Women and the Priesthood

Extract

The subject of the ordination of women to the representative priesthood of the Church is often discussed in terms of objections and meeting objections. The quick exchange and the tension involved in differing considerations can often be helpful and constructive; but I have chosen simply to consider the idea of women priests in itself, in a positive way. One may very well agree with the Anglican bishop, Trevor Huddlestone, that the theological arguments against the ordination of women ‘simply don’t hold water’; and one may also take the view of the novice master of an anglican monastery, that the argument of the twelve apostles all having been men is New Testament a similar view, and yet prefer simply to think about a priesthood of men and women in and for itself.

One other point of introduction is this, that any open discussion on the matter, and any public consideration of it, should, to be safe, have the support and purification of private self-examination. For the issues involved touch us at levels deeper than our reason; and if discussion becomes highly charged emotionally, as it sometimes does, then it is fairly certain that the people concerned have not privately come to terms with their feelings; we need to discover by ourselves what we feel about the subject, not only what we think, and not only what we think we ought to feel. In this way we can both discover our motives and work out our reasons. Doubtless the two should converge, but they do so to some extent in a divided, not yet perfectly integrated, human nature. A person can have a case for or against the ordination of women which in itself is flawlessly reasoned but which covers a subconscious motive or feeling of very dubious quality.