The push for women priests

By Herbert Vego

WHY are women in the Roman Catholic Church not allowed to join the priesthood?

Simply put, the Church prohibits it in keeping with the long-standing tradition that started with Jesus choosing only 12 men as his apostles.

In reaction, a number of my province mates from Antique – all members of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) or Aglipayan Church – beg to disagree, revealing that their women may now enter the seminary and emerge for ordination to the priesthood.

My aunt Mildred Balonon, an Aglipayan, texted, “We have one here in San Pedro, Reverend Charmaine Samillano.”

The IFI church in San Pedro – the biggest barangay in San Jose, Antique – was erected in 1903.

But Samillano is not the first “reverend mother” of the Aglipayans. Way back in 1997, Rev. Rosalina Rabaria, was ordained as the first female priest assigned to the diocese of Aklan.

On May 5, 2019, Rev. Emelyn Dacuycuy of the diocese of Batac, Ilocos Norte, became the first woman to be consecrated bishop, further asserting the Church’s belief in women’s inclusion and breaking the tradition of patriarchy in the clergy.

For a little bit of history, the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI), also known as the Philippine Independent Church, broke away from the Roman Catholic Church in 1902 in furtherance of its progressive and nationalist views.

Clerical celibacy is optional; priests are allowed to marry.

The IFI — founded by Roman Catholic priest Gregorio Aglipay of Batac, Ilocos Norte during the American colonial period in 1902 — keeps a traditional liturgy similar to the Roman Catholic mass, but it rejects the authority of the Pope.

I will not be surprised if in the near future, the Roman Catholic Church would also welcome female priests to fill the dearth.

To quote Vatican-based journalist Daniel B. Gallagher, “Since 1970, the global Catholic population has doubled, but the number of priests has dipped.”

As of last count, there are 406,996 diocesan and religious-order priests globally, but showing a small annual decrease of 734 priests.

The reasons for this decline are varied and complex. Gallagher specified “growing secularization, Church abuse scandals, the hardships of celibacy and more economic opportunities.”

The number of Catholic priests in the Philippines is also dropping. According to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), the country had 12,964 priests in 2016, but this number fell to just over 10,000 by the end of 2025.

An article in the New York-based Wall Street Journal had this headline: “The Catholic Church has a manpower problem: fewer priests every year.”

To quote the lead of the story, “One of Pope Leo XIV’s biggest quandaries is a question God himself asked: Whom shall I send? As in the book of Isaiah, few are answering ‘Here I am’.”

Pope Leo has been receiving suggestions to allow women to take up priesthood, since there seems to be an indication moving to that direction. In fact, Pope Leo has already allowed female altar servers to serve at Mass for the first time in his pontificate, a practice permitted since 1994 but still avoided by many parishes.

The altar servers assist the priest and deacon during liturgy and sacred rites, primarily by leading the procession.

He has been vocal about appointing women to non-ordained governance and advisory positions within the Vatican.

However, the Pope still maintains the Catholic Church’s long-standing tradition that priestly ordination is restricted to men. This stance follows established church teaching, including Pope John Paul II’s 1994 letter stating the church has no authority to ordain women as priests.

But Catholic women activists, through groups like the Women’s Ordination Conference and Women’s Ordination Worldwide, still demand admission into the Catholic priesthood to achieve gender equality, address clergy shortages, and reform church governance.

I remember that in 2013, Catholic women worldwide badgered Pope Benedict XVI to integrate women into priesthood and fire homosexual priests, but to no avail.

In 2018, Ireland’s former president, Mary McAleese, led a group of Irish women in urging Pope Francis to tear down Vatican’s “walls of misogyny”.

They criticized the Church’s ban on female priesthood, “depriving women of any significant role in the Church’s leadership, doctrinal development and authority structure”.

“How long can the hierarchy sustain the credibility of a God who wants things this way, who wants a Church where women are invisible and voiceless in Church leadership?” McAleese asked.