Event · 1994

Ordinatio Sacerdotalis

An apostolic letter of Pope John Paul II, issued in May 1994, declaring that the church has no authority to ordain women as priests and that this is to be held definitively by all Catholics.

It restated the reasons given in the 1976 declaration Inter Insigniores: Christ’s choice of twelve men and the church’s constant practice. It came shortly after the Church of England’s first ordinations of women. In 1995 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stated that the teaching belongs to the deposit of faith. It is the main modern statement of the Catholic Male Priesthood.