Unraveling the dilemma,
Catholic and female
By Anna Marie Murphy
"I've decided to make God the center
of my life," the young woman told the 20 or so women seated around
her holding coffee cups and listening attentively. She spoke quietly,
firmly, and, in the early morning stillness on campus, her words filled
the room, a lounge in one of BC's administrative buildings. "I'm
a Catholic, so that is my way. But the more I learn about the Catholic
Church the less I like it. Men won't help me. They say, 'Not
in your lifetime, dear. Just do the best you can.'" Her
listeners nodded, some winced. "I'm kind of trapped. Women
do all kinds of things in the Church—pastoral ministry, choir—but
have no real voice." Again the nods. "Men aren't coming
to the priesthood anymore, and it's men who have the power,"
she said, and her face grew taut. "This institution that I feel
the need to be attached to is falling apart, and it doesn't really
want me."
This was the first meeting of the academic year
for the BC group informally dubbed "The Church Women Want,"
after a book by that name published in 2002 by Elizabeth Johnson. The
book is a collection of essays by prominent Catholic women (including
BC theologian Colleen Griffith). A semester after the launch of BC's
Church in the 21st Century initiative in the fall of 2002, the group
began meeting weekly to develop programs for the initiative and, as
one regular put it, to "make sure women's voices are heard."
It revived a practice born in the 1980s, and resurrected episodically,
of BC faculty women meeting in the early hours of the day to discuss
gender-related issues; out of such gatherings came the Women's
Studies Program in 1983. Now between 10 and 20 women meet on Tuesday
mornings at eight; they break up just before nine, as some sweep up
their bags and head out for the first class of the day. The women today
range in age from seemingly late teens to mid-seventies, and they include
undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty in a variety of disciplines,
as well as staff and senior administrators. Several are nuns.
At the first meeting last fall, each woman in
the room articulated the issue or issues she would like to see on the
table for discussion. Over the following months, the group considered
many of them: not only female ordination, but the historical traditions
and distortions of history surrounding women's roles in the Church;
the concept of Sophia—"woman wisdom"—from the
Old Testament, and feminine images of God. "What is our relationship
to authority?" And "why do we silence ourselves?" "What
keeps women Catholic?" And "what do we tell our kids?"
Invariably the talk was personal, scholarly, witty, honest, and kind—a
sharing of what worked to keep one in the faith and of what made it
hard to stay ("This is what sustains me," an older
woman said once to the group). "It doesn't have to do with blind
loyalty," said a younger faculty member, "there's something
peaceful in the Church, something beautiful." And then she related
her unfulfilled search for a service where women are on the altar and
the priest seems enlightened about the laity: "So if you see me
in your parish, I'm just visiting. I used to stay, now I get up and
walk out," she said, if she doesn't like what she hears. Another
morning an undergraduate said, "My faith is not tainted by the
scandals that are going on. But I worry about passing the Church's traditions
on to my children regarding women."
Sometimes women described attending unconventional
liturgies, where, say, a complicit priest would give a one-sentence
introduction then pass the privilege of delivering the homily to a woman.
"The Church is not God," said one faculty member, "it's
a very flawed but struggling effort to mediate God. Still," she
went on, "while the Catholic Church isn't the best thing
for the human race, it is the best for me."
As part of BC's Church in the 21st Century
initiative, a conference will be held on April 16–17, "Envisioning
the Church Women Want." Organized by the women who meet on Tuesdays,
it will explore "the past and future of women in the Catholic
Church." Speakers and panelists will include the theologians Elizabeth
Johnson of Fordham University and Ada María Isasi-Díaz
of Drew University; Bishop Matthew Clark of Rochester, New York; Thomas
Groome of BC's Institute of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry;
and Miriam Therese Winter of the Hartford Seminary.
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