WO and bedrock doctrine
Posted by Chris T. on Friday, July 20th, 2007
Fr Tobias Haller has an out-of-the-park post today on the doctrinal unsoundness of the argument against women's ordination. The first part of the post deals specifically with an argument in Inter Insigniores, now more than three decades old, about the need for the priest-as-sign to be "perceptible" to the people:
Leaving aside the fact that women are as “perceptible” as men, this leads to a kind of sacramental receptionism (in which the believer’s perceptions are what render the sacrament valid). This reduces the sacrament from an objective reality into a subjective experience. It also puts an undue focus upon one aspect of the priestly person: his (or her!) sex. Why, after all, should sex be any more determinative of perceiving Christ — if perception were the sine qua non for the validity of the sacrament — than any other quality. And isn’t a woman more “perceptible” as Christ than a loaf of bread is as his flesh? Personally, I find don’t find the figure of a paunchy octogenarian cardinal to be as “natural” or immediate a reminder of Christ as a younger and more ascetical woman.
Which is, of course, my fault. For I should be able to see Christ in every member of Christ’s body, for Christ is in them. It is not Christ’s maleness that is of significance, in the Eucharist or in anything else, but his humanity, which obviously includes his maleness, but just as obviously is not limited to or by it.
He goes on to discuss a very serious contradiction between the anti-WO position and bedrock Christian doctrine. The whole post is a must-read.
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13 Responses to “WO and bedrock doctrine”
Fr Haller does provide a lot of food for thought. It certainly can appear that, if one bases all of one’s theological opposition to the ordination of women on Inter Insigniores, then a lot of questions are left unasked and unanswered. I leave it to competent theologians to understand and interpret the various documents which discuss this issue.
Speaking purely personally, I do not tend to think of this matter in theological terms most of the time. At one point I was an enthusiastic “affirmer,” as the common expression is, but now, as some of you know, assist at an ECUSA parish which does not accept the ministry of ordained women. Oddly enough, unlike so many others, the question of the ordination of women was not the impetus for my various moves between parishes, but the more vexatious question of praxis, or, really, the general lack thereof. Too, I do wonder why, if the ordination of women is not supposed to necessarily include anything other than that practice itself, is it then impossible to find ordained women who are interested in and committed to traditional liturgy and spirituality?
I actually don’t agree that it is impossible to find ordained women who are interested in and committed to traditional doctrine, liturgy and spirituality, even if they are in the minority in some circles. I’ve known a number of them.
In the much-publicized recent case of an Episcopal priest who wanted to maintain her priesthood while also claiming to be a Muslim, it was not the male bishop of the diocese in which she resides who said that this could not be, but rather Bishop Gerry Wolf of Rhode Island, a female bishop (and the diocese where the priest was canoncally resident), who insisted that the priest be suspended for a year while she discerns which she wishes to be.
And, in all fairness, there are many male clergy who completely eschew traditional doctrine, liturgy, and spirituality as well.
“I actually don’t agree that it is impossible to find ordained women who are interested in and committed to traditional doctrine, liturgy and spirituality, even if they are in the minority in some circles. I’ve known a number of them.”
Excellency, I readily admit that this perception is entirely based on my own experiences, and not on any sort of an attempt at a comprehensive survey. Could an example be provided?
“In the much-publicized recent case…”
Entirely true; however that’s not really what I’m talking about here.
“And, in all fairness, there are many male clergy who completely eschew traditional doctrine, liturgy, and spirituality as well.”
Absolutely; the vast majority, in fact. That said, I do know of some, but have never come across the same predilections in an ordained woman.
I have known a fair number of fairly traditional Episcopal priests who are women — one example that comes to mind is the Rev. Bonnie Schullenberger, curate at Trinity Church, Ossining, which celebrates a quite traditional Rite I Eucharist and Evensong. She is quite orthodox in her theology (save, for those who consider it outside the pale, her support for women’s ordination and blessing same-sex relationships) and is very committed to the pro-life movement.
One of the challenges is that a priest must serve the community to which he or she is called, and since many more traditional parishes are not open to women clergy, the more traditional women may end up serving less traditional parishes, so that perceptions of what a priest does in their parish may not fully match the realities of their own personal spirituality.
“I have known a fair number of fairly traditional Episcopal priests who are women–one example that comes to mind is the Rev. Bonnie Schullenberger, curate at Trinity Church, Ossining, which celebrates a quite traditional Rite I Eucharist and Evensong.”
Taking the issues of the ordination of women and same-sex relationships off of the table, ad argumentum, I would agree that there are any number of ordained women who are entirely doctrinally orthodox, at least from a Classical Anglican perspective. I actually had something aggressively Anglo-Catholic (doctrinally and liturgically) in mind, while the above seems more “High Church.”
“One of the challenges is that a priest must serve the community to which he or she is called…”
This is very true. However, is it not possible to find an ordained woman who would like to work at, say, a missal parish, if the door was open? Do such exist?
In this vein, I have an anecdote (again, this is only personal experience) that helps to illustrate what I’m getting at: A few years ago I had a rather nasty online argument with a woman from New York, who is a server at S. Ignatius’ Church. She was lamenting how terrible it was that she would not be allowed to serve at S. Clement’s. I answered that, in my experience, despite the lack of any direct evidence of causality, it was generally the people advocating women servers, etc., who also wanted to disassemble any number of our other traditions. She was grossly offended by this, and told me in no uncertain terms what a fool I was for believing such a thing. Two years later I was reading her ‘blog around Corpus Christi, and she reported that her parish’s Blessed Sacrament canopy had fallen apart, and what a great thing it was that they wouldn’t be using it anymore! Is this really just a bizarre anomaly? Or are my former experiences just being confirmed?
I think part of the problem may be that aggressively Anglo-Catholic folks are so much in the minority anyway and go about their A-C-ism in different ways depending on home parish and other stuff, that getting any data is difficult. I’ve known some very liberal people — both on social issues and even theologically, to a lesser extent — who would probably go to the barricades with you on many, many issues you’d be concerned about, Paul. You may not find the whole Anglo-Catholic package, but you will certainly find substantial portions of it.
And I have to back up what Tim’s saying about the Anglo-Catholic world being somewhat closed — and gender’s not even the only issue. I don’t know many S Clement’s style female Anglo-Catholics (though I’ve gotten the impression Derek’s wife, Mother M, may be one), but I know more than a few male Episcopalian clergy whose personal commitments are in the Anglo-Catholic way but have had one too many Broad Church jobs and can’t break out of that. Adding in the stigma against women clergy at many of the jewels in the Anglo-Catholic crown, so to speak, and I suspect Tim is right on the money.
I believe that there would be women who would be willing to serve in the agressively Anglo-Catholic sort of parish you mention if it were willing to hire them — but, again, the fact that so many such parishes are hostile to such women tends to drive them to parishes that are not as attached to some of the particular liturgical customs to which you and others are attached, and that has an effect on their liturgical viewpoints, forming them in a different way than might be the case if they were in more traditional parishes.
Oh, and I wanted to add that while I understand why the conversation becomes primarily about praxis — especially in churches like the Episcopal Church where WO is practiced but anti-WO parishes are allowed to hire only men — I do feel strongly that the conversation needs to be re-theologized as Fr Haller has done. It’s a fairly significant point of liturgical theology for me — if we hold, as we should, to lex orandi, lex credendi, then not practicing the ordination of women sends a very twisted message about Christian anthropology and our understanding of salvation. So I find the RC “gag rule” particularly problematic — just as lots of powerful new theology has been done by a couple generations of Catholic theologians on this issue, incorporating the experiences of closely-related churches with something new in modern times, the conversation got switched off and the bad theology prevailed through artifice.
Father,
I certainly have no objection to the discussion of this issue on a principally theological level, although I am really not capable of engaging in any meaningful way. However, even if you were able to convince me theologically about this one thing, I would find the difficulty with praxis to be an insurmountable barrier, I’m afraid.
Yes, Paul, my wife is indeed a priest in the Anglo-Catholic tradition. In fact, the priest under whom she served as a deacon for many months and who transmitted the tradition to her was at one time a priest at St. Clements…
I will agree that there are not many like her namely because, as the good bishop said, few traditional priests are willing to train women in the proper ways. Many of the women–hell, many of the *men*–who have come out of seminaries recently who claim to be Anglo-Catholic try to learn it by copying what they think is the right ritual or by reading texts. As a result, they think A-C is about wearing pretty clothes, smoking the place up, and genuflecting; it’s not, of course–it’s about holding good theology that manifests itself liturgically in certain ways. And these ways are taught and lived by mentors, not acquired by reading over Ritual Notes (though that sure doesn’t hurt!).
That having been said, the younger generation of women priests contains many more traditional-minded clergy than the previous one. That’s not to say that all of them are that way, of course, but is no longer axiomatic that a woman priest is a liberal.
Ignoring all issues of what’s taken as given and what’s held to stem from it, no matter how aggravating, I wanted to say that the beautfy of the second quoted paragraph stuns me.
So now that the theological argument is made (and, I notice, totally ignored!), another handy excuse is found.
I’m shocked, shocked, I tell you.
As I blogged this week and as Paul commented here Fr Haller’s argument is impressive.
I agree with Tim (Bishop Cravens) that one reason (but, as I think Paul suggests, not the only one) you see next to no orthodox Catholic-orientated women clergy is because orthodox Catholic parishes don’t hire such. It is partly a vicious circle!
That having been said, the younger generation of women priests contains many more traditional-minded clergy than the previous one. That’s not to say that all of them are that way, of course, but it is no longer axiomatic that a woman priest is a liberal.
As far as I can tell that’s true, as you can see online. There are bloggers (one of whom is in my blogroll) about as different from each other as each is to me but in each case a far cry from the image of the woman priest as axiomatically a liberal!
Having got to know Derek over the past year through his blog and, through him and through her occasional posts, Mother M, I realise although we don’t agree on everything we do have much in common and when M for example says she is Anglo-Catholic she is not making fun of me.
Blogging ecumenism rocks.