In the memorable opening lines of the Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, the bishops proclaimed their solidarity with “the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age.” One of the most pressing hopes of the age has been the struggle to achieve equal rights and treatment for women, and the council fathers also spoke to that concern. “Where they have not yet won it, women claim for themselves an equity with men before the law and in fact,” they wrote. “Now, for the first time in human history all people are convinced that the benefits of culture ought to be and actually can be extended to everyone.”
October marks the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the council. Of course, no women participated in those momentous deliberations, although a few were allowed to observe the second session. If a third Vatican council were convened tomorrow, there would still be no decision-making role open to women. Since the council, women have made great strides in every kind of secular endeavor. They have also been ordained as priests and bishops in churches that long resisted such reform. Juridical authority in the Catholic Church, however, remains firmly in the hands of men. Whatever position one takes on the ordination of women, the idea that it is essential to God’s purposes that the exercise of authority in the church be reserved to men alone defies reason.
Historically it was the God-given superiority of men that justified excluding women from the priesthood. When that explanation became an embarrassment, others were proffered. Now the church teaches that it must follow the example of Jesus, who chose only men as his apostles, and that, because of their physical resemblance to Jesus, only men can act symbolically in persona Christi. Most American Catholics find these explanations unpersuasive. It is possible, of course, that the magisterium is right, and that those living in societies that place such a high value on equality cannot appreciate the importance of distinct gender roles in the church’s sacramental economy. It may be that ineligibility for the priesthood is not itself a denial of women’s “equity with men.” But the church still uses that ineligibility as a reason to exclude women from positions of authority, and this creates a serious credibility problem for the church’s leadership, especially when it comes to issues dealing directly with women.
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The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s recent censure of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious for “serious doctrinal problems” raises a number of familiar, if troubling, questions. The LCWR, which represents most American nuns, exists to provide support for the work sisters do for the poor, the imprisoned, the ill, and the marginalized, and to give the various religious communities a corporate voice. As part of the CDF’s action, the LCWR will be put into a kind of receivership under Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain—essentially suppressing what little autonomy the group has had. Its statutes will be rewritten and speakers for LCWR meetings will now be vetted. The sisters were specifically reprimanded for speaking out in opposition to positions taken by the U.S. bishops but also for keeping “silent” about church teachings on ordination and same-sex marriage. Is silence now considered a form of dissent? Are women religious not even allowed to determine the priorities of their own ministries?
This isn’t about whether everything done under the LCWR aegis is immune from criticism. Feminism has certainly had an influence on the group, and most women religious probably do disagree with the church about women’s ordination. Yes, on occasion New Age spiritualities have gotten a hearing. Yet much of what the LCWR does looks like very smart and sensible women carrying on apostolic activities and preaching more successfully by action than most of the clergy and episcopacy do by word. The LCWR, like the church itself, is a diverse group, and the CDF offers no evidence that the women are unduly influenced by “radical” feminism. It might even be said that the LCWR has faced the same challenge as the bishops and met it better—namely, maintaining community and solidarity, dialogue and conversation, and encouraging innovation, creativity, and risk-taking in service to the gospel.
The CDF action is certain to be a pastoral disaster, another instance of the hierarchy acting in an imprudent and counterproductive fashion. All Catholics should support the effort of the bishops to preserve and pass on the fundamentals of the faith, and correcting doctrinal error is part of that process. But wouldn’t the bishops be more effective in that task if they did not confuse disagreement about public policy with doctrinal dissent—and if the experience and judgment of women were given an honored place and a decisive role in the church’s governance?
Related: Letters, September 14, 2012
Cross Examination, by Sister X
For more coverage on dotCommonweal, click here.
I will believe that the Roman Curia only has a theological concern about ordination when it begins to take affirmative action to become an equal opportunity employer and hires many women in order to release clergy for parish sacramental administration which the curia claims only males can do.
I will believe that the pope believes in the fundamental equality of men and women when he signs a simple document assuring that half of all future papal electors are female.
If the principal job of cardinals is to elect the pope, then I hope every public appearance of the pope sees a large sign saying.
WOMEN CARDINALS
EQUALITY NOW!
Any religion, alas any institution, which has sruvived through the centuries and the vagaries of history, gradually adjusts to changing technologies and demogrpahics. Most institutions, however,lag behind those changes and often pay a hefty price for the tension built between what it needs to be and what it was. Conservative roots benefits most societies by allowing a more paced becoming to assist its members in the rush coping with a world where everything seems to be changing.
Currently change would seem to be the essence of the times. And our Church provides us with a temple to rest a bit while the world whirls around us.
Unfortunately, response to changes can be delayed for just so long. Many children of Jesus receive inadequate pastoral help because archaic policies limit the numbers of sheperds tending the sheeps. When I travel through South America or read trends affecting Brazil, the nation with the largest Catholic population worldwide, I rejoice to find brothers and sisters from other Christian or Mormonic religions bringing the confort of the Lord´s message to our brethrens. I only wished our women priests added their sacramental wisdom to our ordained priests,where saints walk among them, but where one also finds many tired, overworked or just wasted.
Depriving the sacraments of our Church, because our leaders honestlly believe the will of Jesus opposes women bringing his saving message to the desperate multitudes seems to be extreme. But fortunately, if the Church finds itself trapped by dogmatic limitations to deliver His message, others are there to bring His peace and joy.
What a waste of time, what a submission to power equation long obsolete. Ironically, like Mother Church has done throughout its complex becoming, it will adapt to meet the needs of the children of God, to bring the ever yound pastoral message. It will do so again...but how many souls will suffer in darkness because the light will not shine on them?
Most High, all-powerful, all-good Lord, All praise is Yours, all glory, all honour and all blessings.
To you alone, Most High, do they belong, and no mortal lips are worthy to pronounce Your Name.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
In the heavens you have made them bright, precious and fair.
Let´s pray and illuminated by the Holy Spirit find a way to honor our duties as the Children of the Sun of God.
Does anyone know if the Roman Curia reads Commonweal or the postings that follow various articles?
On the one hand, reason would argue that someone or some office in the Vatican is responsible for reading the "signs of the times", to the extent that widely published Catholic magazines or journals discuss such issues. I do know that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the CDF) does watch, like a hawk, many Catholic Theological Journals, like Theological Studies (TS). With respect to this prominent journal, the CDF has directly intervened over the fact that this Jesuit journal either published an essay that was opposed to a church doctrine, or did not publish an reply essay to defend a teaching that was criticized, especially the many facits of sexual ethics. Thankfully, TS tries to find that center line that helps it to be faithful to its academic freedom and respectful of the Church.
It is indeed a sad commentary that the Roman Curia appears acts the way it wants, regardless of any criticiism or even in ignorance of criticism and the sensus fidelium.
The "head" of the Church, as in the Pope and Roman Hierarchy, does not believe that they are detached from the "body" of the Church. They don't believe that they are not listening. They believe their own narrative that they are acting and governing as Jesus would act and govern because they listen to the Holy Spirit who will never lead them astray of the truth and the good. Unfortunately, what Jesus promised was that the Holy Spirit would not lead astray His Church (the pope, the clergy, theologians and the laity as His Church). I also want to emphaze that this means both men and women, in particular women religious.
Nevertheless, we the Church press on because the Spirit of God is persistent, persuasive, and gives us the wisdom and fortitude to strive to make a small contribution of moving the conversation forward, even if it is one small step at a time. A time will come when there will be a leader in the likes of John XXIII, that will get things right.
This has the makings of a pyrrhic victory for Rome and the USCCB.
I'm not qualified to argue the relevant doctrinal issues, and i won't try to do so. But, in the minds of most (Catholic and non-Catholic alike), the sisters have enormous credibility, while that of the Church leaders has taken a huge beating. The USCCB has decided to make a very public and overt foray into US Presidential politics, and the present actions against the sisters will serve to lessen the effectiveness of these political efforts.
The spectacle of a group of men of dubious reputation giving marching orders to a group of women of stellar reputation fails the smell test, esoteric doctrinal details notwithstanding.
- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
I second the sentiments in the article, though I am a bit bothered by the mention of feminism immediately after the admission that the LCWR is not immune to criticism. Perhaps it was unintentional. But feminism is a sign of health, not a matter for suspicion. Anyone who knows anything about feminism (evidently not Rome) knows that its vision is a holistic one of women and men collaborating as equals. The response to the unraveling fiasco has been, in some quarters, the cry of solidarity, "We are all nuns now!" May I suggest that "we are all feminists now" too?
You have written an excellent and thoughtful editorial. At one point you say "the idea that it is essential to God’s purposes that the exercise of authority in the church be reserved to men alone defies reason."
I would put it more strongly. It not only defies reason, it also defies faith. The idea is an idolatry. Idolatry is the word used when a construction of man is proffered as coming from God.
In the next paragraph, "it was the God-given superiority of men that justified excluding women from the priesthood. When that explanation became an embarrassment, others were proffered," you identify this construction of man. But the idolatry is likely to continue until the Vatican finds a theological frame of reference that explains how the Holy Spirit led them astray (another idolatry).
Fortunately, such a frame of reference is a possible outcome from God's "book of nature," the cosmos, based on what we have been learning over these last fifty years. It turns out that it is an unfolding and living reality, not a clockwork. But perhaps a "sense of the faithful" may crystallize on the matter before a theology catches up with practice.
As a women and a Catholic, I fail to understand why this can’t be seen for what it is, a “salvation” issue opposed to an “equality” issue. The Vatican is no more “out of step” than the Mother of God was for not throwing a temper tantrum when she wasn’t ‘chosen’ to be a priest.
Last time I checked, omission was still a serious sin right up there with pride. Among other things, the nuns are clearly “in omission” of the full teachings of the Church, from whom they took vows of obedience. Consequently, they put not only their souls in jeopardy, but many to whom they witness (or not).
If we really loved the nuns in an agape kind of love, we would want only what God wants for them, their salvation. The actions of the Vatican are simply the “tough love” of Jesus Christ.
This “soup kitchen catholic” stuff is getting a bit old, really. By that I mean, do or don’t do whatever floats your boat, but IF you work in a soup kitchen, all is well! That phony agenda-driven rhetoric might work on some, but never on those who keep their eyes on Christ and His teachings.
To quote the highest creature (did I mention a female?), in world and salvation history, the Mother of God, “Do whatever He tells you.”
It appears to me that 'equality of the sexes' in the US is largely defined as treating women the same as men. This editorial largely follows this line of thinking.
But I believe true equality between the sexes does not mean being treated identically or the same. It's being treated equivalently but consistent with their differing human natures. For example, why do we encourage women to first have a career and then have children; later pregnancies are contrary to the basic biological function of their bodies.
I have read that a LCWR speaker has talked of maybe having to "give up Jesus." Some of them have asked "who Jesus Christ really is?" They want to be called Catholic, but question the heart of Catholic Doctrine. I am thankful that the Holy Father has put LCWR under "receivership." They are no less dangerous to our faith than the unaccountable Legionnaires of Christ. In both cases members did much good and had much support. But good deeds in themselves are not an imprematur. "By their fruit you will know them." The Lesbian lifestyle is not good fruit; neither is it beneficial to teach false doctrine. These are only the tip of the iceberg. Catholic nuns are the last column in the army of radical feminists; it is sad that they have chosen to be so. But we do have orders of nuns who faithrully embrace Church Doctrine. Instead of wasting energy defending what is indefensable, we should support those women who deserve it. I know a more than 80-year-old nun, Sr. Ellen Conway, who for years has ministered to the imprisoned in Pero. When relatives sent her a mattress a few years ago - to replace the board on which she slept - she responded with a note, saying thank you on behalf of the family to whom she presented the mattress. I thank God for Sr. Ellen. He will also address LCWR through the legitimate channels of our one, true, holy Catholic Church, which they disdain.
Clyde: you hit the nail precisely on the head: IDOLATRY. This truth ame to me full-force and in a life-changing way (after years of denial) when I heard a priest preach that ordination is a form of transubstantiation.
Patricia: It is interesting that the only "tough love" ever doled out by our Lord Jesus was to MEN who were hypocrites and power-mongers (including those among hos own disciples). Not a whit of evidence that Jesus ever struggled like this with the women who loved and were faithful to him :)