What Would C. S. Lewis Say About Women’s Ordination? by Luis E. Lugo

By Luis E. Lugo,  The Catholic Thing, October 21, 2025

Luis E. Lugo is a retired college professor and foundation executive who writes from Rockford, Michigan.

The announcement of the appointment of Sarah Mullally as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury marks a historic first for the Church of England (CoE), which traces its origins back more than 1,400 years to the time of Saint Augustine of Canterbury. In addition to being the head of the CoE, the Archbishop of Canterbury also serves as the spiritual leader of the world-wide Anglican Communion, whose thriving churches of the Global South have become increasingly alienated from the mother church due to the latter’s long-term drift toward theological liberalism. This appointment will surely widen that breach.

Already in the 1940s proposals were circulating in the CoE in support of the ordination of women priests. Those early efforts provided the impetus for a 1948 essay by the well-known Anglican writer, C.S. Lewis. The arguments he lays out in “Priestesses in the Church?” are worth revisiting and seem as relevant today as when he first penned them – and for Catholics as well as Anglicans. …