Adam & Eve — East of Eden: An Almost Infallible Teaching

Some people have said glibly that the pope simply cannot teach ex cathedra regarding the ordination of women to the priesthood. It seems to me, however, that the question cannot be dismissed quite so offhandedly. From a close reading of the apostolic letter Ordinato Sacerdotalis a good argument can be made that John Paul II think that the Church’s teaching on reserving priestly ordination to men could be proposed infallibly.

It should be asked whether Ordinatio sacerdotalis meets the precise conditions which Catholic teaching says have to be verified for the pope to use the fullness of his Magisterial authority. First, if the pope is to define a doctrine, he must do so as pastor of the universal Church, and not as Bishop of the local church at Rome, primate of Italy or patriarch of the West. John Paul II issued the declaration as the successor of Peter, directing it to all Christians, non-Catholics included. Second, in making an ex cathedra statement the pope must act freely and knowingly. These, too, are verified in Ordinatio sacerdotalis. No one has suggested that John Paul II was either coerced or misled when he published his apostolic letter. Not only is its content in line with the teaching of Paul VI, it restates his own teaching, which he has repeated in various documents, discourses and ad limina talks to bishops. Third, in making an ex cathedra pronouncement, the Bishop of Rome must intend to render a judgment to be held by the whole Church. Again, the letter is clear. For the first time in his pontificate, John Paul II prefaced a particular teaching with the decisive formula “I declare” or, as in the Latin, “we declare.” And he followed this with the statement that “this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.” Indeed, the pope made it “in order that all doubt may be removed” on the question of who the Church can ordain. Fourth, the successor of Peter can teach infallibly only on matters of faith or morals. Here, too, John Paul II is unambiguous. For him, the sacramental ordering of the Church is a question of faith. The solemn language of the letter shows that the pope believes that “this matter of great importance … pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself.”

Even though these four conditions are met, John Paul II does not, however, propose his teaching infallibly. Other criteria, all of which touch upon an explicit intention to teach ex cathedra, are not fulfilled.

First, does he invoke his supreme apostolic authority, putting the entire weight of the Petrine ministry behind his assertion? To be sure, the pope says that he is teaching in virtue of his “ministry of confirming the brethren.” But the text itself is unclear whether he intends to make what Vatican II calls “an absolute decision.” Second, does he want to define as Catholic doctrine that women are excluded from the ministerial priesthood? On its own, the letter can be interpreted in this way. The pope gives every indication of settling the issue of women’s ordination when he says that his judgment is “to be held definitively” by the universal Church.

The ambiguity in Ordinatio sacerdotalis regarding the intention of John Paul II is cleared up only by turning to a further decisive criterion. Canon law asserts that there should be no uncertainty about whether the pope is using his Petrine charism of teaching ex cathedra: “No doctrine is understood to be infallibly defined unless this is manifestly demonstrated.” This rules out any guessing on our part about whether the Bishop of Rome has definitively settled a particular question. The authoritative “Note of Presentation” which accompanied the publication of the letter is straightforward. It says that it is not “a question of a new dogmatic formulation, but of a doctrine taught by the ordinary papal Magisterium.” Cardinal Ratzinger’s semi-official commentary on the declaration makes the same point. “Here we have an act of the ordinary Magisterium of the supreme pontiff,” he writes, “which is not a solemn definition ex cathedra.”

My conclusion? The mind of the pope expressed in Ordinatio sacerdotalis is that the teaching on the non-admission of women to the priesthood could be proposed infallibly. But it was not. This raises an interesting question: why not?

First, John Paul’s decision not to use his supreme apostolic authority in no way implies that he is unsure of the irrevocable nature of the doctrine. According to Lumen gentium 25, matters of faith or morals which can be infallibly defined are either explicitly contained in the deposit of faith or are necessary to preserve or explain it. In both cases what is proposed infallibly is a truth of faith.

The principal argument put forward in Ordinatio sacerdotalis for reserving ordination to men is the will of Christ expressed by his manner of acting. It appears, then, that the Church’s inability to ordain women is a matter which John Paul II thinks belongs to the deposit of faith, to the “divine constitution” of the Church. In other words, her lack of power to ordain women is grounded in revelation.

Here it is necessary to recall the distinction between the truth of a teaching and the certitude given it by the teacher. A definition “from the chair of Peter” is not true because the pope teaches it. He teaches it because it is true. What changes when a teaching is proclaimed infallibly is the degree of certitude which it gives to believers. When the teacher, whether pope, ecumenical council or the dispersed episcopate in union with the pope, proposes a teaching infallibly, the faithful have full certitude that it expresses God’s saving truth.

From Ordinatio sacerdotalis it is apparent that the pope believes that the Church’s fidelity to the will of Christ entails recognizing her incapacity to ordain women. He makes a judgment regarding a doctrine of faith, not one having “merely disciplinary force.” The reservation of priestly ordination to men alone is, according to John Paul II, a truth inherent in the very nature of the Church. Because this is so, such teaching is irreformable.

But if the pope considers this matter to be a question of irreformable truth, why then did he not back it up with an ex cathedra statement?

It is reasonable to think that such a move would  have more effectively achieved his declared purpose of removing “all doubt” on the matter. While John Paul II has not furnished us with his reasons for not proposing infallibly the teaching on women’s ordination, I think that four can be suggested: his understanding of the power of truth, his interest in ecumenical relations with the Orthodox, his concern for the pastoral consequences of his declaration, and his desire to reinforce the authority of the ordinary papal Magisterium.

Along with Lumen gentium and Gaudium et spes, the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Liberty, Dignitatis humanae, occupies a privileged place in the present pope’s Magisterium. In his defense of religious freedom, he repeatedly returns to its statement that “truth can impose itself on the mind of man only in virtue of its own truth, which wins over the mind with both gentleness and power.” In Crossing the Threshold of Hope, he says that “man cannot be forced to accept the truth.” The truth of the Catholic faith can, so to speak, stand on its own. It attracts, seduces and compels the believer by its own power. Truth itself calls for submission.

What the good teacher does is point out to others where the truth is to be found. So does the pope. He directs attention away from his role as teacher to the truth which is taught. John Paul firmly insists that the faithful have the right to receive Catholic doctrine in its integrity. At the same time, he wishes to avoid imposing it. Moreover, he shuns creating even the impression of imposing it. His recent apostolic letter Tertio millennio adveniente speaks of the “painful chapter of history” in which the Church acquiesced “to intolerance and even the use of violence in the service to truth.” I see, then, in the pope’s decision not to declare the teaching on women’s ordination ex cathedra a spinoff of the wider framework in which he understands the truth of Catholic doctrine. For John Paul II, it is truth, not certainty, which sets the human person free.

A second reason for the pope’s reluctance to declare infallibly the teaching in Ordinatio sacerdotalis is his passion for the restoration of Church unity. The Holy Father has his ecumenical eye focused very keenly on the Orthodox, the other “lung” of the Church which she needs to breathe fully. With the coming of the third millennium, John Paul misses no opportunity to make pressing appeals for restoring full communion with the churches of the East. Since one of the principal obstacles to reunion is the authority to teach ex cathedra, which Catholics attribute to the Petrine ministry, it is not surprising that he decided against teaching infallibly on a matter about which the Catholic Church and her Orthodox sisters concur.

To a meeting held at Rhodes in 1988, the Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I sent a letter in which he summed up the East’s position on admitting women to the priesthood. “The Orthodox Church believes,” he wrote, “that the ordination of women is impossible.” Fidelity to the apostolic tradition on the sacramental structure of the Church, the Patriarch explained, demands this exclusion. The authority for this teaching derives from an unbroken tradition taught and lived in the Church from the apostolic age. For the Orthodox, the Bishop-teacher can only recall and reinforce this witness. While Easterners see no problem with the Bishop of Rome confirming the ancient tradition, they would raise objections to this teaching being “dogmatized” by an ex cathedra pronouncement. It is precisely the pope’s claim to be able to teach infallibly, apart from an ecumenical council, which the East finds objectionable. Could it be that, at least in this case, John Paul II finds their argument convincing? Might he have refrained from using his fullness of teaching authority in order not to jeopardize ecumenical dialogue with the Orthodox?

Thirdly, I believe that the Holy Father carefully weighed the pastoral repercussions of his declaration. He used a measure of the “pastoral charity” which he regards as the soul of ecclesial ministry. Wise teachers lead others to embrace the truth, taking into account the response of those who will hear their preaching. As Vatican II reminded all bishops, the pope included, they are to “present the doctrine of Christ in a manner suited to the needs of the times.” Prudent teachers look into the future judging how their teaching will be heard when it is proclaimed.

The pope is aware that in certain countries there is widespread dissent from Catholic teaching on women’s ordination. For any number of reasons, many Catholics do not fully “receive” it. Had he taught “from the chair” on the question, very serious and, for the moment, unwanted pastoral problems would have ensued. The failure to accept a teaching which is infallibly defined is heresy, the consequence of which is the rupture of communion with the Church. An ex cathedra judgment calls for an assent which is unconditional. The resulting confusion would have placed a burden on pastors and people for which they were ill-prepared.

In issuing Ordinatio sacerdotalis as a statement of his ordinary Magisterium the pope appears to have decided to afford some breathing space to those who have difficulty in “receiving” the teaching. Quite simply, the Church needs more time to absorb it. John Paul judged that the moment is not yet right to impose the inevitable ecclesiastical penalties which follow from a person’s refusal to accept   the teaching on women’s ordination as a dogma of faith. Instead, he preferred to set the direction with clarity, inviting theologians and other faithful to discover and present convincing reasons for the Church’s teaching that women cannot be ordained.

Lastly, it is difficult to avoid the impression that John Paul II is doing an end-run around theologians who attempt to muzzle papal teaching in a morass of distinctions which would limit his teaching authority only to ex cathedra judgments. He is refusing to surrender to the opinion which equates Catholic teaching with defined doctrine. This does not mean that the pope advocates a “creeping infallibility” which would up the ante on every papal pronouncement. Instead, I would submit, he is deliberately choosing another, more traditional framework for exercising the papal Magisterium. Speaking about his own teaching ministry at a general audience in 1993, John Paul commented that the mission of Peter’s successor is “to establish and authoritatively confirm what the Church has received and believed from the beginning, what the apostles taught, what sacred Scripture and Christian tradition have determined as the object of faith and the Christian norm of life.” In Ordinatio sacerdotalis he did just this.

John Paul II’s use of his authoritative ordinary Magisterium to confirm what the Church believes about who can receive priestly orders, entails “supreme teaching authority” attributed by Lumen gentium 25 to the successor of Peter. In a sense, he is returning to the model of teaching prevalent in the first millennium: the Bishop of Rome teaches primarily by witnessing to the apostolic tradition. More than a judge whose decisions would provoke canonical consequences, the successor of Peter is the principal guardian of the Church’s faith. By using this traditional way of confirming the apostolic tradition, the pope is guiding the faithful to assimilate the Church’s teaching on who can be ordained to the ministerial priesthood.

Author

  • Rev. J. Michael Miller

    John Michael Miller, CSB (born 1946) is a Canadian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He is currently Archbishop of Vancouver and its 475,000 Catholics. Miller, who prefers to be known as J. Michael Miller, succeeded to this post in January 2009, after serving as Coadjutor Archbishop from June 1, 2007.

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