Pope Paul to Women: Keep Out

Now that many of the major Protestant churches accept women as ministers, expectations have been aroused that the Roman Catholic Church might also abandon its tradition of an exclusively male priesthood. Pope Paul VI chilled those hopes in 1975 when he declared that such a change would not be "in accordance with God's plan for his church." Nonetheless, delegations of U.S. Catholic priests, nuns and laity meeting in Detroit last October appealed publicly for the ordination of women priests. Last week the Vatican formally declared that no matter what other churches may do, the Roman Catholic Church "does not consider herself authorized to admit women to priestly ordination." The decision will endure through Paul's lifetime and probably for years beyond.

Christ a Man. The decision came in the form of a papally endorsed 18-page decree issued by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.-In arguing for its view, the Vatican emphasized that Christ "was and remains a man." It placed even more emphasis on Christ's decision not to call any woman, not even the Virgin Mary, as an apostle, and on the church's "unbroken tradition" of male priests ever since. Declaring that priests must have a "natural resemblance" to Christ, it said that with a woman celebrating the Mass "it would be difficult to see in the minister the image of Christ."

Though the document cited Scripture, it relied more heavily on tradition, perhaps because the Vatican's own Biblical Commission concluded last spring that nothing in the Bible specifically forbids women priests. The new decree acknowledged that female ordination represented "an ecumenical problem" that would "perhaps cause pain." It insisted that its rejection of women as priests would "help in deepening understanding of the respective roles of men and of women." There was no question of equality involved, it said, because "priesthood does not form part of the rights of the individual" but derives from "the mystery of Christ and the church."

The decision was indeed a blow to Catholic ecumenists. Said one top member of the Vatican's Secretariat for Christian Unity: "It was a pity that the congregation did not see fit to consult us. In future discussions with Anglicans, a lot will depend upon the nature of the arguments used. It will certainly hinder mutual recognition of ministers." Women activists were even more upset. Said

Sister Margaret Ellen Traxler of the National Coalition of American Nuns: "These men in the Vatican, operating out of a wholly male environment, are totally out of communication with the world of reality. While I forgive them, I am dismayed."

A missionary priest to Asia, currently in Rome, criticized the reasoning that priests must be men because Christ chose only male apostles. If so, he said, "the priesthood should be open only to fishermen and Jews." The shortage of missionary priests, according to American Moral Theologian Francis X. Murphy, is one element that may eventually change Vatican thinking. Says he: "Women will be ordained when there is necessity for it, as there is in the Third World. You can't have the church without the Eucharist."

The Vatican, however, left only one door slightly ajar. An official commentary on last week's decree noted that long ago women were permitted to be deaconesses, which some argue might constitute a precedent for "sacramental ordination." After raising the question of deaconesses, however, the Vatican office left it "for the future."

-The Vatican's doctrinal office, headed by Franjo Cardinal Seper and governed by a board of eleven powerful conservatives, including two American Cardinals, John J. Wright and John J. Krol.

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