Vatican Says Jesus Didn’t Want Women Priests Church Tries To Quell Debate With New Book On The Issue

Marshaling its arguments to quash a debate that won’t go away, the Vatican on Friday presented its most comprehensive case yet against women becoming Roman Catholic priests.

The Vatican called out its chief guardian of orthodoxy, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and other officials for a news conference to present a book that stitches together recent major papal pronouncements on the issue, along with essays by theologians and scholars.

The church’s long-standing argument, essentially, is that Christ was male and wanted his priests to be male, and the church can’t overrule that.

“The Church does not have the power to modify the practice, uninterrupted for 2000 years, of calling only men” to the priesthood, Bishop Angelo Scola told reporters.

“This was wanted directly by Jesus,” said the bishop, who heads the Vatican’s prestigious Lateran University. He cited traditional arguments that Jesus decided to choose only men for the 12 apostles and that the priesthood is “objectively linked to the male sex of Jesus.”

The news conference was held to promote a series of books presenting the documents of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Ratzinger heads. They deal with issues such as homosexuality, the Holy Trinity, contraception and role of the theologian.

The Vatican’s most recent publication is a comprehensive edition on the all-male clergy. Scola called it “an obligatory point of reference” on the matter.

It was not clear why the Vatican chose now to focus on the issue of women priests.

The presentation of the book - which is titled “From ‘Intersignores’ to ‘Sacerdotio Ordinalis,”’ referring to the Latin names of the documents involved - follows a visit to the Vatican last month by the spiritual leader of the Anglican Church - which ordains women. The pope has called the practice an obstacle to unity with the Catholic Church.

Earlier in January, a Sri Lankan theologian-priest was excommunicated for challenging the pope’s authority and several core church teachings. Among his arguments are that women should be ordained.

Ratzinger clarified the gravity with which the church views those who reject the ban on women priests. It is not heresy, he said, but a “clearly erroneous” position that is incompatible with the faith.

Despite the Vatican’s numerous efforts in recent years to quell the debate, the issue of female ordination will not go away.

In 1976, the doctrinal office issued a major statement on the subject. When the Anglicans opened the door to women priests, John Paul responded with a 1994 apostolic letter seeking to end the discussion. After some clergymen expressed doubts, Ratzinger formally reiterated that John Paul’s stand against women priests was definitive.

All three documents are in the book, which includes a piece by the late Cardinal Joseph L. Bernardin of Chicago and other clerics.

At the news conference, Ratzinger made his first public comment about the excommunication of the Rev. Tissa Balasuriya, the Sri Lankan theologian.

He said one of Balasuriya’s main failings was to claim the concept of original sin was invented by the clergy to create anxiety in the faithful.

The theologian refused to sign a profession of faith without adding an unacceptable clause that watered it down, Ratzinger said. The signing was offered “to avoid interminable discussions about (his) book,” the 1990 publication, “Mary and Human Liberation,” which led to the excommunication, the cardinal said.

During his presentation, Ratzinger took pains to say his congregation, once called the Holy Office and one of the most important Vatican departments, was not just a “watchdog” but sought also to promote the faith by explaining doctrine.

“From ‘Intersignores’ to ‘Sacerdotio Ordinalis,”’ which refers to the latin titles of documents involved.