The Strange Clericalism of Women’s Ordination

Stephen White of Catholic University reflects on how the demand for women’s ordination is a misunderstanding of the nature of vocation and even seems to call into question the universal call to holiness.

“It makes no more sense for women to claim a vocation to the ministerial priesthood than for men to claim a vocation to motherhood. Recall the words of St. Paul about the diversity and complementarity of the members of the Body of Christ: ‘But God has so constructed the body as to give greater honor to a part that is without it, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another. If [one] part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy.’”

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