The Catholic Priesthood and Women: A Guide to the Teaching of the Church by Sara Butler, M.S.B.T. (review)

670 BOOK REVIEWS The Catholic Priesthood and Women: A Guide to the Teaching ofthe Church. By SARA BUTLER, M.S.B.T. Chicago and Mundelein, Ill.: Hillenbrand Books. 2007. Pp. 132. $23.00 (cloth). ISBN 978-1-59525-016-2. In this short book, Sr. Sara Butler manages to set forth clearly the teaching of the Church regarding the ordination of women to the priesthood, and to concentrate attention on one of the most profound issues facing the Catholic Church today, namely, the relation between historical analysis and the word of God. After pointing in the Introduction to "the failure to notice the difference between the fundamental reasons for the tradition and the theological arguments offered to elucidate it" (xi), the first chapter of her book sets forth the immediate historical and theological context for the statement in Pope John Paul H's apostolic letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis 4: 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. Chapter 2 considers the development of understanding in regard to the reality of woman that took place in the Church largely because of the ferment in society regarding "women's rights." In the Church, it was Pius XII who began to set forth personhood rather than motherhood as the foundation of these rights. After tracing the continued development from John XXIII through Paul VI, Vatican II, and John Paul II, Butler arrives at the revised Code of Canon Law of 1983 which most directly addressed the council's teaching on the natural and baptismal equality of all the faithful: "For the most part, the new roles open to women after the Council are identical with the new roles open to non-ordained men" (29) and this applies as well in marriage where "all reasons of the 'subjection' of woman to man in marriage must be understood in the sense of 'mutual subjection' of both 'out of reverence for Christ'" (Mulieris dignitatem 24). All of this can be understood as a development in understanding and in that sense a development of doctrine. Chapter 3 considers three objections made in light of the just-mentioned development in the Church and in society. The first, raised by liberal feminists, maintains that the Church is unjust in denying women access to positions of leadership; the second, held by Catholic feminists, is similar but it points to a faulty anthropology as the basis for the discrimination; and the third, raised by Protestant Christians, points to the radical equality given to all the baptized, and thus the injustice of preventing women from an office that is based on baptism. The answers to all three objections are courteous and complete. The principles involved are, briefly: (1) No one has a right to priestly ordination. (2) Women do have access to positions of leadership, as do nonordained men. (3) The BOOK REVIEWS 671 magisterium bases itself on the fact ofJesus' choice of men, a choice which as his counter-cultural way of relating to women manifests, is not culturally determined . (4) A solemn declaration of the magisterium regards only the object of the definition, not the theological process by which it is arrived at. (5) Baptism gives everyone equal dignity and equal access to salvation, while priestly ordination is another sacrament conferred on those who are called to a particular role in the Church. These principles appear throughout the work and are applied to various aspects of the question. Chapter 4 develops the Church's fundamental reasons for this decision. These are to be distinguished from the theological arguments in regard to the teaching which are discussed in the following chapter. Butler points out that the intraCatholic discussion prior to Inter insigniores was divided in regard to the foundational principles to be followed: is the teaching on ordination based on Jesus' choice recorded in the Scriptures and appealed to throughout the...