Cardinal Jose Policarpo of Lisbon has issued a statement clarifying remarks he made on women’s ordination during an interview with the Portuguese Order of Lawyers.
The cardinal wants to clearly explain his position “as bishop and pastor of the People of God.”
Cardinal Policarpo, who was elected president of the Bishops’ Conference of Portugal in 2011, and he tried to explain Catholic teaching on the priesthood to a secular media outlet unfamiliar with Catholicism.
In his recent statement of clarification, the Portuguese cardinal quoted Blessed John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, in which the pontiff stated: “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.”
“Not conferring the apostolic priesthood on women through priestly ordination is a tradition that is rooted in the New Testament, in Jesus Christ himself and in the way in which he laid the foundations of his Church,” the cardinal continued.
“The issue of the ordination of women to the apostolic priesthood has emerged recently, especially in Western countries, because of various factors,” such as “movements promoting women” or “an understanding of the ministerial priesthood as a right and a power.
“The difference in ministries does not diminish the dignity of the mission” women have, and the impossibility of being ordained “does not mean a minimizing of women, but rather it is intended to complement the differences between males and females, which is fully realized in the relationship between Christ and Mary.”
Cardinal Policarpo concluded, “we are invited to adhere to the Magisterium of the Holy Father, in the humility of our faith, and we will continue to study in depth the relationship of the ministerial priesthood to the priestly nature of the entire People of God and to discover the feminine way of building the Church, in the decisive role of the mission of women.”
“I believe I have clearly shown you that communion with the Holy Father is an absolute part of the exercise of my ministry,” he said.
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