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Good evening, my name is Luca, I’m 34-year old and I live in M.

My mother gave me your address to get clarification on religious questions and I would like to take advantage of it to ask you a question that my girlfriend often asks me and which I find difficult to answer; I would like to know why the priesthood is only open to males and why, for example, a nun cannot say Mass or impart the sacraments.

Thanks for your attention and happy new year!

Priest’s answer

Dear Luca,

only today did I reach your email dated January 1, 2022. I’m sorry and I apologize for this.

The question you asked me has already found many answers on our site.

1. The underlying reason is that Jesus did this.

Therefore, before giving this or that answer, we must stick to the behavior of the Lord.

Nor can it be said that the Lord remained bound by the social and cultural conditions of his time because in his time there were priestesses outside of Israel but also and above all because Jesus, God made flesh, is the Lord of the time and cannot be in no way to have fallen victim to the culture of his time.

2. This first motivation is the one reported by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which asks the question: Who can receive the sacrament of Orders? Thus it responds: “Exclusively the baptized male [“vir”] validly receives sacred ordination” (Code of Canon Law, 1024).

The Lord Jesus chose men (“viri”) to form the college of the twelve Apostles, and the Apostles did the same when they chose the collaborators who would succeed them in the ministry.

The college of bishops, with whom the presbyters are united in the priesthood, makes the college of the Twelve an ever-present and ever-active reality until Christ’s return.

The Church recognizes herself to be bound by this choice made by the Lord himself.

For this reason the ordination of women is not possible” (CCC 1577).

3.Furthermore, the same Catechism recalls that “no one has a right to receive the sacrament of Holy Orders. Indeed no one claims this office for himself. Heis called to it by God (see Heb 5:4).

Anyone who thinks he recognizes the signs of God’s call to the ordained ministry must humbly submit his desire to the authority of the Church, who has the responsibility and right to call someone to receive Orders.

Like every grace, this sacrament can only be received as an unmerited gift” (CCC 1578).

4. After Jesus arranged this way, we can ask ourselves why he wanted to do this.

Without claiming to give an exhaustive answer, we can start from the fact that Holy Orders are a sacrament.

Sacrament means sacred sign.

At this point it is necessary to ask ourselves another question: why did Jesus Christ, in becoming incarnate, want to take on a male body and not a neutral body?

Sexuality has meaning.

As such it is ordered to be a spouse. 

Then we can understand to what height of communion the Lord calls us: not just any communion, not a communion like that of wedding guests. But to the proper communion of the groom with the bride, that communion by which the two are one and all the treasures of the groom become the property of the bride.

5. The priest, insofar as he is a living image of Jesus, is at the same time a living image of the Groom, a living image of that true Groom of whom the human groom or bride is only a sign and a reminder.

The priest is a living and visible sign of Jesus Christ, the Spouse of each of us.

6. This motivation can be found in the Declaration Inter insigniores of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding the question of the admission of women to the ministerial priesthood (15 October 1976).

We read there: “Christ is the Bridegroom; the Church is his wife, which he loves because he purchased her with his blood and made her glorious, holy and immaculate, and from which she is now inseparable”.

“the priest is a sign, (…), a sign that must be perceptible and that the faithful must be able to easily recognize”.

7. Coming to your last question: the nun cannot say Mass or celebrate the other sacraments because the Lord has called her to be a sign of the bride and not of the groom.

Whoever is in marriage, seeing the priest, is reminded to understand that only Christ is the groom who satisfies and that one cannot seek from the groom or bride made of flesh what only the divine Bridegroom can give.

Similarly, those in marriage, seeing the bride totally consecrated to Jesus, like the nun, must be encouraged to love the Lord with all their heart.

Only Jesus is the ultimate goal and meaning of our existence.

I bless you, I thank you for the question and I remember you in prayer.

Father Angelo