Priesthood and the Practise of the Church: Why Males Only?

Gerhard Muller in his book Priesthood and Diaconate makes the following conclusion about the Sacrament of Holy Orders and why priesthood is for males only. Thinking theologically and sacramentally about the priesthood should help those who favour the ordination of women better understand why the Church Catholic cannot accept this novelty. What is very insightful about the following will also answer the question of practising homosexuals in the priesthood as well. I find the integrity of the Catholic position at a great compromise when they argue out of one side of their mouth against women in the priesthood and then are either okay or close their eyes to homosexuality either within or outside of the priesthood. One cannot be sacramental in Holy Orders for a male only priesthood and also for same-sex relationships. To embrace women's ordination is to deny the theology and sacramentality of the Church's ecclesial life and to embrace same-sex relationships is to deny the sacramentality of the union of male and female as husband and wife. Neither issue can be held abstractly and some in the Church are trying to do this to the detriment of the theological integrity of the One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. He writes the following as the conclusion to his chapter on priesthood belonging to a baptised man: The practice of the Catholic Church, from the early Church to the present, of conferring the Sacrament of Holy Orders only upon men who are in full communion with it, is unanimous. It is rooted in the belief that, according to the institutional will of Christ (with regard to the company of disciples and the Church, to the apostolate and the Sacrament of Orders), only a man can receive this sacrament validly, not because of a superiority of men over women, but because the Sacrament of Orders presupposes the natural symbolism of the relation between the husband and the wife. The difference between man and woman does not result in any anthropological deficiency, but is rather the prerequisite for the full realization of being in human in communion; it follows that nontransferable characteristics of masculinity or femininity do not constitute a restriction of the possibilities of one sex by the other. The opposite is the case: The contrast between man and woman, from which results the creaturely existence of humanity in nature, in history, and in society, is precisely what makes it possible to give oneself, indeed to give one's self to another and to convey ownership of oneself to him. A woman is not deprived of the human possibility of becoming a father. Neither is a man, naturally speaking, excluded from motherhood or, with respect to the history of salvation (Gal. 4:4), "excluded" from the Divine Motherhood because the Incarnation and thus the theandric communio of love took place through the sole and unique cooperation of a woman (cf. Gal 4:4-6; Rom 8:15; Jn 1:14; 2:2; 1 Jn 1:1-3; 4:8, 12). Being a priest is not an occupation or a societal position or role, any more than being a father or a mother is. Priesthood denotes a personal relation, or better, the representation of one person by another. Jesus Christ, according to the unanimous witnesses to the Church's faith, is symbolically represented by a baptized man by virtue of the Sacrament of Holy Orders. This representation of Christ pertains (and is restricted) to his paternal and foundational relationship to the Church as her Bridegroom/Head. Other modes of representing Christ are thus not excluded but rather brought to light. If a woman cannot symbolically represent Jesus Christ, the Son of the Eternal Father, in this sense as Bridegroom/Head of the Church--just as, conversely, the man cannot represent the (bridal) relationship of the Church to Christ--that does not meant the she is so to speak, "excluded" or "barred" from the priesthood. the reason is that she, through the feminine mode of her humanity, represents the Church in her communion with Christ and thus also represents, to the world and to her fellow believers in the Church, "Christ united with the Church as one Person". The Church receives this union with Christ through God's self-communication, and she makes it visible sacramentally in faith and love in service to neighbor for his spiritual salvation and physical well-being. Ecclesial life is not exhausted in the activity of the priest; rather, God appointed "pastors and teachers, for the equipment of [i.e., in order to equip] the saints for the world of ministry, for building up the body of Christ" (Eph 4:11-12). Therefore the members of Christ's Body who do not exercise an apostolic-priestly ministry, the "laity" (men and women), are not relegated to second-class membership or condemned to passivity. When Christ chose men to be his apostles and thus established the norm for the Church's selection of ordained ministers, it was not a merely arbitrary decision. The positive justification of this decision ought to be understood, rather, on the basis of its own significance and content, and it must be explained in terms of the fundamental structure of the order of creation and redemption. If in the life of the contemporary Church the priest is viewed again in a stronger sacramental-theological light, and the Church herself is seen less functionally and more theologically, then it may become plausible again to many people why the specific relation of Christ as Head to the Church as his Body and his Bride is representative in the primordial symbol of the man-woman correlative. Just as only a man, a husband, can become a father through his self-giving love for his wife, while his wife by conception and birth presents him with a child, in whom the love of them both has become "flesh", so too only the priest can inasmuch as a reference to woman is indicated in his masculinity--sacramentally symbolize the relation of Christ as Bridegroom and Head of his Church. [Skip long quotation of what a bishop and priest is. Basically priests are called to bestow their paternal attention to the faithful whom they begot as spiritual children via the birth at baptism]. Since it is only a question of a formal opposition, but also of a personal, relational encounter of Christ and the Church, the recipient of the Sacrament of Holy Orders cannot simply be "just" (abstractly) a human person endowed with spiritual authority. He must be a person, a soul-body composite, who by participating in a relational symbolism [i.e., sexual complementarity] typologically and thus sacramentally makes visible the specific opposition of Christ to the Church as Bridegroom to Bride. Vatican II explained more precisely the nature of the ministerial priesthood as follows: By the Sacrament of Order, priests are configured to Christ the priest as servants of the Head, so that as co-workers with the episcopal order they may build up the Body of Christ, the Church...They are consecrated to God in a new way in their ordination and are made the living instruments of Christ the eternal priest, and so are enabled to accomplish throughout all time that wonderful work of his which with supernatural efficacy restored the whole human race. Since every priest in his own way assumes the person of Christ he is endowed with a special grace. By this grace the priest, through his service of the people committed to his care and all the People of God, is able the better to pursue the perfection of Christ, whose place he takes. And referring directly to the correlation between Christ as Head and Christ as Body, the Council declares: Priests exercise the function of Christ as Pastor and Head in proportion to their share of authority. In the name of the bishop they gather the family of God as a brotherhood endowed with the spirit of unity and lead it in Christ through the Spirit to God the Father. (PO 6; LG 28). UPDATE: Fr. Chris has offered a link (see article here) in the comment box about the way Traditionalists have abused and distorted (and disordered) this discussion of WO. Feel free to comment on either post and or both.