Joan Chittister trousers are in a twist - emancipation proclamation for women of their counterfeit church is at the crossroad
First, the question of the role of women in church and society is not one of the 39 areas of concern listed in the questionnaire the Vatican sent to the world's bishops in October seeking wide Catholic response to questions about family life. So how really important are the roles and rights of woman-as-woman seen in shaping even the family? Really.
Second, the pope's recent statement on women to a meeting of the Women's Section of the Pontifical Council for the Laity in Rome concentrated almost entirely on women's maternity, which occupies -- at best -- about 20 years of a woman's life. Most modern women, demographic data indicates, live at least another 35 to 40 years after the youngest child leaves home. And after that? What is her role then? Is maternity her only value, her perpetual definition? What does she do now with her personal talents, her insights, her gifts that, they tell us, are given for the sake of the world?
And how does the world make up for the loss of such experience, intelligence and wisdom of the other half of the human race if women are not expected, not welcomed to its shaping?
But without the input of women, humanity sees with only one eye, hears with one ear and thinks with only one half of the human mind.
The same clerical, patriarchal types who have been doing it for the last 2,000 years when church fathers first said that women "have the malice of both dragons and asps," among other things....
Or when Thomas Aquinas called women "misbegotten males." Not the gold standard of the human race, apparently.
And medieval theologians declared that women were by nature subservient, secondary in the order of creation, more emotional than rational...
ope Francis has won the heart of the world by being humble, simple and pastoral -- the warm and caring face of the church, a man like Jesus who is a man of the poor.
But clearly, no one can say they are for the poor as Jesus was and do nothing, nothing, nothing for the equality of women. To address classism does not begin to resolve the problems that come with sexism.
Yet when the membership of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious commit themselves again -- as they have so often in the past -- to do for women what must be done for the sake of the Gospel, and the good of the church, it's called "radical feminism" and they are investigated for heresy...
Otherwise, when death comes, we may all be there to see it.
Stick a fork in her. She's done.
And, it's a double header.
1 comment:
How interesting Joan is; she suggests that 50 % of the population is ignored when it comes to the Catholic church...it sees with only one eye and thinks with only one side of the brain. Then we see an overwhelming prepondernace of comments, all agreeing with Joan - relatively few that disagree; and those who dare disagree with her statements are immediately tarred and feathered. I guess the 50 % of the brain that matters happens to be that which agrees with her ravings. If nothing else, her position shows a complete lack of understanding of the rites of the Holy Mass. Carefully selected quotes to suggest the Bible itself is a woman-bashing treatise suggest her axe-grinding is more anti-Church than pro-woman. BTW, there is at least one female religious department head in the Archd of Boston Catholic high schools (and probably more) who promotes the concept of women becoming priests to the students. The religious education program in our Catholic high schools is bordering on the vapid. So while we may not see a fervent push for female priests among the 40-somethings, the teen-20 somethings have begun to be indoctrinated here in Boston courtesy of the Archd and generally unsuspecting (paying) parents. I might also add that the overwhelming majority of Catholic school mothers have very little connection to the Church, nor do their children participate regularly, thus leaving them open to this sort of feverish bluster
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