Dr Lavinia Byrne: Catholic church risks new debate on the role of women
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Independent Minds
Since the church's Second Vatican Council in the 1960s and 70s, American nuns have radicalised, reaching out to the poor, the uneducated and eventually to minorities.
Wherever there was need, the sisters were there. As well as being radicalised, they became politicised too, prepared to speak out against injustice and to champion human rights. Including, ultimately, their own. So were they expecting the Inquisition? I doubt it.
And now it looks as though they are going to have to look to their backs and prepare for a more controlled future, for the Inquisition in its modern manifestation – the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – is on their case, sending in a heavy-duty, pre-Vatican II nun to sort things out. The irony is that for 40 years, the sisters enjoyed a large degree of freedom. But two things went wrong. Firstly, a decline in vocations. Nowadays you do not have to become a nun in the Catholic Church to "do good". Aid agencies and volunteer groups enable women to fulfil a sense of commitment to the church that does not bar them from marriage.
And, of course, young women have other aspirations because their dreams of dedicated service now extend to the priesthood too. If you can be a nun, why not be a priest? Why join the Indians when you could be a chief?
By asking the US nuns to reconsider their role, the Vatican may inadvertently have opened a brand new can of worms. The place of active, intelligent women in the service of the church will become wide open to debate.
The writer left her religious community in 2001 after 37 years as a nun
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Comments
One can google and click images or videos of PJII with Mother Theresa and although he looks down at her because he is so tall he also looks UP at her with reverence. However, I notice that he looks at so many of the church's other members with great tenderness and reverence aswell. Many priests in the missions have been taken with young Therese of Lisieux who also met the Pope at 15.
St. Catherine of Sienna was writing the Pope and urging him to follow her counsel. Imagine an uneducated woman writing to the PM and telling him what to do and being answered and complied with!
Age and sex have not prevented sanctity or reverence for all within the church. The only place where babies are held in esteem without exception is the Catholic Church. The Pope's, Cardinals, Bishops. priests and all the members of the church are to work to protect babies lives. To look to Saint Paul, should the heart be envious of the head or the eye of the hand, we are all members of one body and if one is honoured then we are all honoured. Honours from the world shoud not give much interest to a Christian.
St Francis is a man and he was not of the priesthood yet he is one very important Saint. When one thinks of him, St Clare comes readily to muind and their reverence for each other. St Francis prayed for priests.
Nuns who pray for others and for their parish are doing a worthy thing and are not held in this role as less valuable than a priest in his role. A nun who hankers for recognition and is envious of a priest's lot has failed to understand Christianity itself, her calling, her role and should pray for understanding and conversion. Failing that she should not be in the church unless she wants to be an hypocrite of it. She is like a KGB mamber in the Tory cabinet during the cold war. If she wants priesthood, then it is she, her pride and envy who want. Make your own churches with your own rules women and do not stay to destroy what is not yours.
The riches of the church are the poor, the unwanted, the sick, the vulnerable, despised, outcasts of society, the disabled, crippled, mentally ill, the humble lowly and the pure in heart and they are all through the ranks.
I doubt you could find as many men to serve without the perks of status and authority. Yet so many women, denied both, still devote their lives to serve those in need. That's as Christian as Christian gets.
Ushivon says: "Make your own churches with your own rules women and do not stay to destroy what is not yours."
Oh, ushivon. That's very amusing. It's already our church. Watch what happens to it when the women walk out its doors. They will take their children and their tithing, and their husbands will get to sleep in on Sunday mornings as they've wanted to all along. Without us "your" church would be one self-important man in an expensive getup and five yokels like you wondering why the women wouldn't just shut up and be happy with their lot. Without us the church would have no purpose, no heart or soul, just like the human family often has no purpose, heart or soul without its mother. Without us there would be no babies to baptize, no first communions. Without nuns there would be precious few Catholics able to demonstrate the Christian way of life, a life of service and humility without hope of recognition or status. Women are the church, and it only survives as long as we let it. If you go to mass every week, that's a mass primarily paid for, I assure you, by women bringing their families to church. You sit your manly bottom on pews paid for by women and stare at pretty windows paid for by women. Whether she earned the money herself is irrelevant, because, odds are, if it ends up in the collection plate it's at her urging. All the lovely, holy Eucharistic vessels -- you guessed it, the woman's dollar, the woman's support, the female laity that steps up every time it's needed; the washing, cooking, organizing; enthusiasm. So you'd better thank us that you even have a church to attend.
Then you wouldmake a bad one.
Bring a baby to church and nowhere else does mother and baby feel so special and important. Poor men take the backrow. Tithing is not an ordinary Catholic way of life apart from in Germany or so I am led to believe.
As for you wanting to be a priest when you are married with children, why even the men do not aspire to that. Perhaps in the church it is the men who are marginalised and they serve and sacrifice themselves for the womenfolk and are the minority. It is upto the women to make them feel more valued and welcomed.
The simple answer to your gripe is to join the Cof E, just as many find C of E find the RC church more to their taste, perhaps too, many Cathoilics would be happier in the enviornment of an Anglican church. That is your church because your values are more in keeping with the values of it.
I personally think that if women were priests, they would do ALL of the work.
While some gripe about feeling small, others look to the highest aspiration of all...sanctity. The church does not deny the very highest aspirations to any ... holiness and service to others in this life or the next.
Little things done well are valued more than the big things or as much as them. Hence Therese of Lisieux with her little way is a venerated saint who died a nun at 24. Patron saint of the missions, venerated by priests, she wants to serve from heaven. Remamber her if anyone is really concerned about spiritual advancement which is the whole point of the church.
The church is comprised of mostly women and after the experiences I have had, I honestly believe without women (essentially being stupid, and hoping not to insult anyone and I truly apologize if I have) there would be no church, no belief, no spreading of the word. I am not saying this to be boastful or full of pride, after the 11 year abusive marriage I have had, the last thing I know how to do is be proud, but in the thought of church... it would be non-existent if it was not for those women who believed there was a better life other then oppression and abuse.