Male AND Female
categorically teaches that men and women are
equally qualified for the priesthood of Christ.
While tradition tends to speak in favor of a
male-only clergy, Scripture is not at all clear on
this issue, and reason clearly speaks against
limiting our clergy based upon any physical
characteristic. Our denomination recognizes
Scripture, tradition and reason as the three
pillars through which God presents us with the
Truth. Scripture and tradition are blended
dioramas of theological absolutes, social
biases and human opinions. In times like this,
we must look back into the history of both
Scripture and tradition with a rational mind.
When we do this, we see that the concept of a
male-only clergy is not only inconsistent with
reason, but also it puts us in the position of
where or with whom God will work as God
chooses. Limiting and constricting God's
ability to love us is sin in its purest form.
Sexism in our society is not a good thing. It
denies human beings some basic opportunities
and rights. However, sexism in the Church
carries this sin one step further by denying
God's ability to call whoever the Divine wills to
choose and to wherever that spiritual ministry
is to be fulfilled. This is a sin of which the
whole Church should repent and quickly
amend its ways. Those denominations with
female clergy are strong testimony to the
validity of God's call of many excellent women
to the priesthood and even the episcopate.
of a priest is to act in the image of Christ at
the Eucharistic sacrifice. On our behalf, the
priest offers bread and wine to god. Through
the mysterious working of the Holy Spirit, our
earthly sacrifice is united with the one,
eternal all-sufficient Sacrifice of Jesus Christ
on the Cross, and the bread and wine
become Christ's Body and Blood. Sacrifice
(our offering to God) and sacrament (God's
offering to us) are thus linked.
Because of this link of sacrifice and
sacrament, the priest both represents us
before God's altar and also represents Christ
to us. This representation of Christ is called
alter Christus, "another Christ."
For centuries (but not necessarily the first
centuries of its existence), the Church has
claimed that only males could serve in such a
manner because Jesus was, after all, a male.
This faulty doctrine is still used to this day to
justify the sexist idea of a male-only clergy.
The doctrine is flawed at a very fundamental
level. The Creed teaches us that God the
Son in Jesus Christ was enanthropesanta,
"made Man." But it means "made human" not
"made an adult male." Greek has two
different words for "man" in the generic
sense (anthropos) and "man" in the male
sense (aner). The Gospels refer to Jesus as
the "Huios anthropou," the "Son of Man" but
this term, too, is more correctly termed the
"Son of Humanity." The basic point is simple:
while we acknowledge that Jesus was a male,
at no point is this a theologically important
issue. What is important is that Jesus was
human.
