Challenge Series: I Don’t Like the Way Women Are Treated in the Church

Challenges to Being Catholic Today

It has never been easy to be a follower of Jesus Christ. The Gospels themselves are full of statements about the challenges of discipleship. We who are Catholic Christians living today in the North America experience challenges that are different from, yet just as real as, those faced by Christians of every age. In this four-part Catholics On Call series, we will explore just a few of the particular challenges faced by contemporary Catholics, especially young adult Catholics. We might articulate these challenges in the following way:

- Do I really need God in my life, anyway?
- Why do Catholics argue so much about their faith?
- Why is the Church so “hung up” about sex?
- I don’t like the way in which women are treated in the Church.

Below you will find the fourth in a four-part series of reflections on some of the challenges of living as a Catholic today  Look to the left to view the other challenge articles.

I Don’t Like the Way Women Are Treated in the Church

I grew up with four older sisters who still play an important role in my life. I also have a number of good women friends, some of whom are religious sisters and others who are lay women. Women have played a significant role in my training as a priest and a theologian, including professors, ministry supervisors and valued colleagues. Three of the spiritual directors I have had since I joined the Passionist community have been women, and their wisdom about life with God has been an important part of my spiritual development.

These experiences and others have impressed upon me the significance of the contribution that women have made and are making to the life of the Church. A glance at statistics in the United States Church confirms this impression. When the United States Bishops issued their pastoral letter on ecclesial lay ministry in 2004 (entitled Co-Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord), they noted that the great majority of professional lay ministers in the U.S. Church are women. In his 1988 Apostolic Letter “On the Dignity and Vocation of Women,” Pope John Paul II paid tribute to the essential role that women play in the life of the Catholic Church. Perhaps the one Catholic in recent memory who has had the greatest inspirational impact on Catholics and non-Catholics alike was a woman – Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Taking all of this into consideration, many Catholics today wonder why women do not have more of a voice in the decision-making processes of the Church. Why is governance within the Church exercised almost exclusively by men, most of them celibate men? Why are women excluded from ordained ministry in the Church? On a more local level, why do so many women ministers feel undervalued or even marginalized in their work in parishes, campus ministries, hospitals and other ministerial sites?

There are no easy answers to these questions. I would be dishonest if I pretended to have an explanation for this dilemma. In fact, the suppression of women’s voices that has been a characteristic of most societies in human history has also marked the life of the Catholic Church. This is true even though certain structures in the Church, particularly religious life, have enabled women to exercise an influence that was not possible elsewhere in society. While the social impact of women religious superiors, mystics and saints has been substantial throughout history, their role in the Church’s decision-making has been consistently minimized.

The question of governance within the Church is one that is under discussion today among Church leaders, theologians and canon lawyers (experts in the legal regulations of the Church). While canon law appears to reserve governance in the strict sense to ordained ministers (and thus to men), in reality women are exercising important roles of leadership and decision-making in the Church today. Many women serve as pastoral administrators of parishes where there is no resident pastor. They direct campus ministry staffs and hospital chaplaincy teams. Women serve in diocesan leadership positions as chancellors, judges in marriage tribunals, heads of diocesan commissions and in countless other roles. A few women have been named to Vatican commissions and dicasteries, i.e., official departments that advise and assist the pope in specific areas of Church life like marriage and family life, social justice, etc. Many more women could be named to these positions of leadership at the local and international levels. It is a shame that the Church is missing out on the insights of talented women for the guidance of Catholics. Setting aside the issue of ordination for a moment, there is no reason why many more women could not be selected for work in these commissions and dicasteries. One example may suffice. There are many excellent women Scripture scholars around the world. But at the present time the Pontifical Biblical Commission (an officially appointed group of Catholic biblical scholars who advise the Vatican on matters pertaining to the interpretation of Scripture) is comprised solely of men. There is no reason why women should not be represented on this commission.

The question of admitting women to ordained ministry is a more technical and complex one. Many Catholics are aware that in 1994 Pope John Paul II issued an official statement (entitled Ordinatio Sacerdotalis) that said that the Church is not able to ordain women. While a number of reasons for this teaching were cited, a central one that was given was the practice of Jesus in naming only men as members of The Twelve. Though Jesus exhibited a remarkable freedom in his dealings with women in his ministry, he did not choose any women among The Twelve. The following year the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a clarification which said that the reservation of priestly ordination to men is infallibly taught. There are some distinguished Catholic experts on doctrine and the Church’s teaching authority who have questioned whether all of the conditions required for an infallible statement were met in this instance of papal teaching. This is an issue that will require further clarification among Catholic theologians and Church leaders. And the cogency of the reasons proffered by the Church’s teaching authority for reserving priestly ordination to men continues to be a topic of vigorous discussion among theologians and other committed Catholics.

This issue of ordination is a very painful one for many Catholic women and for some Catholic men. A significant number of committed Catholics believe that unless women are admitted to ordained ministry they will not experience the essential equality that is affirmed in official Church documents. This is an issue that Catholics will have to continue to grapple with in the years to come. It is a question about which we need ongoing discernment of the voice of the Holy Spirit.

The Church desperately needs the witness and the leadership of Catholic women today.  As a community of faith, we will need to continue to listen to the wisdom and the concerns of committed Catholic women. If women are not allowed to exercise leadership within the Church, the community of faith will only be impoverished. The leadership already exercised by women should be affirmed by those in authority, and the presence of more women in the decision-making bodies of the Church needs to be welcomed.

The Gospel testimony to the role that Mary of Magdala played in the Easter testimony to the risen Christ gave rise to a tradition in the Church that called her “the apostle to the apostles.” A scene in the Gospel of John (chapter 20) is particularly compelling. When Mary initially fails to recognize the risen Christ, he calls her by name – “Mary!” When she hears him speak her name, she immediately responds, “Rabbouni.” This encounter reveals something of the close relationship that Jesus must have had with Mary of Magdala throughout his ministry. She must have played an important role in his life and ministry. In this encounter, Jesus proceeds to tell Mary to go to the other disciples and announce the good news of the resurrection: “But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and to your Father, to my God and your God.’”

Throughout the history of the Church, countless women have followed in the footsteps of Mary of Magdala by announcing the good news of Jesus Christ in word and deed. May the Church continue to listen to these women and to affirm their leadership within the community of faith.

Robin Ryan, CP