Matter Matters
by Fr. Roger J. Landry - August 5, 2005
To believe in Jesus Christ as the Son-of-God-made-man means, minimally, to trust in what Jesus said and did. It is not possible for a true disciple to think that Jesus could have made a mistake with regard to something essential to the Church and to our salvation. To do so would be to place oneself above God, as if a creature could know better than God what God should have done. Such would be the arrogance of a Lucifer, not the humility of a disciple.
When Jesus chose the twelve apostles, and when, later, during the first Mass, he ordained them priests to "do this in memory of me," he didn't explain to us why he was choosing only men. But a believer trusts that Jesus did what he did for a reason, even if he didn't tell us that reason.
We know that the reason couldn't have been because Jesus shared the ancient cultural discrimination against women. He showed time and again, on the contrary, how to treat women in accordance with the dignity he gave them from the beginning (see Mulieris Dignitatem, 13).
We know that it couldn't have been because Jesus was afraid to "rock the boat" of misogynist culture. He wasn't afraid of anyone, even when they were threatening to kill him.
We know that it couldn't have been because he just wasn't thinking through the consequences of his actions. When we review how great a preparation he had taken for the celebration of that first Mass, we see — from the disciples' finding the man with the water jug onward (Lk 22:10) — that Jesus didn't leave any detail to chance.
If Jesus chose to ordain only men, then a believer trusts that he did so deliberately, and that, because he is God, he did the unmistakably right thing. Moreover, if the Church he founded — from the apostles on down — and to which he promised the Holy Spirit to guide her into all truth (Jn 16:13), has never ordained women, then the reason must be that that is what the Holy Spirit wants. The only alternatives are that the Holy Spirit has either been asleep for 2000 years or just hasn't considered the issue of priestly ordination important enough to intervene until now.
This is the context to understand what happened on the Saint Lawrence Seaway on July 25, when Marie David of Harwichport and three other women claimed to be ordained priests by a woman purporting to be a Catholic bishop.
The reason why the ordination of women is invalid is because we, who are not God, do not have the ability to change the substance of the sacraments established by God. If a priest preferred to celebrate Mass with filet mignon and cognac instead of bread and wine, after the consecration he would still have only steak and liquor. If someone tried to baptize a baby with some other liquid than water, the only change that would ensue would be that the child would get wet. It's the same thing with the sacrament of Holy Orders. The Church believes, and has always believed, that, because of Christ's choice to ordain only men at that first Eucharist, the proper matter for the sacrament of Holy Orders is a baptized male. A lay woman who participates in an ordination rite finishes the rite as a lay woman, deeply loved by God but in serious and perilous error.
Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.
