End Empowerment
Feminism has been a disaster for Western civilization, and it now threatens a similar disaster to that civilization’s most important institution: the Roman Catholic Church. Feminism as we discuss it here is best understood as one subset of the philosophy typically called — quite meaninglessly and a bit ironically — progressivism. To adherents of this school of thought, progress consists in nothing but the blurring of lines. Feminism in particular moves far beyond its professed mission of equality in demanding, adamantly and recklessly, identicality. For the feminist, it is not enough for men and women to be equal — they have to be the same.
This line of thought, which in the secular world of the 20th century was a major factor in the disintegration of the family as the primary institution of social organization and a whole slew of consequent cultural catastrophes, is — like many of the worst progressive rejections of distinctions — slowly creeping into the Church. Progressive feminists, male and female alike, see that in the Catholic world there is a recognized difference between men and women and conclude that something simply must be wrong.
The most obvious and most controversial manifestation of their protest is the insistence among a small faction of radical heretics that women ought to be ordained as priests. The standard arguments made toward this end are almost always tired and weak. The aspiring schismatic group Women’s Ordination Conference shares its “Top Ten Reasons to Ordain Women” on its website.
They begin their countdown with number 10, “A priest’s job is to serve the people of God — it’s not about gender,” followed by number nine, “The Second Vatican Council calls for all discrimination to be eliminated.” Closely related is number two, “Because women and men are created in God’s image, both may represent Christ as priests.” The fact that (hu)mankind is made in the image of God refers to what Augustine calls the “intellectual soul,” which distinguishes humanity from irrational animals. This image is unique and universal to humanity, but the simple fact that there is something universal to all humanity is in no way evidence that there are not certain things that are not universal.
Among the many important things that are not shared by men and women — try though I may, I just can’t seem to manage to push a baby out through my pelvis — is the role of a priest in the Church of Christ. A priest’s job is not simply to serve the people of God; this is the job of all faithful Christians. The priesthood is a particular office and vocation which requires a multitude of specific qualities and duties, some of them inherently masculine. The distinction of roles finds its origin in the most ancient traditions of Israel, its renewal in the life of Jesus and its continued life in the Tradition of the Church over two millennia. This Tradition was affirmed unequivocally and infallibly in the 1994 letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis by St. John Paul the Great, a remarkable man who stands alongside our boy Winston as one of the great heroes of all human history. Adhering to this Tradition is not discrimination; it is an acknowledgment and celebration of the most fundamental human diversity. Our recognition of the divine image originates in Genesis 1:27, and we must be careful not to forget the second half of the verse: “male and female He created them.” Emphasis on the and.
Reasons eight, six and five on the WOC list all deal with essentially the same point: women had important roles in the life of Jesus and the life of the Church from its earliest days. Well, yes — I’ve never known anyone to argue against this point. The Mother of God’s role in the salvation of humanity is second only to that of Christ himself. She is, to those of you who missed it, a woman. The role of women is vital — inarguably equal to that of men — in the mission of the Church. But it is most definitely a different role. It is a role defined by all that is beautiful and strong and necessary in femininity, that does not need to be conflated with masculinity in order to justify itself. Pope Francis, in affirming the Catholic Tradition on the subject, has remarked that the special role of women is intimately tied up with the nature of the Church as the bride of Christ.
It cannot be ignored that these debates often revolve around issues of institutional power. Positions of influence in the Church tend to be limited to ordained priests, and therefore limited to men. Confused Jesuit (an almost redundant phrase in 2018) James Keenan of Boston College suggested in a recent opinion piece for the National Catholic Reporter that the solution is to circumvent ordination and amend canon law to allow unordained women to become cardinals. He named a few far-left theologians as possible candidates.
The fundamental problem with these arguments is that they redefine a means as an end. The authority of the Church, which is supposed to guide people to salvation, becomes the primary goal to be attained. Power — not faith, not redemption, not everlasting life — becomes the most precious commodity, which must be distributed evenly among all Christians.
The WOC’s argument for the blurring of distinctions and the distribution of this temporal power stems essentially from a single verse of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Matthew Slick of the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry (God, please forgive me for citing a Calvinist) offers his rebuttal to the mundane interpretation of the verse. Discussing the 90 appearances of the phrase “in Christ” throughout the New Testament, Slick argues that its presence indicates that Paul is talking here about salvation — about the final end which is ignored in the narrow progressive worldview.
That the new heaven and earth into which we will enter in Christ may not share the rules and distinctions of this world does not invalidate the reality of those distinctions in the present. Christ himself warned us against this confusion: “For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” The complex system which has developed over millennia as the sum of natural laws, sound traditions and divine revelations will direct us to something much greater than we can find here. But if you choose to tear down the walls that support and define this system in order to divide evenly the things that can be found on earth, I say go ahead. I suspect you will find your share lacking, and I hope you will realize at least then that you could have been something much greater than “empowered.”
