Women priests? America ducks the question

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Oct 03, 2011

America magazine is distraught over the news that the cathedral in the Phoenix diocese will no longer use female altar servers. An editorial in the Jesuit journal announces: “The rejection of altar girls disregards the counsel of the Second Vatican Council that the charisms of the baptized “are to be received with thanksgiving and consolation.”

Oh, really? Then the counsel of the Second Vatican Council was more or less universally disregarded during the first 30 years after the Council. It was disregarded by the Council fathers—who, one would think, knew what they intended when they wrote and approved the documents. In fact the Church only approved the use of female altar servers after most of the Council fathers were dead. Odd, don’t you think? But let’s examine the logic of the editorial: 

By virtue of baptism, the council reminds us, “there is neither male nor female. For you are all ‘one’ in Christ Jesus.” There is “a true equality between all with regard to the dignity and activity which is common to all the faithful in building up the Body of Christ.”

Yes, those words do appear in Lumen Gentium. But they do not appear in a vacuum. The Church has always recognized distinctions between the sexes, particularly in matters of service to the Church. (St. Paul was eloquent on the subject.) Most notably, the Church teaches that only men can be ordained to the priesthood, and altar service has traditionally—and quite naturally--been linked to priestly ministry. Those who lament the introduction of female altar servers have argued for years that by encouraging young women to be acolytes, the Church may be raising unrealistic expectations that they might someday become priests.

The editors of America recognize this problem, and address it thus:

Inevitably the issue of women’s roles in the church raises the question of women’s ordination to the priesthood. Recently a cardinal in Lisbon and some bishops in Brazil, among others, also raised the question; but since Pope Benedict XVI, despite continued agitation, has reaffirmed the policy of John Paul II to allow no discussion of the topic, the matter of altar servers must be considered a separate and independent issue.

Do you see, in that paragraph, a ringing endorsement of the Church’s teaching on the impossibility of ordaining women? Neither do I. America is not arguing that young women should serve at the altar despite the fact that they cannot be ordained. America is arguing that young women must be allowed to serve at the altar, and then we’ll talk about the possibility of ordination later.

So if you're one of those people who fears that the introduction of female altar servers will turn up the pressure for women's ordination, this editorial should make you worry just a bit more.