John Paul II and the Gift of Clarity

BY MOST REV. CHARLES J. CHAPUT, O.F.M. Cap. CAP.

Later this week, the Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA) will meet in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Its members will receive and discuss a report on "Tradition and the Ordination of Women." The CTSA has played a valuable role in American Catholic intellectual life. But it has also reached a critical juncture, and this document only harms its credibility. Let me explain why.

Every person in the pew knows that we need more priests. While priestly vocations continue to thrive in Africa and Asia, nearly all of the developed countries face a shortage. Two reasons suggest themselves.

First, some would argue that the Holy Spirit, by withholding vocations, is telling us something new—for example, that we need to open the priesthood to women and married men. This has been a theme of U.S. Catholic debate for nearly 20 years, and we shouldn't be surprised. The political culture of any country sooner or later leaves its mark on the religious life of its citizens. Americans have strong assumptions about political equality. Gender issues have moved to the center of our thinking about equality as traditional structures of work and family have changed.

But there's another, and in my view more honest, way of understanding the vocations shortage. The Holy Spirit is calling forth plenty of vocations, but we're not hearing the call. We let the noise of daily life get in the way. Parents don't really encourage their children to think about priestly or religious service. And we've lost the vocabulary we need to listen to God when He speaks to us. It's true that we've prayed publicly for years for more vocations. But prayer implies that we will conform our actions to our words. And too often our actions as Catholic people have given mixed messages about vocations. We want priestly vocations . . . but we no longer seem sure of what that means, and we're much less inclined to make the sacrifices vocations require.

One of Pope John Paul II's great gifts to the Church has been his clarity as a teacher in the aftermath of Vatican II. He's written powerfully about the rights and dignity of women, the importance of the family, and the Christian -- as opposed to the purely secular—meaning of human equality. The Church is a community of persons with equal dignity, but different and complementary callings. She is not just a collection of interchangeable selves and functions.

When John Paul spoke about women and the priesthood in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (1994) his message was clear. The Church cannot and will not ordain women to the priesthood. He worded his teaching in such a way as to close the matter for further debate, and thus conclude a long theological discussion that had begun to create serious confusion among laypeople. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith reaffirmed his teaching in a response to the original papal document the following year.

The most recent CTSA report says that it "does not intend to present arguments for or against the ordination of women." But then it proceeds to raise questions about the authority of this teaching for the rest of its lengthy text. None of the CTSA's points are finally persuasive. And many members of the CTSA will be frustrated by the misuse of their time for yet another discussion of this issue. But the fact remains that some people will be misled by the CTSA document's content, and the news media are unlikely to overlook a good controversy.

For members of the CTSA to revisit this teaching at such a late date, when so many other urgent issues face the Church, is more than just disappointing. It will not solve the vocations problem. It creates unnecessary and belated confusion. And it raises questions about the CTSA's continuing usefulness for the life of the Church. As a bishop, it is certainly my counsel and hope that the CTSA will retire this document as briskly as possible.