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In the preceding chapters we have tried to deal with what we consider to be the basic issues in the debate about women in the priesthood. In the first few chapters we tried to clear the ground of the usually unexpressed but very real doubts people may feel about women priests, and to look at some of the possible roots of those doubts in their feelings about priesthood and their feelings about women. In the next three chapters we considered theological arguments and their basis in Scripture and church tradition. In the chapter preceding this one we looked at the ramifications the priestly ordination of women might have ecumenically.
In addition to these issues, other arguments are sometimes offered against the ordination of women. These objections are often offered as “yes, but” considerations. However biblically and theologically sound the ordination of women may be, opponents ask if we have really thought about these minor-but-important considerations which rule out women priests in this church at this time. In this chapter we will examine some of the most common “yes, but” objections to women priests.
The Oversuply of Clergy
In the past few years Episcopalians have been made painfully aware that there are too many priests for the existing church-related and funded jobs available. A quick check of the 1960 and 1971 editions of the Church Annual shows that in 1970, there were 68 fewer parishes and 3,183 more clergy than there were in 1959.(1) Any bishop or ordinand can vouch for the fact that the job market in the Episcopal Church is tight and likely to become more so in the face of a continued uncertain economic picture for society as a whole. Why, then, we are asked, do we suggest adding to this problem by admitting a whole new class of people, namely women, to an already overcrowded profession?
The hidden assumption in this “economic argument” seems to be that admitting women to priesthood will automatically swell the total number of priests, perhaps even double it. This possibility is highly unlikely. The report of a 1966 study committee of the House of Bishops was no doubt correct in its assertion that it is “. . . unlikely that any great number of women would seek ordination . . . and at the least there need be no fear that women will ‘take over’ the Church.” (2)
It is understandable that clergy are apprehensive about adding women to an already uncertain job market and thereby adding yet another variable and even more competition for the few jobs there are. But for the forseeable future the number of women who will be called to priesthood and the variety of ministries in which they will engage should make them a very minor economic threat.
The Rt. Rev. Stephen F. Bayne, Dean of The General Theological Seminary, has objected to the term “oversupply of clergy” on the ground that the suggestion that there are too many priests calls into question the workings of the Holy Spirit in priestly ordinations, and that it “verges on impiety and disobedience to speak of the church having too many priests.” He suggests instead that “the problem is not one of too many priests-it is one of too few imaginative and effective ways in which priests and priesthood are being put to work in the church.” (3) That the institutional church is failing to deploy its clergy effectively is clear, but that is no reason to declare a moratorium on ordination.
“There are Aspects of the Priesthood Women Can't Handle.” THERE ARE ASPECTS OF PRIESTHOOD
Another “yes, but” argument we often hear is that there are some aspects of priesthood that women simply could not manage. Examples are usually along the line of midnight calls to dangerous neighborhoods or counseling men with embarrassing sexual problems. Yet these are not situations peculiar to priesthood, though they might be aspects of priesthood in a particular setting. These are the sort of problems that women doctors and social workers also run into and they have not proved insurmountable to women in those fields. In fact, laywomen have encountered similar occurrences in parish work and have managed to cope with them.
Another area in which difficulties are said to arise for a woman priest is that of hearing confession. It might be that a person would be unable to confess some things to a woman priest and this does perhaps present difficulties for some people. Yet at present there are woman communicants who are in the predicament of being unable or unwilling to confess to male priests and who are simply going without confession (and absolution) as a result. Our experience tells us that some people, both women and men, would find it possible, even preferable, to confess to a woman. It is reasonable to assume that most men could relate to a female priest just as most women can relate to a male priest. However, there are occasions when one wants to talk specifically with a member of his own or the opposite sex. For this reason it would be desirable to have confessors of both sexes available.
“When Women Enter a Profession, Men Leave it”
Some people argue that for the good of the Episcopal Church we should not ordain women. They reason that the church is already a female-dominated institution.* We should not drive out the few remaining men by allowing women to “take over.” They suggest that all the decisionmaking jobs in the church should be reserved for men. From their point of view the only way to keep the men coming to church is to make them feel important.
This argument seems to us insulting to the integrity of the men of the church. If the only reason men attend church is that they can feel powerful as clergy or vestrymen, we haven’t done a very good job of preaching the Gospel within the church itself. We do not believe that many churchmen’s commitment is proportionate to the authority they hold in church, nor that they are so immature as to need to be made to feel important. Perhaps without realizing it some men have come to count on feeling important at church and would be hurt if asked to share leadership with women. But Christian women do no favor for Christian men when they try to “protect” men’s position in the church by limiting that of women.
“We Can't Imagine a Woman Rector
Though the objection to women rectors is often initially supported by the contention that women do not make good administrators or that they lack the authority to hold a parish together, illustrations of women administrators in other fields fail to lay it to rest. The reason is that the real objection is aesthetic-we simply cannot imagine Sunday services being led by a woman. We feel that the liturgy demands a bass, or at least a baritone voice to do it justice. Women’s voices do not ring with the authority and power we find so comforting in the familiar liturgy.
We fail to take into account two factors when we rest our case on this objection. The first is that we have -so little experience with women trained to read well that we are not in a position to make a fair judgment on the relative beauty of male- and female-led services. We are also, being human, very apt to prefer what we are used to and to view it as aesthetically superior to anything innovative.
Even if we decide we are certain we could not endure a female rector, we must remind ourselves that all priests are not rectors and that there are a number of effective male priests we wouldn’t want as rectors either. There are male priests who stutter or who have reading difficulties, and many of these men exercise effective priestly ministries in areas other than public worship. So often when discussing women in priesthood we leap to the image of woman rector in a large, cavernous church with bad acoustics. Though some women could fill this role as admirably as could some men, prohibiting all women from answering a call to priesthood because some might be unsuited for some aspects of particular calls doesn’t make much sense.
Ordination of Women and “The Establishment”
Much of the recent writing against the ordination of women to the priesthood hints very broadly that the issue is not ordination, but whether rank and file Episcopalians will allow “the establishment” to perpetrate upon them a change of which they do not approve. Similar changes cited in the church’s recent past are the funding of General Convention Special Program and the new trial liturgies of the Green Book. These changes are said to be abhorrent to most Episcopalians, and allegedly have come about due to the current attempt to run the church “. . . according to the will of the Presiding Bishop and his tight little party of followers. They are past masters in the art of lobbying and forcing their will on the majority.”(4)
When people speak of an “establishment” or a small group bent on a certain end it is best to stop and ask whom they mean. GCSP and the Green Book were both approved by General Conventions of the Episcopal Church, an establishment that includes nearly eight hundred representatives of dioceses and missionary districts. The Executive Council of the church might be considered an establishment, but to the best of our knowledge that group has never discussed women in the priesthood. The staff of Executive Council may hold a variety of opinions on this matter, but they are far too busy just keeping the machinery running to be engaging in conspiracies. To deal in innuendoes does not further the debate on women in the priesthood.
“The Women of the Church Don't Want Women Priests.”
That there are women who disapprove of the ordination of women to the priesthood we have no doubt. We have in fact spoken with some of these women and discussed the matter with them, sometimes changing their views, sometimes not. What we are not at all certain of, however, is that most churchwomen are opposed. In fact, the only official count of women’s opinion we have any record of is the vote of the 1970 Triennial Meeting of the Women of the Church. These women, representing the organized women of the dioceses and missionary districts, voted by a nearly five to one margin in favor of a resolution to support the ordination of women to the diaconate, priesthood, and episcopate. It was the patient persistence of many of these same women that finally resulted in the Houston Convention’s opening the diaconate to women on the same basis as men.
It is interesting to note that most often it is clergymen who tell us that women are opposed. Often they can cite numerous women in their parishes who have expressed disapproval. Yet as Margaret Ermarth, a Lutheran authority on this subject, has observed, when the issue is women in the priesthood, in almost every church it has been the clergy who have objected most strenuously.(5) Our church is no exception, for it was by a narrow margin in the clergy order of the House of Deputies that the resolution to ordain women priests was defeated in 1970. This should come as no surprise, for it is the clergy that would be most directly affected by this change. When the question was seating women as lay delegates, it was the lay order in the House of Deputies that consistently voted it down.
“Women Priests will Mean Schism in the Church”
One of the reasons some opponents cite for continuing not to ordain women to the priesthood is that such a move will “split the church.” A number of clergy have clearly stated that they intend to leave the Episcopal Church if we ordain woman priests. There is also a move afoot to break off communion with the Diocese of Hong Kong because there are women priests functioning there.
It seems strange that the church should fear the loss of a number of priests, yet seems to have no qualms about the number of theologically educated women we have lost as clergy to other denominations because of our inability to use their talents.6 We have also lost the talents of many laywomen and some men because they could not stay in a church that refused to recognize women as equal partners with men.
“Women in the Priesthood would Downgrade the Role of Mary
People who advocate the ordination of women to the priesthood are sometimes accused of being contemptuous of the special place of the Virgin Mary in Christian tradition. Women, we are told, should find more than enough to keep them busy in emulating our Lord’s mother. She was not an apostle or even a deaconess.
We do not intend to downgrade the position of Mary in tradition or Scripture. What we find in Scripture is a young woman who said yes to God’s call despite the certain shame and disgrace this answer would bring to her family as well as herself. We rejoice with her in the powerful and courageous words of her song of rejoicing-the Magnificat. In the words of the Roman Catholic theologian Hans Küng, she is “the first among believers” and we venerate her for her courage and faithfulness to the will of God.
This is the only way we know how to venerate her-it is manifestly impossible for any modern woman to emulate her state of virginmotherhood or to see herself as “Theotokos,” God-bearer, for that role is Mary’s alone. The only way we can honor her is by attempting to appropriate her courage and faithfulness to the will of God. Many women feel that is exactly what they are doing in their effort to respond to God’s call to them to become priests.
The Force of “Yes, But” Arguments
We have looked at some of the more common “yes, but” arguments against women in the priesthood in some detail. There are others, some silly, some obscure, some mystical, but all offered in the sincere belief that for this reason alone women should not be priests and that should be an end to it.
While we do not question the sincerity of those who offer arguments of this nature as final and compelling, we would ask them to give their opposition to the priesthood for women more serious thought. Are they really opposed because jobs are scarce or because clergy would leave or because they think a woman celebrant would prove “distracting” to male communicants? Or is their opposition rooted elsewhere, perhaps in the way they feel about women or the church or the Gospel message? Perhaps with C. S. Lewis they feel that when we mix women and religion we are dealing with “the live and awful shadows of realities utterly beyond our control.”
Christ has freed us by his death and resurrection from the “powers and principalities,” the evil forces beyond our control which, wholly without our permission, clamor to govern our lives. Jesus himself was impatient with people who said “yes, but” as in the parable of the banquet (Luke 14:1624), where no excuse for not attending the feast is acceptable to the host. Christians are free to direct their own lives, but they are also obligated to try to understand their own feelings and judge them in the light of Christ’s freeing work.
The fundamental issue in all the deliberations about the ordination of women to the priesthood is the willingness of the church to test the work of the Holy Spirit. There are Episcopal women who claim to be called to the office and ministry of priesthood. If they were men, the church would permit that call to be tested through the processes set up in the canons of the church. To forbid women the opportunity to test their vocations in the same way comes perilously close to denying the possibility of the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of these women.
An English bishop remarked after meeting Dr. Margit Sahlin, one of the first women priests in the Church of Sweden, “If anyone asks me in future whether I believe in women priests I can only say that I have seen one. And by any tests known to the Gospel, I find myself unable to deny the grace of orders or to resist the Holy Spirit.” (1)
There is only one way to learn whether the ordination of women to the priesthood is “of God” and that one way is to try it. The efficacy of a man’s ministry is tested by the fruits of the Spirit that result. The only way to test the priesthood of women is to allow women with vocations to follow their call.
* This is borne out by the fact that most American Protestant churches have found that their membership is close to 60 percent female.
1. The Church Annual (New York: Morehouse Barlow, 1960), Summary of Statistics, p. 6; The Church Annual (New York: Morehouse Barlow, 1972), Summary of Statistics, p. 8.
2. “Progress Report to the House of Bishops from The Committee to Study the Proper Place of Women in the Ministry of the Church, October, 1966,” Journal of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, 1967, Appendix 35.8.
3. Stephen F. Bayne, unpublished paper “Reflections on the Ministry,” p. 1.
4. “UTO for Lobby Funds,” American Church News, vol. XXXVII, no. 2 (Ascension, 1972), p. 4.
5. Margaret Sittler Ermarth notes clergy resistance to the ordination of women in a number of denominations in Adam’s Fractured Rib: Observations on Women in the Church (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970), passim. Elsie Gibson also observes that in the Episcopal Church especially the clergy are anxious to blame the laity for our failure to ordain women priests (When the Minister Is a Woman, p. 30). Sally Cunneen found in a survey among Roman Catholics that more priests than lay people opposed ordination for women (Sex: Female; Religion: Catholic, pp. 130-146).
6. For a brief discussion of this phenomenon, see Gibson, pp. 26-30. Four of the ordained women who responded to Gibson’s survey were formerly Episcopalians, who left the Episcopal Church to be ordained elsewhere. One was one of the first woman graduates of Virginia Theological Seminary.
EPILOGUE: Do Not Quench the Spirit
** 1 Thessalonians 5:19.
1. The Rt. Rev. John A. T. Robinson, quoted in Cecil Northcott, “Woolwich’s Revolution,” The Christian Century, vol. LXXXI, no. 21 (May 20, 1964), p. 678.
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