"Nihilominus impatienter audivimus, tantum divinarum rerum
subisse despectum, ut feminae sacris altaribus ministrare firmentur, cunctaque
non nisi virorum famulatui deputata sexum, cui non competent, exhibere."
Pope Galasius I (492-496),
Epistle 14.26 (Thiel, 376-377), as quoted by Giorgi Ortranto as translated by Mary Ann Rossi in "Priesthood, precedent, and prejudice: On recovering the women priests of early Christianity," Journal of feminist studies in religion 7, no. 1 (Spring 1991): 80-81 (73–94).
I have not properly digested this article by
Rossi-Otranto, or made any attempt to find out what the consensus on this passage in this epistle now is, though clearly circumvented by Rossi-Otranto (Fr. Benedict Ashley, O.P., The Thomist 57, no. 3 (July 1993), 3: "Otranto tries to support this document with ambiguous epigraphic data and thus interpret these practices as valid ordinations (to the priesthood, not to the diaconate as other scholars have done). Prof. Mary Collins, O.S.B., of The Catholic University of America, in the same symposium, commenting favorably on Otranto's theory, raised the question whether a local bishop can validly ordain a women even if the Bishop of Rome condemns the action (!)").
A recent translation of these letters, to which SPU has e-access, is Bronwen Neil and Pauline Allen, The Letters of Gelasius I (492-496), pastor and micro-manager of the church of Rome, Adnotationes 1 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2014), 145, 155:
[Title:] That it is unlawful for women to minister at the sacred altars, or to take on themselves any of those duties allotted to men.
[Body:] No less have we heard with impatience that such a disregard has come upon divine affairs that women are encouraged to minister at the sacred altars, and that they openly perform everything that has been assigned only to the service of the male sex, to which they do not correspond. . . .
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