The Vatican came briefly into public view recently when a document seemed to make the ordination of women equivalent to paedophilia among priests. A Vatican spokesman later said that no equivalence was intended. Paedophilia was a crime against morality. To participate in the ordination of women was a crime against faith.
The view that the ordination of women in the Catholic Church is a crime against faith bears some reflection.
The logic of churches naming 'crimes' is clear enough. Any organisation will have its expectations of its members, and breaches of those rules can be sanctioned.
A football club will demand that players attend training and arrive sober. To arrive late and drunk will be seen as an offence against what is expected of the player as a footballer. But players will also be expected to respect the symbols of the club. If he publicly burns the club flag and jumper, he will offend against what is expected of him as a clubman. It is an offence against what the club stands for. An offence, we might say, against its faith.
Church law works on the same principle. The language reflects a time when the Church was the lawgiver for Christendom. Although clerical paedophilia and participation in the ordination of woman are totally different, both have been declared to be incompatible with life in the Catholic Church. So they can be sanctioned.
But I found the naming of participating in women's ordination as a crime against faith disconcerting. I had recently attended the ordination of a woman friend in another church. The ordination service was much the same as the Catholic service, expressing the responsibility of the church for ordaining the candidates and their accountability to God and the Church in their ministry. The celebration was prayerful and joyful, and promised to be the prelude to a fruitful ministry by faithful and committed candidates. It was thoroughly faithful.
It seemed impossible to say that the ordination of this woman in that church was a crime against faith. Nor indeed was it conceivable that the ordination of women in that church was against the faith of that church. To describe as against faith an action that was based in faith in Christ, that served the faith of the church, and came out of the proper order of a believing community, seems quixotic.
It would seem more accurate to describe the ordaining of women in