Svensk Teologisk Kvartal skrift. Årg. 82 (2006) «In Persona Christi»: Gender, Priesthood and the Nuptial Metaphor
SARAH COAKLEY
Sarah Coakley is presently Mallinckrodt Professor of Divinity at the Divinity School, Harvard University. From October 2007 she will take up the Norris-Hulse chair in Philosophical Theology at Cambridge University, UK. Before moving to Harvard in 1993 she had previously taught at Lancaster University and at Oriel College, Oxford. Her books include Christ Without Absolutes: A Study of the Christology of Ernst Troeltsch(Oxford, OUP, 1988), (ed.) Religion and the Body (Cambridge, CUP, 1997), Powers and Submissions: Philosophy, Spirituality and Gender (Oxford, Blackwell, 2002), and (ed.) Re-Thinking Gregory of Nyssa (Oxford, Black- well, 2003). She is at work on a 4-vol. systematic theology, the first volume of which is forth coming as God, Sexuality and the Self: An Essay «On the Trinity»(Cambridge, CUP). The following lecture was given in Lund on the occasion o f her receiving a Dr. theol. degree, honoris causa, in June 2006.
Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, to attempt I: Introduction and statement of thesis a re-minting of the notion of «desire» as both The great honour of this invitation to Lund, and divine gift and implied ascetical demand. And as especially of your granting to me a doctorate in such, I regret to tell you, it flies right in the face Theology, honoris causa, is something for of the disjoined reading of agape («love») and which I must first, and most heartily, thank the eros («desire») enunciated in the work of per whole Faculty of Theology, and indeed all of haps your most famous bishop of Lund, Anders you gathered here today. My deep surprise at Nygren (Nygren 1953), for whom eros could this honour can only be matched by my equally only represent a distorted and grasping tendency, deep gratitude; I am both touched and humbled incompatible with the purity of divineagapeistic by your faith in me and your interest in my on love. My own larger systematic treatment, and going work. defence, of the category of «desire» laps at the What I offer you today in this short lecture, edges of what I am presenting today and is pre then, takes a certain risk, because I have to serve supposed in this lecture. Indeed, the lecture is you a mere slice of a much larger project. The founded on the presumption (which I cannot slice, to be sure, has contemporary import both fully argue here, but have discussed elsewhere: for ecumenical relations and for gender theory: Coakley 2004, 2005a) that the eucharist, espe it concerns the gendered body of the priest at the cially, as the most concentrated form of Chris altar, the «performative» movements of the eu tian prayer, presents us with the task, and means, charistie rite, and the relation of these issues to of an ascetical training of desire. The result of questions of erotic meaning and of divine pres this presumption is that certain features of my ence. The larger project, as some of you already argument may perhaps surprise you, or cut know, is a systematic theology in progress, one across what you normally take to be disjunctive in which the category of «desire» is given sus theoretical alternatives (see Coakley 2005b). Let tained analysis both anthropologically and theo me name these surprising features at the outset, logically (see Coakley 2002, 2003; and Shortt in order to clear the path for a bold and specific 2005). It thus reaches back to classical resources thesis. such as Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, the pseudo- You will doubtless be accustomed to the Dionysius, and the 16th-century Carmelites, strategies of earlier forms of «feminist theo- 146 Sarah Coakley logy» in which gender theory of one sort or given secular discussion of gender theory. another (and there have been notable swings of Rather, it inverts the usual procedure and asks fashion in this area, of course, since the 1970s) instead: what view of desire and gender might is boiTOwed from secular discussion and then emerge from the enacted practices of prayer and used as a critical tool in relation to the Christian liturgy and their theological undergirdings in tradition, its language and thought forms. Fem incarnational and trinitarian thought? What if, inist theologies of this sort (and they are various, that is, instead of starting with secular categories depending on what theoretical base they choose and using them to judge the theological, we start from a range of philosophical, political or psy with the theological and liturgical categories and choanalytic approaches to gender) have tended use them to judge the secular? It is normally pre to be extremely suspicious of the very enterprise sumed that such an inversion could result only in of «systematic theology». They see it as «totalthe return to a rigid or authoritarian biblicism on izing», «hegemonic» and (if they are influenced matters of gendered subordination; but it is pre by French psychoanalytic theory) «phallocent- cisely that presumption that I set out to contest. ric» — that is, repressive of the so-called «fem The third and last surprising feature of my inine», or «semiotic», realm of the unconscious. argument is also correlated. Standard defences Male systematic theologians of stature, in con of the ordination of women prefer to de-emphas- trast — with one or two noble exceptions — ize the significance of gender for the priesthood, have tended to distance themselves from «fem and to concentrate on the functional dimension inist theology» in general, and discussion of the of the minister as «presider» at the common category of «gender» in particular (except insotable. Clearly such a move has important roots in far as they may wish to reassert a traditional sub- Reformation thought; but it also has a modem, ordinationism that they find in certain selected «liberal» manifestation, focusing on the «equal biblical texts). The first «surprise» feature of my ity» of men and women before God. Such a approach, then, is that I refuse this disjunction repression of the categories of gender and desire between a commitment to the task of «system would emphatically not be the view of the atic theology», on the one hand, and the task of a Roman magisterium, of course, whose insist critical probing of the matter of gender, on the ence on a nuptial vision of the eucharist other. That is, I wish to argue that systematic (founded in Ephesians 5.25ff. and in the tradi theology, when properly understood as sus tion of the Song of Songs, and perceiving the rite tained in a matrix of contemplation , can evade as one of Christ loving the church) forms now the common charges of being a «hegemonic» or the crucial fulcrum of the Romanrejection of «phallocentric» discourse. It can — by virtue of the ordination of women. For Rome, therefore, sustained, bodily practices of dispossession, of late, questions of eroticism and gender have both private and liturgical — undercut false pre ironically become the more central — not the tensions to «mastery» even as it welcomes the more peripheral — to the official theology of the creative destabilizations that an engagement eucharist, and a crucial means of resisting the with the realm of the unconscious involves. Such ordination of women. My strategy here is once practices indeed acquaint one most urgently more counter-intuitive. Rather than sanitizing with matters of desire, and the need to sift and the issue from the outset, I propose to walk order our desires aright in relation to God. The boldly into the fanned flames of ecumenical matter of gender, then — the mater of «differen debate that this question of women priests tiated, embodied relationship» (as I shall define enshrines. Whereas — as we have noted — the gender) — becomes interestingly subsumed into usual feminist riposte to Rome on women’s a more fundamental, and profoundlytheolo orders has been to de-sexualize the eucharist, to gical, discussion of the nature of such «desire». stress what anthropologists call «commensality» The second surprising feature of my argu rather than «sacrifice», and to declare eroticism ment follows directly from this perception. and gender irrelevant to eucharistie celebration, Unlike almost all existing forms of «feminist I shall explore the opposite tack. Starting from theology», my approach does not start with a this hotly-contested base, I shall seek in this lec- «In Persona Christi»: Gender, Priesthood and the Nuptial Metaphor 147 ture to provide a new response to the issue of impossible. For in fact the priest is in an inher what it is for the priest or minister to act in per ently fluid gender role as performative represent sona Christi. ative of both Christ and church, strategically And here I arrive at the enunciation of my summoning the stereotypical gender associa promised bold thesis, which I shall attempt to tions of each, but always destabilizing the sustain in the remainder of this lecture. True to attempt to be «held» in one or the other. And, if I my focus on the category of «desire», I shall am right, a significant part of the undeniably argue that Rome and the Orthodox are entirely «erotic» tug of the priest’s position at the altar right to seek the Christie clue to eroticism and lies in this very destabilization, a gesturing gender in the eucharist; but that Rome’s particu towards a divine incarnational «order» of union lar attempt to debar women from the altar and to and communion beyond the tidy — but fallen — «freeze» the gender binary back into mandated human attempts at gender characterization and roles finally fails in its very articulation. It de binary division. feats itself even in the terms of its own «erotic» logic. In order to sustain this bold thesis in more II: «Inter Insigniores» (1976) and the detail, we shall now move to gather three strands use of Thomas Aquinas’s theme of of argument, before drawing our own systematic conclusions. We shall turn first to the contem «in persona Christi» porary Roman treatment of the discussion in This has all been by way of forecast and intro Thomas of the priest’s role in persona Christi. duction. Let us now begin with Inter Insigniores. What we shall trace briefly here is the particular There are in fact two major prongs to the argu way that the 1976 magisterial document Inter ment against the ordination of women presented Insigniores interprets Thomas Aquinas on this in this text. The first is simply the argument from topic, and — more crucially — how it is forced tradition: Jesus and the early church did not at points to depart from Thomas. Then we shall ordain women, it is claimed (barring some gnos note how one recent conservative defender of tic aberrations in the second century), and the the Roman position (Sara Butler), and one lib unchanging tradition is therefore against it. The eral Catholic detractor (Dennis Ferrara), have second prong, however, is the one that interests extended — and bifurcated — the debate on the us and on which much depends. Citing Thomas, reading of Thomas; and how — hovering behind first from the Summa and then from the com and between these readings — lies the now-mas mentary on the Sentences, the crucial argument sive influence of Hans Urs von Balthasar, with of the priest’s status in persona Christi is his significantly greater emphasis on the Marian invoked. A woman cannot be a priest, because in role of the priest. This is a theme strangely sup the eucharist the priest «acts not only through pressed in Inter Insigniores, but entirely congru the effective power conferred ... by Christ [in ent with late-medieval sensibilities, with the ordination], but in persona Christi, taking the theology of John Paul II, and indeed with role of Christ, to the point of being his very Thomas’s own insistence that the priest is mé image, when he pronounces the words of con dius between divinity and humanity —in per secration» (V, 41, my emphasis;ST III. 83, art. sona Christi but no less in persona Ecclesiae, 1, ad 3: «the priest ... bears Christ’s image ...). for whom Mary is the ultimate prototype. But But what exactly does this mean?Inter Insignio once this duality of the priest’s role is recap res does not mention that this matter remains tured, we shall suggest, the central argument of somewhat elusive in the Summa treatment, in both the magisterium and of von Balthasar him which Thomas does not expatiate on the impedi self begins to unravel. Finally, and in the light of ment of gender, although he considers a whole this exposition, we shall state our own view: that range of other possible difficulties, such as the precisely because of the importance of the priest’s senility, or living in sin, or blindness, or Christ/church nuptial model of the eucharist, a leprosy-infested limbs. But in theSentence com fixed gender binary becomes theologically mentary, to which Inter Insigniores next appeals, 148 Sarah Coakley
Thomas ostensibly fills in a gap here: «Sacra estingly eschews the marriage metaphor for mental signs», he says, «represent what they sig Christ and the church (see Børresen, 234), and nify by natural resemblance» (V, 43; In IV Sent., so this appeal plays no part in his argument on dist. 25, q. 2, quaestiuncula 1 ad 4); and Inter women’s incapacity for ordination. Not soInter Insigniores — by a certain sleight of hand — Insigniores. It is actually the supposed deep uses this principle to drive home its point of the mystery of sexual «difference» (V, 45, 47) as necessity of male priesthood, whilst actually — enunciated in the eucharist, and in no way note — tacitly departing from Thomas’s own «suppressed in the glorified state» (V, 47) that line of argument in some significant ways (I here renders a female unable to be a priest. The shall mention two here). First, Inter Insigniores priest, qua eucharistie, Christie bridegroom, does not argue, as Thomas does in IV Sent., that «must be (it is said) ... a man» (V, 45). There is what clinches the argument against the ordina an ostensibly awkward moment, at the end of tion of women is a) a Scriptural warrant against this section of the document, when it is admitted female authority over men (I Tim ii. 12), and b) that the priest does also act in persona Ecclesiae the supposed inherent inferiority of woman as — «in the name of the whole Church and in «in the state of subjection» (based on an Aristo order to represent her» — as well asin persona telian biology of sex, now defunct). These par Christi (V, 47). But no mention, interestingly, is ticular appeals are seemingly now an embarrass made of this other posture as inherently «femin ment to the magisterium. Secondly, then, Inter ine» or «Marian» — even though the logic of the Insigniores has to fill in the gap left by the nuptial argument implicitly demands it. embarrassing and now-defunct biological argu ment in new ways (and this it does with great haste and stealth, in one short paragraph: V, 43). Ill: Disputing the Thomistic reading: It argues, in fact, that the «natural resemblance» Dennis Ferrara and Sara Butler that must adhere between Christ and the priest is not now based in supposed greater male author Unsurprisingly, the appeal to Thomas inInter ity and superiority (see V, 43), but rather in Insigniores did not go long unchallenged. A sig physiological resemblance; and that without this nificant dispute ensued, mostly in the pages of resemblance, qua male, it would be «difficult» Theological Studies, between Dennis Ferrara (not, note, impossible) «to see in the minister the and Sara Butler. Not all the details of this com image of Christ». It then adds, quickly, «For plicated exegetical debate need detain us, for we Christ himself was and remains a man» (V, 43, have already sketched some of the ways that my emphasis). Inter Insigniores significantly departs from Now neither of these last points, as far as I Thomas’s own intentions. The crucial dividing know, are ever wielded by Thomas himself issue for our own purposes here lies in Ferrara’s against the ordination of women; and the ques well-intentioned, but ultimately misleading, at tion of Christ’s genital maleness, qua risen body, tempt to read Thomas on in persona Christi might well continue to be a matter of dispute «apophatically», as he puts it, rather than «rep- between Eastern and Western Christian tradi resentationally». What is evidently motivating tions. Be that as it may, we have now dissected him here (and is worthy of note, because it is a the crucial dimensions of the appeal to Thomas classic «liberal» ploy that I explicitly wish to in the magisterial document. But what we eschew in my own argument), is a desire to should also note, finally, is thatInter Insigniores make eroticism and gender entirely irrelevant to then goes on, in clear distinction from the the matter of priesthood. Thus, according to Fer Thomistic appeal, to expand at some length the rara, Thomas does not intend by acting in per nuptial theme of Ephesians 5 beloved both of sona Christi a personal, let alone, gendered, Hans Urs von Balthasar and of John Paul II, and «representation» of Christ. Rather, says Ferrara, it is this which purportedly — and finally — he is inviting the priest merely to «quote» Christ, clinches the argument. Now as Kari Børresen and so to «give way [] visibly to the persona of demonstrated long ago, Thomas himself inter Christ» (1994, 213, my emphasis). On this (so- «In Persona Christi»: Gender, Priesthood and the Nuptial Metaphor 149 called) «apophatic» reading of the elusivein ledge at this juncture in her argument that the persona Christi theme, Ferrara can claim that idea of the sexes as «complementary» to one gender has nothing to do with priesthood, once another has a specifically modern, Romantic, Thomas’s erroneous Aristotelian biology is jet flavour — but to this point we shall shortly tisoned. To this argument Sara Butler rightly return in discussing von Balthasar.) Secondly, replies, in my view, that Ferrara on this particu Butler helpfully clarifies that there is an apparent lar issue of in persona Christi has utterly mis sleight of hand in Inter Insigniores in suggesting construed Thomas — or rather, flattened the elu — albeit briefly — that it is Thomas who makes sive subtlety of his position. Thomas intends the the argument for the necessary likeness to Christ priest to be both sign and instrument in the in the priest’s male visage. On the contrary, sacrament of the altar: it is therefore not enough notes Butler, the fittingness of the male repres for the priest simply to «quote» Christ in order entation in Thomas resides in the man’s sup to consecrate. If that were all that was involved posed natural superioritytout court (back to the there would be a mere memorial, but not a bona faulty biology again), not in his physiological fide «sacramental representation» (Butler 1995, impression; it is a strand in Bonaventure’s sacra 74). Thomas argues in the Sentence comment mental theology that is being drawn upon here, ary, points out Butler, that Christ uses not just she rightly avers, not Thomas’s, and that is the words, but the minister too, as «instruments» needed to fill the gap in the argument as to the in the form of the sacrament (In IV Sent. d. 8, q. relevance of the «male sex to the signification of 2, a. 3, sol. 9; Butler 1995, 72). Thus Ferrara’s Christ the Mediator, who became incarnate as a reading abstracts — gnostically we might say — male» (ibid, 67). For it is Bonaventure, who — from the essential bodiliness of the sacramental in commenting on the same point in the Senten representation; and this is an ironic position to ces that Thomas also responds to — insists that arrive at given that Ferrara wishes to make a only a man can «signify» the Mediator, not feminist commitment to the ordination of because the male is biologically superior, but women. But Butler is surely right to insist that simply because Christ was a man: «quoniam Thomas intends the minister neither to be phys mediator solum in virili sexu fuit et per virilem ically insignificant, nor merely to «play act» sexum potest significari»(In IV Sent. d. 25, a 2, Christ: as she puts it, the sacramental mode of q. 1 concl., Opera Theologica Selecta, 1949, 4. representation in Thomas is sui generis (ibid, 639; see Butler 1995, 67). 74), and that is doubtless why it is so hard to Now where does all this leave us? Let us describe or encapsulate clearly. It is neither a gather the strands of the argument so far so that complete self-effacement nor yet a dramatic we can see where we are going. representation. Both those analogues are mis What the complex technical debate over leading. Thomas’s account of in persona Christi shows There are two remaining points, however, on us, it seems to me, is three things. First, there is which Butler has to admit a certain defeat where something irreducible about the bodiliness of the the limits of Thomas’s argument are concerned. priest’s representational function at the altar, and One point finds her in agreement with Inter not just of the recitation of words; but the ques Insigniores, the other in criticism of it. Like the tion of how that bodiliness relates to Christ as a authors of Inter Insigniores , first, she has to ac man remains obscure once Thomas’s Aristo knowledge her modern disavowal of the faulty telian biology is questioned. Secondly, if biological argument that finally undergirds Thomas’s faulty biological theory is to be re Thomas’s rejection of the ordination of women; placed by a Romantic view of the so-called women are not naturally subordinate to men, «complementarity» of the sexes — as Butler and this means, she admits, that some different suggests — then this needs to be made explicit. — and, as she puts it, «complementary» — viewIt is here that we shall find von Balthasar’s of the sexes (see ibid, 80) will have to be example peculiarly revealing; but at the same brought in to sustain the magisterial rejection of time it must be acknowledged, as Inter Insignio women’s ordination. (Butler does not acknow res does not acknowledge, that the notion of 150 Sarah Coakley woman as the «opposite sex» — as Thomas Moss 2004). Gender is so profoundly woven Lacqueur and others have explored of late into von Balthasar’s deepest theological themes (Lacqueur 1990) — was the product of a par (Trinity, Christology, ecclesiology, Mariology ticular period of Western medical and cultural — especially in volumes III and IV of theTheo- history, precisely replacing the «subordinate dramatik), and so surprisingly and counter-intu sameness» theory that Thomas and the whole itively in some of its twists and turns, that I can Aristotelian tradition had long taken for granted. not possibly do full justice to its entanglement It is in no way obviously mandated by Bible or with the issue of priestly status in this brief treat Christian tradition. Thirdly, when Inter Insignio- ment. I shall simply fasten for these present pur res covertly slides away from Thomas to invoke poses on three central points of analysis, which a Bonaventuran principle of necessarily male roughly correlate with the three issues for representation at the altar, the issue of the further discussion which I have just raised: priest’s representation of the laity becomes together these will provide us with a fulcrum for obscured. Yet as Thomas himself rightly insists, critical discussion. it must be that the priest is representative both of At the heart, first, of Balthasar’s explicit Christ and of the people. rejection of the ordination of women is a key In the remainder of this lecture we shall make paradox, which simultaneously reveals a capa a brief critical analysis of the telling gender city for «fluid» thinking about gender vis-à-vis arguments of von Balthasar — which them men, and yet a means of «fixing» womanhood selves lap at the edges ofInter Insigniores, given outside the bounds of priesthood. It is well von Balthasar’s role as an official commentator expressed in the essay he wrote as commentary on the document, and are — I believe — cred on the publication of Inter Insigniores , entitled, ible extensions and clarifications of the official «The Uninterrupted Tradition of the Church» Roman position. As we shall see, all three of the (von Balthasar 1996), and also in a later essay on issues just highlighted come explicitly to the «Women Priests?» in New Elucidations (von fore in von Balthasar’s treatment; but all three Balthasar 1986). On the one hand, men and — if I am right — reach a point of logical crisis. women are «equal»,and nowhere is this clearer From our treatment of von Balthasar we shall than in the person of Christ: as Balthasar puts it then be able to conclude with a reading of the in in the latter essay, «One can say that Christ, persona Christi theme that chooses neither the inasmuch as he represents the God of the uni so-called «apophatic» route of Ferrara nor the verse in the world, is likewise the origin of both Bonaventuran argument of Butler; instead we feminine and masculine principles in the church shall plot a third way through the dilemma and ...» (1986, 193). Yet this equality does not sup argue that the very nature of the priest’s role press a «difference» which is even more funda destabilizes a fixed gender binary: precisely the mental: «the Catholic Church is perhaps human bodily and gendered significance of the priest ity’s last bulwark of genuine appreciation of the hood, and especially the nuptial and erotic over difference between the sexes», he writes, and of tones of the eucharist, make the «freezing» of «the extremeoppositeness of their functions ...» the gender binary impossible. (ibid, 195, my emphasis: note the Romantic language). It is actually the «feminine» which for Balthasar is seen as primary for the church, IV: Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905- and pedestalized as the «comprehensive femi nine, [the] marian», unsullied and actively 1988) on the eucharist and gender «fruitful», «alreadysuperior to that of the man» The extraordinary richness and complexity of (ibid, 193, 192; my emphasis); and yet it is the Balthasar’s theory of gender has still not re man, «consecrated into [his] office» who alone ceived the detailed analysis it deserves — can represent the «specifically masculine func though one must mention the excellentCam tion — the transmission of a vital force that ori bridge Companion to von Balthasar, which ginates outside itself and leads beyond itself» begins to fill out the picture (see Oakes and (ibid, 193). As Balthasar puts it in a much- «In Persona Christi»: Gender, Priesthood and the Nuptial Metaphor 151
quoted remark in another essay in the collection in relation to the Father’s «masculinity», yet Elucidations : «What else is his Eucharist but, at Father and Son are «masculine» in jointly spirat- a higher level, an endless act of fruitful out ing the (initially «feminine») Spirit; and yet pouring of his whole flesh, such as a man can again that the Father too can be said to be «femi only achieve for a moment with a limited organ nine» in receiving the processions back into of his body?» (1975, 150). himself from the other two (see TD 3, 283, and So here we confront the essential gender TD 5, 91). All the persons, in other words, are double-think at the heart of Balthasar’s system: both «masculine» and «feminine» (with the pos the priest must be physiologically male, though sible exception of the Spirit?); and by extension, also «feminine»qua transmitter of an ecclesial it must be again that the Christ/Word/priest who vital force that is more fundamentally that of the «pours himself out» as seed at the altar alsois «perfect feminine Church» (1986, 193). Women, «feminine», receptive, as representing the capa however, are always and only «feminine», city of the church so to be fructified. expressing their «natural fruitfulness» which is And so we arrive at what I suggest is the «already superior to that of the man» (ibid, 192): internal undoing of Balthasar’s own recitation of «equal» but «different», «equal» superior but Romantic gender binaries. For while the woman (even), but «equal» and inherently and physiois fixed normatively as «feminine», both pedes- logically incapable of the priesthood. Thus if a talized and subordinated (though not in rhetoric, woman aspires to be a priest, she is disordered, as we have seen), the male in contrast has this breaking the rules of her own primary «fruitful infinite capacity for reversal and internal reci ness». procity, just as God’s «persons» do in the Trin This central paradox — all are «equal», but ity. And indeed his priesthood vitally depends on men are more equal than women (to adapt a this fluidity. I would hypothesize here that the phrase of Orwell) — is reduplicated, secondly, profound influence on Balthasar of Gregory of in the Marian fundament that explicitly sustains Nyssa’s subversive gender fluidity, so fascina it. For whilst the «feminine» here, as Mary, is tingly expressed in Gregory’s ascetic works and the sine qua non of the church (as Balthasar puts in his commentary on the Song of Songs, and it, «The Church begins with the Yes of the Virgin strongly alluded to by von Balthasar in his own of Nazareth» [ibid, 192]), this «feminine» tips book on Nyssen, Presence and Thought (1988), over into Petrine «masculinity»where men are is here in the ascendancy. Yet it meets, and is concerned : «What Peter will receive as
V: The Woman at the Altar: could not be so made simply by taking thought The Cosmological Disturbance (1992, ch. 5). I do not of course intend, by these of the Incarnation allusions to anthropological and ritual theory, to imply that the Christian eucharist is merely a I said at the start of this lecture that I was set on manifestation of a recurring «structural» type of demonstrating that «the priest is in an inherently human ritual; but I do intend to draw attention, fluid gender role as representative ofboth Christ beyond the mere words of the Christian rite, to and church, strategically summoning the stereo powerful effects that are wrought more sublim- typical gender associations of each, but always inally by the physical enactment of it, and in this destabilizing the attempt to be «held» in one or area anthropologists and psychologists can well the other». Perhaps we are now in a better posi provide insight. tion, after our interlocutions with Thomas,Inter And so secondly, we are surely forced, after Insigniores, and especially von Balthasar, to what has been revealed in von Balthasar’s bring this argument to its conclusion, and at the example and argument, to re-consider the theo same time bolster it with some crucial points of logical dangers of the now-fixed West-facing contrast with secular feminist and gender theory. position of most liturgies — both Protestant and Again, I think I can gather my conclusions under Catholic — in the post-Vatican II era in the three main headings. West. This might be seen as an odd tack for a First, what the excursus into von Balthasar’s feminist to take, since it is often presumed — thought has surely revealed is that — once the over-hastily — that the «anti-hierarchical» Aristotelian appeal to the inherent inferiority of opposition to the Eastern-facing position is pre womanhood is abandoned — some developed cisely what should constitute a feminist litur theory of nuptial reciprocity is required if the gical agenda. But as Kallistos Ware remarks in a argument against women’s ordination is to be recent essay on Orthodox attitudes to the ordina sustained. But once the crucial role of the priest tion of women (Ware 1999), the Catholic Wes as medius between the divine and the human is tern-facing «stuck» position has new dangers of fully spelled out — the priestin persona Christi male idolatry, and unnecessarily intensifies the precisely because alsoin persona Ecclesiae or in facially iconic dimension of the priest’s role as persona Mariae — then the implicit gender being in persona Christi ; in fact it emphasizes fluidity of the ministerial role becomes apparent. the sexed representation of Christ in a way that It is precisely the priest’s ritual undertaking — (as we now see) even Bonaventure would not qua in persona Christi — to stand at the bound have envisaged, given that for him the East- ary of the divine and the human, and indeed facing celebration would have been normative. transgressively to cross it, just as the very act of The problem may then arise for the congregation incarnation also made that transgressive crossing either of an unconscious male idolatry of the — once for all. Even outside Christianity, priest’s person («everyone is in love with Fr. anyone familiar with the anthropological literat X»), or of a false — but gnawing — sense of ure of ritual will know of a certain parallel incongruity at the particular appearance of the typos: as Victor Turner put it classically The in priest (old, ugly, fat, bespectacled, spotty, etc.). Ritual Process (1969, 95-7), the shaman or This problem, note, is in no way improved by ritual enactor, whose unique job it is to stand on substituting a woman priest; indeed the sym the «limen» between the known and the un bolic evocations may ultimately be the more known and to mediate across it, is often credited theologically worrying if the eucharist is at the with «threshold» capacities or traits such as same time perceived, or taught to be, merely a bisexuality, dispossession or strange humility. «family» meal: here, we might say, is the West- Likewise, Catherine Bell’s remarkable Ritual facing «Tina Nordstrom» posture, with the Theory, Ritual Practice has more recently ex woman priest and her assistants merely whip plicated how ritual practice subliminally medi ping up the Sunday lunch. ates certain cultural «oppositions» in a way that My point — to return to Thomas — is that creates particular sorts of bodies, bodies that the liturgical circumstances that he could «In Persona Christi»: Gender, Priesthood and the Nuptial Metaphor 153
assume as backcloth for his subtle theory of in «liberal» ideology, this is irrelevant to the under persona Christi were those of an East-facing takings of the priesthood; nor is s/he performing celebration, in which much of the symbolic sig a form of liberal «androgyny» that leaves nificance of the rite lay in the priest’s move Romantic gender stereotypes untouched whilst ments back and forth across the representational conjoining them (like «John Wayne and Brigitte boundary line between Christ and his church — Bardot scotch-taped together», as Mary Daly a ritual function which we now see has not been once caustically put it: Daly 1975);nor again — abandoned without huge symbolic loss. Indeed, as in the post-modern feminism of Judith Butler if I am right, it has involved an actual intensifica (Butler 1990, 2004) — is it that the priest is per- tion of, rather than liberation from, repressive formatively conducting a «queer protest» that gender strictures. will condone certain previously-banned forms of So thirdly, and to end, what is the theological sexual pleasure. No — and this is why this gender theory that I suppose emerges from these Christie alternative is so hard to «grasp» — it is accumulated considerations about in persona rather that the flow of «divine desire» is what Christi, both textual and liturgical? My precise liturgically refuses to allow the human gender speculation here is one that I find tends almost binary to settle and «freeze», let alone be always to be misheard as something more famil summed up in some triumphant secular ideo iar; so let me be careful, in closing, to distin logy. For the fundamental «difference» to be guish it from certain brands of secular gender negotiated here is not male and female (see Gal. theory that I believe it casts under what we 3.28), let alone the Romantic «masculine» and might call «Christie judgment». We are indeed «feminine», but rather the ultimate difference dealing here with a sui generis — indeed an between God and humanity; and this only Christ incamational — phenomenon. What I am sug has «negotiated».This is indeed a «cosmological gesting is that the fundamentally «erotic», or disturbance» of unrepeatable status (see Coakley «nuptial», nature of the eucharist might properly2004). What happens in the eucharist, then, hap be called proto-erotic: it is, in fact, the gift of pens on the limen between the divine and the Christ’s body to the church by a desiring God human, where the miracle of divine enfleshment who longs for our desiring, participatory challenges and undercuts even the most ingeni response. But such desire-in-God, of course, ous secular theorizing about the order of this does not in God’s case signal lack — it is, as the world. In that sense the woman at the altar pre Pseudo-Denys puts it in a memorable passage cisely shocks into consciousness an «erotic» from the Divine Names, iv that Thomas later liturgical logic that Rome has itself always more comments upon, a divineecstasis that cease secretly guarded. In sum: the magisterium has, I lessly seeks and yearns for a responsive human conclude, ironically presented us with the very ecstasis. If it is an «economy ofdivine desire» ritual evidences, not only to mandate the ordina into which we enter in the eucharist, then, we tion of women, but to destabilize the very gender might rightly conclude thatthis desire is ontolo- theory it insists upon. gically more fundamental than human gender, the priest, acting in persona Christi but no less References and Further Reading in persona Ecclesiae, and moving between them, cannot be «fixed» in one gender pole or Balthasar, Hans Urs von the other in her response to the dictates of this — Elucidations (S. P. C. K.,London, 1975), desire (pace the masculinistfiat in Inter Insigni- — Presence and Thought: An Essay on the Religious ores at this point in the argument). Neither the Philosophy of Gregory of Nyssa (Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1988), movements of the rite, nor the theological pro — Theodrama, 5 vols (Ignatius Press, San Francisco, pulsions of the text, can «freeze» the priestly 1988-98), figure into either pole of the erotic gender play. — «The Uninterrupted Tradition of the Church», in But it is not, note, that the priest — male or From «Inter Insigniores» to «Ordinatio Sacerdota- female — has obliterated the endless differences lis» (United States Catholic Conference, Washing in «gender» because, according to some existing ton, D.C., 1996), 99-106, 154 Sarah Coakley
— «Women Priests?» inNew Elucidations (Ignatius lis»: Documents and Commentaries (United States Press, San Francisco, 1986), 187-98. Catholic Conference, Washington, D.C., 1996). Bell, Catherine Daly, Mary — Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (Oxford University — «The Qualitative Leap beyond Patriarchal Reli Press, New York, 1992). gion», Quest 1 (1975), 20-40. Børresen, Kari Elisabeth Ferrara, Dennis Michael — Subordination and Equivalence: The Nature and — «The Ordination of Women: Tradition and Mean Role of Woman in Augustine and Thomas Aquinas ing», Theological Studies 55 (1994), 706-19, (University Press of America, Washington, D.C., — «In Persona Christi: Towards a Second Naïveté» 1981). Theological Studies 57 (1996) 65-88, Butler, Judith — «A Reply to Sara Butler»,Theological Studies 56 — Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of (1995), 81-91, Identity (Routledge, New York, 1990), — «Representation or Self-Effacement? The Axiom — Undoing Gender (Routledge, New York, 2004). In Persona Christi in St. Thomas and the Magis- Butler, Sara, M.S.B.T. terium», Theological Studies 55 (1994), 195-224. — «Quaestio Disputata: