Reply to the ‘Dubium’ concerning the teaching contained in the Apostolic Letter ‘Ordinatio Sacerdotalis’
ARCIC-II 367

Author/editor(s): CDF
Creation: 1996 (The date of original creation or publication, if known)
Protocol: ARCIC-II 367

Persistent link: https://iarccum.org/doc/?d=1536 (Please use this permanent URL in your publications and bookmarks to link to this document. The files linked below may be modified, but this record will remain at this location.)

Citation:
Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. Reply to the ‘Dubium’ concerning the teaching contained in the Apostolic Letter ‘Ordinatio Sacerdotalis’, ARCIC-II 367 (1996). https://iarccum.org/doc/?d=1536.

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Responsum ad propositum dubium concerning the teaching contained in ‘Ordinatio Sacerdotalis’

Dubium: Whether the teaching that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women, which is presented in the Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis to be held definitively, is to be understood as belonging to the deposit of faith.

Responsum: Affirmative.

This teaching requires definitive assent, since, founded on the written Word of God, and from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium (cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium 25, 2). Thus, in the present circumstances, the Roman Pontiff, exercising his proper office of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32), has handed on this same teaching by a formal declaration, explicitly stating what is to be held always, everywhere, and by all, as belonging to the deposit of the faith.

The Sovereign Pontiff John Paul II, at the Audience granted to the undersigned Cardinal Prefect, approved this Reply, adopted in the Ordinary Session of this Congregation, and ordered it to be published.

Rome, from the offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on the Feast of the Apostles SS. Simon and Jude, October 28, 1995.

Joseph Card. Ratzinger
Prefect

Tarcisio Bertone, S.D.B.
Archbishop Emeritus of Vercelli
Secretary