Questions and answers
Doctrinal Commission – International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services
Year 2016
Many non-Catholics today comment on how wonderful the pope is and then ask a question like, “Will Pope Francis overturn the ban on ordaining female priests?” The perception is often “new pope – new rules.” Is it true?
Pope Francis has appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone and the Evangelical magazine Christianity Today. Cartoonists have depicted him as a caped superhero. He has a global appeal, and with that is carried people’s hopes that his papacy may usher in change of some kind. But what exactly can the pope change? This question touches upon the teaching authority of the papal office and is often widely confused by Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
When Christ said, “You are Peter and upon this rock I build my Church,” he committed the office of governing the Church to Peter, and this authority is continued in Peter’s successor, the bishop of the Church of Rome, who is the vicar of Christ and pastor of the universal Church on earth. By virtue of his office, the pope has supreme, full, immediate and universal ordinary power in the Church. His authority is supreme because nobody on earth can overrule it; it is full because he shares it with no one, and it is immediate because he requires nobody to speak for him. It is universal, because unlike a diocesan bishop, there are no territorial boundaries to limit his authority, nor are there any constraints of it being applicable to only certain categories of individuals. It is ordinary because it has not been delegated to the pope by anyone else.
So in effect, the pope has at his disposal the supreme executive, legislative and judicial authority of the Church. Does this mean that he can do anything he wants? No. He serves a higher authority: Christ himself. The pope is not the head of the Church, Christ is.
This theological point therefore requires a distinction to be made between two different types of laws: ecclesiastical laws, which are established on human authority, and doctrine or divine law which is laid down by God himself. Ecclesiastical laws and rules can be changed, divine law cannot.
The laws based on human authority can be changed as often as the Church sees the need to do so. Still, it is important to remember that the authority to make these changes is not granted by any human person; it is God-given. Jesus said to Peter and the apostles, “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt 18:18; 16:19).
Doctrine, or divine law, on the other hand, is the teaching of the Church on matters of faith and morals. All of this teaching was handed to the Church by Jesus and the apostles before the death of the last apostle. This doctrine can develop over time as the Church comes to understand it better, but it cannot be changed in the sense of reversal. No one, not even the pope, has the authority to change doctrine.
Papal teaching cannot contradict Scripture, Tradition or previous binding papal teaching. Popes have authority only to preserve and interpret what they have received. They can draw out the implications of previous teaching or clarify it where it is ambiguous. They can make formally binding what was already informally taught, but they cannot reverse past teaching and they cannot make up new doctrines out of thin air.
An example of these two types of laws relates to the doctrine of the priesthood. Pope Francis has been asked several times if the Church would consider ordaining women to the priesthood, and his response was “the Church has spoken and says no…. That door is closed.” While noting the important role of women in the Church, Francis was referring to the 1994 document Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, in which Pope John Paul II said the Church has no authority to ordain women, and this view must be held by all as a definitive belief. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith then issued a clarification, stating that while Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was not itself an infallible statement, it expresses the constant and clear tradition of the Church which makes the ban on women priests infallible. One should also point out that non-admission of women to priestly ordination does not mean that women are of lesser dignity than men; it highlights diversity in mission which in no way compromises equality of personal dignity.
In contrast to the doctrine of male ordination is the practice of celibacy in the priesthood. At present, in the Roman Rite, only men committed to lifelong celibacy are normally selected for ordination. By contrast, the Eastern rites in communion with the bishop of Rome do not require the celibacy of all men seeking ordination. If priestly celibacy belonged to the deposit of faith, then all rites would need to conform to it. Celibacy however, is not a doctrine of the Church but a discipline of the Church. It pertains to the ecclesiastical type of laws, and so theoretically could change.
