You might expect the author of a new book titled The Hidden History of Women's Ordination: Female Clergy in the Medieval West to be a radical and an iconoclast.

 

But  Dr. Gary Macy, John Nobili S.J. Professor of Theology in Santa Clara University's Religious Studies Department, is anything but the provocateur suggested by that title. In fact, in the book's introduction the genial Macy writes, "This is not a book I ever intended to write."

 

Macy's specialty is medieval theology of the Holy Communion, not an arena of study as likely to generate headlines in the general press. Originally an English major at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Macy, a lifelong Catholic, became interested in medieval theology because of a professor.

 

"He introduced us to the experimentalism of the middle ages," he explains. "They were so optimistic that you could get science and theology to 'work' together and create political and economic systems that would allow people to be better. I was captured by that enthusiasm."

 

Macy went on to get a Ph.D. in Divinity from Cambridge. He moved to Santa Clara and joined SCU in 2007, following nearly 30 years as a professor at UC San Diego.

 

Our picture of the Middle Ages today is one-sided says Macy. "Most people know the bad side of the middle ages – they don't know the good side." He gives two examples of that good side: gothic cathedrals and the period's many new religious orders.

 

"They built them [cathedrals] before they knew they couldn't. They tried to build buildings that were opened up to light as much as possible. The new religious orders were small groups of people who tried to live the Christian life in new ways. Like undergraduates today, who want to change the world and," he adds, "sometimes they do."

 

So how did the author of Theologies of the Eucharist in the Early Scholastic Period put himself squarely at the heart of one of contemporary Catholicism's more contentious questions?

 

In 1997 Macy gave a paper, The Eucharist and Popular Devotion, at the Catholic Theological Society of America's (CTSA) convention.

 

"I pointed out that there are these liturgies of the 11^th and 12^th centuries that were definitely led by women," he recalls. "All of a sudden there was a big discussion in Commweal magazine. Avery Dulles [US Cardinal and past CTSA president] said we were heretics.

 

"One of my colleagues later said to me, 'I heard you said women were ordained.' I said, no, but as I walked back to my office I thought, I've never checked that. I don't know if that's true."

Being a scholar, Macy started researching it. "What I found out is that the definition of 'ordination' changed in the 11^th century. Originally, 'ordination' meant the appointment by a community of someone in the community to a ministry. The word in Latin is ordinatio, to be put in order.

 

"They had ordination rites for all kinds of people," he continues. "It was within the community for the community. You weren't given a power – you were given a job. Under that [meaning], definitely women were ordained – ordination rites for deaconesses existed right through the 12^th century."

 

Macy gives the example of a 12^th century German illuminated Gospel and Mary is dressed as a deaconess, with a stole, dolmatic and veil [vestments]. "The Abbess of [the monastery of] Los Huelgas administered her own diocese. Abbesses were considered to be ordained for life and in the Mozarabic* rite they receive a mitre and crozier [bishop's symbols]"

 

So what happened? The 12^th century Gregorian reform movement redefined ordination to exclude everyone except priests and deacons, says Macy. "The definition changed to see ordination as giving them a power. Over the next 150 years, all the liturgical jobs fell to them and no one else. One result is that they stopped ordaining deaconesses."

 

Macy has plenty more to say on the subject in his book, which he is proud to say is aimed at the general reader as well as scholars. "Anybody can pick it up and read it without footnotes and read it from start to finish as an essay. There's no un-translated Latin in the text."

 

What's the implication of Macy's research for the Catholic Church today? "There is not one tradition – there are many traditions," Macy observes. "People who call themselves traditionalists focus on one tradition. This is a twelve hundred year tradition.

 

"If you say that women shouldn't be ordained, you should argue theologically, not historically. The historical argument that they weren't is not factually true."

 

Since his book came out, Macy has been enjoying attention from media as far away as Calgary. However, his current plans don't include a sequel to Hidden History. Instead, he's returning to the theology of the Eucharist for his next book and, with his wife,  looking for a parish home in Santa Clara.

 

On Saturday, May 17, at 11:00 a.m. in SCU's Leavey Center, Dr. Macy is giving a talk Diversity as Tradition: Why the Future of Christianity is Looking More Like Its Past. It's  free and open to the public. For information, call (408) 551-3000 x6170.

 

Carolyn Schuk can be reached at cschuk@earthlink.net.

 

*The Mozarabic rite was a liturgical form used in Spain and Portugal until the 11^th century.