Jimmy Carter stands up for women
Jimmy Carter has strong words for religious authorities that defend and perpetuate discrimination against women. He writes in an essay published in The Guardian (and, a few days later, in the Australian paper The Age):
…[M]y decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention’s leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be “subservient” to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.
I found this via a story at Politics Daily with the headline “Jimmy Carter Leaves Church Over Treatment of Women.” If you read too quickly, the opinion piece does sound like it’s announcing a new decision, but it’s actually building on an old one. Carter severed his ties with the SBC in October 2000, citing differences related to “such beliefs as separation of church and state, servanthood and not domination of pastors, local church autonomy, a free religious press and equality of women.” This essay — which The Guardian titled “The Words of God Do Not Justify Cruelty to Women” — places particular emphasis on the final element in that list. Carter rejects the practice of quoting Scripture to defend the idea that women are subordinate to men. And he makes an explicit connection between that kind of thinking, in all religions, and the social effects, from violence against women to unequal standards in education and work. He concludes:
The truth is that male religious leaders have had – and still have – an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions – all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God. It is time we had the courage to challenge these views.
The Bible is meant to be used. but in an enlightened way, under the guidance of the Spirit. The Catholic Church has made the same mistakes as the Southern Baptists, using the Bible to prooftext sexism, homophobia, slavery, rejection of religious freedom. We no longer quote “compelle eos intrare” for the latter purpose, but our current official documents still quote Romans 1 to teach that gays and lesbians are disordered. Of course the Catholic Church claims to be more rational than biblical fundamentalists because its views are ultimately grounded in Natural Law — but here comes another nasty twist: it is the Vatican, self-decreed “expert in humanity” that discovers by oracular means what Natural Law dictates, and then treats its own dictates as Infallible, punishing any who demur. Our game, therefore, is every bit as weird and destructive as that of the Southern Baptists.
I keep stumbling over the meanings of “the Church”. Certainly ;”the Church” has discriminated against women in some important ways throughout its history But I remember being extremely surprised when I discovered that in the Roman Catholic wedding rite, unlike the Protestant ones, the wife does not promise to obey her husband. I daresay many men — and even some wives — remember their ceremonies differently.
Long ago, a group discussion on “a Pewople Adrift” I was at, folks thought the biggest isue the Church had not dealt with successfully was women’
The inability of the USCCB to complete a pastoral on this topic underscores the issue.
Worse, the visitation of religious women that I’ve refernce dseveral times lately and the many articles/comenmts I’ve read on the topic show a widespread belief that chauvinism wighs heavily in our Church’s leadership.
I think we delude ourselves if we think we’re better.
It’s hard for me to see that we havee ven begun to reach a twentifirst century view of women, equality and the value of relationships in our Church.
You know I am for former President Jimmy Carter’s views on Palestine, but this entrenched belief of his carries a lot of old Enlightenment, American eisegesis. “Equality” is a loaded, highly important belief of our day, shaped by our immediate history. It means different things at different times and contexts. What people of Mr. Carter’s era and belief fail to admit is the “colonialism” and “imperialism” within the belief itself. We too quickly put on the same cookie cutter formula for vastly different cultures regarding the role of women. We also don’t admit that such beliefs in equality (no matter if this belief is both philosophically and religiously debatable) are the motivations behind war and dreadful foreign policy approaches. Mr. Carter our conceptions of “inequality” do not “equal” subjugation of women by men. This a highly simplistic fundamentalism. Thank you
Just one other point… America is not exactly a shining example… For all the priviledged status given towards equality, we have more women’s shelters and reports of domestic violence than most any country in teh world. Morever, the family unit itself is like jello. More divorces, more sex outside of marriage, more STD’s, more sexual abuse, more homosexuality than any country in teh world! Could there be a relationship between this deplorable condition and the passionate belief in equality? Finally, is it all interpretation on this issue, or does the Bible actually address us on equality. The term isn’t used much, not like it is in our Declaration of Independence..”all created equal.” The Bible never really says that anywhere. We need different ways to approach this topic but also more respect that religion does really have something to tell us, rather than the other way round.
Robert Wise,
The point about equality as a motivation for war is perhaps viable. Then you question whether scripture talks about equality. Jesus himself set the example as he catered to women, had them in his company and is one of the reasons he was crucified. Widows as badly treated persons were a concern of the church from the beginning. Magdalene was the first at the Resurrection and the Woman at the Well did apostolic things. Etc.
Secondly, your assertion that the US is first in all these categories is quite debatable if not outright incorrect.
At any rate, serious kudos to Jimmy Carter. Not enough people have the courage to challenge their churches on this. We should not say that Carter has nothing to lose. He takes a lot of flack on Palestine and he will take much more on this. Bravo.
As a teacher of literature I have often run into the imperialist imposition of US notions of equality and political correctness. However, our failure to respect women’s equality lies deeper than this. Women everywhere are calling for equality, quite independently of American ideas. Official church teaching has not responded adequately, and still less has it responded to the pleas of gays, who are a persecuted group in most places (the pharisaic coldness of the Vatican’s performance at the UN in December shows this). Not official church teaching only, but ordinary Catholics have only a feeble conscience on these issues. Women and gays are not taken seriously. Actually, France is a country that takes the idea of equality far more seriously than America, to the point of obsession — and surely France could claim to be as advanced as the US in all the dreadful practices mentioned by Robert Wise.
Widows were of prime concern for the early Church because they already had that status in the Torah — the widow who bothers an unjust judge in one of Luke’s parables has the weight of the Torah behind her pleading. Orphans are often associated with widows as the prime instances of the socially vulnerable that the Torah community must care for.
The violence of the church against women is chronicled here: http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/07/catholic-church-vs-women-of-brazil.html
Let’s not forget that these men are creations of John Paul II, with Ratzinger at his side.
I’m bemused by those who think fuddy-duddys like Mr. Caryger and myself think that the role of women in the Church is a major problematic.
Those who think the issue of women and the Church is a settled matter belong, I think, to the past and are happily mired there.
Jimmy Carter has written an article filled with broad, sweeping generalizations and insinuations. Is anything more sulf-indulgent, while having less effect on the spurned organization, than the damn-you-all-to-hell, someday-you’ll-see-I’m-right-and-then-you’ll-be-sorry-and-I’ll-dance-on-your-grave public missive written by the disgruntled employee / customer / church member on his way out the door?
Perhaps there is some way to connect the dots between between the situation in the Catholic Church today and the former President’s rambling indictnement of Southern Baptists, Islam, and genital mutilation, but his article didn’t connect them, nor has anybody here done so.
I don’t know what President Carter’s Southern Baptist experience has entailed, but I can speak with certainty about what the Catholic Church teaches:
“369 Man and woman have been created, which is to say, willed by God: on the one hand, in perfect equality as human persons; on the other, in their respective beings as man and woman. “Being man” or “being woman” is a reality which is good and willed by God: man and woman possess an inalienable dignity which comes to them immediately from God their Creator. Man and woman are both with one and the same dignity “in the image of God”. In their “being-man” and “being-woman”, they reflect the Creator’s wisdom and goodness.”
“372 Man and woman were made “for each other” – not that God left them half-made and incomplete: he created them to be a communion of persons, in which each can be “helpmate” to the other, for they are equal as persons (“bone of my bones. . .”) and complementary as masculine and feminine. ”
I hope President Carter finds a church more made in his image. Christians should not live apart from community.
The citations from the Catechism of the Catholic Church show that God has given us the inspiration we need to give women full participation in the life of the Church. Despite all of the positive statements about the worth of women, they still seem to have something that prevents them from instituting sacraments.
Since we are a pilgrim Church, we need to continue to be open to a deeper understanding of God and what God calls each of us to be. As we continue to go deeper into the infinite mystery of God and the Church, I pray that the roles we permit women to have will be expanded.
“Christians should not live apart from community.”
Jim, I agree. But what to do when one concludes that one’s participation and money enable the kind of poor leadership exhibited by the current pope and most of his underlings appointed by the autocratic JPII???
For me, JPII “greased the skids” and Benedict prompted me to leave.
And off I went.
Although I remain unaffiliated, I would be quite receptive to joining a Catholic community led by a female presider if such an option were available in my area.
I suspect I’m not alone in this situation.
Regarding male-female equality, I cannot reconcile official teaching with official practice. Actions speak louder than words. And I find the Vatican’s words hollow, to say the least.
Jim, it is all too easy to say that one values women. It’s harder to actually listen to them speak in their own voices, and harder still to make room, institutionally, for allowing those voices to contribute to what the Church is and does in the say of official doctrine. The Church systematically excludes women from anything important. That is what counts.
I don’t know what President Carter’s Southern Baptist experience has entailed, but I can speak with certainty about what the Catholic Church teaches:
“369 Man and woman have been created, which is to say, willed by God: on the one hand, in perfect equality as human persons; on the other, in their respective beings as man and woman.
Jim,
Men and women are “different but equal,” which is kind of like “separate but equal.” Women in the Church are still waiting for their equivalent of Brown versus the Board of Education.
It is odd that an organization that believes in the “complementarity of the sexes” has all-male leadership.
I am still trying to get somebody to tell me what it is about women that disqualifies them for the priesthood.
From the entry Woman in the Catholic Encyclopedia:
Yes, it’s about 100 years old, but that means it’s what the church taught for somewhere between 1800 and 1900 years, and exactly how is it different from the position of the Church today?
Joseph, I am sorry that you are in this painful situation. I don’t know what a practical solution would look like for you, but if there is one, I hope you find it.
“Yes, it’s about 100 years old, but that means it’s what the church taught for somewhere between 1800 and 1900 years, and exactly how is it different from the position of the Church today?”
Hi, David, if you compare the quotes from the Catholic Encyclopedia article to the quote from the CCC, I think the differences are pretty apparent. Clearly, church teaching has evolved considerably over the course of the last century. Whether it will continue to evolve or has entered a stasis, I can’t say.
“Jim, it is all too easy to say that one values women. It’s harder to actually listen to them speak in their own voices, and harder still to make room, institutionally, for allowing those voices to contribute to what the Church is and does in the say of official doctrine. The Church systematically excludes women from anything important. That is what counts.”
Hi, Barbara, yes, I agree, the voice of women must be heard. The clergy in my parish do hear them, every day, I assure you. Beyond that local level, I don’t claim to know what goes on, but I do have reason to believe that women are consulted, and listened to. I know that isn’t sufficient for many women. Perhaps other paths will become availlable at some point – I don’t know.
The hierarchy lacks the authority to call women to holy orders. I don’t know how that would change. But if we are talking about what’s important, then in my view, women and men are included in what is truly important: to know and love God through the person of Jesus, to participate in the Eucharist, God’s Word, family life, human relationships, evangelizing, serving the poor. At the end of life, at least some women, and some men, get to see God face to face. Everything else is secondary.
J. M. Rist in his book What is Truth argues that both men and women are created in the image and likeness of God and equally so–women are not inferior copies–and this is the theological basis for saying that men and women are equal. Rist also goes through the history of this idea and show how it has been resisted and doubted because of male prejudice. In brief–the book is long–men have been glad to see themselves as created in the image of God but wondered how–men and women being different and also inferior, as they supposed–women could also be created in the likeness of God. Actually JPII gets some credit here.
Jim
The hierarchy lacks the authority to call women to holy orders
It would be more accurate to say that the Popes have denied that they and their fellow bishops have that authority. The arguments they offer are of doubtful value. The New Testament does not support this contention; if anything, it suggests otherwise.
I should have written: “–women being different from men and also inferior, as men have supposed–
Jim, the paragraphs you cite from the Catechism of the Catholic Church have been very carefully framed. But what is left unspoken about the relationship between men and women there is the nature of the equality implied in “for they are equal as persons (‘bone of my bones. . .’)” and the nature of the complementarity implied in speaking of their being “complementary as masculine and feminine.” Could it be that male reluctance to accept that the differences between men and women don’t make women inferior, is perhaps masked in that reference to equality and complementarity? (See Joe Gannon’s comments above.)
There certainly is a gap between the meaning one would LIKE to draw from that CCC statement and what one might conclude from observing Church practice. Consider the roles men and women have in liturgy and ministry. Consider Church governance. The official Church has moved on in some ways since the Catholic Encyclopedia article was published. At least now there would be a degree of shame in putting things so bluntly. But if you look at the way the Church is run, it does look as if the minds and hearts of the men in charge haven’t changed much in a hundred years or so.
Bob Nunz above mentioned the failure of the USCCB’s 10 year effort to produce a position paper on women in the church in the 90’s as one symptom of what is amiss. The whole sad story is laid out in fascinating detail by Bishop Matthew Clark, Pheme Perkins, and Susan Muto, all of whom who worked on the original project, in this lively and enlightening Boston College panel discussion: http://frontrow.bc.edu/program/bishopslistened/
As to the notion that local Parish experience is better than “official” responses, I would just like to say that a few months ago at one of the parishes at which we attend Sunday mass, we were solicited in the bulletin to come to retreats for married people given by the local Legion of Christ. There were separate retreat sessions for men and women. The retreat theme was phrased in pop-culture terms:“Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus.” We were told that men and women are “hard-wired” differently, and were urged to attend so that husbands can learn to become the leaders they have always wanted to be and women can learn to have respect for their husbands.
The idea that “women everywhere” are calling for “equality” is a tautology that is promoted by people highly affected by a Western education. What women want is defined by unique specific cultural situations. We are all quite niave if we don’t see that this “equality” idea has swallowed us up like Jonah’s whale. Yes, the Bible has examples of correcting injustices, of helping those who are low to be brought high, however Biblical justice is not really “equality.” Glod doesn’t wiegh things like equal weights from Lady Justice. We don’t stop to take out a tape measure for making things “equal.” That is us, and our time. I think quite a number of people here, along with Carter, are near completely swallowed by this belief. There are different ways at looking at the problems raised than making people “equal.”
Robert: Have you read Carter’s article? You don’t seem to be responding to what he actually said.
I thought that this was, in some ways, the most interesting paragraph in Carter’s piece:
“I am also familiar with vivid descriptions in the same Scriptures in which women are revered as pre-eminent leaders. During the years of the early Christian church women served as deacons, priests, bishops, apostles, teachers and prophets. It wasn’t until the fourth century that dominant Christian leaders, all men, twisted and distorted Holy Scriptures to perpetuate their ascendant positions within the religious hierarchy.”
That last sentence is a perfect distillation of a particular historical narrative that has, at the very least, achieved a beachhead in mainstream consciousness – “twisted and distorted to perpetuate” etc. . Not particularly charitable to the Fathers :-)
Hi, David, if you compare the quotes from the Catholic Encyclopedia article to the quote from the CCC, I think the differences are pretty apparent. Clearly, church teaching has evolved considerably over the course of the last century.
Jim,
I really don’t think much has changed. I think it would all be put more subtly. Men and women are “complementary.” That means they each have different roles. Those roles are equal in worth and dignity, according to the Church, but what are they? Men are to go out and run the world, and women are to stay at home and raise the kids. If you hold motherhood in high regard (and who doesn’t), then you can be indignant if somebody claims women are not equal — they’re mothers, for heaven’s sake.
But of course not all women have children, and even women who are dedicated to being stay-at-home mothers generally have a few good years left after the kids are gone. But their role is to be mothers from birth to death whether they have children or not, or whether or not the children are home. This is why women can’t be priests. Because their role is to be mothers.
Robert Wise, women everywhere do long for equality — perhaps not in the American sense you are sniping at — but surely in the biblical sense of “the perfect equality of man and woman as persons” referred to in the Catechism. Look again at my link to the Brazil story for an example of how we fall short.
It is regrettable that the old Catholic Encyclopedia is online while the newer editions are not — Catholic bloggers love to cite this old edition, perpetuating all the attitudes of the preVatican II Church that we were supposed to have outgrown.
“I really don’t think much has changed. I think it would all be put more subtly. Men and women are “complementary.” That means they each have different roles. Those roles are equal in worth and dignity, according to the Church, but what are they? Men are to go out and run the world, and women are to stay at home and raise the kids”
David, I don’t believe you’d find any support for your caricature in the CCC. “Complementary” does NOT reduce to “men run the world, and women are to stay at home and raise the kids”. As you say, it suggests that men and women are not identical (that is very insightful of the church, isn’t it? :-)). At the same time, it suggests that they are for each other. The notion of “communion” is a powerful one in this context.
My experience of real people living real lives is that men and women take on a variety of roles in trying to keep their own lives and that of their families and other responsibilities functioning. (e.g. I know a number of men who stay home with the kids because their wives have better and more rewarding jobs). “Complementary”, istm, is capacious enough to embrace that sort of real-life diversity.
Women’s rights are not an academic parlor game but has to do with abuse of power by men over women — as in Brazil: http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/07/catholic-church-vs-women-of-brazil.html
Women are not so masochistic as to revel in such mistreatment, even though society may browbeat them into keeping quiet, or brainwash them into accepting inequality, much as it browbeats and brainwashes gays.
“At the end of life, at least some women, and some men, get to see God face to face. Everything else is secondary.”
Such a dangerous non-seguitor. Jim, correct me if I am wrong but didn’t you write on this blog that you fall short because you do not sell all and give to the poor. The kind of thinking you express in the above quote has caused deep resentment in all minorities. Minorities should have the right to choose the lowest place as we have. It should not be foisted upon them.
The history of colonialism and imperial expansion as its soft and hard forms. The ideology of “equality” is a secular form of the Christian mission. The procrustean bed of “equality” and “freedom,” where whole peoples and cultures are swept into this drama, is a continuation of Cartesian-Christian imperialism. Folks… aren’t we tired of this drama? Isn’t the world getting a little sick of it? Why is it especially important to see women “equal” to men? What is this all about? Christians seek justice, not the positivistic, forced kind that so bothers many in our time, but justice as it is expressed by the Living God. Why is it so insulting for Mr. Carter and others to see that women should not be ordained? If he can not stomach a tradition that won’t allow it, become an Episcopalian. But, why the sweeping generalizations?
My experience of real people living real lives is that men and women take on a variety of roles in trying to keep their own lives and that of their families and other responsibilities functioning. (e.g. I know a number of men who stay home with the kids because their wives have better and more rewarding jobs). “Complementary”, istm, is capacious enough to embrace that sort of real-life diversity.
It seems to me that the Catholic Church does in fact maintain that there are fundamental differences between the sexes, not just tendencies for men to be more one way and women to be more another. It is never explained what these difference are. Certainly the Church doesn’t declare that no woman can be a priest on the basis of the way men as a group tend to be and the way women as a group tend to be. That would be a classic example of unjust discrimination — judging an individual by the characteristics of a group that he or she belongs to.
Robert Wise, you seem to see Mr. Carter’s comments in the light of some preexisting obsession of your own. He is speaking of ending persecution and abuse. To end persecution and abuse is not to foist western notions of equality on anyone. I help women get asylum, and one woman from an African nation once told me that what she loved most about the U.S. was knowing that if she needed help, she could call the police and they would not refuse to help her just because she was a woman. Many women live in such dire material need that I doubt that they would put equality high on the list of things they most desire — and many women have more than internalized the notion that their very existence is an unwanted inconvenience to their family — but if they had a choice between a society that grants equality and one that does not, I don’t have much doubt which one they would choose.
Barbara, you seem to need to hold the mirror up in your own direction about obession. When you are in a situation where there “is” abuse and harm, then you there you are. While I would disagree that the “equality” is not the magic formula for these situations, I appreciate that you do care and are tyring to help. The problem is that the quest for equality is creating its own problems. Mly point is there is no cookie cutter answer… “equality” is not the modus operandi to be sought to save the world’s problems. The worst kind of problem is to bring in your “equality” and pour it into cultures and situations where it is not wanted, by either sex. Look at all the money spent on trying to influence other cultures, and then the tension and build up, eventually expressed through violence. I have lived in Muslim cultures, for example, where it is laughable to apply the “equal” drama and concern. This is a very American worry.
But Carter’s comments can’t even remotely be interpreted as favoring the imposition of cookie cutter notions of equality. What money are you talking about being spent on trying to influence other cultures? In all honesty, I have no idea what you are talking about.
I can’t outline all the groups and efforts to influence all the different cultures outside teh Western radar, but they are a lot. Foreign Policy spending in general bothers me (in 2001 we were giving more money to Israel than all teh countries of the world combined), but also spending by pro-Western groups in countries around the world. I don’t mean to read into how Mr. Carter applies equality in situations around teh world. My comment is that I am surprised by how sharply he is bothered by no women’s ordination, and how he generalizes this into a general problem of women being oppressed all over. If he is so bothered by women’s ordinatoin, one wonders how he feels about places in the world that distinguish even more so between men and women. I have appreciated his stance on Palestine and am a big fan. I have to be honest that the equality broken record for women is something that needs to cease being projected on the world community. Does this give you and idea? thanks
He is bothered by the SBCC statement on women. Baptists don’t have a creed or an orthodoxy, and to many Baptists, the SBCC effort to essentially create one regarding the role of women in the church was a gross deviation from Baptist norms, and even grosser because its interpretive conclusion was hardly compelled by biblical texts, which led many to conclude that the document, and the stand, should be viewed as the permanent imposition of discriminatory secular norms on church culture using the pretext of dubious religious reasoning.
If he is so bothered by women’s ordinatoin, one wonders how he feels about places in the world that distinguish even more so between men and women.
Robert: what does this have to do with what Carter wrote? Please read the article in question if you want to criticize it. It’s not long.
Robert:
Are you bothered by schools for girls? By efforts to provide health services or contraception? By efforts to repeal legal disabilities associated with being female, like restrictions on property ownership or transfer? By microloan programs that target loans to women entrepreneurs so they can avoid avaricious loan sharks and middlemen alike? By efforts to encourage women to refuse to allow their daughters to enter into marriages in which the partner’s family requires a dowry? By efforts to outlaw wife beating or to make it an automatic ground for divorce? By efforts to educate and train prostitutes for alternative employment?
In many cases, these efforts actually meet considerable opposition from religious authorities. Yes, some of these are advocated or supported by foreign organizations, but nearly all of them are also supported by NGOs operating in developing countries.
Just one concrete example, Robert, just one. That’s all I’m asking for.
“The ideology of equality is a secular form of the Christian mission” And this author complains about sweeping generalizations.
The role of women has evolved over the past centuries in the Catholic Church from where their status was about the same as a defective person to a psudoequality linked to “complementatrity.”
Jim, I think your citing of the CCC as to how well women are treated in the Church is then at best fatuous.
It begs the question of why we haven’t dveloped a comprehensive view and like other cites of the”truth” from CCC is just stating the party line.
Joe is right – it’s not the women can’t be ordained, it’s that the current discipline, girded by the the current underdeveloped) view won’t permit it or discussion about it.
The subjugation of women in many countries needs no amplification.
But even in the USA, we’ve talked about the problems of continuing to open opportunities.
I think it’s really hard for those who wear their collar differently and those who identify them as the Church to insight into this matter.
“Jim, I think your citing of the CCC as to how well women are treated in the Church is then at best fatuous.
It begs the question of why we haven’t dveloped a comprehensive view and like other cites of the”truth” from CCC is just stating the party line.
Joe is right – it’s not the women can’t be ordained, it’s that the current discipline, girded by the the current underdeveloped) view won’t permit it or discussion about it.”
Bob, and former President Carter, not all human behavior is driven by thirst for power and hegemony, although that is a very contemporary (albeit, it must be said, profoundly un-Christian) way of looking at things.
“Robert Wise, you seem to see Mr. Carter’s comments in the light of some preexisting obsession of your own. He is speaking of ending persecution and abuse. To end persecution and abuse is not to foist western notions of equality on anyone. ”
Barbara, the thing I found especially objectionable about President Carter’s piece was his facile and sloppy equating of persecution and abuse of women with restrictions on church ordinations. Whatever those restrictions are, by no conceivable stretch of the imagination are they persecution or abuse. To my mind, to try to make such a connection simply trivializes actual persecution and abuse.
Jim, of course you want to think that our (Catholic) kind of discrimination isn’t harmful and h as no relationship to the real and pernicious human rights abuses that occur in many places. And, of course, not permitting ordination is different from, say, not allowing women to attend school or own property, which is again different from stoning women as punishment for being unchaste, even as a result of rape. Differences in degree of harm don’t gainsay the similarities in logic, or the reality that unequal and harmful treatment of women, whether it is merely inconvenient or downright brutal is often justified on the basis of religious orthodoxy.
A moral call to religious authorities to view ANY discrimination as presumptively incorrect unless justified by the most compelling kind of evidence is just that — a call to examine the basis of discriminatory and unjust treatment of women. The tension between the Church’s statements and its internal practices will continue to grow.
Barbara, we’ll just have to disagree: a bishop’s “I’m sorry, but no” to a woman’s request to be ordained is not just a difference in degree to abuse or persecution. Nobody is injured, starved, beaten, jailed, intimidated, made to wear special clothing – it’s just not the same kind of thing.
Nor is it, properly speaking, even discrimination. For me to discriminate against you, I would have to deny you something to which you have a right. I’m trying to think of any class of persons who has a right to ordination, but I’m coming up empty.
Well, Jim, I just said that saying no to ordination isn’t the same as killing someone or denying them an education, but that doesn’t make it non-discriminatory.
I don’t have a “right” to work at any particular place of employment, but if I am rejected because I am a woman I have still been discriminated against. In any event, every piece of civil rights legislation I can think of defines discrimination as denying equal treatment to similarly situated people relating to both rights and privileges of employment. Women who are Catholics in good standing and willing to become priests are not allowed to do so even with the same education and accomplishments as men. That’s discrimination.
Further, having separate bathrooms, being forced to sit at the back of the bus and not being served at a lunch counter don’t injure, etc. etc. etc. It was still discriminatory and it was still unjust. If the Church has adopted a new standard of moral reasoning (“hey, do whatever, so long as no one is killed or maimed . . .”) I haven’t heard about it.
For me to discriminate against you, I would have to deny you something to which you have a right.
Jim,
Suppose I start a private country club that does not admit Catholics as members. Nobody has a “right” to join my club. But isn’t that discrimination? And what if it’s the only club within 100 miles, and it has a golf course and a swimming pool, and many Catholics in the area like to play golf and swim. They meet all the requirements for membership, except they are Catholic. Isn’t that discrimination?
Now, if there is a perfectly good reason why Catholics should not join the club, it would not be discrimination. I assume you mean the Church has a perfectly good reason for not ordaining women. The problem is that many of us can’t figure out exactly what that reason is. So we don’t accept it as a perfectly good reason. So refusing to ordain women (or celibate homosexual men) seems like unjust discrimination.
“In any event, every piece of civil rights legislation I can think of defines discrimination as denying equal treatment to similarly situated people relating to both rights and privileges of employment. ”
Sounds like a theory for a lawsuit. I haven’t heard of any courts ordering the church to ordain women, so either nobody has tested the theory, or the courts haven’t found it a very persuasive theory.
“Further, having separate bathrooms, being forced to sit at the back of the bus and not being served at a lunch counter don’t injure, etc. etc. etc. It was still discriminatory and it was still unjust. If the Church has adopted a new standard of moral reasoning (”hey, do whatever, so long as no one is killed or maimed . . .”) I haven’t heard about it.”
I admit men do have separate restrooms, but from everything I’ve heard, women get the better of that deal. But overall, my experience of priests is that they eat at the same lunch counters, drink from the same public water fountains, work in the same parish offices, and vote in the same voting booths as women, so I’m not sure in what way your analogy applies. My experience of parishes is that men and women are paid equally for comparable work.
Like you, I haven’t heard about any new standard of moral reasoning regarding killing or maiming. Sadly, those outcomes of persecution and abuse – which have as much to do with ordaining women as xylophones do with hamburgers – still happen, and the church still condemns them. The church also sees, with 20-20 moral vision, that its lack of authority to ordain women has absolutely nothing to do with persecution or abuse.
The church also sees, with 20-20 moral vision, that its lack of authority to ordain women has absolutely nothing to do with persecution or abuse.
Jim,
As I said before, some of us believe that “lack of authority” is an excuse for “we’re men, and only men can be priests.”
I remember a former boss of mine telling me that when working for her former employer (this was quite some time ago), they thought really highly of her, and when a management spot opened up that she wanted, they said, “We’d like to promote you, but you’re a woman.” It sounds to me like, they “lacked the authority.”
By the way, what about the following?
“And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
“The Church sees with 20-20 moral vision…” this too is circular and even more fatuous Jim!
You’re entitled to your opinion, but flat statements like this just ubndernmine for many folks an ydecent sense of suthority in the church.
20-20 moral vision that has made the church change so many practices? The private mass, Latin as the only language, outside the church no salvation, heretics should be executed, and on and on.
What is the vision of the people of God is not dogma but love of God, neighbor and enemy.
When one cuts through everything the only reason given is that Jesus did not send out women as preachers. Yet he did send the Woman at the Well. He had Magdalene announce the Resurrection and Mary chose the better part. The Syro-Pheonician woman changed centuries of “uncleanness.”
The church is not infallible. It is a sinful people working on doing the will of God. Despots need not apply.
I’m glad it’s such a ha ha joke for you Jim.
Jim
itsn’t true that the Church “lacks of authority to ordain women ” it is true that a pope, with his cultural views and preconceived ideas, said that the Church lacks of authority to ordain women. It is very different.
Rather than converse separately with everyone who is responding to my comments, I’ll just summarize my views.
First of all, I’m well aware that the church’s (alleged) lack of authority to ordain women is a sore point, and I have no inclination to enter that insoluble dispute on any side.
I’m commenting on a more modest matter: Jimmy Carter’s insinuation, unsupported by anything he wrote in his piece, that his former(?) denomination’s failure to appoint women to ministry positions is somehow part of a larger pattern of discrimination against women, a pattern that runs to horrible things like spousal abuse and female circumcision. Are women abused, and otherwise discriminated against in this world? Of course. Are women sometimes treated badly by the church? I’m sure all of us could relate many anecdotes illustrating that they are. Are the Southern Baptist Convention’s refusal to admit women to ministry positions, and the Catholic Church’s lack of authority to ordain women, instances of this pattern of discrimination in the species Homo sapien? Clearly, various folks here think so; but many members of those denominations (including those authorized to speak on their behalf) deny it. So there is a dispute.
Perhaps evidence could be put forward to demonstrate that the policies (doctrine, in the case of the Catholic Church) of these church organizations do indeed stem from unjust discrimination. So far, folks have offered assertions and analogies. I’ve also presented some evidence (a couple of snippets from the CCC) that seem to contradict any claim of systemic, pervasive discrimination on that part of the Roman Catholic Church.
It’s entirely possible – and in fact, I believe it to be true – that the church’s practice is what it is for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the abuse or persecution of women.
Barbara, I took a flippant tone in in a reply to you, and for that, I apologize. This is serious stuff.
Jim,
Do you think the following is outdated thinking in the guise of Church teaching on faith and morals, or is it something that the Church always taught and always will teach:
Hi, David, it seems to be quoting the infamous Ephesians passage that will be proclaimed at Sunday mass all over planet earth within a week or two, so it certainly has a scriptural warrant.
But then again, does everything in scripture transcend time and space, or is some of it culturally conditioned …
Thanks, everybody. I’m closing comments because I’m on vacation (and off the grid!) this weekend…