It has been published, with great media echo, that the lecture of religious women in the USA has been
investigated by the Holy See. The Vatican reproaches this lecture that, with its proposals, it goes further than the Church and, even, than Jesus himself, pretending that priestly ordination be conferred to women.

The issue goes back a long way. Already in the sixties, Pope Paul VI warned, in an epistolary exchange with the Anglican Primate, that the gap between Roman Catholics and Anglicans would widen even more if the Anglican Communion admitted women to the priesthood. Following this letter, the pressure on Rome to force the ordination of women has intensified, with the argument that the Catholic veto is only a by-product of a dying patriarchal culture, and that it is only a matter of time before women are accepted into the priesthood.

However, the problem is not so simple. It is not a question of claiming rights, supposedly not recognized, but rather of discussing more basic and essential things.

The discussion leads us to far-reaching theological issues, which point to the very divine constitution of the Church. In such a context one must read the "definitive and irrevocable" pronouncement of John Paul II in his apostolic letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis of 1994. In it he affirms that "the Church has in no way the School to confer priestly ordination on women".

Now, therefore, it is necessary to look for theological arguments of convenience, and not only sociological or cultural ones. And we should also take more seriously the difference between being a man or a woman.

In fact, there has never been an ordained woman.

Why? First of all, because Jesus did not do it. And, secondly, because Jesus, spouse of the Church, makes her fruitful with his blood on the cross, just as every husband makes his wife fruitful in marriage. If, therefore, the priest and the bishop are sacramentally other Christs, they are also spouses of the Church. It is obvious, therefore, that the priest, as the spouse of the Church, must be male, since the Church is like his spouse.