Fr. Michael Crosby on Women's Ordination

Fr. Michael Crosby has offered a substantial riposte to criticisms of his remarks at an annual assembly of the LCWR. Recently, Bishop Leonard Blair, one of the leaders of the assessment of the LCWR undertaken by the CDF, castigated Crosby and underscored comments Crosby made in favour of women's ordination as evidence of the doctrinal unsoundness of the LCWR. Bishop Blair's report attempted to attenuate much of the fervour surrounding the Vatican rebuke of the organisation, highlighting specific instances of theological questionableness in LCWR literature and assemblies.

Crosby, a Capuchin monk, criticises Bishop Blair for extracting soundbite remarks from his address – essentially for their provocativeness – without attending to either the fuller context or those portions wherein he agreed with elements later noted in the CDF findings, such as a call for stronger attention to  issues of "life". (We, for our part, think this is an over-sold point and agree with the LCWR that they *are* 'pro-life' in the fullest sense, in that they exercise a ministry that is about the protection and dignity of all  life, especially the poor, disenfranchised, marginalised, and victims of war, poverty, disease, and an unjust penal system; this is a pro-life position that is not unduly focussed on the fetal dimension, which seems to be the sole focal point of that nomenclature for the hierarchy). At the same time, Crosby intensifies his call for a re-evaluation of the issue of the ordination of women within the church.

His arguments are significant and quite potent. We urge readers to examine the full article (as well as his website). Crosby aims at the heart of the matter, problematising the hierarchy's appeal to Scripture for the limitation of the ministry to men by Jesus, as well as relativising the firmness of tradition. (It is incontestable that Jesus surrounded himself with women, that women were part of his inner circle, and that women exercised ministerial function within the earliest era of the church. Appeal to tradition, as well, must respond to the fact that tradition has changed on many cultural points, slavery being a paramount example, such that exclusionary policies based on tradition rest on shaky ground.) We wish that Fr. Crosby had pointed out, as well, that the old defence of an exclusively male priesthood on the basis of the maleness of Jesus not only runs aground on the lack of a simultaneous requirement that the priesthood consist strictly of Jewish men (i.e., why limit the conditions based on the human constitution of Jesus to just one cultural particular?), but also fails to appreciate the substantive meaning of Jesus's humanity – it countermands the very substance of Nicene and Chalcedonian claim of Jesus's unqualified humanness.

We would remiss in failing to point out that this kerfuffle was preceded by a Vatican statement making the ordination of women a grave offence equal to sex abuse. Given the catastrophic failure of the Vatican to handle the latter issue – and the rather lack of seriousness with which it regarded such aberrant and criminal behaviour – the punitive attention now being paid to women is baffling. Why would the Vatican even want to mention these two things in the same breath? It strikes as a bungled ruse: trying to redirect public attention and opinion off of the sex abuse crisis by refocussing on the problem raised by the 'insubordinate' nuns; yet, it not only re-underlines the horrendous mismanagement of the sex abuse scandal (as well as the nefarious policies undergirding the hierarchy's actions) but also reifies the view of an authoritarian, outdated all-male religious oligarchy attempting to secure a grip on absolute and secretive power by asserting itself against women who won't mind their place.

Why We Stand with the Nuns

The Centre for American Progress has a great article on the recent 'Nuns on a Bus' tour, in which a group of women religious toured several states to bring attention to the cruelty of the cuts to programmes for the poor in the US House budget drafted by the Catholic Rep., Paul Ryan.

Ryan's budget, which enacts deep cuts to important social programmes to subsidise quite significant tax benefits to the wealthy, was supposedly based on his 'Catholic' principles, but owes near exclusive allegiance to Ayn Rand; very happily, the American Catholic bishops (USCCB) issued a strong rebuke to Ryan for his abandonment of Catholic social teaching.

American nuns, recently investigated and rebuked by the Vatican, in particular for 'spending too much time on issues of social justice and health care' and not enough on 'abortion and proper Catholic doctrine,' have taken up the issue with great verve. We applaud the sisters for their courage and prophetic witness for the least. Carry on, sisters!

The article can be found here.