Is Ordinatio Sacerdotalis an Infallible Teaching?
/-The Exclusion of Women is an Infallible Teaching of the Catholic Church. The Door is Closed. How Can you push for the Ordination of Women?
Women’s Ordination Worldwide
womensordinationcampaign.org
Assertions are made that Pope John Paul II’s 1994 Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is infallible. In the document, he expresses his view that women cannot be ordained. He further and forbids any conversation about the subject. On this account, the document that has come to be known as 'the Papal No'.
Infallible? No. The document has been carefully analyzed not just by one expert but many. Canon law sets out requirements for how a teaching can be infallibly made. An excellent article from one of the websites of our member group Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research delves into all the wobbly features that have been identified by canon lawyers and theologians such that the document cannot be considered infallible.
A link to their page providing coverage about this is here: Theologians Assess Ordinatio Sacerdotalis
Two of our favourite articles covering this subject are by Elizabeth Johnson, csj’s Assessment of Ordinatio Sacerdotals found in ‘Disputed Questions: Authority, Priesthood, Women’ and Peter Burns, SJ’s ‘Was the Teaching Infallible?’
John Paul II’s prohibition against discussion has been problematic in that it put a chill over work for the cause. In our experience, whenever a question is forbidden by an institution or power, it’s because the institution or power is uncomfortable with the prospect of having to defend its answer. Better simply to lash out at anyone doing the asking. The spirit for the work of women’s ordination is strong and the prohibition has not stopped advance of the cause.
Some say the door is closed. It is true that it is at present. It is also true that doors open.
