Can a catholic woman be a cleric?

Czech version dated October 22, 2023

Below is a brief overview of the Code of Canon Law and other official texts.

1. Code of Canon Law
The Roman Catholic Church has a basic internal regulation, the Code of Canon Law (Codex Iuris Canonici, CIC). It is a legislative document - a set of internal laws and norms binding on all Latin rite Catholics.
The CIC (like other official Vatican documents) divides Catholic Christians into clergy and laity.

• Canon 207 §1 states that some Christians are sacred ministers, whom the law calls clergy; the others are called laity, or Christians who have not received the sacrament of ordination.
• Canon 266 §1 states how a Christian becomes a cleric: by receiving the diaconate, a person becomes a cleric.
• Only a baptized man can receive the sacrament of ordination (canon 1024: only a baptized man validly receives the sacrament of ordination).

Article III of the Code is called Sacred Ministers or Clerics (in Latin De ministris sacris seu de clericis).
The CIC also states that the laity has a mission both in the Church and the world (Canon 275 §2).

According to the CIC, in the Catholic Church, only a baptized man can become a sacred minister or cleric by receiving the sacrament of ordination.
A lay is a Christian who has not received the sacrament of ordination.
A woman who is not and cannot be a baptized man always remains a laity, whether she has a mission in the Church or the world.

2. Related ecclesiastical documents
2.1 Christifideles laici (Post-Synodal Apostolic Letter of John Paul II. On the vocation and mission of the laity in the Church and the world) states: When necessity and expediency in the Church require it, the Pastors, according to established norms from universal law, can entrust to the lay faithful certain offices and roles that are connected to their pastoral ministry but do not require the character of Orders. ... However, the exercise of such tasks does not make Pastors of the lay faithful: a person is not a minister simply in performing a task, but through sacramental ordination.

• A woman as a layperson may be entrusted with a task that is connected with the pastoral office but does not presuppose ordination;
• In performing such tasks, however, a woman does not become a shepherd - i.e., a cleric (it is not the task that the woman performs, but the sacrament that the woman cannot receive that constitutes the office of shepherd, i.e., sacred minister, i.e., cleric).

2.2 The Czech Bishops' Conference Instructions for the Cooperation of the Laity quotes the document Christifideles laici: However, the exercise of such tasks does not make Pastors of the lay faithful: in fact, a person is not a minister simply in performing a task, but through sacramental ordination.

2.3 The Roman Pontifical (liturgical book for ceremonies conducted by the bishop) in paragraph 176, page 205 states:
The deacon ordination leads to incorporation into the clerical state and incardination into a particular diocese or personal prelature.

2.4 Documents II. Vatican Council: Lumen Gentium (LG)
Paragraph 28: The divinely established ecclesiastical ministry is exercised on different levels by those who, from antiquity, have been called bishops, priests, and deacons.
Paragraph 31: The term laity is understood here to mean all the faithful except those in holy orders and those in the state of religious life specially approved by the Church.

2.5 Catechism of the Catholic Church states the same.

3. Conclusion:

• In the Catholic Church, the CIC is an internal regulation. Moreover, the Czech Republic Supreme Court confirmed this fact.
• According to the CIC and other official documents, to enter the clerical state (the state of clerics) it is necessary to be a baptized man and to receive the sacrament of deacon's ordination.
• In the Catholic Church, only men who have received the sacrament of ordination (i.e., deacons, priests, bishops) are clerics.