The case for a male only priesthood - based on sacramental and sexual imagery (#2)

Yesterday, I briefly considered an argument from tradition used by the Roman Catholic Church to justify the exclusion of women from ordination to the priesthood. Today, I turn to a second and more theologically complex line of reasoning: the appeal to sexual or symbolism.

In Inter Insigniores – a document of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued in 1976, the Church draws on New Testament references to the Church as a Bride (e.g 2 Corinthians11:2; Ephesians5:22-23).  Inter Insigniores extends this imagery to the ministerial priesthood, arguing that when the priest presides at the Eucharist, he represents Christ in his role as Bridegroom giving himself for his Bride, the Church.

At the heart of the Church’s position is the conviction that the male character of the ministerial priesthood is non‑negotiable, particularly in its Eucharistic function. According to official teaching, the priest who offers the Body and Blood of Christ at Mass must be male because he sacramentally represents Jesus Christ, who was himself a man. Any departure from this norm, the Church argues, would confuse symbolic roles and undermine the integrity of the Eucharistic sacrifice itself.

Central to this argument is the doctrine that an ordained priest acts in persona Christi Capitis – ‘in the person of Christ the Head’.  This teaching is set out clearly in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which states that in the sacramental actions of the Church, it is Christ himself who acts through the ordained minister, especially in the celebration of the Eucharist. The priest does not merely speak or act on Christ’s behalf, like an ambassador standing in for an absent sovereign; rather, Christ is believed to be truly present and active through him. This is regardless of the worthiness or holiness of the minister presiding. Here, is what the Catechism has to say:

It is the same priest, Christ Jesus, whose sacred person his minister truly represents. Now the minister, by reason of the sacerdotal consecration which he has received, is truly made like to the high priest and possesses the authority to act in the power and place of the person of Christ himself (virtute ac persona ipsius Christi).

Christ is the source of all priesthood: the priest of the old law was a figure of Christ, and the priest of the new law acts in the person of Christ. (CCC # 1548)

In the Eucharistic celebration, this identification reaches its highest intensity. When the priest speaks the words of institution—“This is my body… this is my blood”—Catholic theology holds that it is Christ who speaks those words through the priest. This understanding is reinforced in Inter Insigniores, which insists that the priest becomes, at that moment, a sacramental ‘image’ of Christ himself.

The Church’s argument moves beyond role or function into the realm of symbolism. Sacraments, according to Catholic theology, operate through natural signs that signify what they effect. Drawing on the thought of Thomas Aquinas, Inter Insigniores argues that sacramental signs must possess a ‘natural resemblance’ to what they represent. This resemblance applies not only to physical elements such as water or bread and wine, but also to persons.

Since Christ was and remains male, the 1976 Vatican document claims, a male priest is seen as naturally resembling Christ in a way that a female priest would not. On this view, the maleness of the priest is not incidental but belongs to the ‘essential and core’ sacramental sign. A woman could perform the ritual actions correctly, the argument suggests, but the symbolic coherence would be impaired because the resemblance between Christ and the minister would no longer be immediately perceptible.

Within this symbolic framework, the male sex of the priest is again treated as essential. Just as the bridegroom in a marriage is male, so too, it is claimed, must the priest be male in order to embody and communicate this nuptial mystery in the liturgical action of the Mass. To alter this symbolism would, according to the Vatican, risk obscuring the theological meaning of Christ’s self-giving love as it is ritually enacted in the Eucharist.

Tomorrow, I will examine a third supplementary argument against women’s ordination: the weight of what Catholics call magisterial teaching. Bear with me; I will get to the counter arguments in due course.