57, 10). Their functions are summed up as follows: "The deaconess does not bless, and she does not fulfil any of the things that priests and deacons do, but she looks after the doors and attends the priests during the baptism of women, for the sake of decency" (CA 8, 28, 6).

This is echoed by the almost contemporary observation of Epiphanius of Salamis in his Panarion, in around 375: "There is certainly in the Church the order of deaconesses, but this does not exist to exercise the functions of a priest, nor are they to have any undertaking committed to them, but for the decency of the feminine sex at the time of baptism." 67A law of Theodosius of 21 June 390, revoked on 23 August of the same year, fixed the age for admission to the ministry of deaconesses at 60. The Council of Chalcedon (can. 15) reduced the age to 40, forbidding them subsequent marriage.

For more information about this topic, perhaps the following articles would be considered of interest:

• Why doesn't the Catholic Church support female priests?
• Benedict XVI and the Role of Women in the Church
• Clarification on Reserving Priestly Ordination to Men Alone
• Pope reaffirms ban on women priests, assails disobedience
• If we want to reform the church, let's make women cardinals
• Catholic women divided over pope’s remarks on female deacons