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
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"To quote the highest creature (did I mention a female?), in world and salvation history, the Mother of God, “Do whatever He tells you.” "
Are you trying to equate any male cleric of any level with the He attributable to the quote? A little heresy there perhaps?
I think there are a bunch of multi-layered issues---perceived by the hierarchy as threats---comprising the reasons for the LCWR crackdown. However, I believe that the question of the ordination of women---and the LCWR's willingness to look at it and question the institution's position---lies at the very center of it all. I want to say more when I have time, but for now will just post this link to an excellent biblical defense for the ordination of women that also serves as a salutary slap to the arrogance of RC: RC claims that Anglican Orders are invalid, yet we rush in to make sure that the Anglicans understand how grievous it is that they ordain women. See what a threat it is? Even in other churches, even those whose orders the hierarchy dismisses as null and void!! Bishop Tom Wright is a brilliant historian of the first-century and NT scholar; he is hardly a liberal and is certainly not a "radical feminist." Here is his (co-written with Bishop David Stancliffe) rebuttal to Cardinal Walter Kasper's intervention regarding the ordination of women to the episcopacy. Very worthwhile, and far more substantive than any argument I have seen proffered by the RC defenders of the barring of women from the priesthood:
http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/news/2006/20060721kasper.cfm?doc=126
a few more notes to Patricia:
Questioning the institutional church's denial of a Sacrament to HALF the baptized---simply because God created them female in the Divine Image---is not quite the same as having "a tantrum." do you really think it is?
Those women who experience a call to ordained ministry are, in fact, doing what you recommend: they are "doing whatever Jesus tells them." He has called them; they are trying to respond. So it is the "authorities" who are refusing to do what Mary recommends.
Holy moly. Here's another reason to be grateful. I am not one of those bishops. There have always been and always will be aspects of their lives I envy. The stew in which they have now settled is not one of them.
Patricia: If you would, please click on the link referencing Tom Reese and Stephen Colbert and listen to their conversation. Having done so, who do you believe expresses the most useful notions of Christianity? As I am certain you would predict, I am defining useful as expressing the least amount of arrogance. That Christianity be useful to mere mortals is important, isn't it?
Just some random thoughts/questions:
1. Is the LCWR merely a "megaphone" for the bishops, or is it a distinct body, concerned with the life and sustenance of its membership and the vitality of religious life as they understand it? If the latter, do they have the right and/or responsibility to explore whatever seems appropriate by way of ideas, etc., to further their discernment? If the former, then why exist at all? The church also has the CMSWR, and they are happy to be what the bishops say religious should be and do what the bishops want religious to do. This is possibly why the canon lawyers have said thet the LCWR will probably have to submit to the CDF's determinations (or should we say "pre-determinations?) or else remove themselves from canonical status. In my view, the latter will be a very dangerous thing for the church---for women, for religious life and for the church's global witness.
2. Are women and men, in Christian anthropology, truly equals? Are both equally created in the Divine Image and equally recreated in Christ Jesus? In the order of grace, is there a reason why the "matter" of a redeemed woman's human person---her body, spirit, reason, will, etc.,---does not have the capacity to receive the grace of ordination? If there is a reason, and if at the same time men and women are truly equals in the order of grace, then where is the deficiency in the redeemed female?
3. Even if we were to posit that the Lord's Eucharist was an "ordination" ceremony (I do NOT posit this!), are we certain that there were NO WOMEN present? Or, if Jesus had had the gumption (or bad manners) to invite the women disciples (including his mother, who we know was in the vicinity of Jerusalem), did he send them to a different room while he "ordained" the men? Doesn't any of this strike anyone as beyond ridiculous? Yet this is often how those in favor of denying Orders to women tell the story. Absurd.
3. To those who support refusing the Sacrament of Orders to women: how are you CERTAIN that this is not yet just another example of sexist exclusion seen throughout the centuries---i.e., women as chattel, women as inferior in all ways and good for only childbearing, women denied education, women denied the vote, women denied professional advancement, women denied credit, jobs, equal representation under the law, etc., etc., AD NAUSEAM? Can you be certain of this, especially when the church's own history is not exactly exemplary with regards to women's equal dignity with men in Christ? Are you at all suspicious?
4. In a church where all deliberative authority is held by clergy alone in various degrees, are there significant gifts and insights missing from the exercise of that authority because there are no women allowed? It's interesting to see conservatives tout all the unique, special gifts that women have yet not be bothered at all that those gifts are missing from the authority structure of the church. I am on record as not agreeing that women and men have entirely separate gifts based on gender; we may have tendencies and strengths, but I have seen all of the gifts manifest in all sorts of ways that cross the gender line. Still, the feminine presence is missing, and the more the nay-sayers extol women's "specialness," the further they stick their foot into their own trap.
5. Are there any women here who are offended that the last pope took it upon himself-----all alone---to write an encyclical on WOMEN? As if women---half the race; half the church!---are a topic to be defined and delineated and put in a box (or a booklet)??? Preposterous in its arrogance, no matter how glorified the words are. I call it the "talking about us without us," syndrome.
6. Church as Bride and Christ as Bridegroom: this one is fairly worn out but it is also dragged out by those who want women to be denied one of the Sacraments. A few thoughts: it is ONE image of the Church; it is poetic, limitedly useful, and certainly was not central in the earliest centuries. But if we must reference it, here are a few questions: are the non-ordained men of the church supposed to see themselves as "feminine" before God? Do they really conceptualize themselves as Christ's "bride"? And, if males are subsumed into the "feminine" symbol of church, why can't women be subsumed into the "masculine" symbol of Christ the Priest? Why doesn't it work both ways?
7. For me, on the record: the glorification of Mary does NOT help women and does not encourage their sense of equality with men in the order of grace. Best read on this: Elizabeth Johnson's Truly Our Sister: A Theology of Mary in the Communion of Saints.
8. As far as some Religious "moving beyond" Jesus: first, Sr Laurie Brink's talk is not recommending this, only describing this as a reality in the lives of some Sisters. Second, be careful how you interpret "beyond Jesus": I have met a certain "Jesus" preached by arrogant, sexist men, and it is a Jesus I want nothing to do with, either. There is a certain parallel here with some careless uses of "atheist": sometimes people who claim to be atheist are rejecting a false image of God---an image that has damaged them, scandalized them, etc., and image distorted by those who present it. There are plenty of "Jesuses" out there that I, a faithful Christian woman who believes wholeheartedly every word of the Creed and believes that God's Word is truly in Scripture, would never give allegiance to. Can you imagine what a boy raped by a priest---Mr "alter Christus"---might end up thinking of Jesus? I am not saying that Laurie Brink was describing this phenomenon, but it is worth thinking about as a possible perspective. And yes, I can see Sisters "moving beyond" the Jesus presented by the institutional church for a lot of reasons.
Bye for now :)
Bravo, Janet!!!
I second the Bravo for Janet!!
Before I read Janet's comments, I thought about asking the following question, and it still remains a good question.
"If the LCWR will submit to the CDF determinations, what will come of this, other than another example of the inordinate and misguided power and authority of the magisterium?"
This event will likely go onto the list of other events that demonstrate that the Roman Curia continues to drift further away from the sensus fidelium, theologians and women religious (and some enlightened clergy).
I don't know what is more damaging to the Church of Christ: a resistant LCWR in the likes of the Austrian Priest's Iniative, or the submission to authority. The latter will not hasten any revision in Church doctrine or ecclesiolgy that will eventually happen in the long term. In the short term the former will likely speed the revision most Catholics pray for. Most Catholics do not want insurrection, but enlightenment. Standing up for one's belief for Jesus and His Gospel, as an act of reason and virtue, is not insurrection or disobedience to the truth.
"In the U.S., a strong pipeline of female senior executives means a larger pool eyed by recruiters," wrote Joann Lubin and Kelly Eggers in "More Women Are Primed to Land CEO Roles," [TheWall Street Journal, April 30, 2012]. Nuns as CEO-level leaders in the Catholic Church?....not a chance if the Vatican has its way
The Pope and other members of the hierarchy have no fear of being replaced by women religious, many of whom are likely much more qualified for Church leadership than they are. No need for glass ceilings either—the oppressed nuns are simply kept in the Church basement.
But fear they must. Margery Frisbie asks: "What if women broke away from the Church?" ["L'Osservatore Chicago: What if women broke away from the Church?" The Chicago Catholic News, April 30, 2012, http://www.chicagocatholicnews.com/?p=1262].
To better understand the Vatican's penchant for subjugating the nuns to male authority, see the appended piece, "They Took Leadership and Incurred Wrath," by Ken Briggs, author of the 2006 book Double Crossed: Uncovering the Catholic Church's Betrayal of American Nuns.
Ken Briggs article was published May 1, on National Catholic Reporter Online at
In the living of our lives, we are each called to act "in persona Christi." Translating that transcendent obligation into secular terms—the priesthood as an equal opportunity employer—makes me uncomfortable. My discomfort is not theological. It is aesthetic.
Does a female priesthood not dehistoricize and dematerialize the historic Jesus? Does it not leave us with an indistinct cosmic Christ, a vaporous, shape-shifting mirage? I do not pretend to know the answer. Not at all. I only know that in my mind's eye a female priest appears as a woman in drag.