Here's my take on and summary of the argument from tradition that is used by Ordinatio sacerdotalis. In another post, someone from the Orthodox perspective offered the various iconic arguments and thought they are superior to this one. I agree that the iconic arguments are good, but there are reasons why John Paul II did not use them in Ordinatio sacerdotalis
Women cannot be ordained priests because Christ established the priesthood when he established the episcopate in the person of his twelve apostles. He chose no women. He was not culturally captive (i.e., afraid to offend a patriarchal culture), for if that was his reason, he was certainly not God incarnate and if he wasn’t God incarnate, there’s no priesthood or episcopate at all.
The issue of women priests was never raised (except abstractly) until modern cultural changes changed the way some people view men’s and women’s roles. But Christ, being non-captive to a patriarchal culture 2000 years ago, is not going to become captive to a non-patriarchal culture today, for if he acceded to the cultural demand, he would scarcely be the Transcendent Creator God Incarnate that Christians have always claimed he was.
If the pope tomorrow would announce women were to be ordained priests, he would have just ended all Catholic claims for an indefectible, infallible Church guided by a divinely assisted historic apostolic succession reaching back to Christ and keeping the Church non-captive to culture throughout these many years. In renouncing apostolic succession he would have renounced the heart of Catholic faith and would have destroyed the very authority by which he acted, since the bishop of Rome has no authority if apostolic succession does not exist. Protestants who ordain women ministers make no claim to ordain women priests, because they rejected the whole notion of apostolic succession and sacramental priesthood at the time of the Protestant Reformation.
Within the Catholic Church a variety of women ministers have always functioned. Except for Anglo-Catholic Anglicans (who for that reason prefer not to be called Protestants), Protestants claim only to have women ministers, not women priests.
Thank you for your careful and elegant reply. Yes, the argument from Jesus' dual human and divine natures is a very strong one, and I have heard it many times and I agree with it. I raised the argument from the iconic understanding of Jesus as Bridegroom and the Church as Bride (and thus, the Groom MUST be male) because it is central to the NT and SHOULD have a claim upon those who consider the NT to be normative. But your argument is a good one and I'll keep it in mind. Lately, I've been discussing this issue quite a bit, before many audiences, and the lame MSM comment comes up all the time, "well, now, what about women priests? will the next Pope be as conservative as JPII?" Ugh.