Women and the Priesthood?
The Answer is: God said NO!

The Catholic Priesthood was not the first priesthood that God invented. He created two others before it-the Levitical priesthood, which was superseded and set aside by Christ, and the priesthood of Melchizedek. The later was fulfilled by Christ. Just as the Jews were not free to institute priestesses, neither are Catholics. None of these priesthoods can be chosen or demanded or changed by man (or woman). Christ said,”You have not chosen me, I have chosen You” (Jn 15:16)

The chosen people of the Old Covenant did not establish the Jewish priesthood. It was established by the Supreme Being who limited the priesthood to males of the tribe of Levi. Did God then unjustly discriminate against members of the other eleven tribes, both men and women? Shall we accuse God of sin? What an absurdity! God picks his priests, and they serve at his pleasure. When Korah and the other non-Levities tried to perform priestly rites. Moses warned them not to. When they continued in their obstinacy, God destroyed them. (Numbers 16)

Christ on earth established the Catholic priesthood, the priesthood of the new and everlasting Covenant. Man had no more say in this than in the Levitical priesthood. Christ purchased the right to set the laws and the limits for His Sacraments, including Holy Orders, with His Blood on the cross.

Advocates of priestesses say that Christ bowed to cultural limitations and to deep-seated ancient male chauvinism. I wonder how many understand the arrogance of this idea? Imagine the absurdity of accusing Jesus Christ of the sin of sexism! Or, if He was not a sexist Himself but tolerated sexism in deliberately choosing only male apostles. Then Christ compromised with and fostered this sin. To believe such arguments is to deny the Incarnation and the essence of the Christian faith.

The feminist view of Jesus does not fit the pattern we find throughout His life. He was never afraid to offend smaller and greater sensibilities than this one. Two examples are when the disciples ate with unwashed hands and when Christ told the Jews that they must drink His blood. So why would he succumb only to this prejudice?

In addition to the authority of God in the Old Testament and of Christ in the New, there are nearly two thousand years of uniform Church teaching and practice of a male only priesthood. Even on a purely human and secular level, that is an impressive vote by what Chesterton calls” the democracy of the dead.”

If we don’t understand the reason for some ancient tradition or institution. That is good reason for NOT abolishing it! If you were to come across a strange building in an unexpected place. It would be really foolish to knock it down because you didn’t understand it’s purpose. You may take it down only if you do understand its purpose and that it is no longer needed. Advocates of priestesses freely admit that they don’t understand why the “males only” rule applies to the priesthood. Well, we do. So using common sense, the only people who might have a right to change God’s rule are exactly the people who don’t want to change it, and the people who don’t have a right to change it, because they don’t understand it, are exactly the people who do want to change it. Many people believe that they know better than those who had gone before them.They assume that the advance of time confers a near-infallible superiority of intelligence. Nothing could be further from the truth.