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.
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