Women in the Church –Women in the Vatican
A couple of months ago, I pointed to the increasing disjunction between the roles and opportunities available to women in the broader secular world, on the one hand, and the roles and opportunities available to them in the church. I think this is bound to affect both the degree to which women engage themselves in work for or in or through the church, and the way in which the church’s pronouncements on matters pertaining to women are received in broader secular liberal democracies.
Here’s a another little factoid. According to John Allen, there aren’t a whole lot of women in leadership roles in the Vatican. He writes:
Like any book by a good reporter, Crisis of a Papacy offers several nuggets of insight and factoids along the way. The following are two such nuggets from Politi’s book worth pulling out.
One concerns the role of women. Politi notes that in a meeting with the clergy of Rome in 2006, Benedict said, “It is right to ask whether in ministerial service … it might be possible to make more room, to give more offices of responsibility to women.”
Yet five years after those remarks, Politi observes, the situation in the Vatican — which is, after all, the ministerial environment over which a pope has the most direct control — is largely unchanged. Here’s what he reports:
- There are only two women at the level of “superiors,” meaning decision-making roles: Salesian Sr. Enrica Rosanna, under-secretary of the Congregation for Religious, and Flaminia Giovanelli, under-secretary of the Council for Justice and Peace, a lay member of Focolare.
- In the first section of the Secretariat of State, which handles internal church business, no woman holds the role of a “head of office,” and there’s just one sister working at the lower administrative level. In the second section, responsible for foreign relations, it’s the same — just one woman at the basic administrative level.
- In the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, there’s no female theologian among the consulters, and there’s no woman on the commission responsible for matrimonial cases. On the International Theological Commission, which advises the congregation on doctrinal issues, there are two women among the 29 members.
And it should be noted that one of the two women on the ITC is Sr. Sara Butler, who’s mostly known for being an opponent of women’s ordination. I doubt a real representative of most women theologians there.
At risk of clouding the issue, many have pointed out (George Weigel has even complained) about the disproportionately large number of women in administerial roles in parishes.
So, we get our “marching orders” from on high from the guys. But to what extent is the effect of the “orders” tempered by the female foot soldiers at the local level (sorry for the military analogy).
I’ve come to know a fair few of these women who are generally thoughtful, devout, and middle-aged. Most of the roll their eyes at a lot of what comes out of the Vatican. No outright rebellion, but certainly a lot of tempering.
One of the problems in a (truly) top down organization is the amount of juice that exists at vatious lebvels.
At the parish level, the word from on high is to cast your eyes upwatd.
I again reference the CBS Sunday peice on the breach in the Church between policy folk and the folks in the pew or on the line -especially women religious.
This breach is the question not of how much local woman administrators may think of what comesd down, but the effects moving forward as the breach grows.
I’ve suggested to some friends that we operate on a level of engcouraging the three d”s ; disgust, drift or departure.
We are in danger of losing in one way or another large chunks of women an the young.
While BXVI sees no governance problem ,it is the command/control policy folks who are at the heart of this problematic.
In their view, IMO, it’s clear women should know their place!
I often cite, as an amusing read, The entry Woman in the old online Catholic Encyclopedia. Example: For the studious woman as for others who earn a livelihood the academic calling is only a temporary position. The sexes can never be on an equality as regards studies pursued at a university.
Question: What is the official position, today, on the role of women in society and in the Church? There is a small notice that accompanies the above-mentioned article that says, “To complement this article, which was taken from the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia, New Advent recommends a prayerful reading of Pope John Paul II’s 1988 apostolic letter, ‘Mulieris Dignitatem.’” I confess I can’t bring myself to wade through it at the moment. Should I? Is the stated position of the Church on the role of women acceptable to contemporary Catholic women, and just the practice problematic?
If the pope actually believes in the equal dignity and rights of males and females, there are two things he can do immediately, on his own authority, with no possible theological quibbles.
(1) Double the number of papal electors by adding and equal number of females.
(2) Direct that the Roman Curia free clerics for presbyteral work, which he claims only those males can do, by replacing sixty percent of them with females within five years, using serious administrative tools to track progress to this goal.
By his fruits shall you know him. So far the pope has produced only pretty word flowers regarding the dignity of women, no edible fruit.
The statement “the sexes can never be on an equality as regards studies pursued at a university” was written in 1912. At that time, a “university” education was abstract and philosophical, tuned for male minds. In contrast, modern education focuses much more on psychology and the soft sciences, to the point where males, with their logical minds, are actually at a disadvantage. So the Catholic Encyclopedia was prophetic — the sexes are still not at equality. Only the dominant sex changed.
John Ingram: please prove your claim that male minds are more abstract, more philosophical, and more logical than female minds. I think it’s a prejudiced opinion.
When I was a beginning philosophy teacher and logic was still a required course for everyone, I noticed after a while that I had many more young women earning A’s in logic than young men. I was really concerned because I feared I must be prejudiced eithr for the females or anti-the males or both. So I talked to a wise old Dominican who had been teaching logic for forty years or so. His reaction: “Of course. Girls always do better in logic than boys”. I was much relieved.
Hmmm.
Another anecdote which in fairness I should hasten to add. My very, very best philosophy students, I mean the sort who eventually got into the best graduate schools of their choice (including the Ivies), did tend to be males, though they were not exclusively so. But I must also add that the very *worst*, the dumbest kids were generally males. This is consistent with what I have read about biological findings which compare males and females of all species — males run to the extremes. I don’t know whether or not those studies have held up, and perhaps my experience was simply anomalous. But there it is . . .
Claire: Though most minds have a blend of characteristics, it’s clear that at the extremes — at the levels of giftedness needed for university study — male and female brains differ markedly. See Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen’s work in autism and Asperger Syndrome (the “extreme male brain” theory); or Dr. Louanne Brizendine’s work in neuroendocrinology (“female brain”); or the feminist classic, In a Different Voice, by Carol Gilligan, which argued that females prefer to judge moral issues in a relational, caring and emotional way (in contrast to males, who, at their best, reason from universal, Aristotelian principles). Indeed, in the pursuit of gender equality, feminist epistemologists aim to redefine “philosophy” so abstract logic is no longer required. (See Professing Feminism, by Daphne Patai.) In this the redefiners have largely succeeded — to a modern mind, metaphysical claims about human nature actually sound prejudiced and wrong. This is doubtless why modernists are not popular at the Vatican.
Claire: Just for the fun of it, you should read Simon Baron-Cohen’s new book THE SCIENCE OF EVIL: ON EMPATHY AND THE ORIGINS OF CRUELTY (New York: Basic Books, 2011).
As the subtitle intimates, Simon Baron-Cohen argues in the book, cogently in my estimate, that a lack of empathy is connected with cruelty.
When you read his description of systematizing, which, he claims, males with Asperger Syndrome have to an extraordinary degree (page 104), you might think of Catholic males in philosophy and theology.
C’mon, Cathy: just think of all of those invisible women in and around the Vatican serving the men, ironing the altar linens, doing the laundry and what-have-you.
Kwitcherbitchin’ already.
I’ll leave the debate about philosophy, neuroendocrinology, and other such disciplines to my intellectual betters.
Here’s what struck me while reading Prof. Kaveny’s post. A century ago, one could make the case that the Catholic Church provided more opportunities for women than most societies and institutions around the globe. My wife’s great-aunt was a nun who got her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in mathematics and was invited to work on the Manhattan Project (but did not because her order considered that project to be inconsistent with their mission). It’s doubtful that she would have had that opportunity if she had *not* been a member of her religious community.
The same goes for all those women religious who started and ran colleges, hospitals, schools, and other social service organizations.
Today, however, women in many nations around the world have greater opportunity for exercising their gifts and talents outside the Church than they do within the Church.
I suspect that if this trend continues over the next few decades, then the Church will increasingly find itself handicapped as it attempts to carry out its mission.
Thomas Farrell: also of interest is page 96: “the way their brain processes information paradoxically leads them to be supermoral rather than immoral.” Critics of patriarchy often assume that morality is a function of empathy — that if someone doesn’t reason in the same emotional way that most people do, that person is a moral cripple and a potential threat to women. This assumption may be true in many cases. But sometimes, we come across a peculiar, Aspergery mind — a mind so dispassionate, rational, and systematic, that it functions as a exquisitely fine-tuned BS detector, a mind especially suited for philosophical combat. Of these, a few are called to control the most sophisticated system of all — a social network of 1.1 billion people. People often insist that we stop preferring males for this role, as if any given female could do it just as well. But I’m skeptical — after all, how many females have Asperger Syndrome?
Luke said: “I suspect that if this trend continues over the next few decades, then the Church will increasingly find itself handicapped as it attempts to carry out its mission.”
And, may I remind folks that mothers have a great deal of influence on their children – sons included – about career choices.
Are contemporary women really going to be all pushy about their (maybe only) son becoming a priest? Sure they are …..
Here’s a snippet from a Letter to the Editor of the recent issue of The Tablet:
” — Many lay Catholics who were brought up to respect the clergy, to believe their pronouncements about God and our relationship with God, and to accept their rules about moral and sexual behaviour (and the consequences for lapses thereof) are finding,
almost unwillingly, tectonic shifts occurring in their faith, their practice of their faith, and
what they now do and do not believe.
If the Church is wondering about the lack of vocations in otherwise eligible young men, maybe it should ask their mothers.
Mary McComish
Cottesloe, West Australia”
Anyone with a true respect for competent scientific research would present all sides of a contested issue.
Are contemporary women really going to be all pushy about their (maybe only) son becoming a priest?
Let’s see. That means that their son would not be able to marry and have a family; that they would not become grandmothers; that their son would promise obedience to some arbitrary authority that is currently discredited; that, if they wanted to become religious, because of the demographics they would quickly find themselves as though in a nursing home, surrounded by people the vast majority of which would be very old, and many of which would have health care needs; that they would be surrounded by men only, when they go to clerical events; or by mostly women, when they tend to parish ministries; that they would be expected to provide comfort and direction in all kinds of life situations, without necessarily experience themselves; that they might live largely alone, probably lonely, having to rely on the kindness of strangers and on their own capacity for creating friendship; that, if the sexual abuse scandal continues, they will be the object of suspicion; that they will have to carefully monitor their interactions with children, not just in how they behave but also in how it looks; that they will live a public life, open to all for criticism; that they will stand out as odd people who made weird choices that put them at the margins of this society. A missionary in a foreign land might console himself with the thought of his heroism, but in contemporary society, he would just seem weird, not heroic, so even that consolation would be denied to him.
Impossible – Unless they are in a subculture, a slice of society in which the faithful, or at least a few of the faithful, take good care of their priests.
“If the Church is wondering about the lack of vocations in otherwise eligible young men, maybe it should ask their mothers.”
Theodore Hesburgh’s mother told the vocation director, who wanted Ted to start seminary Freshman year in high school, that if he had a true vocation he would still have it after he graduated high school. Mothers like Mrs Hesburgh today will hardly consider a vocation for their children. In effect, mothers in the Catholic church are saying the clergy or religious life is repugnant to them. Even conservatives do not send their children. Enough said. Long term there will be gigantic changes.
I always find it curious that at the heart of the Second Vatican Council is the emphasis that the Church is the laity IN the WORLD, but when Catholics of the left speak of “the Church” they usually do so from a pre-Vatican II clericalist attitude, assuming that the Church is only the Magisterium (so absence from the latter equals absence from the former). No women in the Church’s leadership? Only if we reject Vatican II’s teaching on the laity. Women or lay leadership in “the Church” does not mean dressing folks in albs and mitres. If your kneejerk reaction is to think so, you’ve not yet implemented the Second Vatican Council in your own mindset, much less in a liberal manner.
” — leadership in “the Church” does not mean dressing folks in albs and mitres.”
As soon as the ontologically favored who lust so deeply, longingly and impatiently for such accoutrements give them up and stop playing Pietistic Peacock, I’ll accept that as a valient comment.
A valid comment, too – not just valient!
Bonaventure, neither of these options require ordaining women or vesting them in any way.
Let’s start with these.
(1) Double the number of papal electors by adding an equal number of females.
(2) Direct that the Roman Curia free clerics for presbyteral work, which he claims only those males can do, by replacing sixty percent of them with females within five years, using serious administrative tools to track progress to this goal.
My dad was a doctor (a GP) in South Dakota, and when I was a boy (1970’s), he was on the staff of several of the rural Catholic hospitals. The administrators were always nuns – the Benedictine and Presentation sisters. He used to joke how when sister (do not recall name) would scold him and the other two doctors during a staff meeting about some process, or some mistake they had made, she did it all so smoothly that; “You did not realize you had been both insulted and slammed until you were already out of the office and half-way down the hallway!” That is/was (local) authority.
I recall when I had my tonsils removed, most of the nurses were nuns, and they were all so kind. They wore the all-white habits, with the pleated neck thing that to a young boy, looked like astronaut clothes; the neck wrap had all these amazing accordion folds. Again, they were so nice and so kind; when they gave me the anesthesia for the operation, they said, “Now Ken, let’s say an Our Father” and of course I was asleep before finishing. After surgery I was very tired and one nun reassured me that when we fall asleep saying our prayers, our guardian angel will finish them for us.
By the 1980’s, the sisters were no longer running the hospitals or working as nurses; I think they still own them though.
I thought Cathy’s post was relevant to the issue of women, whose role has changed, in today’s world and not the good old days that some perceive – and how that should affect the Church.
You are probably correct Bob, but for me anyway, it is easy to stroll back onto memory lane around Christmas time -