Church should not exclude women

The silencing of Father Tony Flannery highlights one of the central self-imposed difficulties in the Catholic Church today; I refer to the way it has become identified with the exclusion of women from other than trivial or subservient roles in its ministry.

One is given the distinct impression that this prohibition is on the same footing as some of the central Christian beliefs.

Pope Benedict has recently intensified the official opposition to the ordination of women. Any voice raised against this injustice is seen as heretical and duly silenced. The emphasis on blind obedience to every command that comes from Rome weakens the Church rather than strengthens it.

One expects our leaders to be in the world, not of the world but making an honest attempt to make sense to the world — to listen before they speak. I can never begin to understand what twisted logic can be invoked to sustain the Catholic Church’s attitude to women’s ministry. It seems to be backed by some gratuitous assertion about men as leaders by nature, or as more fitting representatives of the male figure of Christ, or that all the disciples were men.

Inequality in the treatment of women has characterised our society throughout the centuries. The fact that this has always been the case, however, can never function as a justification. From the way things are we cannot deduce that it is the way they ought to be.

The onus is on the Church to demonstrate that there are relevant reasons for discrimination against women when it comes to ordination. What tends to be offered is not a reason but an assertion of a presumed God-given authority to do so.

Jesus Christ was born into a culture where women were second class citizens. He did not preach against the culture in which he found himself but ignored it; his actions spoke louder than words. Some of Christ’s best friends were women; they followed him to the bitter end.

Would that the church would follow the example of Christ and restore to women the respect that is their due.

Philip O’Neill

Edith Road

Oxford