Catholic Sensibility

It is striking that given how long women were seen as properly “in the home” in their role rearing children and managing a household that the Report mentions no longer at home. Here, a mention of a leaning to insensitivity in some aspects:

5. At a deeper level, one of the reasons for the discomfort mentioned above is the still-limited sensitivity that exists in certain ecclesial settings regarding this matter. In this regard, it must give pause that an increasing number of women, of every age group and in different parts of the world, no longer feel “at home” in the house of the Lord, to the point of leaving it altogether. These signs, however, are not to be read primarily in statistics on departures, but rather in the fact that the “question of women” is present precisely as a demand or expectation of equality in ever broader portions of the Church throughout the world (cf. Christus Vivit 42).

That report from the Charlotte confessor supposedly quizzing teen girls about sex, but not boys. Teens are certainly attuned to fairness, and they also communicate with each other. If the institutional church is struggling with teens, why would we expect that rough start to be easily reversed?

4. Regarding the reasons for the discomfort considered thus far, one cannot fail to recall several elements of analysis that are now widely shared. First, it is necessary to point out that, underlying all this as a general cause, there is the broader crisis of faith affecting every sphere of the Church—particularly in the West—and that affects both men and women.

This “general cause … broader crisis” can be traced to many reasons in different places. Commentators seem to have a favorite or two. I’m not an exception. It seems important to be open to listening to what other people see and have studied.

Beyond this general factor, however, it is also possible to identify more specific reasons relating precisely to the condition of women in the Church. In the first place, there exists within the contemporary ecclesial mentality a certain pattern of thought and behavior identifiable as “clericalism” or “machismo.”

Even some men are turned off by excessive “machismo” in the clergy. Clericalism dents many good communities and fails to advance priests and even some people from a more juvenile stage of development.

These attitudes concern a management of power and speech that creates distrust and, not least, distance among women. Clericalism is the tendency to transfer automatically the authority and unique role that properly belong to the priest in the celebration of the Eucharist into all other areas of community life. The presidency of the Eucharist is thus understood by some to justify a style of leadership that is fundamentally authoritarian and self-referential.

Clergy that persist in presenting themselves in this way are somewhat detached from the teaching and example of the Lord.

It is not without foundation to observe that the element which, more than others, has contributed to establishing the divide between men and women in the Church is the fact that the male gender—throughout history and well beyond the boundaries of the ecclesial community—has been proposed as the normative reference for understanding humanity in its entirety. This phenomenon is reflected even in language, for example, in the use of the term “man” to mean “human being.”

It is good to mention this.

It is clear, therefore, how such a mentality leads to the establishment of a system that makes it difficult for women to express the competencies they have acquired and the charisms they bear. The problem is also evident in the adoption, by clergy and some lay persons, of a linguistic register that extends even into liturgical prayer and preaching. Added to this is the tendency to identify the “feminine” only with certain traits such as gentleness, submissiveness, docility, or weakness, or exclusively with roles belonging to the domestic sphere.

Indeed. Each human being brings an array of gifts and charisms to their ministry in the church–domestic, parish, diocese, vowed community, etc.. In failing to assess each person for what they offer and trying to pigeon-hole them into a particular category, we do individuals a great injustice. For the record, this happens with men also.

All of this slows the emergence of an ecclesial language fully attuned to the reciprocity of the masculine and the feminine, understood in their equal, specific, and fundamental dignity. It should also be recalled that the Synod Fathers and Mothers specifically recommended paying greater attention “to the language and images used in preaching, teaching, catechesis, and the drafting of official Church documents, giving more space to the contributions of female saints, theologians, and mystics” (Final Document of the Synod on Synodality 2023–2024, 60).

Making some effort to explore history and current women would help. My current pastor often cites women theologians in his homily. He doesn’t avoid men, but I doubt he is keeping count–which brings its own problems.

We move from gratitude for what women do, and how they represent Christ in various ministries to the very real tensions in the Body:

3. Yet all this, like the clear midday light that sharpens every shadow, also serves to make even more evident how much remains to be done for the promotion of the vocation of women in the Church. While significant advances have been made, it must nevertheless be acknowledged candidly and confidently that much work remains.

I think we can be heartened that certain tensions are confessed, but also that three significant phenomena are making themselves evident.

And this realization has generated a specific discomfort among many women concerning their participation in the life of the communities to which they belong, particularly when ecclesial realities are compared with the civil societies of many of the countries in which they live. This discomfort manifests itself in various ways:
a) The most evident is the increasing number of women—both younger and older—who simply no longer identify themselves as being Catholic.

Local exits to other churches and faith communities are one thing. Sometimes the local exit is shifting from one parish to another. One reason might be the rejection of a daughter as an altar server in one parish and her welcome in another. It might also involve moving from Rome to Anglicanism, or becoming a Lutheran, or finding a community with a female pastor who offers a source of Christian encouragement. I’ve also know many women who have left Christianity entirely for serious reasons: hypocrisy, abuse, lack  of intellectual rigor, simple misogyny–the reasons are many.

b) There is a growing disengagement of women from active participation in the life of the local Church, which is reflected in the well-known decline in vocations to female religious life (although the number of women choosing forms of monastic consecration is holding steady to some extent); notably, this is a phenomenon that is no longer limited to the Western world alone.

I would offer a caution about reading the wrong thing in fewer numbers of women religious. Like men, many women found they could serve in significant ways as married persons, or even as single persons living in the world. Sometimes the call to family is strong. (I can certainly align with that.) Sometimes existing religious orders offered misfitting charisms. Let’s not overlook at religious orders are many and most come and go, growing for a while, shrinking, merging, and passing into a sunset as other needs in the Church may be discerned.

c) Another aspect of this discomfort is the ever-stronger call, on the part of many women who are very actively engaged in pastoral activity or who are experts in theology and canon law, to review the currently existing forms of ecclesial leadership to make them more accessible to women. One thinks of

• the question of access to the sacrament of Holy Orders,
• the possibility of establishing new ministries with specific characteristics for the service of the People of God,
• giving the homily during community celebrations,
• and finally, the delicate question concerning the specific nature of entrusting the governance of a community or of particular diocesan offices to suitably qualified women.

Orthodox believers and hierarchy will struggle with the first. The question with number two might be, why just women? Three probably needs further exploration, given the uneven quality of preaching from clergy and the very real question of homilies as a duty of office or an authentic charism for the building up of the people of God.

And yes, women as leaders of men, including clergy: it would seem to be a novelty, but it’s been done before, though not terribly often.

2. First of all, the Synod expressed a warm and fitting “thank you” to all the women engaged in the service of the Church throughout the world: from the communities of the Amazon to the cities of Central Europe; from the poorest peripheries of the Philippines to diocesan curiae in America and Australia; from villages in Africa to the mountain regions of Latin America.

In the words of the Eucharistic liturgy: it is right and just (to give thanks). Gratitude is an important attitude that can salve many wounds between men and women, clerics and laity. We do well to remember to cultivate that attitude, most especially if we believe ourselves to be in a situation of “above.”

Their invaluable contribution—often carried out in quiet dedication—frequently enables the Church to fulfill her mission. For this reason, any attempt to enumerate the roles they carry out with generous commitment is necessarily incomplete: catechists and leaders of communities, mothers of families, consecrated religious and seculars, delegates in diocesan curiae, officials and superiors in the Roman Curia, teachers, theologians, directors and volunteers in Caritas organizations, those who offer an indispensable service of caring for the smallest and most forgotten parishes and churches, and faces of understanding and closeness in countless situations of need.

Women as a whole contribute in early as many numbers as there are active women believers. They have done so from prior to the event of Pentecost as Saint Luke instructs us in 8:1-3. Perhaps that is a significant omission from the Roman Martyrology, those aside from Mary Magdalene and Joanna who served faithfully to further the mission of Jesus. Susanna and companions would be a fitting addition to the Roman calendar, as an obligatory memorial.

PART TWO will address A DETAILED SYNTHESIS OF THE THEMES EMERGING FROM THE SYNODAL DEEPENING. As we delve into the topic of women in the Church, a few comments before we dive in.

First, the issue of women has always been with us. In some ways, the Church has always been ahead of secular cultures of the West in the freedom of some women and their expression within some of the communities of faith.

Second, women have often had a rocky relationship with men in administration–both in the Church and in the secular world. That probably remains a factor today both in the Church and outside of it.

Perhaps some people see the twentieth century as some kind of a start, and in some ways it was. But the movers, the tensions, the struggles have always been with us. The natural human drive for meaning and expression has been suppressed more in women than in men. That’s inescapable.

Honoring a Promise

1. The entry of women into public life—which developed and consolidated during the twentieth century and was not limited to Western countries alone—is a phenomenon that continues to affect both civil society and the Church.

Five and six popes ago, it had caught notice from the Chair of Peter:

More than sixty years ago, Saint John XXIII could already refer to this fact as a “sign of the times,” observing that “women are gaining an increasing awareness of their natural dignity. Far from […] allowing themselves to be regarded as a kind of instrument, they are demanding both in domestic and in public life the rights and duties which belong to them as human persons” (Pacem in Terris 41). Indeed, in the message addressed to women at the close of the Second Vatican Council, Saint Paul VI went so far as to affirm that “the hour is coming, in fact has come, when the vocation of woman is being achieved in its fullness, the hour in which woman acquires in the world an influence, an effect, and a power never hitherto achieved” (Message to Women, par. 3). Can it be said that this fervent hope has been translated into reality, at least within the Church?

I think it can also be said we are deep into a journey that is far from completed.