Cardinals Christoph Schönborn and Gerhard Ludwig Müller. (Images: CNA)
Shortly after Pope Francis opposed the possibility of an ordained female diaconate, two German-speaking cardinals publicly have said that only men can be ordained to the priesthood.
“Women cannot be called to this office,” Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller told Swiss portal kath.ch on June 7. “The priest represents Christ in his manhood.”
The German cardinal, who held the role of prefect of the Congregation — now Dicastery — for the Doctrine of the Faith from 2012 to 2017, stressed the theological and doctrinal underpinnings of this view, saying the prohibition of women from priestly ordination is deeply ingrained in the sacrament itself.
Müller, who taught dogmatic theology at Munich’s Ludwig Maximilian University, emphasized “the fundamental equality of all people in their personal relationship with God,” be they man or woman.
Just like “a man cannot become a mother and a woman cannot become a father,” it is only men who are called to the priesthood, Müller said, according to CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.
“The vocation comes from God. One would have to complain to God himself that he created human beings as man and woman.”
Echoing the words of Pope Francis about the nature of the priesthood in Querida Amazonia, Müller emphasized that the “Church cannot be represented by a man because she is female and Mary, the Mother of God, is her archetype. It is in the nature of the sacrament that only a man can represent Christ in relation to the Church.”
The German prelate’s pronouncements follow those of Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna, CNA Deutsch reported.
In a sermon at ITI Catholic University in Austria on June 1, Schönborn said he was “deeply convinced that the Church cannot and must not change this, because it must keep the mystery of women present in an unadulterated way.”
“We were all born of a woman. This will always be reflected in the mystery of the Church.”
Like Müller, Schönborn affirmed St. John Paul II’s teaching that the ordination of women would violate a fundamental ecclesiological principle.
In 1994, Pope John Paul II, citing the Church’s traditional teaching, declared in the apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis:
“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.”
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The “Holy Fire” is passed from inside Christ’s tomb to pilgrims gathered inside the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher in Jersusalem on May 4, 2024, for the annual Orthodox Christian ceremony, held on the day before Easter, according to the Julian calendar. / Credit: Marinella Bandini/CNA
Jerusalem, May 5, 2024 / 09:00 am (CNA).
Pilgrims gathered in Jerusalem Saturday for the annual “Holy Fire” ceremony at the revered site of Jesus’ burial and resurrection, an ancient custom considered by many believers to be a miraculous event that takes place the day before the Orthodox Christian celebration of Easter.
For safety reasons, attendance at the May 4 event was capped at 4,200 people inside the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher, though the crowds were more manageable and somewhat subdued this year because of a lack of pilgrims from the Palestinian territories and abroad due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
Israeli police man a checkpoint inside the Old City of Jerusalem during the “Holy Fire” ceremony held at the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher on May 4. 2024. Credit: Marinella Bandini/CNA
Access to the Old City where the basilica is located was restricted beginning on Friday night amid a heavy police presence. Numerous medical personnel and firefighters were present inside the basilica.
Though its authenticity is disputed by some, the “Holy Fire” or “Holy Light” refers to a fire of purported divine origin that ignites inside Jesus’ tomb while only the Greek Orthodox patriarch is present. Pilgrims then light their candles by extending them through a small opening in the tomb, producing a dramatic scene of flickering flames and joyous celebration.
The Orthodox Christian ceremony, which is attended by Catholics and other Christians, as well, has been held continuously since at least 1106, though accounts dating to the fourth century relate that the apostle Peter saw the holy light himself inside the tomb.
Pilgrims carry candles lit from the “Holy Fire” inside the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem on May 4, 2024. Credit: Marinella Bandini/CNA
The doors of the Holy Sepulcher were opened at 9 a.m. by Greek Orthodox representatives and again at 9.30 a.m. by representatives of the Armenian Apostolic Church — the two Orthodox communities that serve with Catholic Franciscans as the custodians of the site. Only then did the faithful begin to enter the basilica.
Around 11 a.m., those present began to sing traditional hymns in the loudest voice possible. These chants date back to the Turkish occupation of Jerusalem in the 13th century when Christians were not allowed to chant anywhere but in the churches.
The heart of the ceremony was between 1 and 2 in the afternoon. After the solemn entrances of the other Orthodox patriarchs of Jerusalem, the Greek Orthodox patriarch, Theophilos III, entered the basilica.
Previously, the doors of the Aedicule (the small shrine that houses the tomb of Jesus Christ) had been sealed with a large wax seal — signifying that the tomb had been inspected and that nothing was present that could be used to start a fire. Shortly before the arrival of the Greek patriarch, the seal was removed, and a large oil lamp was carried into the tomb.
After completing three rounds around the Aedicule, leading a procession of monks and priests, Patriarch Theophilos III entered the Aedicule, followed by a delegate of the Armenian patriarch (who could not attend due to an internal dispute) and several bishops from various denominations.
The Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III exits the Aedicule of the Holy Sepulcher on May 4, 2024, in Jerusalem, showing the faithful the two candles just lit from the oil lamp that is believed to have been miraculously ignited inside Jesus’ tomb. Credit: Studio Sami Jerusalem
Only the Greek Orthodox patriarch is allowed to enter the chamber that houses the tomb of Jesus, while all the others remain in the Chapel of the Angel, a sort of antechamber that commemorates the appearance of a heavenly messenger to the women at the tomb announcing Jesus’ resurrection.
Before entering the tomb, the Greek patriarch was inspected by Israeli authorities to prove that he didn’t carry any technical means to light the fire.
All the lights and lamps in the basilica were extinguished, especially those inside the Aedicule, which was left in darkness.
What believers attest to be a miracle takes place after a brief time of prayer: A holy fire is said to descend from heaven and ignite an oil lamp inside the tomb.
Pilgrims inside the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher hold their candles aloft after the “Holy Fire” was ignited inside Jesus’ tomb on May 4, 2024, the day before the Orthodox Christian celebration of Easter. Credit: Marinella Bandini/CNA
On Saturday, after the lamp was lit the Greek Orthodox patriarch emerged from the tomb and lit bundles of 33 candles (a number representing the age of Christ at the time of his crucifixion and resurrection.) Meanwhile, pilgrims lit their candles also from the small round windows on the sides of the Aedicule, creating a dramatic scene outside the tomb. It is said that the fire does not burn anything (or anyone) for the first 33 minutes after being lit.
For Orthodox believers, the lighting of the fire is a genuine miraculous event, although voices within the Orthodox world itself have repeatedly questioned the authenticity of the miracle, attributing the spontaneous lighting of the lamp to tricks or chemical methods.
A lamp used to transport the “Holy Fire” from the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem to Bethlehem is carried at the lighting ceremony on May 4, 2024. By longstanding tradition, the flames from the purported miraculous fire are brought to the main Orthodox churches in the Holy Land and sent to the main Orthodox churches around the world via specially arranged flights. Credit: Marinella Bandini/CNA
In solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza and the victims of the war, the Orthodox Christians have chosen a more subdued celebration this year. To that end, the Holy Fire was not passed hand to hand through the streets of the Old City of Jerusalem, as is the custom, but was brought directly into the homes of the faithful.
Special lanterns transport flames from the tomb to the main Orthodox churches in the Holy Land and around the world (via specially arranged flights). The arrival of the flames from Jerusalem will mark the beginning of the Easter celebrations.
Arecibo, Puerto Rico, Aug 18, 2021 / 13:45 pm (CNA).
The Bishop of Arecibo has recognized the right to conscientious objection to vaccines against COVID-19, and announced that clerics will be able to sign exemptions for t… […]
Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), speaks at a press conference at the party electoral headquarters overnight on Sept. 26, 2022. in Rome. Italy’s national elections on Sept. 25 saw voters poised to elect Meloni, a Catholic mother, as the country’s first female prime minister. / Photo by Antonio Masiello/Getty Images
Rome Newsroom, Oct 24, 2022 / 05:15 am (CNA).
Pope Francis offered a prayer for Italy on Sunday as Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni became the country’s first female leader.
“And today, at the start of a new government, let us pray for unity and peace in Italy,” the pope said at the end of his Angelus address on Oct. 23.
Hours after the handover ceremony between Meloni and her predecessor Mario Draghi in Rome’s Chigi Palace, the new prime minister thanked Pope Francis for his comments.
Meloni wrote on social media: “I thank His Holiness #PopeFrancis for his thoughts on Italy on this very important day for the government I have the honor to preside over.”
Ringrazio Sua Santità #PapaFrancesco per il pensiero che ha voluto rivolgere all’Italia in questa giornata così importante per il Governo che ho l’onore di presiedere. @Pontifex_it
Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the archbishop of Bologna and president of the Italian bishops’ conference, sent his “sincerest congratulations” to Meloni after the new government’s swearing-in ceremony at the Quirinal Palace.
“With you also opens a historic page for our country: the new government is the first led by a woman in the role of Prime Minister,” Zuppi said.
The cardinal highlighted the many challenges that Italy is facing, listing what he described as the Italian bishops’ main concerns: “poverty, the demographic winter, the protection of the elderly, regional disparities, the ecological transition and the energy crisis, employment and job opportunities for young people, the reception and integration of migrants, the streamlining of bureaucratic procedures, and reforms of state democratic structures and electoral law.”
Zuppi added: “Looming over all these is the tragedy of the ongoing war that requires the commitment of all, in full harmony with Europe, in the inescapable and urgent search for a just path that can finally lead to peace.”
The cardinal promised that the Catholic Church in Italy “will not fail to engage in a constructive dialogue inspired solely by the desire to contribute to the pursuit of the common good of the country and to the protection of the inviolable rights of the person and the community.”
Meloni has described herself in speeches as a Christian and has publicly expressed her admiration for St. John Paul II and her desire to meet Pope Francis in person.
“I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian, and you can’t take that away from me,” she said in a speech in 2019.
Meloni’s party won the general election on Sept. 25 with a platform that supports traditional families, tax cuts, cracking down on illegal immigration, and Italy’s Christian roots. In a speech earlier this year, she said, “no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology, yes to the culture of life.”
The prime minister heads the Brothers of Italy party, which she co-founded in 2012. Before and amid her party’s electoral victory, Meloni’s views have been described in the media as “far-right” and even as “fascist” — labels that she has rejected.
In an interview with Reuters, Meloni dismissed any suggestion that her party was nostalgic for the fascist era and distanced herself from comments she made in 1996, as a teenager, when she said Benito Mussolini “was a good politician.”
Italy’s new government comprises a coalition that includes Matteo Salvini’s League party and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.
Meloni delivered a strong rebuke to Berlusconi last week and said that the former prime minister risked losing influence in the new government after Berlusconi boasted of having recently exchanged gifts of vodka and sparkling Italian red wine with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Italy, with its head high, is part of Europe and the (NATO) Atlantic alliance,” Meloni said, according to AP. “Whoever doesn’t agree with this cornerstone cannot be part of the government, at the cost of not having a government.”
When Pope Francis was asked if he would approve a female diaconate, he replied, and signaled (?): “If it is deacons with holy orders, no.”
And what purpose or foreseeable (!) consequence of crypto-deaconesses who are not ordained?
In the secular domain, gradualist accommodation is what gave us “civil unions,” not as the endgame but as the halfway house to “gay marriage.” So, within the Church, instead of the oxymoron gay marriage (now crypto-blessed as “couples”), we’ll surely get non-ordination of deaconesses—BUT with a different redefinition and a special “mission”? Not a linear half-way house, but a niche?
Their non-ordained NICHE—perhaps under archdeaconess Jeannine Gramick and the coupled photo-op James Martin—will it be to “informally, non-liturgically and spontaneously” administer crypto-blessings to irregular “couples”?
This controversial and divisive role OFFLOADED from the ordained priesthood? And, resulting in a parallel church-within-a-Church? As a local option, of course, and within a polyhedral Church! Very synodal. And, almost Islamic—a gay “dhimmi” within the big-tent and formerly coherent Catholic Church. Universal disunity as a Fernandezian accommodation of der Synodal Weg…Hegelian ideology in action, masquerading as a development of doctrine…
SUMMARY: the German Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel smiles—thesis, antithesis, and synthesis!!!
Everytime y’all bleatqbout young women exiting the church in droves, remember this.
Without ordained women y’all are nailing your own coffin shut. If driving women away from the church is your end game, congratulations you’re doing a smash up job!!! 🥳
Once the women all leave, the men won’t be too far behind. But it seems that’s what all of the old Catholics want – no future for their children or grandchildren.
“Without ordained women y’all are nailing your own coffin shut.”
Not true. In fact, quite false.
Exhibit A: “The Church of England has lost a fifth of people between 2019 and 2022, and over 40% of regular worshippers since the year 2000.”
Exhibit B: “In February 2022, the Vatican released statistics showing that in 2020 the number of Catholics in the world increased by 16 million to 1.36 billion. That means that 17.7% of the world’s population is Catholic.”
Exhibit C: “The topline numbers continue to show a church experiencing gradual long-term membership decline, much like other mainline Protestant denominations. The Episcopal Church’s tally of baptized members dropped just below 1.6 million in 2022, down 21% from 2013.”
Exhibit D: “Statistically, is Africa the fastest-growing continent when it comes to Catholicism? According to figures released by the Vatican in October last year covering the year 2021, Africa has 256 million Catholics, representing about 18% of the continent’s population. That is 5.2 million more than in 2020.”
What church that ordains females are young women flocking to today? Every woman-ordaining mainline denomination I know of is diminishing in numbers.
If the Catholic Church looked at that as a business model, it certainly wouldn’t be one to follow. It’s a path to extinction.
Cardinal Schönborn said he was “deeply convinced.” Whew! His feelings could have gone either way. How nice that his Eminence has emotionally embraced this teaching of Christ!
I have enormous sympathy for your point of view. I am not in favour of women priests but I do take your.point about driving women away. There is so much wrong with the church at this moment. The priesthood feels riddled with gayness the Pope regularly talks out of both sides of his mouth, he uses gutter language. He has gone out of his way to heap.praise on a book extolling the gay life. Abuse victims seek justice and do not find it. Abusers seem to be lauded. Genuinely the issue of women priests is not top billing.
Steph, You should learn about the thousands of young women who love the Church and work in many evangelizeing ministeries and who are embracing religious vocations. They are a testament to joyful love of Christ and His Church.
For Heaven’s sake, dear Fathers: spell it out!
The Mass is the Sacrifice of the New Adam for the New Eve! It is a foretaste of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb! It’s marital, nuptial!
When Pope Francis was asked if he would approve a female diaconate, he replied, and signaled (?): “If it is deacons with holy orders, no.”
And what purpose or foreseeable (!) consequence of crypto-deaconesses who are not ordained?
In the secular domain, gradualist accommodation is what gave us “civil unions,” not as the endgame but as the halfway house to “gay marriage.” So, within the Church, instead of the oxymoron gay marriage (now crypto-blessed as “couples”), we’ll surely get non-ordination of deaconesses—BUT with a different redefinition and a special “mission”? Not a linear half-way house, but a niche?
Their non-ordained NICHE—perhaps under archdeaconess Jeannine Gramick and the coupled photo-op James Martin—will it be to “informally, non-liturgically and spontaneously” administer crypto-blessings to irregular “couples”?
This controversial and divisive role OFFLOADED from the ordained priesthood? And, resulting in a parallel church-within-a-Church? As a local option, of course, and within a polyhedral Church! Very synodal. And, almost Islamic—a gay “dhimmi” within the big-tent and formerly coherent Catholic Church. Universal disunity as a Fernandezian accommodation of der Synodal Weg…Hegelian ideology in action, masquerading as a development of doctrine…
SUMMARY: the German Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel smiles—thesis, antithesis, and synthesis!!!
Everytime y’all bleatqbout young women exiting the church in droves, remember this.
Without ordained women y’all are nailing your own coffin shut. If driving women away from the church is your end game, congratulations you’re doing a smash up job!!! 🥳
Once the women all leave, the men won’t be too far behind. But it seems that’s what all of the old Catholics want – no future for their children or grandchildren.
“Without ordained women y’all are nailing your own coffin shut.”
Not true. In fact, quite false.
Exhibit A: “The Church of England has lost a fifth of people between 2019 and 2022, and over 40% of regular worshippers since the year 2000.”
Exhibit B: “In February 2022, the Vatican released statistics showing that in 2020 the number of Catholics in the world increased by 16 million to 1.36 billion. That means that 17.7% of the world’s population is Catholic.”
Exhibit C: “The topline numbers continue to show a church experiencing gradual long-term membership decline, much like other mainline Protestant denominations. The Episcopal Church’s tally of baptized members dropped just below 1.6 million in 2022, down 21% from 2013.”
Exhibit D: “Statistically, is Africa the fastest-growing continent when it comes to Catholicism? According to figures released by the Vatican in October last year covering the year 2021, Africa has 256 million Catholics, representing about 18% of the continent’s population. That is 5.2 million more than in 2020.”
Try again.
What church that ordains females are young women flocking to today? Every woman-ordaining mainline denomination I know of is diminishing in numbers.
If the Catholic Church looked at that as a business model, it certainly wouldn’t be one to follow. It’s a path to extinction.
Steph:
Churches with priestesses have all declined earlier and faster than the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, indicating that you are mistaken.
As one formerly Protestant woman remarked, after converting to the Catholic faith: “the purpose of priestesses is to sacramentalize abortion.”
Stop with you radical feminism, “Steph”. Your Antifa Catholicism has done the Church grave harm already.
Cardinal Schönborn said he was “deeply convinced.” Whew! His feelings could have gone either way. How nice that his Eminence has emotionally embraced this teaching of Christ!
All of this makes me want to sing the sycophant song of Cardinal Tagle:
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2023/07/20/ultramontanism-redivivus/
I have enormous sympathy for your point of view. I am not in favour of women priests but I do take your.point about driving women away. There is so much wrong with the church at this moment. The priesthood feels riddled with gayness the Pope regularly talks out of both sides of his mouth, he uses gutter language. He has gone out of his way to heap.praise on a book extolling the gay life. Abuse victims seek justice and do not find it. Abusers seem to be lauded. Genuinely the issue of women priests is not top billing.
Steph, You should learn about the thousands of young women who love the Church and work in many evangelizeing ministeries and who are embracing religious vocations. They are a testament to joyful love of Christ and His Church.
For Heaven’s sake, dear Fathers: spell it out!
The Mass is the Sacrifice of the New Adam for the New Eve! It is a foretaste of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb! It’s marital, nuptial!
“Impossible.” I like the firmness and clarity of that word. Nice to see cardinals with a spine standing up for the truth.