How to Deal with Women Priests and Deacons

What is the authentically Catholic approach to female clergy, of any type? The answer is simple. Any Catholic mass where a woman is present at the altar is either sacrilegious or invalid. If she is a female deaconess, then it’s a sacrilegious mass. If she is a female priestess, then it’s an invalid mass, meaning it’s not a mass at all. In other words, it’s the same as a Protestant worship service. In both cases, sacrilegious or invalid, the one and only Catholic response is to get up and walk out. It is sacrilegious to participate in a sacrilegious mass. And it is blasphemous to participate in an invalid mass, for you are giving worship to a host that has not been transubstantiated, and therefore not the Eucharist. Walking out of either kind of worship service is the right thing for a Catholic to do. If you can find another mass, at another parish that doesn’t have women at the altar, you should go there instead. If none are available, or you can’t make it to another one, then your Sunday obligation to attend mass is essentially dispensed, since no mass is available to you. Simply make an act of spiritual communion, say a rosary, and carry on with your life, until you can find a mass where there are no female clergy involved. Also, make sure you tell as many other Catholics as you can about this. Maybe even share this article with them.

It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. Any other sacrament offered by a female deaconess or priestess is either sacrilegious or invalid. So while we could say that a baptism might be valid, because anyone can baptize in an emergency, it is still sacrilegious. Weddings celebrated by a female deaconess or priestess would be sacrilegious as well. Confessions by a female priestess would be totally invalid, as would be the sacrament of healing. At all cost, don’t allow it.

Why am I bringing this up? As we enter into the 2023-2024 Synod on Synodality in Rome, it has become painfully obvious that the German bishops are preparing to lead a full-force assault on the sacrament of holy orders, in addition to other things. Until Pope Francis (or some future pope) clarifies the matter with orthodoxy, we can expect confusion to abound, and we can also expect some wayward bishops to take advantage of that confusion. We can expect this especially in Germany, and various places throughout Europe. We may also see a little of this in the United States, but American bishops (even the liberal ones) tend to be a bit more cautious about things, so maybe not. We’ll see. Whatever the case, if you’re in Europe or North America, and you see a woman at the altar, you need to get up and walk out. It’s the only proper Catholic response.

The bi-millennial teaching of the Church, both in the East and the West, is crystal clear on this, and was succinctly stated by Pope St. John Paul II…

Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.

Pope St. John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, 4, May 22, 1994

The operative phrase here is “the Church has no authority whatsoever.” The Church cannot have any authority that Christ has not already given it. When it comes to ordaining clergy, Christ is our example. We cannot do more than he did. Jesus Christ only ordained men to the clerical state. He did not ordain women, children, or anyone else – only men. We could go as far as the example set by the Apostles, but no further. They only ordained men as well. To ordain women now, would be an innovation (making something up out of thin air), which the Church has no authority to do. Thus, any attempt to ordain a woman to the clerical state would be automatically invalid, null and void.

While some consider this to be an ex cathedra infallible statement, it doesn’t meet the full criteria of what is needed for that, yet it is about as close as a pope can get to a formal ex cathedra statement without actually doing it. It’s likely that St. John Paul II did not think it necessary to go full ex cathedra, because the matter has always been considered infallible since the very beginning of the Church.

The Catholic Church does not ordain women for three reasons. First, it is strictly prohibited in Sacred Scripture. Second, it is strictly prohibited in Apostolic Tradition. Third, it is a distortion of the ministry of Jesus Christ.

First, Sacred Scripture forbids the ordination of women to any clerical state. The clerical offices of the Church are threefold: deacon, presbyter (priest) and bishop. In every case, along with many other qualifications, the Scriptures state that the candidate must be a man, and if he is married, he can only be the husband of one wife (1st Timothy 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9). The Bible only recognizes two genders: biological male and biological female. Likewise, the Bible makes it very clear that marriage can only be between a biological male and a biological female. So if the Scriptures dictate that one prerequisite for the clerical state is to be the “husband” (biological male) of one wife (biological female), it’s pretty plain to see the Scriptures insist on biological males for the clergy. That, and the fact that the Scriptures refer to such candidates as men and always use male pronouns.

St. Paul isn’t the least bit shy about this. He insists, in no uncertain terms, that women cannot hold any positions of authority in the Church – ever (1st Corinthians 14:34). He makes no exception about this…

I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.

St. Paul, 1st Timothy 2:12-15

By today’s politically-correct standards of speech, this sounds sexist. However, we have to understand that the ancients knew nothing of political correctness, and were quite blunt in their speech by today’s standards. This text must be properly interpreted in context. The context of the passage is prayer, specifically public prayer in a church setting. Paul is talking about who leads prayer, and he references men here (clergy). The women he tells to “keep silent.” That doesn’t mean they can’t talk. What he’s saying is they can’t lead in prayer, meaning specifically, they can’t officiate the liturgy. Of course, women can speak in church in other ways, in non-authoritative ways, such as: they can sing in choirs, make announcements, even read some passages of Scripture, etc. But women cannot officiate the liturgy. St. Paul makes this clear by saying he does “not permit a woman to teach or to have authority.” That’s the key word here – “authority.” Officiating the liturgy is a sign of authority. That’s why St Paul forbids it.

His explanation deserves some context as well. Otherwise, our politically-correct society will not tolerate it. He references the story of Adam and Eve in the Old Testament in saying: “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.” This does not mean he’s blaming the woman (Eve) for all the sins in the world. On the contrary, he’s giving the woman (Eve) an excuse. He’s saying the woman was deceived by the serpent (devil). She didn’t fully understand what she was doing. One could derive from this that women are more easily deceived than men. Whether or not that’s true is irrelevant, because that’s not what St. Paul is getting at here. What he’s getting at is the woman (Eve) committed the lesser sin. She was deceived or tricked into doing it. The man (Adam), on the other hand, knew exactly what he was doing. The early Christians (St. Augustine of Hippo AD 430, St. Gregory of Nyssa AD 394, St. Ambrose of Milan AD 397) understood the man (Adam) as committing the greater sin because he was not deceived. He chose, rather, to subordinate himself to his wife and follow her lead into sin, instead of being a spiritual leader and helping to guide her out of it.

This is part of St. Paul’s explanation for why God wants men to become spiritual leaders in the Church and their homes. It’s necessary in the male path to salvation. The sin of the first man (Adam) must be corrected in every Christian man. Men must become spiritual leaders again, either in the Church or in their homes, self-sacrificial in character, if they hope to be what God intended them to become. In the Christian spiritual economy, leadership is not lordship. It’s sacrifice, meaning the sacrifice of one’s self for the betterment of others. Women do this almost naturally all the time. Men do not. That’s part of the sin of Adam. St. Paul corrects that here, by restricting Church leadership (clergy) to men alone.

We have to understand, St. Paul wrote this at a time when the Church was persecuted in the Holy Land, and received sporadic persecution elsewhere. In time, it would soon receive the persecution of the entire Roman Empire. Christian leaders were the first to be taken during persecutions. Being a Christian leader meant not only sacrificing your personal life for the good of your congregation, but often sacrificing your physical life to protect your congregation. St. Paul wants men to become self-sacrificing “fathers” in the Church.

The last portion deserving context is St. Paul’s second explanation: “woman will be saved through bearing children.” This does not mean women have to birth children to go to heaven! Rather, it means that a woman’s place in spiritual leadership (leading prayer) is with children. By raising children in holiness, teaching them to follow Christ, Christian women undo the sin of Eve. Instead of being deceived by the devil, they can now prevent children from being deceived – any children, not just their own. When we understand the context of Paul’s words here, we can begin to appreciate why he commanded the men to “man up” and lead through self-sacrifice in the Church and in their homes. As for women, he just tells them that they, and their leadership talents, are preserved (saved) through bringing children to Christ.

Second, Apostolic Tradition mirrors Sacred Scripture, both in the Apostolic Age and throughout the centuries. There is no credible evidence of women being ordained to the clerical state throughout the bi-millennial history of the Church. The bottom line is this. If Jesus Christ intended women to be ordained, he had in his presence the most perfect, humble and worthy woman in all of history. That would be his own mother, Mary. Why didn’t he ordain her? Let’s face it. If Jesus Christ wouldn’t even ordain Mary, then what gives anybody the notion that he would want to ordain less-worthy women today? Nobody (neither man nor woman) is more worthy than Mary.

Third, this all comes down to the nature of the ministry of Jesus Christ. Being ordained (becoming clergy) means sharing in Christ’s ministry. It is his ministry, not ours. It is his authority, not ours. It is his very nature, not ours. When the sacraments of the Church are administered, the administrator becomes in persona Christi (Latin: “in the person of Christ”). Jesus Christ is a man. He is not a woman. Nor is he without gender. When one is ordained to the clerical state, one shares in the ministry and nature of Christ – who is a man. The cleric becomes in persona Christi – representing the divine God-Man – to the flock he shepherds. A woman can be many things, but she can never be a man. Any attempt to do so is merely an illusion, for the XX chromosomal makeup of every cell in her body cries out: “I am a woman.” Women cannot be ordained, for to be ordained is to share in the male ministry, male authority and male nature of Christ. Jesus Christ can be many things, but he can never be a woman.

While all of this would seem cut and dry, in the eyes of modern feminists, nothing is ever settled until it’s settled the way they want it. Ever since the 1970s, the topic of female ordination keeps coming up every few years as feminists make a new push to try to get their way. To them, ordination does not mean service. It means power. They view it as “leadership” in the Church, and they will not stop (ever!) until they have it. This shows a deep psychosis in the feminist mind, as women have conquered literally every field known to Western civilization, and every religion or church in Western civilization, except the Catholic Church. To them, it is the final frontier, and one that must be conquered.

So every few years the subject of women’s ordination to the diaconate resurfaces. The idea here is for the Catholic Church to make this one concession to women. Then, once their “foot is in the door” so to speak, they’ll slowly start to wedge it open a little wider to the priesthood. Once they have the priesthood, it’s just a matter of time before they have the bishopric, and finally the papacy. This is a tactic of pure manipulation and incrementalism.

To be fair, I should point out here that in the early Church, women were sometimes referred to as “deaconesses” in reference to the various jobs they did within the Church. But in Greek, this same term is used to refer to Pagan governors, indicating it was a loose term, and did not always apply to ordained ministry. Such was the case in the Early Church. Women had various jobs, and were considered “servants” of the Lord, which is what the word “deacon” means in Greek, but they were not ordained to clerical ministry, they did not preside at the altar, neither as a presbyter (priest) nor a deacon. Nevertheless, modern feminists will use Biblical references to “deaconesses” as their so-called prooftext that women were ordained in the Early Church, and sadly, there are a whole lot of liberal bishops today who are willing to go along with this.

Now, I want to stress here, this is not going to happen. Their strategy will fail because the Catholic Church simply cannot ordain women. It doesn’t have the authority. So any attempted “ordination” is automatically null and void. Canon law currently states that if a bishop attempts to “ordain” a woman to the priesthood or diaconate, he is automatically excommunicated.

Now, this brings up a sore subject, and by that I mean the subject of altar girls. Every Catholic has known, for the last thousand years at least, that the acolyte ministry has always been a gateway to the priesthood, wherein young men and boys discern their vocation while serving at the altar. So the idea of putting girls into this role sends a very clear message. That message is that the sacrament of holy orders, deacons and presbyters (priests), will soon open up to women. Thus, it only makes sense that young girls should prepare for their own discernment by serving at the altar. In my opinion, and the opinion of many others, this is a cruel joke. Every time we put girls in this role, we’re essentially telling them “you can be a priestess someday,” and “you need to discern now so you’ll be ready.” Basically, it’s a bait and switch. These girls grow up into young women and discover that just isn’t the case. So we tell them “I’m sorry dear, maybe you can be a nun instead.” Some of them get angry about it. And who can blame them? Some of them turn to aberrant organizations that promote the ordination of “womenpriests” against canon law. It’s a terrible thing to do to somebody, and it really needs to stop. Besides, is it any wonder that vocations to the priesthood are down when all the parish altar-server positions are taken by girls these days. Take the boys away from the altar, and vocations to the priesthood goes down. Huh. Who would have thought?

Was this article helpful? If so, consider getting the book: Are Catholics Christian? by Shane Schaetzel. A portion of this article is an excerpt from the book Are Catholics Christian? which has been used by clergy and catechists throughout North America in OCIA (RCIA) and other Catholic education programs. You can get the whole thing, in one short book, by clicking here.

Shane Schaetzel is an author of Catholic books and an Evangelical convert to the Catholic Church through Anglicanism. His articles have been featured on LifeSiteNews, The Remnant Newspaper, Forward in Christ, and Catholic Online. You can read Shane’s books at ShaneSchaetzel.Com