When were women allowed to become priests?

Answer 1

Roman Catholic answer:There have never been woman priests as it is not possible to ordain a woman to the priesthood. Pope John Paul II definitely ruled on this a while back, and said that anyone trying to ordain a woman would be committing sacrilege and it would just be a play act anyway, as nothing would happen, but because of the sacrilege, it would be a mortal sin on any who participated in such a travesty. In other words, Jesus taught that only men *could* be ordained to the priesthood, and any attempts to do otherwise would be contradicting God and His church, contradicting HIS Will.

I hate to disagree with my fellow answerer below but the church is NOT trying to put down women in anyway. This is a complicated issue, but there are a couple things that one must understand. We as a church did not make this rule, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, did: we are only following what we have been taught.

Further, one must understand the role of women and the role of priests to understand that it is no slight and that there is no putting men ahead of women because of this. The church honors women far more than any other organizations. The Popes themselves are "servants of the servants of God". They are, all of them, just servants who are going to be judged much more harshly then the rest of us due to the fact that they have taken on the responsibility of representing Christ to the world. Women, on the other hand, starting with the Blessed Virgin are extremely honored in their own right. The honor show to a priest is actually honor show to Christ whose representative he is. Far from showing honor to women, the attempt at ordaining a woman does nothing but show dishonor to the Almighty, and His Laws.

Anglican orders were ruled invalid by the Pope back in the 19th century due to a lack in the ordination ceremony itself. It has nothing to do with the apostolic succession, it has to to with lack of proper form and intention. One must have the intention to validly ordain a sacrificing priest for a sacrificial priesthood, and one must use the proper words in doing so. The only one with authority to rule in this matter is Christ Himself, and his appointed emissary, the Holy Father.

Another answer:

However, most other denominations are not quite so mysoginistic and ordain women. In the Anglican Church women have been ordained priests since the 1990s, and they enjoy absolute equality with male priests in the same church. Some Anglican Churches have female bishops too. However Roman Catholics rather illogically refuse to accept the priesthood of any Anglican (male or female) as valid, despite both churches' ability to trace back their roots to apostolic succession, and both churches' doctrine on the priesthood and on Trinitarian belief being virtually identical.

Other protestant denominations, such as the Reformed Church or Methodists have had women ministers (they are not called 'priests' but fulfil the same sacramental role) for decades or even longer.

Some denominations do not have a 'priesthood' as such (or even ordained ministry) but have church leaders. one such group, the Salvation Army, has had women leaders ('officers') since its conception in the 19th Century.