Women’s Ordination for a “ discipleship of equals ”

1. Women’s Ordination for a “discipleship of equals” Luca Badini Confalonieri Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research

2. The Debate among Reformers in the RCC • Women’s ordination now, or only after reform of the currently undemocratic RC Church ministry? • What do we mean by “ordination” and what is the distinction between ministers and laypeople? Ecumenical problem which cuts across denominational boundaries. • Insights towards a solution can be gleaned from the NT and early Christianity

3. Structure • Part 1: Priesthood of all Christians • Part 2: A Discipleship of Equals

4. A People of Priests • 1 Peter 2 says that Christians are ‘a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God, through Jesus Christ’. It is the entire people who are now called to be ‘priests’ to each other and to the world. What does this priestly service entail more concretely? • Charitable giving, prayer, and every act made in service of the Good News: see e.g. Hebrews 13, 2 Cor. 9: “And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.” Heb. 13:16. • ‘Paul saw all ministry and service on behalf of the gospel as priestly ministry, ministry which all believers could engage in and which was not limited to any special order of priests’ (James Dunn).

5. A People of Priests – Pt 2 • There was no Christian ‘priesthood’ in the early church. (Vatican II rejected priestly language in favour of “presbyters”) • The letter to the Hebrews suggests that Christians do not need a human priesthood anymore. They now have Jesus acting as the eternal high priest for them. • Romans 5.2 speak of our unmediated access to grace through Christ.

6. Jesus is the only true priest • Before Christianity, “priests” were understood as fulfilling the role of mediating between the gods (or God) and humankind. • 1 Timothy 2:5: “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus” • Christianity is revolutionary in that it rejects the need for human priests: it affirms that only one person can mediate for all people in the world and for all times, and that is Jesus, because He is both divine and human.

7. No Sacral/Priestly Jargon • The three main terms the NT uses to designate people who were fulfilling specific tasks within the early Christian communities are borrowed from the ordinary, secular domain of civil administration: ‘episkopoi’ (supervisors) with ‘diakonoi’ (assistants), and ‘presbyteroi’ (elders). • There is also mention of ‘apostles’, ‘teachers’, ‘preachers’, ‘prophets’, ‘evangelists’, ‘pastors’, and so on. • The NT doesn’t offer a fixed list of official ministries, but rather it displays a variety which reflects a very pragmatic approach to office, with no cultic or sacral overtones.

8. No Theological Legitimation • The NT offers no theological legitimation of these three positions: ‘[They] are assumed to be in existence and are regarded in purely functionalterms’. • Circles of elders’ and ‘supervisors with assistants’ are different ways of organizing leadership within communities. They are NOT cultic roles. • The emphasis is quite simply on the function fulfilled, rather than on the ‘order’ or ‘status’ of office-holders within the Christian community.

9. The Letter to the Hebrews Reject the Need for Christian Priests “It has never failed to astonish me that a principle so clearly formulated could be so blatantly ignored or side-stepped by those who insist that nevertheless, despite Hebrews, an order of priesthood is necessary within Christianity. To use Hebrews 5.1 to justify or explain Christian priesthood, as Vatican II does, while ignoring the thrust and argument of the Letter as a whole is a form of eisegesis which ranks more as abuse than as correct use of Scripture.Similarly the argument that the function of Christian priests is to represent the one true priesthood of Christ reads more like a rationalization than a justification. And since it interposes once again a mediator of grace between believer and God, when the concern of Hebrews was to convince his readers that such mediation was no longer necessary, it can hardly look for support to Hebrews in good faith. […] What price the canonical authority of Hebrews when one of its principal concerns is treated so casually and twisted to serve a variation of the very case it was written to oppose?” James Dunn, Professor of New Testament, University of Durham

10. A Discipleship of Equals • The earliest Christian communities were house-churches, small groups of a couple dozen people maximum gathering in the private houses of well-off patrons. • In those kind of churches, a variety of people are reported to have presided over the common Eucharistic meals: most importantly, prophets, teachers and house-church patrons.

11. A Discipleship of Equals – Pt 2 • There is unambiguous scriptural as well as historical evidence that such roles have been fulfilled by women too. • It is therefore almost certain that women who were apostles (Junia in Rom. 16.7, according to the majority of exegetes; probably Philippians 4.2-3), prophets (Acts 21.9; 1 Cor. 11.5), teachers (Acts 18.26; see 1 Tim. 2.12), deacons (probably Phoebe in Rom. 16.1; also probably 1 Tim 3.11), or house-church patrons, would have taught and presided at Eucharistic meals.

12. A Discipleship of Equals – Pt 3 • All are equals, all have gifts, all should use their gifts by ministering to each other and the world; • ‘Theologically and practically the distinction between the sexes is insignificant in such a multiform exercise of ministry’ • “Whence comes the widespread shrinking among men and women alike from a woman having aught to do with the Blessed Sacrament?” (C. Coltman, 1920)

13. A Discipleship of Equals – Pt 4 • “All Christians women and men – have become cultically purified, sanctified, and elect through Christ’s expiatory death. Not cultic priesthood but the “gifts” of the Spirit are decisive for ministry in the church. All members of the Christian community are called to exercise their “spiritual gifts” for the building up of the “body of Christ”, the Christian community. Since the gifts of the Spirit are not restricted to a certain group within the community, everyone is able and authorized in the power of the Spirit to preach, to prophesy, to forgive sins, and to participate actively in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Thus all members of the people of God, by virtue of their baptismal “priesthood”, have the capability and right to exercise liturgical and ecclesial leadership functions” • ElizabethSchussler-Fiorenza

14. “Charismatic” Ecclesiology • In house churches members divide tasks informally, on the basis of their skills and gifts: humanly acquired or divinely bestowed, but in any case recognized as such by the community. • The best strategies for living as Christians and advancing the Kingdom in their local context are discussed and agreed in common. • When a goal lies outside their reach, a decision can be taken to ask for the cooperation of neighbouring house-churches or, in a structured community, of the higher level (e.g. regional grouping, diocese, and so on).

15. Where do RCs go from here? • The reform needed is twofold: to finally ordain women to ministry at all levels, and to reform ministry itself, to make it accountable to the community. • The solution, as often, is education, and the more so on this issue, where the traditional arguments excluding women from ordination have been shown to be baseless prejudices • Education cannot easily happen without public debate, which at the moment is forbidden by the Catholic hierarchy. • Education entails learning from other Christians – How can we foster this learning? “Receptive Ecumenism” • Working together