What’s Missing without Women Priests?

by Joseph Stoutzenberger

Talking with a Catholic woman recently, she mentioned that she hadn’t been to confession in quite a while. She then added, “If there were women priests, I would go to confession in a hot second.” She talked about going to confession a number of years ago, during which she told the priest about some issues in her marriage. For one, she carried a burden of guilt over the use of artificial birth control. She discovered that this celibate man was clueless about her concerns. She now has female friends with whom she confides and shares intimate conversations. The Sacrament of Penance is more than a chat among friends and reassurances from soul mates. The priest in confession represents the God of forgiveness and love that we can celebrate in this formal setting.

However, the exchange with my woman friend led me to wonder: What is missing in Catholicism because there are no women priests? If women are excluded from being formal representatives of God’s love and forgiveness, is that a lack within the sacramental structure of the church? First, some history. For its initial four hundred years or so, Christians did not “go to confession,” telling their sins to a priest-confessor. The practice originated as part of monastic discipline in the Western church, introduced by Irish monks, and in the East, at approximately the same time, in monasteries there. The practice spread from monasteries to the general public, so priests began hearing the confessions of everyday Christians. Out of this informal practice developed the formal practice of private confession, which was recognized as an official sacrament at the Council of Trent in the 16th century. In the Middle Ages, church architecture began to incorporate a screened setting, allowing women to confess to a priest on matters that might be embarrassing to them or their male confessor. Private confession behind a screen became both commonplace and, in some situations, required as a part of Catholic spiritual life.

On the matter of women priests, in the 1970s, a number of prominent scripture scholars concluded that there is nothing in the bible that would preclude women from the priesthood. The Episcopal church officially recognized the practice in 1976, and most other Protestant churches have also ordained women as ministers. The Catholic church restricts priestly ordination to men, and in the Western church, almost exclusively to celibate men. In the 1990s, Pope John Paul II said that not ordaining women is based on scripture, and therefore, he and the church could not change that practice.

In Catholicism, the priesthood is not defined just by its function—officiating at liturgy and hearing confessions. A priest, like all sacraments, represents Christ. How is the loving God embodied in Christ present today? Jesus poured out his life for others. If you want to see a nourishing, life-giving embodiment of a loving God today, picture a mother breast-feeding her infant. Jesus said that he would be present “in the breaking of the bread.” A woman’s place may not be in the kitchen, but God’s place is. Today, both women and men serve in the godly work of serving others at a meal. When a child goes astray, a forgiving parent, mother, or father embodies the God that Jesus described in his Good Samaritan parable. Jesus the teacher lives on through women and men teachers. Actually, in the US today, eighty percent of elementary school teachers are women. Jesus was a healer. The city of St. Louis still honors the heroic Catholic sisters who played a vital role in caring for the sick during the devastating 1918 flu epidemic. Most people avoided the sick, but not these heroic women. The world-renowned Mayo Clinic in Minnesota was inspired by and built by Catholic nuns. Many hospitals, clinics, and shelters were begun by sisters, carrying on the work of Jesus the healer, and the majority of nurses and healthcare workers are still women.

You get my point. A priest is called upon to be an alter Christus, another Christ. Women, as well as men, fulfill that role in an informal manner. The church is clearly more Christlike through the contributions women make as healers, teachers, cooks, food servers, loving parents, and friends. Wouldn’t the church and its people be enriched further if the sacramental power and aura that surrounds the Catholic priesthood were extended to women as well as men?

Joseph Stoutzenberger spent fifty years in education. For more than twenty-five years, he was a Professor of Religious Studies at Holy Family University in Philadelphia. He taught religious studies and served as Director of Campus Ministry at Manor College, Jenkintown, PA. He taught in the Catechist Preparation Program for the Diocese of Camden, NJ, and conducted workshops on parent-teen communication for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in religion from Temple University, as well as a master’s degree in religious education from Loyola University in Chicago. He is the author of “Mystery & Tradition: Catholicism for Today’s Spiritual Seekers“. He has actively participated in interreligious dialogue activities, contributing to several books, including “Removing Anti-Judaism from the Pulpit” and “Interfaith Dialogue at the Grass Roots.” He serves on the board of the Pennsylvania Peace Islands Institute and has lectured on Catholic perspectives on the Hizmet movement.

He has written textbooks for Catholic high schools and books on world religions and spirituality for adults. He has authored or co-authored three books on St. Francis of Assisi, most recently on Francis and nature. He has written study guides on Ukrainian Catholicism for the Eparchy of St. Josaphat in Parma. Stoutzenberger resides in Erdenheim, PA, with his wife, Mary, and their numerous children and grandchildren.