30. C. S. Lewis: A Modern Apologist Rejects Priesthood for Women as Impossible

An Argument Against Priestesses

Did you know that Walter Hooper, the last personal secretary to C.S. Lewis, not only converted to Catholicism but became a priest. He claimed that if Lewis had lived slightly longer, he would have followed his old friend Tolken's advice, and have made the further step in his recovery of Christianity to be received into the Catholic Church. Collected in a book entitled, God in the Dock, are a series of Lewis' essays. Among these is one pertinent to our discussion: "Priestesses in the Church?" His initial concern shows that his foresight about the Anglican communion was not infallible: ". . . I heard that the Church of England was being advised to declare women capable of Priests' Orders. I am, indeed, informed that such a proposal is very unlikely to be seriously considered by the authorities," (p. 235). However, he does astutely observe, and remember he died back in 1963, the same day that President Kennedy was shot: "To take such a revolutionary step at the present moment, to cut ourselves off from the Christian past and to widen the divisions between ourselves and other Churches by establishing an order of priestesses in our midst, would be an almost wanton degree of imprudence" (p. 235).

He contends that those who want the change are too sensible. They see the priest shortage and are impressed with the abilities of women. He asks, rhetorically, "What then, except prejudice begotten of tradition, forbids us to draw on the huge reserves which could pour into the priesthood if women were here, as in so many other professions, put on the same footing as men?" (p. 235). Hum, perhaps Lewis did have some foresight, for why else would he have written this article? Maybe he wrote it for you and those like you? He notes that the reverence for the Virgin Mary in the Middle Ages might have been exaggerated, and yet nothing "remotely resembling a sacerdotal office" was ever attributed to her. She is the Woman of Faith who is united with the Word in her womb. She stands at the foot of the cross. But she is missing from the picture at the Last Supper and on Pentecost. Remarking about the question of cultural prejudice, he states: "Nor can you daff it aside by saying that local and temporary conditions condemned women to silence and private life. There were female preachers. One man had four daughters who all 'prophesied', i.e. preached. There were prophetesses even in Old Testament times. Prophetesses, not priestesses" (p. 236). He observes that part of the discomfort that comes from his side of the issue is that the traditionalists and the "sensible" reformers do not share a common definition of the priesthood. Lewis writes: "To us a priest is primarily a representative, a double representative, who represents us to God and God to us" (p. 236).

Returning to the subject at hand, and notice his inclusion of the marriage analogy which you detest, he speculates: "Suppose the reformer stops saying that a good woman may be like God and begins saying that God is like a good woman. Suppose he says that we might just as well pray to 'Our Mother which art in heaven' as to 'Our Father.' [Which your fellow separatist, albeit in morals and not Christology, Fr. Charles Curran does regularly at Mass.] Suppose he suggests that the Incarnation might just as well have taken a female as a male form, and the Second Person of the Trinity be as well called the Daughter as the Son. Suppose, finally, that the mystical marriage were reversed, that the Church were the Bridegroom and Christ the Bride. All this, as it seems to me, is involved in the claim that a woman can represent God as a priest does" (pp. 236-7). Here comes the punch: "Now it is surely the case that if all these supposals were ever carried into effect we should be embarked on a different religion. Goddesses have, of course, been worshiped: many religions have had priestesses. But they are religions quite different in character from Christianity" (p. 237). He contends that God himself has taught us how to speak of him. Those who would contend that both males and females are the same types of icons for Christ would be mistaken. "To say that it does not matter
is to say that all the masculine imagery is not inspired, is merely human in origin, or else that, though inspired, it is quite arbitrary and unessential. And this is surely intolerable: or, if tolerable, it is an argument not in favour of Christian priestesses but against Christianity. It is also surely based on a shallow view of imagery" (p. 237). Thus, "image and apprehension cleave closer together than common sense is here prepared to admit" (p. 237). Now, I want you to read these words as if he has written them specifically for you: "The innovators are really implying that sex is something superficial, irrelevant to the spiritual life. To say that men and women are equally eligible for a certain profession is to say that for the purposes of that profession their sex is irrelevant. We are, within that context, treating both as neuters" (p. 237). Like bees in a hive, this might be the model for workers in the modern State, but the Church must restore us to "reality". "There we are not homogeneous units, but different and complementary organs of a mystical body" (p. 238). Against the equality for which you contend, C. S. Lewis states, and his words are far better than mine: "The point is that unless 'equal' means 'interchangeable', equality makes nothing for the priesthood of women. And the kind of equality which implies that the equals are interchangeable (like counters or identical machines) is, among humans, a legal fiction. It may be a useful legal fiction. But in church we turn our back on fictions. One of the ends for which sex was created was to symbolize to us the hidden things of God. One of the functions of human marriage is to express the nature of the union between Christ and the Church. We have no authority to take the living and semitive figures which God has painted on the canvas of our nature and shift them about as if they were mere geometrical figures" (p. 238).

Being a great fan of C. S. Lewis' works, I love to quote his insightful wisdom. Paraphrasing the man who became famous for cutting to the quick seems redundant. It does occur to me though, why should you listen to a school master if you will not even accept the teaching of the Pope? But, I feel compelled to try. As much as thirty years ago, Lewis was having to contend with religious people who for all intensive purposes, had displaced mystery with what he calls "common sense". This worldly wisdom would find a home with Scripture scholars and philosophers as methodical doubt and among the throng of weekend Christians as a kind of atheism. They would hold that those things which are unreasonable cannot be true. If man can re-think and change the priorities of God, then man is God. The pinnacle of this process was reached not when the Anglicans approved the ordination of women, but when one of their bishops preached in his cathedral that Jesus did not literally rise from the dead. He caused some controversy, but remained a bishop in good stead in the Church of England. Obviously what he said was no longer all that shocking. If Lewis had lived into his nineties, I am sure that he would have seen a connection between these two events. Thinking upon the nature of what the true Church must be, he writes: "The Church claims to be the bearer of a revelation. If that claim is false then we want not to make priestesses but to abolish priests. [Is this not what the Anglican diocese of Sydney is doing by allowing the laity to officiate at holy communion?] If it is true, then we should expect to find in the Church an element which unbelievers will call irrational and which believers will call supra-rational. There ought to be something in it opaque to our reason though not contrary to it -- as the facts of sex and sense on the natural level are opaque. And that is the real issue. . . . If we abandon that, if we retain only what can be justified by standards of prudence and convenience at the bar of enlightened common sense, then we exchange revelation for that old wraith Natural Religion" (p. 238). In other words, we go backwards.

Towards the end of the essay, he concludes: "Only the one wearing the masculine uniform [military analogy] can [until the Parousia] represent the Lord to the Church: for we are all, corporately and individually, feminine to Him. We men may often make very bad priests. That is because we are insufficiently masculine. It is no cure to call in those who are not masculine at all. A given man may make a very bad husband; you cannot mend matters by trying to reverse the roles" (p. 239).