Don't even think of it.

Ordinatio sacerdotalis, Pope John Paul II's apostolic letter (pp. 4-5) reaffirming in no uncertain terms the exclusion of women from the priesthood, poses two principal dangers. For those who long for a pope on a white horse to knock the church into shape by routing those ever mischievous "progressives" and "feminists," the blunt language of the letter may appear to be the answer to their prayers. Indeed, for them it is bracing - although for many others chilling - to learn that the tradition of ordaining men "alone" "is to be definitively held by all the church's faithful," and that, according to L'Osservatore Romano, "it does not belong to matters freely open to dispute...and to teach the contrary is equivalent to leading consciences into error."

But you know what they say about answered prayers.

John Paul is quite certain, although not infallibly certain, of the inherently masculine nature of the Catholic priesthood. However, it is equally certain that whatever the virtue of the pope's clarity on this divisive issue, the larger question of gender equality within the church will not be resolved by such adamantine declarations. Catholicism may not be of this world, but it remains in this world, and just as the church acceded to democracy and religious liberty, it will have to come to terms with the full social and legal enfranchisement of women. The Vatican can offer no refuge from this brave new world - nor should it. Women, after all, are "absolutely necessary and irreplaceable" to the church, writes the pope. But need women be necessary and irreplaceable in exactly the same way forever and ever? Do virgin, martyr, and mother exhaust the Catholic vocabulary describing a woman's spiritual calling?

An equal danger is posed, however, by those who practice an infallibilism of their own in proclaiming that notions of equality and inclusiveness must trump tradition and the teaching of the magisterium. The pope's decision "will not stand," they announce; it is "just a matter of time" before reason prevails over superstition. Yet, in all honesty, the pope's letter makes this a great deal less certain. Moreover, fairminded people recognize that the ordination of women presents theological as well as anthropological and psychological hurdles to the church. In cleaving closely to the binding authority of tradition on the question of ordination, the pope is obviously hoping to resist what he sees as the desacralizing tendencies that pervade much of modern society. Ordinatio sacerdotalis asserts nothing less than that the nature of the priesthood in its historically masculine identity "pertains to the church's divine constitution itself...[and] is to be seen as the faithful observance of a plan to be ascribed to the wisdom of the Lord of the universe." In other words, the symbolic role of the male priest is considered a revealed truth, one constitutive of the mystery of Christ made manifest in the church.

That is a bold claim, and one that many faithful Catholics find theologically suspect. But it is not an implausible stance for an institution whose leaders are duty-bound to preserve and pass on as well as interpret a historical revelation.

What unnecessarily adds to the difficulty of this teaching is O.S.B., forthrightly states in a response written to the people of his archdiocese (pp. 5-6), Catholics are not helped toward acceptance of the pope's teaching by the letter's seeming indifference to their concerns about equality and justice. Nor is the pope's authority enhanced when he teaches without seeking the views and support of his fellow bishops. Whatever is meant by the relatively novel term "definitively held," the authority the pope is rightly concerned to protect and preserve is best exercised in union with the bishops, not without them or above them. Just as troubling is the pope's apparent desire to end all debate on the question. That seems an impetuous and Draconian response to a complex and still relatively unexplored development. How can the Vatican be so absolutely sure that the Holy Spirit cannot call women to the priesthood? Has an honest and faithful theological discussion of the ordination of women even begun? Is it really to be censored and even punished so preemptively? What are the likely ecumenical implications?

It is impossible not to lean on Cardinal John Henry Newman at times such as these. Newman testified eloquently in his life and his writings both to the necessity of episcopal authority and to the dangers of an injudicious application of that authority. Newman was cautious about ecclesiastical and theological change, but he was equally committex to full theological discussion. He wrote: "So difficult is it to assent inwardly to propositions, verified to us neither by reason nor experience, but depending for their reception on the word of the church as God's oracle, that she has ever shown the utmost care to contract, as far as possible, the range of truths and the sense of propositions, of which she demands this absolute reception."

We pray the church will remain definitively faithful to this tradition.