Women are more than half of humanity and of the Church, the first witnesses of the Resurrection according to the New Testament. Women represent a different way of being human; they even show the other face of God. The women’s genius has been shining throughout the centuries, especially in Christianity’s long history. But the status of women still needs to be promoted in the Church as a way of overcoming the lingering clericalism and ensuring that the laity take their responsibility and have their space in the life of the Christian community.

Women are more than half of humanity and of the Church, the first witnesses of the Resurrection according to the New Testament. Women represent a different way of being human; they even show the other face of God. One of the greatest changes of the modern times is the emergence of women: they are affirming their dignity, their equality and taking their place and responsibility in society.

The dates when women received the right to vote (the first country to comply was Finland in 1906; the last one: Kuwait on July 1, 2006) remind us of how recent it was that women received equal political rights, and how this was accomplished in the face of much suspicion and resistance. The entry of women into all professions in society and into political roles is truly new and truly revolutionary.

It was the worldwide feminist movement, the symbol and instrument of the emancipation of women. It is within the wider feminist movement that we place the blossoming of feminist theology in the Christian Church, in the second half of the 20th century.

A hot potato

The feminist movement is still a hot potato, occasion of much controversy for the polarization of positions that are reflected in the following passage by the famous sociologist, Francesco Alberoni: “It was the women that made use of their intelligence, instead of brutality to ensure their survival and that of their children. As wives and mothers, they have created a civilized way of life. They have invented the home and they have convinced their men to care for it. They have trained their husbands and sons to cleanliness and order; they have valued gentleness, tenderness, everything that is sweet and delicate.

But not the new type of women…They do not search for love, but for power; they do not work for harmony but for domination. They compete with men; they have assumed their values. Exteriorly, they appear like women, but interiorly they are men. They care for their beauty, their charm and attractiveness by means of dieting, lifting, gymnastics, sophisticated accessories and refined make-up – only to seduce, to climb the social ladder, to affirm themselves. They feel wasted if they give themselves to a man. Man is the enemy.

This type of woman thinks that she represents the future but she doesn’t know that she has put herself in line with the oldest tradition of humanity: power, prevarication, war… and she risks losing the most precious things in life: the ability to understand, the capacity to love, and to have a warm heart.”

Doctors of the Church

The desire and the choice to write about the place and mission of women in the Church originated in me from the study of our Baptismal Priesthood, the priesthood of the faithful. The greater number of the faithful (or laity) is made up of women: they are a world apart, with very distinctive and original characteristics. To me personally, the topic appeals out of a sense of gratitude for all that I have received from the many women in my life, starting with my mother, but also out of a sense of wonder: I have never outgrown the marvel that I experience looking at their difference and peculiarity.

Already Pope Paul VI had manifested the awareness of the Church about the place of women by proclaiming St. Teresa of Avila and Saint Catherine of Siena doctors of the Church (1970). John Paul II declared St. Teresa of Lisieux doctor of the Church (doctor amoris: the doctor of love) in 1997, the anniversary of her death.

In Rome, in 1987 there was the synod about the laity. On that occasion, one of the recommendations was for a further study of the anthropological and theological bases of the meaning and dignity of being a woman and of being a man: “It is a question of understanding the reasons for and the consequences of the Creator’s decision that the human being should always and only exist as a woman or a man. It is only by beginning from these foundations that it will be possible to understand the greatness of the dignity and vocation of women and their active presence in the Church and in society”.

From the new awareness that the Church is first of all people of God, comes the promotion of the laity. It is in the context of the promotion of the laity expressed by the 1987 synod that Pope John Paul II decided to write the Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem (1988) about the vocation and the dignity of women.

The style and character of the letter are those of a meditation, yet it is possibly the most personal and original document of the late pope, written with fine sensitivity, a document that gave rise to admiration even in certain radical feminist circles. For example, Gertrud Mongella, President of the International Conference on Women in Beijing said: “I would like all the fanatics in the world to reason in the same balanced way as the Pope.”

Human sexuality

In it, the late pope speaks of our sexuality as an experience of communion between woman and man. This self-giving, in mutuality, and without either’s dominance, is more like the inner life of God than anything else that we encounter in creation. It has in it the taste of the divine, and the Song of Songs is its internal music.

Wojtyla refuses to separate the “person” from the body. He loved the human body, he always enjoyed the strength and vitality his body used to give him, climbing the mountains or canoeing or swimming. He loved the sights and smells and sounds of the liturgy. Everywhere he saw that our spirit and body are made for one another, enter into one another, interpenetrate in the secret of our being. For the late pope, even celibacy is understood in the light of matrimony, the sacrament by which the Creator revealed to humankind the communion of His own nature. In Mulieris Dignitatem, he brought together his previous rich and original teaching about human sexuality.

Beginning in 1979, in the very first year of his papacy, John Paul II devoted 15 minutes of each weekly general audience over a five-year period, to dense and rigorous meditations on human sexuality. He began with Adam in his solitude. Adam walked alone as a species. He stood alone in all creation. Neither had he company of his own kind, nor could he procreate and assure the continuation of his own species.

This solitude, the Bible says, was not good. He lacked an essential part. So, from Adam’s flesh, to underline the oneness of the human essence, God created Eve: not just a woman, but a person with a name and personality. One inescapable point of this account is that the human being is two-in-one.

Moreover, if the human being is made “in the image of God”, the distinctness of our being male and female is revelatory of God’s own being and inner life. It is in our communion with one another that we are images of God. Each gender alone is incompletely human. We are made for the communion of male with female.

Thus, it can be said that God created man and woman in a single mysterious act. There is no right without left, no high without low, no man without woman. We can therefore clearly see that the sexual difference is neither irrelevant nor additional, nor is it a social product: it originates in the very intention of the Creator. It is in this context that Mulieris Dignitatem speaks of the genius of women in virginity and motherhood.

Collaborative ministry

Two years ago, on May 31, Feast of the Visitation, Card. Joseph Ratzinger, then head of the Congregation for the Defense of Faith, published his last important document before being chosen, a year later, to be Pope Benedict XVI. It is the Letter to the bishops on the collaboration of men and women in the Church and society. This letter is the immediate occasion for choosing this topic and the direct object of my interest.

The word ‘collaboration’ is very much in use especially applied to the “collaborative ministry” in today’s Church. It describes a different type of relationship from those that existed in the past and are still present in many parts of the world and many aspects of the life of the Church. They are considered imperfect or wrong and, therefore hopefully, should be on the way out: like submission, subservience, competition, domination, antagonism.

In this sense, the document is a point of arrival. The feminist movement in its extreme positions has not affected women only but also men, as the English journalist Melanie Phillips has shown in her book: The Sex-Change Society (Feminized Britain and the Neutered Male), published in 1999. The gender revolution of the twentieth century was female, but extreme feminism has distorted its own agenda of equality by replacing it with sameness. At the same time, men have been demonized and the male role has been put in crisis. The result has been an anti-family policy in which everyone has become a potential loser.

Beyond Feminism

In such a situation, it is not surprising that the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith has addressed its letter to both men and women. Today, in addition to clearly indicating the legitimate rights of women and working to make them respected in the five continents, it is also necessary to speak of the duties of both sexes.

The letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World underlines the equality in human dignity and yet the fundamental difference between the sexes. It expounds the unsuspected rich and deep anthropology of the sexes in Catholicism in order to find solutions to pressing problems in the area of family and women’s policies.

The implication of this “new” feminism are radical. There is no reason to single out women and make an ideology called feminism for them alone. We speak about women and men and their cooperation and difference, not only about women.

In this sense, we are already beyond feminism. If the status of women needs to be promoted in the Church (and it does!), it is not because they are women but because they are laity. It is the baptismal priesthood of the faithful that has to be rediscovered in the practice of the Church’s life. Only in this way we shall overcome the lingering clericalism and see that the laity take their responsibility and have their space in the life of the Christian community. In this context, the women’s genius already shines and will continue shining in the centuries to come as it did throughout Christianity’s long history. <WM

Collaboration in the Church

Highlights from the Letter to the bishops on the collaboration of men and women in the Church and society, written on May 31 2004, by Card. Joseph Ratzinger, then head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith.

The Church, “expert in humanity” (Paul VI), presents principles of active collaboration between men and women in the Church and in society, in recognition of their difference, in order to foster dialogue for a more authentic relationship. It starts from the biblical foundations of a Christian anthropology.

From the very beginning, humanity is described and articulated in the male-female relationship. Woman is another “I” in a common humanity that therefore appears as a unity of the two. Humanity is a relational reality. An ordered world is born out of differences brought together in harmony by relationships.

The capacity to love – reflection of the image of God who is love – is disclosed in the spousal character of the body in which the masculinity and femininity of the person is expressed. In the unity of the two, man and woman are called from the beginning not only to exist side by side or together, but they are also called to exist mutually ‘one for the other”, in interpersonal communion by means of the integration of what is masculine and what is feminine.

Their equal dignity as persons is realized as physical, psychological and ontological complementarity. Sexual difference is both important and meaningful. Sexuality is a fundamental component of personality, one of its modes of being, of manifestation, of communicating with others, of feeling, of expressing and living human love.

The human dimension of sexuality flows into the theological dimension. The great allegory of the covenant between Yahweh and the people of Israel is marriage, the love between man and woman, so beautifully exalted in the Song of Songs. The allegory becomes infinitely concrete with the Incarnation: Jesus is the bridegroom and the Church is the bride.

Christian life is a nuptial mystery. The bride is present in each of the baptized and is like one who presents herself to the Bridegroom, Christ. The Bible, in the book of Revelation, concludes with the words of the Bride and the Spirit who beseech the coming of the Bridegroom, “Come, Lord Jesus! (Rev. 22:20).

Male and female are thus revealed as belonging by nature to creation and destined therefore to outlast the present time, evidently in a transfigured form. From the first moment of their creation, man and woman are distinct, and will remain so for all eternity. Placed within Christ’s Paschal Mystery, they no longer see their difference as a source of discord to be overcome by denial or eradication, but rather as the possibility for collaboration, to be cultivated with mutual respect for their difference.

Motherhood is a physical and spiritual dimension. The genius of women shines in family and society life, involving human relationships and caring for others. It is in the family that we learn the basic teachings of our humanity. We learn to love in as much as we are unconditionally loved, we learn respect for others in as much as we are respected and we learn to know the face of God in as much as we receive the first revelation of it from a father and a mother full of attention in our regard.

Feminine values are above all human values, although women by nature may be more immediately attuned to them. What is called “femininity” is more than simply an attribute of the female sex. The word designates indeed the fundamental human capacity to live for the other and because of the other.

The harmonization of work with the demands stemming from the mission of women within the family is a challenge. The question is not only legal, economic and organizational; it is above all a question of mentality, culture and respect. Indeed, a just valuing of the work of women in the family is required. Women who freely desire to devote their life to the family should be able to do so without being stigmatized by society and penalized financially. In the same way, women who opt for a job outside the home should find an appropriate work schedule that respects their condition of pregnancy, motherhood and responsibility in the family.

Women are called to be unique examples and witnesses for all Christians of how the Bride is to respond in love to the love of the Bridegroom. Thus women have access to the heart of Christian life. Mary is the mirror, the icon of the Church. She is a model, not of passivity but of passion. <WM/LC

WOMEN’S UPHILL STRUGGLE

The emancipation of women in society is joined by the appearance of many outstanding women in the Church’s horizon of the 20^th century who follow the tradition of giant women of the second millennium of Christianity. But the women’s uphill struggle is not yet over.

The open-minded and free approach of Jesus towards the women members of his discipleship group is followed very soon by a narrowing of the mentality as it is witnessed by the passages about women attributed to Saint Paul. The narrow-minded outlook reached its peak in the Middle Ages and it was expressed by the saying that the woman needed: Aut murus aut maritus (either a wall or a husband: to be enclosed by the walls of a monastery or by the marital status).

So pervasive was the inferiority position of the women in marriage that it was paradoxically from the monasteries that women were able to manifest their free initiative and their gifts. It was in monasteries that women found education in an age of almost universal illiteracy; there they found leadership space: abbesses had the jurisdiction of bishops in their monastery.

I remember the choir of a Trappistine monastery in Uganda. At the place of the abbess there was a silver pastoral staff resembling one of a bishop. It was a sign that, also in the recent history of the missionary church, the monastery or the convent was sometimes a way for a young woman to attain education and leadership, in a social context where women are in a condition of subjection and inferiority.

It is from the monasteries of medieval Europe that we find a bunch of remarkable women mystics and theologians like St. Hildegard of Bingen, St. Gertrude the Great, St. Bridget of Sweden, Blessed Julian of Norwich, St Catherine of Siena. They were very influential in the often tumultuous life of the Church of their times and protagonists of interesting “feminine” insights in theology, especially in their speaking of God and His mystery.

Mother Ignacia’s achievement

The Renaissance did not bring any change of the set attitude against women. We have the exemplary story of Mary Ward (1586-1645), a brave English woman who wanted to start a congregation of active life like the Jesuits. She was in love with the rule of St. Ignatius of Loyola. As she discovered, her enemies were not only in Protestant England. Her devotion to the spiritual vision of St. Ignatius fed the distrust of the secular clergy, who were rivals to the glamorous Society of Jesus. Her institute was mocked as the house of “Lady Jesuits.”

But beyond the territorial jealousies of English Catholics, there was the wider resistance, in principle, to the radical program that Mary outlined. While elements of her program were admired – especially her proposal for free school for Catholic girls – her adamant insistence that the Institute be non-enclosed and that it remains free of Episcopal jurisdiction, ran head-on against the prescribed place of the women in the Church.

While some bishops offered polite approval to her plans, most ultimately shared the opinion of one priest who, while admiring the Sisters’ fervor, noted: “When all is said and done, they are all but women!”. Mary Ward traveled great part of Europe on foot, was imprisoned by the Inquisition, and saw the failure of her attempts.

Something different happened to Mother Ignacia of the Espiritu Santo, the founder of the Religious of the Virgin Mary (RVM) who, around the same time, gathered women in her beaterio in the Philippines, inspired and helped by the Jesuits. But the happening was at the periphery of the world, otherwise that attempt might have also failed.

Modern blossoming

It became necessary, after the French Revolution, for women religious to be allowed to come out of the enclosure and commit themselves in the world to a life of apostolate, social work and mission. The 19th and the first part of the 20th centuries have seen an extraordinary blossoming of female religious congregations of apostolic and missionary life. Women religious have contributed mightily to the uplifting of the condition of the women especially through education.

The Catholic Church has always, from the very beginning of the school system in Europe, placed major emphasis on the education of girls and women. Education is the major force of change in traditional sex-role patterns. The Church put major efforts into the education of women especially in the missions. “If one educates a woman, one educates a village” a saying from Africa explains. The problems facing women in the developing world are worse. Here women are responsible not only for their own family, but for whole communities as well, in an endless day of work, often amid poverty and deprivation.

The coming out of women religious in the modern times is the beginning of the accelerated movement of change so typical of the contemporary scene in all the fields. The emancipation of women in society is joined by the appearance of so many outstanding women in the Church’s horizon of the 20th century who follow the tradition of giant women of the second millennium of Christianity like Teresa of Avila and Terese of Lisieux. They are: Dorothy Day, Raissa Maritain, Edith Stein (Teresa Benedicta of the Cross), Teresa of Calcutta, Sue Rider, Josephine Bakita, Simone Weil, Catherine De Hueck Doherty, Magdeleine de Jesus to mention just a few. The uphill struggle is not completely over, but Vatican II is also in this field as a watershed for the fruits which we have just started to gather. <WM/LC

East Timor

The power

of the nuns

Amid the anarchy of armed gangs roaming the streets of Dili, an Australian soldier's uniform and assault rifle command a certain respect, but so do a nun's habit and crucifix. And this is helping a lot of people.

Carmelite Sister Idalia Tavares knows how to handle herself on the streets of Dili, the capital of East Timor. The missionary nun from the Dominican Republic has ventured into "no-go areas" of the city. The violence that the United Nations says has displaced 133,000 people is generally attributed to gangs plying a divide between "easterners" and "westerners," but religion is something most people have in common. Nine of every 10 people in the country are Catholics.

Sister Tavares, in her 50s, could be described as imposing. She stands almost 1.8 meters tall and is not frail-looking, whereas local people are relatively short. As director of Caritas Dili, the social service agency of Dili diocese, she has made forays to help people struggling amid the burned-down houses, looted shops and anarchy on the streets.

With flags on their vehicles clearly marked Caritas Dili, Sister Tavares and teams of nuns, uniformed nurses and social workers, the latter wearing T-shirts that also have Caritas Dili printed on them, venture out to offer health care and food.

Helping the displaced

Weeks after the government dismissed almost 600 protesting soldiers – from western districts – from the 1,400-member army, a major humanitarian operation is underway to help the thousands displaced by or suffering from the communally-charged conflict that followed the dismissal. The protesting soldiers claimed discrimination and lack of opportunity.

UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) is involved in the aid effort, as are the U.S. Catholic Church's Catholic Relief Services and Caritas Australia. The United Nations has appealed for US$18.9 million in funding support for its operation. But the carefully targeted work of Caritas Dili, a much smaller organization, has its own place.

Sitting in her office adjacent to Immaculate Conception Cathedral, Sister Tavares said last June that she has been in the area since 1981, during Indonesia's 25-year occupation, dealing with health concerns. She has lived through violent times, notably the rampage by pro-Indonesia militias after the U.N.-backed 1999 referendum produced a strong vote for independence. U.N. reports say 1,000-2,000 people died then. The Latin American nun said she understands the character of the people and how they see the Church.

"We go to small places where other organizations do not want to go because of security reasons," she explained, talking about Caritas Dili's work in the current situation.

"I am not afraid”

Troops from Australia, Malaysia and New Zealand are patrolling the streets, but there has been criticism that they have not done a lot to stop the gang violence. Media reports now say at least 21 people have died. Many homes and small businesses have been burned or looted.

"I am not afraid of the security risk, because I believe that people do not have bad intentions regarding the Church," Sister Tavares said. Church workers appear to have been spared during the recent violence, although one priest was shot in the shoulder and evacuated to Australia in the early days of the trouble. Nuns and priests have made sure they wear their habits or cassocks so they will not be attacked.

Sister Tavares, who wears a light gray habit and veil, with a metal crucifix on a chain around her neck, says she and her teams can help "calm" the young men in troubled areas. "Once I saw a teenage boy setting fire to a house, but I pretended I did not see him do it," she recounted. "So I went to him and asked him to cut banana leaves to smother the fire. But then the young man told me, 'Sister, how can you ask me to smother the fire, when it was me who set it alight?'"

The nun told the youth, "Please, you can do it – it's your duty." Finally he put out the fire. "Then I talked to him and his friends to give them some moral guidance."

“God is guiding us”

Sister Balbina do Santos, another Carmelite nun, works at the nearby clinic run by the Motael parish. She said last June that while Caritas Dili may not be as big as some of the other aid organizations, it has done a useful job in responding to the crisis and helping the poor. Hundreds of people have been staying on the clinic premises for safety. The 1,000 refugees sheltering in the compound of the Dili cathedral also appreciate the local Church's effort.

Terezinha de Souza, 60, fled with her daughter and three grandchildren from one of the most dangerous areas, Bairopite, on the eastern outskirts of the capital. Speaking at the cathedral, she said Sister Tavares and her teams helped her family take refuge in the compound and also offered her material assistance, including rice, noodles and soap. A young mother expressed also her gratitude. Delfina do Carmo, 23, said Caritas provided the powdered milk she has been feeding her one-year-old baby. Her husband has no work.

In order to reach people in need, Caritas Dili has to "step over" the challenges, Sister Tavares said, adding her conviction that God is guiding them to help those who are suffering. She identified children's health as a prime concern, saying many of them do not have proper food and have to sleep in tents or on the ground.

The Caritas Dili director also observed that, although East Timor has received relief aid from other countries, the distribution system is questionable since there are still people who come and ask her for help. "I saw trucks fully loaded going along the streets, but I do not know (where the supplies are going), because some families still come to complain that they only get two kilograms of rice," she said. <WM/www.ucanews.com