Archbishop of Vienna: ‘I would certainly wish for the ordination of women’

Archbishop Josef Grünwidl of Vienna has said that he would like to see women ordained as priests, suggesting that a decision on the question would have to be taken by a council of the universal Church.

Speaking on Austrian public broadcaster ORF’s Ö1 radio programme Im Journal zu Gast on 31 October, the Archbishop made the remarks during an interview with presenter Tarek Leitner, who questioned whether greater involvement of women in Church life could help address the shortage of priests.

“I would certainly wish for the ordination of women, but I see that at present this would be a decision that has to be taken at the level of the universal Church by a council. At the moment I do not see any realistic prospect of that decision being reached in that sense,” the Archbishop said.

His Grace rejected the suggestion that women’s contribution to the Church was confined to minor activities, pointing instead to their involvement in pastoral work, education and diocesan administration.

“Women do not merely read texts,” the Archbishop said. “Women are employed as pastoral workers in many areas of pastoral care – in parishes, in education, in schools, in religious instruction or in hospital chaplaincy.”

He also pointed out the appointment of women to leadership positions within the Archdiocese of Vienna, including as office managers, and said that he had appointed women to the bishop’s council, which he identified as the bishop’s closest advisory body and one of the most important bodies in the archdiocese.

The exchange then moved to the possibility of women taking on the position of general secretary of the Austrian Bishops’ Conference. Leitner said that the existing statutes require the office-holder to be a priest or bishop, but noted that proposals to amend the provisions had already become public. He argued that changing the statutes would not require a council.

His Grace indicated that the statutes would indeed be amended, although the process would require approval from Rome. “I assume that we will amend the statutes,” the Archbishop said, explaining that the current provisions stipulate that the general secretary must be a priest or bishop. He cautioned, however, that the change would not happen quickly because the amendment would also have to receive approval from the Holy See.

The possibility would extend to all baptised people, “whether men or women”, the Archbishop said, adding that other countries already permitted lay people to undertake the responsibility.

His Grace’s suggestion that a future council could decide the question of women’s ordination stands in tension with the definitive teaching of the Catholic Church, which holds that the reservation of priestly ordination to men is not a matter of ecclesiastical discipline that can be altered by a subsequent council.

In his apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, published on 22 May 1994, Pope St John Paul II addressed precisely the argument that the Church’s exclusion of women from priestly ordination remained open to discussion or could be changed through a future decision.

Pope John Paul II then made the definitive declaration: “I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”

The status of that teaching was subsequently clarified by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (now the DDF) in its Responsum ad Dubium of 28 October 1995, approved and ordered to be published by John Paul II, with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger serving as prefect.

The Congregation was asked whether the teaching that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women, as presented in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, was to be understood as belonging to the deposit of faith. Its answer was unequivocal: “In the affirmative.”

The response explained that the teaching “requires definitive assent” because it is founded on the written Word of God and has been constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church. It further stated that the doctrine had been “set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium”, citing the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, paragraph 25.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church reiterates the same position in paragraph 1577: “Only a baptized man (vir) validly receives sacred ordination.” It explains that Christ chose men to form the college of the Twelve Apostles and that the Church recognises herself as bound by that choice. It concludes: “For this reason the ordination of women is not possible.” The provision is also reflected in Canon 1024 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, which states: “A baptised male alone receives sacred ordination validly.”

The Archbishop’s remarks were subsequently covered by Vatican News in a German-language article published on its website following the broadcast.

However, the report focused on His Grace’s comments concerning death, dying, faith and the observance of All Saints’ Day, omitting his statements in favour of women’s ordination and his discussion of changing the Austrian Bishops’ Conference’s statutes to permit women to become general secretary.

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