The Catholic church & women’s ordination
Post-Dispatch religion reporter Tim Townsend mentioned
Catholic teaching on ordination i.e., the male-only priesthood, in his Saturday, May 31 column.
The Vatican has stated, not for the first time, that the topic is closed.
But there are still folks out there — you perhaps — who don’t understand the reasoning behind the church’s teaching or who think they understand and don’t approve of the reasoning.
The women’s ordination issue doesn’t have the same cachet it once did, and for good reason:
Back in the ’60’s it was a hot, new topic and it grew in intensity during the seventies and eighties when radical secular feminists — who had no use for Christ or the Catholic Church or for the sanctity of unborn human life, for that matter — took up the cry. Some men and women inside the church were swayed as well. For a highly detailed look at this recent history of the R.C. church and women, including ordination, see The Bishops & Women: Women for Faith & Family Archive
For a shorter history, see Helen Hull Hitchcock’s Marking a Milestone.
And if you just have time for one example of a turnaround in thinking, take a look at Sr. Sara Butler. In 1985 Sr. Butler was on the U.S. bishops’ committee that was planning on writing a pastoral on women.
At the time, Sr. Butler was in favor of women’s ordination.
As she tells the story, she was later invited by a non-Catholic group to join in a roundtable discussion of the topic. Her job was to articulate her church’s best arguments on the male-only priesthood. So she did, and she did a good job, and in so doing she began to more deeply understand her church’s thinking. The rest is history.
Sr. Sara Butler changed her mind. And in 2007 she published a book explaining all.
For those still stymied by the Roman Catholic teaching on the priesthood, we highly recommend Sr. Sara Butler’s “The Catholic Priesthood and Women: A Guide to the Teaching of the Church.”
Sherry Tyree, 66, a graduate of John Burroughs School and Washington University, is a founding member (1984) and Vice President of Women for Faith & Family, a national Catholic women's organization that supports and defends traditional church teachings. Sherry is married to Dr. Donald A. Tyree, professor emeritus, School of Business, St. Louis University. 
The priesthood has always been men - and not in just the Catholic religion. I don’t know where in the Bible it ever discusses a woman priest. Yes there were women teachers and prophets - read about Anna - but they are not labeled as priests nor were they leaders in the church. I don’t think that the Catholic church is going to change no matter what the feminists think. I don’t think that women are excluded from the church as Karen expressed and it is very sad to see that this debate is actually keeping some women out of the church and away from God. Ironicly my childs grandmother is one of the St. Louis women “ordained” and excommunicated recently. She is a great woman of faith and an excellent teacher. While I don’t necessarily agree that women should be ordained I don’t discredit all the things that I personally know she has done in the name of God and the church either.
For Christine and Karen - Why do you need validation from the Catholic Faith so much? Why do you care if what they preach is Archaic? I thought we had Protestant Faiths to fill the void of the Faithful that disagreed on several terms with the Catholic Faith. I was Baptised Catholic and raised mostly Baptist. I chose to be a Lutheran, though I’m looking for a new faith. But because one faith doesn’t fit my views I don’t rally and cry against it. I look for what suits me, what seems right. The Catholic Faith and its doctrines are controlled by the clergy. They teach that man alone can become a Priest and therefor no woman has been ordained. If you don’t like it, which I do understand, than go elsewhere as most are doing.
Its not our job to make a faith relevant, its our choice to believe what suits us. The only point I’d make is that if someone is undeniably drawn to the Catholic Faith, then they have their own personal issues to overcome if they aren’t willing to accept doctrine. Otherwise, pick the faith you like.
To TMC: Your comments touched me. When I read in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about the St. Louis “ordinations” I inferred that the training wasn’t very long. Kenrick Seminary training for the priesthood is very long indeed. Do you happen to know what kind of training these women had and for what period of time? I thought it odd that this seemed a non-issue.
It is inconceivable that Jesus Christ would endorse the exclusion of women from the priesthood. His message was always of inclusiveness and against exclusion by organized structure of the church. (http://blogs.pioneerlocal.com/religion). Women must be accepted as full partners in the church.