Woman & the Church: Why the Church Will Not Ordain Women

By Jason Scott – Recently,  a Vatican study commission voted definitively against ordaining women  as deacons. The decision followed years of study, consultation, and  prayer. And it arrived at the same conclusion the Church has reached for  two thousand years: women are not called to the ordained priesthood or  diaconate. This is not a position waiting for the right moment or the  right pope to overturn it. The Church has spoken, clearly and  definitively.

So,  “Why won’t the Catholic Church just ordain women priests?” That is one  of the most common questions asked about the Church today. It usually  comes from journalists, non-Catholics, and well-meaning Catholics,  people who genuinely don’t understand what the problem is, and I think  it’s unsatisfying to them to hear the first part of the answer, which is  that, from a Catholic perspective, the Church CAN’T ordain women. Not  as deacons, not as priests.

The Church’s Clear Position: No Authority to Change

In his 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, Pope St John Paul II stated:

“Priestly  ordination, which hands on the office entrusted by Christ to his  Apostles of teaching, sanctifying and governing the faithful, has in the  Catholic Church from the beginning always been reserved to men alone…  Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of  great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine  constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren  (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to  confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be  definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”

Notice  the key phrase: “no authority whatsoever.” This isn’t a policy  decision; it’s a recognition of limits. The Church believes Christ gave  her the sacrament in a specific form, and she has no power to change its  substance.

Every pope since has repeated the  same thing. In his 2012 Chrism Mass homily, Pope Benedict XVI addressed  priests calling for disobedience on this very issue: “Is disobedience a  path of renewal for the Church?” His point was clear: this isn’t up for  grabs. It’s settled by Christ’s choice, and challenging it isn’t reform,  it’s rebellion.

Pope Francis, often perceived  as more open to change, was just as firm. In a May 2024 CBS interview,  when asked whether a young girl might one day become a deacon, he  responded simply: “No.” When pressed about whether the question was  still being studied, he clarified: “If it is deacons with Holy Orders,  no.”

Christ’s Intentional Choice: The Heart of the Matter

To  understand why the Church teaches what she teaches, we must begin where  all Catholic theology begins: with Christ himself. Why did Jesus choose  only men to be his apostles?

The Gospels make  it plain. Jesus deliberately selected only men as his twelve apostles,  men who form the foundation of the Church (cf. Rev 21:14). He did this  after spending an entire night in prayer, consulting no one but his  Father (Lk 6:12). This was no casual decision made in a moment of  cultural conformity. It was the deliberate, prayerful choice of God  himself made flesh.

Here is where the argument  becomes interesting. Jesus was not, by any measure, a man bound by the  social conventions of his time.

He healed on  the Sabbath. He touched lepers, making himself ceremonially unclean. He  dined with tax collectors and prostitutes. He spoke publicly with the  Samaritan woman at the well, a practice so transgressive that even his  own disciples “marvelled that he was talking with a woman” (Jn 4:27). He  challenged the Temple authorities and overturned the tables of the  money-changers. He forgave an adulteress when the Law demanded her  death.

Jesus was not restricted by “the times.” He was willing to overturn customs whenever truth demanded it.

And  when it comes specifically to women, consider what he actually did. He  appeared to Mary Magdalene first after his Resurrection, not to Peter,  not to John, but to a woman. He made her the “apostle to the apostles,”  the first witness to the Resurrection. Mary of Bethany sat at his feet  to learn from him, a posture reserved for rabbinical students, something  unthinkable for a woman in that culture. Women travelled with him and  ministered to him. He elevated women’s dignity in ways that scandalised  his contemporaries.

Given all this, given that  Jesus defied virtually every social norm of his time, given that he  extended remarkable honour to women, given that he had models of female  spiritual authority available to him (Deborah as judge and prophetess;  pagan religions with priestesses), we are forced to confront a singular  question: Why did he not ordain any women to the apostolic office?

The only intellectually honest answer is this: because he deliberately chose not to.

It  was not cultural pressure that held him back. He proved throughout his  ministry that he would not be constrained by expectations when he  believed something was right. His choice to establish an all-male  priesthood was exactly that, a choice. A deliberate, intentional,  prayerful choice. And this choice has echoed through every generation of  the Church since.

Priesthood as Fatherhood

To  grasp this better, think of priesthood not as a job, but as a sacred  calling that mirrors spiritual fatherhood. Just as a man cannot take on  the role of mother, consider St Gianna Molla, who balanced her career as  a doctor with profound motherhood, a woman is not called to priestly  fatherhood in this sacramental sense. We call priests “Father” for a  reason.

The priest stands in persona Christi,  representing Christ the Bridegroom to his Bride, the Church (Eph  5:25-27). As Inter Insigniores explains: “When Christ’s role in the  Eucharist is to be expressed sacramentally, there would not be this  ‘natural resemblance’ which must exist between Christ and his minister  if the role of Christ were not taken by a man.” Christ’s maleness is  part of this mystery, just as his humanity is essential.

Pope  Benedict XVI pointed out in Jesus of Nazareth that praying “Our Father”  reminds us of God’s transcendence, the radical otherness of Creator and  creature. The masculine imagery in Scripture expresses something true  about God’s relationship to creation. This is closely tied to what is  revealed in the male-only priesthood.

Women’s Essential Place

This  teaching in no way diminishes women, quite the opposite. Ordinatio  Sacerdotalis affirms their role as “absolutely necessary and  irreplaceable.” Throughout history, women as saints, doctors of the  Church, foundresses, and martyrs have shaped the faith profoundly. St  Thérèse of Lisieux longed for priesthood but found peace in humility,  recognising that holiness, not ordination, is the measure of greatness.

The Question That Remains Answered

For  those who find this teaching difficult to accept, the frustration is  understandable. We live in an age that instinctively reads any exclusion  from any role as injustice. But the Church asks us to consider a  different framework, one in which the sacraments are not human  inventions to be redesigned at will, but divine gifts received in trust.

The  recent commission’s report, Pope Francis’s definitive “No,” and the  unbroken witness of two millennia all point in the same direction. This  is not a door the Church believes she has the keys to open. The question  is not whether she will eventually change her mind. The question, as  she sees it, is whether she has the authority to change what Christ  himself instituted.

For two thousand years, the answer has been the same.

As  Venerable Fulton Sheen observed, “A dead thing can go with the stream,  but only a living thing can go against it.” The Church’s task is not to  reflect the spirit of the age but to preserve what she has received from  Christ.