If Vice-President Palin is fit to lead the nation, then why can’t she be a priest in my church?
When traditional Christians vote for Palin, as I will, they are not being inconsistent. They are, in fact, being true to the best part of their heritage. This heritage helped liberate women without denying distinctions between the sexes.
Christianity favors justice to all without denying proper roles for the masculine and the feminine.
Historically women have led armies in Christian nations. (Read about Saint Joan in Mark Twain’s luminous Joan of Arc!) They have led nations magnificently as did England’s Elizabeth. Christians who attended churches with male clergy understood the difference between particular roles long before the modern era. They sometimes missed the point, as the horrid John Knox demonstrates, but the mainstream of Christian development soon saw that the role of head of state and government was not the same as representing the God-Man, Jesus Christ, at the altar.
As a result, Christians have never had trouble praying, “God save the Queen,” in a church with priests because they understood the difference between the role of ruler and of priest. The ruler plays one kind of role and the priest another. The two should never be confused, especially in a republic. This is why most traditional churches frown on clergy running for public office while serving as clergy.
Obviously, women are perfectly capable of running a church. My current parish council president is forceful, competent, and female. Nobody questions her ability to make financial and management decisions for the church, and make them she does.
For the most part, roles are a matter of competence. In almost every case, the sex of the applicant is not relevant to their competence, which is certainly true of government.
But, for example, the role of mother is not one in which men are competent. They lack the necessary biological equipment. If we also assume, as research shows, that men and women are different psychologically, then men also cannot replace women because they simply are not women. Ideally, children would have both mother and father around.
Picking a person for a role is complicated—they must be “fit” for it. One job of my priest is to play a role in the liturgical drama. Our pastor acts as a Christ-figure in the weekly Eucharistic. That is a job best fulfilled by men. Appearance matters in a drama—whether we want to acknowledge it or not.
The person playing Maria Von Trapp in Sound of Music is almost always a woman. That makes sense since women are better at playing women than men are. Shakespeare’s era banned women from the theater, but once this stupid idea was dropped and women were allowed on stage, there was no turning back. In general, men are better at representing men and women play women better. In the liturgical role of the priest in a church, the same wisdom applies. If Christ had been Christa, then Christa’s part in the liturgy would not go to a manly Christ.
Over church history, women have preached great sermons, managed great religious communities, been reformers, and converted whole nations. Figures like Saint Catherine of Sienna exercised more power than many popes. Saint Nina is called “equal to the Apostles.” She was not an apostle, a role reserved for men, but she did many tasks they did and many they could not do. The mother superior of a monastery, a powerful figure in many different ways, is not a job that even the most competent man will ever hold.
Of course, competence is not the only quality we seek in our leaders. A person may be able to do the job, but be unappealing to us. Many people were competent to be Hope’s spouse, but by the mercy of God she married me.
Sometimes voters make similar decisions about leaders. We might have thought Michael Dukakis could do the job, but many Americans had no desire to watch him doing it. Leadership decisions include the personal as well as the resume. Since part of the role of president is “head of state” where he or she acts as a symbol for America, this is acceptable.
Senator Obama, for example, would certainly make an excellent head of state. When representing us to others abroad or speaking to the nation at times of joy or pain, there is no doubt that Senator Obama would be very good at the job. The questions about him are whether he will be a good head of government. Would he govern in ways most Americans would support? Governor Palin faces similar challenges.
Women can and have functioned as excellent heads of state and heads of government. To say this we do not have to argue that “womanhood” is irrelevant to all roles. It is relevant to the role of priest in a liturgical church.
As for family roles, somebody should raise the kids, if kids you have, but this need not always belong to the mother. The distribution of the labor of child rearing has traditionally fallen to the woman, but this does not have to be the case.
A mother is no less a mother if she is also Queen! A woman can play the role of wife and the role of business leader or president. People are marvelously multi-faceted that way! The film Victoria and Albert has a wonderful scene where Queen Victoria and Prince Albert are in an argument. Victoria is making a point, but Albert stops her to say that he is not talking to his Queen, but to his lady wife. As her subject he obeyed, but as the husband she acknowledged his role.
You might not like this distinction, but there is nothing new in it. Those who accuse traditionalists who vote for Palin of inconsistency are either ignorant of history or allowing the partisan fever of an election to swamp their judgment.
My English ancestors once went to war under the command of Good Queen Bess and their descendents may very well find themselves with a Commander in Chief Palin. Jesus Christ in His humanity will continue to be represented to them by a male priest with His divinity shrouded in the mystery of the bread and wine.
So it has been and so it always shall be. God bless America for it!
