The Roman Catholic Church maintains that women cannot be ordained to the ministerialudpriesthood because of its unbroken tradition that only men can be priests, based on theudexample of Jesus, who chose only men to be ‘Apostles’. Vatican documents publishedudduring the late twentieth century use the writings of several mediaeval theologians andudcanonists to support this ruling. The topic is of present-day importance for understandingudthe origins of the exclusion of women from the priesthood given the current shortage ofudpriests in the Catholic Church.udThis thesis looks first at the present ruling in the Vatican documents, and then considersudthe mediaeval writings, canon law and theology, from scholars such as Gratian, ThomasudAquinas, Bonaventure and Duns Scotus, looking especially at their Commentaries on theudSentences of Peter Lombard. Subsequent chapters analyse in more detail the argumentsudfrom scripture and biology, drawing together strands of thought in the Middle Ages onudthese subjects, including judgements about women’s intellectual and emotional capacity,udand the contemporary anthropological and Christological understanding of the Incarnation.udLanguage and translation are also significant but often neglected factors in the discussion,udwhich the thesis studies by highlighting the recovery of Greek writings in medicine andudphilosophy, along with choice of terminology and use of metaphor, in the mediaeval periodudand in modern Church documents. By this approach, a critical survey is made of the mostudsalient aspects of the debate.udThis thesis seeks to dissect systematically the origins of the prohibition, based on attitudesudtowards women which, while not always intentionally misogynistic, were nonethelessudrooted in a world view that, the thesis argues, is no longer relevant today.
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