Ordination

"The Catholic Church and the other ancient Christian Churches see priestly ordination as a sacrament effecting an ontological change, not as the deputizing of someone to perform a function or as the admission of someone to a profession such as that of medicine or law. They also consider that priestly ordination can be conferred only on males. In the face of continued questioning, Pope John Paul II felt obliged to confirm the existing teaching that the Church is not empowered to change this practice: "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. Luke 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." (John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis [24]) The Catholic Church thus holds this teaching as irrevocable and as having the character of infallibility, not in virtue of the apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis itself, from which this quotation is taken and which states this only implicitly, but because the teaching "has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium." Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (Latin for "On Ordination to the Priesthood") is a Roman Catholic papal encyclical or apostolic letter discussing the Roman Catholic Church's position on "the reservation of priestly ordination to men alone." The encyclical was issued from the Vatican by Pope John Paul II on 22 May 1994 and makes proclamation that "the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women."