Maybe the Church thinks anything without a penis isn't holy enough to preside at its alters? You know, they say homosexuality has been very common among priests and bishops....
Now regardless if one is for or against female ordination, I do believe statements like the above indicate a grave violence our culture is perpetrating against gender. It's indicative of the kind of reductionism which says man and woman are just the exact same thing in different packaging. In otherwords, we are living in a time in which there is no recognized ontological difference between male and female.
If any one believes that the question of female ordination merely revolves around genitals, than perhaps you have not really sifted through the considerations on this matter occurring within the churches. It is a question of gender informing the vital and principal social, psychological and in some sense spiritual dynamic of human society. From a biblical perspective, it is that "male and female he created them".
The idea "human being" is an abstraction from gender. Maleness or femaleness are the immediate reality of the being. It is not merely accidental, not mere form, but part of the essential reality of every human.
For Christians of the catholic persuasion, this is not a question of a woman's ability to be a leader or an instructor of the Faith, (for she can be both). It is, for us, an ontological question. Priesthood is, for us, also an ontological state. That is, it involves a permanent change at the essential level of the person (his "being-ness"). This is why Pope John Paull II said it is "
not within the authority of the Catholic Church to ordain women".
From the Catholic perspective it is not any more possible for the Church to ordain a woman to the priesthood than it is for a male to bear and give birth to a child. This is something the male can not do, but the female can do, yet does not imply any kind of inequality.
Let us say that attempts at female priesthood are seen along the lines of that Arnold Schwartzeneger movie "Junior". It gives us an interesting excercise in thought, but then we resume with reality.
If the priesthood, however, is seen merely in terms of community selected leader to speak on their behalf, then the question is set on different terms.
The Catholic priesthood, however, is seen in terms of a God-summoned servant. It is not seen as a human invention, a human response to God. The priest does not in this sense represent the community before God, for he does not represent their choice nor their will. To return to John Paul II, "
it is not within the authority of the Catholic Church to ordain women". This statement implies something about the origin of the priesthood. Mainly,
that it is not an instiution that is ultimately in human hands.
I guess the rules of the game are altered drastically depending on this:
Is the priest someone pushed up to the altar by his fellows? Or is he drawn up to the altar by divine command? Where lies the thrust? If you take the first, then the only real criteria is skill or ability. If you take the second, there is something of the question of a divine will and a limitation on that of the human one.