“Sacred Tradition and the Ordinary Magisterium of the Church have affirmed throughout the ages that the Church has no authority whatsoever to ordain women to the priesthood,” the bishop said.
“This cannot be changed because Christ instituted a male priesthood in order to image himself as the bridegroom with the Church as his bride,” he said.
Strickland further cited St. John Paul II, who wrote in his 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis that the Church cannot “confer priestly ordination on women,” with the pope directing that this conclusion “be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”
Addressing the possibility of female deacons in the Church, Strickland further highlighted what he said was the historical difference between the “important roles of service” many women filled in the early Church and the specific office of the ordained diaconate noted in the Acts of the Apostles.
“Because sacramentally ordained deacons share in the apostolic ministry with priests and bishops, the Church has decreed that they must also be men, as were the apostles Jesus chose,” Strickland wrote.
The bishop noted near the end of his letter that though the Church itself is holy, it “is also made up of sinful members who are called constantly to repentance and conversion.”
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