Vatican Book Presents Case for All-Male Clergy

Marshaling its arguments to quash a debate that won’t go away, the Vatican has presented its most comprehensive case yet against women becoming Roman Catholic priests.

The Vatican called out its chief guardian of orthodoxy, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and other officials for a news conference to present a book that stitches together recent major papal pronouncements on the issue, along with essays by theologians and scholars.

The church’s long-standing argument, essentially, is that Christ was male and wanted his priests to be male, and that the church can’t overrule that.

“The Church does not have the power to modify the practice, uninterrupted for 2,000 years,” said Bishop Angelo Scola.

“This was wanted directly by Jesus,” said the bishop, who heads the Vatican’s prestigious Lateran University. Citing traditional arguments that Jesus decided to choose only men for the 12 apostles, he said the priesthood is “objectively linked to the male sex of Jesus.”

The news conference was held to promote a series of books presenting the documents of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Ratzinger heads. The books deal with issues such as homosexuality, the Holy Trinity, contraception and role of the theologian.

The Vatican’s most recent publication is a comprehensive edition on the all-male clergy. Scola called it “an obligatory point of reference” on the matter.

The book presentation follows a December visit to the Vatican by the spiritual leader of the Anglican Church, which ordains women. Pope John Paul II has called the practice an obstacle to unity with the Catholic Church.

Ratzinger clarified the gravity with which the church views those who reject the ban on female priests. It is not heresy, he said, but a “clearly erroneous” position that is incompatible with the faith.

Despite the Vatican’s numerous efforts in recent years to quell the debate, the issue of female ordination will not go away.

In 1976, the doctrinal office issued a major statement on the subject. When the Anglicans opened the door to female priests, John Paul responded with a 1994 apostolic letter seeking to end the discussion. After some clergymen expressed doubts, Ratzinger formally reiterated that John Paul’s stand was definitive.

All three documents are in the book, which includes a piece by the late Cardinal Joseph L. Bernardin of Chicago and other clerics.

At the news conference, Ratzinger made his first public comment about the January excommunication of the Rev. Tissa Balasuriya, a Sri Lankan theologian.

One of Balasuriya’s main failings, he said, was to assert that the concept of original sin was invented by the clergy to create anxiety in the faithful.

The theologian refused to sign a profession of faith without adding an unacceptable clause that watered it down, Ratzinger said. The signing was offered “to avoid interminable discussions about [his] book,” the 1990 publication, “Mary and Human Liberation,” which led to the excommunication, the cardinal said.

During his presentation, Ratzinger took pains to say his congregation was not just a “watchdog” but sought also to promote the faith by explaining doctrine.