Women and the Priesthood

One of the most hotly debated Catholic issues of the twentieth century is the issue of male-only ordination. Throughout the centuries, only men have been allowed to become priests in the Catholic tradition. Nowadays, people are increasingly labeling the Church as a misogynistic institution for its suppression of female ordination. However, blindly accusing the church of misogyny blatantly ignores the reasoning behind keeping priests strictly male. The Church prohibits women from becoming priests, not for sexist reasons, but rather because it has no authority to change the tradition created by Christ.

The Church's authority comes exclusively from Christ, so to break with His teachings would mean that the Church no longer has authority. For example, consider a scenario in which my teacher gives me the authority to give detentions in his class only. If I begin to roam the halls and give detentions to whomever I please, those detentions are invalid because I acted  outside the authority granted to me by my teacher. I was given authority to hand out detentions in class, not outside in the hallway. Similarly, Christ gave the Catholic Church authority to proclaim and instruct others in His teachings and traditions; nothing more. So what the Church can do is constrained by what Christ did.

To accuse the Church of misogyny is to accuse Christ of hating women, which is clearly untrue. Christ broke all social norms concerning women and men's interaction with them. Christ associated with women in public, which was frowned upon; he accepted His women disciples, which was unheard of ; and he spoke with a Samaritan adulteress, which was a massive no-no in Judea during the first century A.D. For all these reasons, it's obvious that Christ by no means hated or wanted to oppress women.

Now that we've established that Jesus was, in fact, not a misogynist, the Church's teaching on female priesthood becomes very clear. Although he welcomed female disciples, Christ appointed 12 men to start up His church and proclaim the Word of God throughout the world. So the argument for keeping priesthood strictly male goes like this: The church is constrained by what Jesus did and said during His time on earth, and Christ only appointed men to be his apostles. Humans can't know the mind of God, so it is impossible to understand why Christ chose His apostles as He chose them. All we know is that Christ did choose twelve men to become priests, and the Church has no authority to change Tradition instituted by Christ its founder.