Is the ban on women priests infallible, given that Pope Francis said Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was not infallible while Cardinal Ratzinger said it was?
A viewer, discussing the Pope's 60 Minutes interview and the renewed debate over female clergy, notes that Cardinal Hollerich suggests the ban on female priests is not set in stone, and that Pope Francis said John Paul II's 1994 letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was not infallible while Cardinal Ratzinger said in 1994 that it was.
Answer
Back in 1994, in only my second year as a Catholic apologist, I said what I still say: a statement is not infallible unless the pope says it is infallible. You might get that impression from Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, but John Paul II never actually declared, in so many words, that this teaching is infallible and irreformable, do not touch it. That is the problem. Infallibility is a gift to the Church, but if you are going to invoke it you must let the faithful know beyond any doubt that what was said is infallible; otherwise you get the prefect of the doctrine of the faith, Cardinal Ratzinger, saying in 1994 that it is infallible, and then the pope himself decades later saying it is not, which causes more confusion than it resolves. The Church really needs to give a clear list of which statements are infallible and which are not, so no one has to guess, especially on something as important as whether women can be priests. Among those of us who know better, it is not even a question: the answer is no, just as women are to be submissive to their husbands, and it would be a contradiction for it to be otherwise. It is only the liberals who keep debating it because people are clamoring for women priests, and you already see women filling priestly roles on the altar.