I don’t know about you, but I never realized how many male sexual predators held positions of power in government, the arts and the media until the tsunami of headlines this month.
It is demoralizing to know that thousands of women have endured shame and great pain in silence for years.
In no way do I want to downplay the impact of their experience, nor to minimize the importance of this ongoing conversation men and women now are having.
But it’s Thanksgiving. And even a Catholic feminist has to take a breath, during this month of shocking news, to take stock and give thanks.
I’m thankful for Pope Francis. Nope, he’s not the pope of my dreams.
He has demonstrated, more than once, that he does not truly understand women, and he’s stuck on the “women as mother” role model. He also has closed the door on the ordination of women in the priesthood, really an unforgivable lapse in judgement and even common sense.
But at least this pope calls us to help the poor, relieve income inequality and care for the earth. It’s nice to see social justice trump sexual mores, at least as far as the Vatican is concerned.
I’m also grateful that the pope recently reaffirmed the primacy of individual conscience in making moral decisions, something Vatican II proclaimed quite clearly more than half a century ago.
In recent remarks responding to ecclesiastical critiques of his encyclical on marriage and the family, the pope said there was an important difference between informing the faithful and dictating what they should do.
He reminded them that they should support couples as they strive to make the decisions for their families, but he made clear that priests’ dicta cannot “substitute” for what their hearts tell them is the right thing to do.
And he’s been good at taking the clergy down a peg or two. He’s spoken out on the evils of clericalism.
He’s chastised priests who “feel they are superior,” who “are far from the people” and unable to respond to their needs. Continue reading
- Celia Wexler is a journalist, feminist and nonfiction author
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