Unrelenting patriarchy

Last Thursday the Vatican issued a decree imposing excommunication on any woman who is ordained to the priesthood and any bishop who ordains a woman. These are automatic excommunications, the stricter of the church's two kinds of excommunication.

This new decree should be of no surprise. In May of 1994, the late Pope John Paul II wrote a letter ("Ordinatio Sacerdotalis") in which he stated that women cannot be ordained because Jesus chose only male apostles. Then he wrote: "Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance…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."

"Definitive" in Vatican-speak is just short of "infallible." (There were rumors at the time that John Paul was going to go the official "infallible" route but that Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, talked him out of it.)

For the response from Roman Catholic Womenpriests to Thursday's decree, go to:

http://www.romancatholicwomenpriests.org/articles.htm

I had long hoped to see women officially ordained in my church during my lifetime. Now that seems most unlikely. But I am convinced that the day -- their day -- will come.