Women and Holy Orders

Being the Report of a Commission appointed by
the Archbishops of Canterbury and York
Published by the Church Information Office, London. Dec. 1966

CHAPTER VI

The Case for the Ordination of Women to the Priesthood

64 The conviction that women should now be ordained to the priesthood is based on the urgent need for renewal and for adapting the ministry of the Church to the requirements of the day.

65 The fitness of women for priesthood does not depend on an argument based on a belief that men and women are identical in their essential humanity and that masculinity and femininity are mere accidents, super-imposed. Nor does it equate the ministry with secular employments, so that since the latter are now open to women, the former should necessarily be also. It is however argued that the differences between males and females do not correspond precisely to the differences which are said to make men capable of ordination and women incapable.

66 Arguments based upon the ‘ deficiency ’ or ‘ inferiority ’ of women, or upon Pauline restrictions on the activities of women in the Church, are no longer tenable. The argument against the ordination of women carries as a latent implication, in some form, the assumption of inferiority.

67 Arguments based on parental or nuptial imagery must be treated with reserve. The argument that only a man can in the priesthood represent the Divine Father, or that Christ can only be represented to the people by a person of his own sex, or that, as in Ephesians 5, the wife is subordinate to the husband, so the Church must be subordinate to Christ, its Bridegroom, must be set against the maternal imagery used in the Old Testament (Isaiah 49. 15 and 66. 13) and by St Paul (Gal. 4. 19). These metaphors, though illuminating, cannot be held to be decisive in establishing the proposition that the priestly function is exclusively male.

68 The ordination of women to the priesthood is asked for now not in terms of the feminist movement but because of a revived sense of mission in the Church. Many women believe themselves to be ‘ truly called ’, but find their ministry to some extent frustrated because it does not possess the grace of Orders. They are convinced that their work would be strengthened if it possessed the grace of God and the authority of the Church given in ordination.

69 The shortage of the clergy accentuates the need for more priests. Women offer their help; but if the burden is to be shared, women must bear it on equal terms. A woman’s priesthood, it is true, would not be the same as a man’s. But women would bring to the priesthood particular gifts and insights which would enlarge its scope, enrich its witness and render it truly representative.

70 We do not know why male dominance in the Church has persisted for so long. We can, however, observe that the social conditions which have persisted for centuries imposed limitations upon women which precluded them from exercising positions of authority and encouraged a male-dominated paternalistic order. The Church of England has often been unready to accept change in the past. Now that paternalism is being replaced by partnership in society generally, the Church should reflect the changing outlook on the relationship between the sexes in its priesthood.

71 Too much in the past the priestly office has been depicted as one of leadership or authority, and therefore more suited to males than females. Now, the priesthood is more and more seen to be that of service. Women are as eligible as men for such an office.

72 Arguments based on the unsuitability of women for priesthood by reason of temperament, intelligence, tenacity of purpose or spiritual insight are to be rejected. Women are neither more nor less equipped than men for the tasks of the priesthood.

73 To sum up: The Biblical evidence provides no evidence to justify the exclusion of women from the priesthood. The changes in social circumstances of women in the twentieth century have removed the restrictions which made it impossible for women to be ordained in previous centuries. No reasons can be put forward to exclude women from the exercise of the priesthood solely because they are female. Temperamentally they are as well fitted as men for the requirements of the priesthood. The priesthood can never be fully representative until both men and women are permitted to take their place equally within it.

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