Customer Reviews

The Papal No: The Vatican's Refusal to Ordain Women

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Halter has written a thought-provoking book exploring the Vatican's position of women's ordination and various responses to this position. She takes the complex and often difficult text of the Vatican documents and explains them in concise, easy to understand language. Halter compares Vatican pronouncements with common approaches to ministry. The gulf between Rome and Catholic life at a lay person's level leaves the reader feeling frustrated with and disappointed by Rome's increasingly out-of-touch position, which is contradictory and hypocritical, especially since Rome "affirms" women yet denies them access to the priesthood. Although this is a book of non-fiction it reads like a novel. The story of St. Therese of Lisieux (whose desire was to be a priest) interspersed throughout the text makes this book even more interesting and enjoyable.

"The Papal No: A Comprehensive Guide to the Vatican's Rejection of Women's Ordination" by Deborah Halter is a gutsy book, exceptionally well-researched and beautifully written. In it Halter recounts the history of women's roles in the Catholic church, throwing into sharp relief the dramatically different attitudes held by the Church toward women and men. Women are still seen as docile beings defined by their relationships to men. Despite the Church's recent claims of women's dignity, the idea that Jesus (and the apostles after him) did not "choose" women for leadership office persists in various guises into the present day and continues to undergird the Church's refusal to ordain women. And while most of us tend to think of the Church's position concerning lay women and nuns as historically monolithic, the author reveals fascinating examples of women who have successfully taken on much larger, more priestly roles, sometimes under perilous conditions. I enjoyed seeing the ironic paradoxes in the Church's position over time. And, I liked reading a charming narrative interlaced throughout the book about the life of St. Therese of Lisieux, a Carmelite nun in 19th Century France, who never lost her fierce desire to become a priest. "The Papal No" makes a powerful statement about a contemporary problem that is unlikely to just go away, even though the patriarchal Catholic Church would surely like it to. This compelling book is suitable for anyone--male or female, Catholic or not, teenager or adult--who rejects the notion that women's God-given gifts and calling to ministry should be limited by a church controlled by a hierachy of powerful men who have yet to recognize women as equals.

This book has told me things about my faith nobody has ever told me before, including my Catholic high school teachers and Catholic university professors. No one ever taught me the history of priesthood, and before reading this book I never once asked WHY Pope John Paul II said there will never be women priests. This book makes me wonder how many other teachings I never got, or how many things I believe without even knowing why. Deborah Halter sounds like a really good Catholic, and that's what I want to be. I don't think anybody can be a good Catholic by just believing what they're told and not being willing to spend time studying their faith. A few parts of this book were difficult for me to follow because it answers a lot of questions on every page and sometimes I had to slow down, but it definitely was worth the effort.

This is the first book I've found that places all the widely scattered papers, discussions, and views regarding the Vatican's stance on women's ordination into one basket. Deborah Halter discusses this issue from ancient to present times in a very engaging and accessible manner. I'm amazed by her ability to gather an immense amount of solid research from various sources over the course of many centuries and present it so clearly that anyone -- Catholic or not, lay or not -- can readily understand this complex issue by reading only a couple of hundred pages.

The Papal No: A Comprehensive Guide to the Vatican's Rejection of Women's Ordination" by Deborah Halter is a gutsy book, exceptionally well-researched and beautifully written. In it Halter recounts the history of women's roles in the Catholic church, throwing into sharp relief the dramatically different attitudes held by the Church toward women and men. Women are still seen as docile beings defined by their relationships to men. Despite the Church's recent claims of women's dignity, the idea that Jesus (and the apostles after him) did not "choose" women for leadership office persists in various guises into the present day and continues to undergird the Church's refusal to ordain women. And while most of us tend to think of the Church's position concerning lay women and nuns as historically monolithic, the author reveals fascinating examples of women who have successfully taken on much larger, more priestly roles, sometimes under perilous conditions. I enjoyed seeing the ironic paradoxes in the Church's position over time. And, I liked reading a charming narrative interlaced throughout the book about the life of St. Therese of Lisieux, a Carmelite nun in 19th Century France, who never lost her fierce desire to become a priest. "The Papal No" makes a powerful statement about a contemporary problem that is unlikely to just go away, even though the patriarchal Catholic Church would surely like it to. This compelling book is suitable for anyone--male or female, Catholic or not, teenager or adult--who rejects the notion that women's God-given gifts and calling to ministry should be limited by a church controlled by a hierachy of powerful men who have yet to recognize women as equals.

This is the first book I've found that places all the widely scattered papers, discussions, and views regarding the Vatican's stance on women's ordination into one basket. Halter discusses this issue from ancient to present times in a very engaging and accessible manner. I'm amazed by her ability to gather an immense amount of solid research from various sources over the course of many centuries and present it so clearly that anyone -- Catholic or not, lay or not -- can readily understand this complex issue by reading only a couple of hundred pages.

When a friend gave me this book for my birthday, I couldn't believe it had been written. Finally! A book that tells how the priesthood really came to be what it is today, and how women have been pushed out of it over the years. I have barely been able to cling to the Catholic Church, but knowing that there are people who are trying to save it by actually telling the truth makes me have hope. If the Catholic Church continues to say that women aren't good enough to be priests, then the day will come when the Catholic Church isn't good enough for women to be members.

The level of research and scholarship in this volume is impressive to the point of stellar. Halter has painstakingly documented every church teaching related to the question of women's ordination, and she has included the original documents all in one appendix. This book is a scholar's goldmine, but it is also a fascinating read for anyone interested in the crucial issue of women priests.

THE PAPAL NO is an incredibly important book. When I was in graduate school in the 1990s, I researched the topic of Catholic women priests for my thesis. If this book had existed then, it could have saved me hundreds of hours of research. Deborah Halter has done an amazing job of painstaking research and placed it all in a very readable context. Anyone interested in the future of Catholic priesthood MUST read The Papal No!

Anyone interested in the Catholic priesthood will find everything they ever wanted to know in this book. Halter treats the topic in terms of history, tradition, theology, church discipline, secular culture, symbolism, and just about every conceivable angle to produce a stunningly realistic portrait of the priesthood in all its maleness. A must-read.