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Nun: Priesthood is more than a function, it’s a sacramental sign
Some Sister Sara Butler explains why priesthood is reserved to men
By Julie Filby
For decades the topic of women being ordained priests has been studied, discussed and sometimes misunderstood. Some Catholics remain unsure as to how—or whether—the question has been fully resolved.
On Feb. 28 Sister Sara Butler, M.S.B.T., S.T.L., Ph.D., and author of “The Catholic Priesthood and Women: A Guide to the Teaching of the Church” gave a lecture at Boulder’s St. Thomas Aquinas Center: “The Reservation of Priestly Ordination to Men: An Analysis of the Catholic Debate.”
While in Boulder, she spoke with the Denver Catholic Register about women and their role in priestly ministry.
“People often assume this tradition depends upon an outmoded estimation of women, that is, the view that women are inferior to men or incapable of public leadership,” she said. “Many people think of priestly ordination as the equivalent of ‘full participation’ in the Church.”
Pope John Paul II formally addressed the question in his 1994 document “Ordinatio Sacerdotalis,” where he maintained the Church has no authority to change the universal and unbroken tradition of reserving priestly ordination to men because she must remain faithful to the will of Christ.
Sister Butler, who holds the Paluch Chair of Theology at the University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein Seminary in the Archdiocese of Chicago, has studied the topic for nearly 50 years.
“The foundation (of Church teaching) is the Church’s conviction that the Lord’s example in choosing only men as his apostles reveals his will for the ministerial priesthood and establishes a norm for the Church,” she said. “There is a constant tradition, unbroken in East and West, of ordaining only men to the priesthood. Innovations were always denounced, sometimes explicitly rejected as violations of the Lord’s command.”
Sister Butler was not always in agreement with Church teaching on ordaining women priests. While serving as chair of the study for the Catholic Theological Society of America in the late 70s, the task force favored the admission of women to the priesthood.
“I became engaged with this question in the 1970s and at the time, like many, I thought the Church’s tradition was open to change,” she said. “I expected a development of doctrine to follow upon the council’s firm assertion that discrimination on the basis of sex was unjust.”
As a result of her participation in ecumenical dialogue, she came to a deeper understanding.
“It was in the ecumenical dialogue that I was forced to read the documents from the perspective of the Church—I had to read them to present them to the Episcopalians,” said Sister Butler who participated in the Anglican-Roman Catholic Consultation and was a consultant on the bishops’ Committee for a Pastoral Letter on Women’s Concerns in the 80s. “It was then I began to say, ‘Wait a minute, I really haven’t thought this out yet.’”
She said confusion occurs when people do not have a complete understanding of the sacrament of holy orders.
“When someone says it’s sexist that women cannot be ordained priests I ask, ‘What is your understanding of the priesthood?’” she said. “If the priesthood is not just a function, but also a sacramental sign, it’s reasonable to think that a man is the fitting symbol of Jesus Christ in his relationship to the Church.”
There are many pieces to what she described as “a delicate issue” that often involves preconceived ideas and objections.
“The ultimate goal of the Christian life is to be saint, not to be a priest,” she said. “The Church is really pro-woman, and if we can understand that, we won’t be buying a line that’s being sold by secular feminists that we are not pro-women.”
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