Invalid Ritual

Thanks to the 8 women who were "ordained" on a riverboat in Pittsburgh this week. All the discussion in the blogosphere about the sacrament of Holy Orders should make the research for my liturgy paper really easy: "Why does the Sacrament of Holy Orders require a male recipient and how does this relate to the 'baptismal priesthood'?"

Patricia Fresen, a bishop in Roman Catholic Womenpriests, compared their movement to the anti-apartheid movement.
"I am utterly convinced that our ordinations are totally valid," she said. "Although they break [canon] law, we believe we are breaking an unjust law. I come from South Africa. We learned from Nelson Mandela and others that if a law is unjust, it must be changed. ... If you cannot change it, you must break it."

The problem of course is that the law they find so unjust is God's law. The Church declares that she has no authority to ordain women to Holy Orders. The reason, simply stated, is that God's plan for his Church does not include women in the ministerial priesthood. The Church does not exclude women from the ministerial priesthood out of hatred for women or some misguided effort to "keep women in their place". She does so because that it is part of the deposit of faith which she has been charged to protect. It is not hers to change.

Pope Paul VI in 1977 wrote:
“(The Catholic Church) holds that it is not admissible to ordain women to the priesthood for very fundamental reasons. These reasons include: the example recorded in Sacred Scripture of Christ choosing his Apostles only from among men; the constant practice of the Church, which imitated Christ in choosing only men; and her living teaching authority which has consistently held that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is in accordance with God’s plan for his Church”

This means that, in the end, accepting that the ministerial priesthood is reserved to men is a matter of faith, a matter of trusting in God's plan. All the reasoning in the world won't convince someone who views the Church as a man-made entity.

The Diocese of Pittsburgh has posted the consistent teaching of the Church clearly and with charity on their website.