Dr. John Wijngaards, a renowned theologian is one of the leading voices in the movement to include women in the priesthood. He is a former vicar general of the Mill Hill Missionaries, who resigned from priestly ministry in 1998 because of the Church's refusal to ordain women. His Institute's website is one of the most comprehensive featuring the history of women's ordination. https://www.womenpriests.org
This book makes the case for women priests by dismantling Roman Catholic Church teaching as rooted in cultural prejudice and social myth that does not reflect the mind of Christ. Wijngaards argues: "For nearly 20 centuries, Christianity has been in the grip of the ancient social myth of women's inferiority. To put it bluntly women were discarded as second-rate, inadequate, inferior."
Catholic Church teaching does not reflect the mind of Christ: "The claim that Christ is represented better by a man because Christ too was a man, cannot be substantiated from any Scriptural text. By choosing men to form the Twelve, Jesus did not lay down a permanent room, He never intended to exclude women from the priesthood...Christ instituted a new priesthood open to women through baptism and love. At the Last Supper, Jesus was speaking not only to the male apostles but to all his disciples, including women, in the room when he instituted the Eucharist."
Dr. Wijngaards presents a comprehensive argument for women in the priesthood as ministers of Christ's caring and transforming presence to others. This book is a must-read for Catholics who believe in the full equality of women and who are interested in promoting a more inclusive Church that reflects the feminine face of God in our world today.
Bridget Mary Meehan
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