Irish bishop: God chose men not women to be priests
RELIGIOUS NEWS AGENCY (REDNA) – Bishop Alphonsus Cullina, of Waterford and Lismore in Ireland, has said God chose men — not women — to be priests.
His comments follow the recent discussions in Ireland as part of the global “synod” process to discover the concerns of the whole church not just the hierarchy.
This comes as the Irish submission showed support for women to be admitted to the priesthood.
But the Bishop said allowing women to become priests would not be a “quick-fix solution” to the Church’s current recruitment crisis.
The bishop conceded that the numbers studying for the priesthood are ‘very much less’ than previously, with the number of new priests dwarfed by the number of retirees.
‘We are certainly faced with a problem,’ he told The Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk on Monday.
‘We all know that but vocations to marriages, vocations to any lifelong commitment in modern society is something which is decreasing – there’s no doubt about that. We all know the problems, what we are proposing is: let’s look at the solutions.’
Bishop Cullinan said women are ‘essential’ to the Church, but that the priesthood was something that should stay off limits to them. ‘In the Church of England, the ordination of women hasn’t been a quick-fix solution to the number of vocations,’ he said.