Scholars have written widely about the role women have played in establishing the early church but who were silenced before the end of the first century of the Common era.

Through the ages this ambivalence towards women has spread to the laity in general until the 1960s when Pope John XXIII instituted the second Vatican Council.

Here the call for laity to have an expanded role was heard throughout as the pope asked that the windows of the church be thrown open to refresh the stale air and bring awareness of what was happening in the world outside in a process called "Aggiornamento".

This article aims to look at some of the forces against women's participation in the church through two millennia.

It will touch briefly on the early church and some women leaders following the early period before scooting forward to the mid-20th century and the present moment.

An important consideration in any historical account is in what is not included in official records.

The Gospel of John and the three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, are included in the Canon of the Roman Catholic Church, as are the second part of Luke: the Acts of the Apostles, and the letters of Paul, which give an earlier account of the life of Jesus than other writings from the first century.

However, non-canonical writings include The Gospel of Mary of Magdala, The Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Philip, all of which show Mary in the role of leader.

Mary's epithet, "apostle to the apostles", was inspired by the account of her meeting Jesus after his resurrection and Jesus instructing her to, "Go ... to my brothers and tell them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God'" (John 20:17).

Through her witness with Mary, the mother of Jesus and other women at the foot of the cross, Mary had come to be regarded as a leader in the community.

The Gospel of Thomas particularly refers to the reactions of the other apostles who looked to Mary as their leader.

In fact, scholars believe that without the witness of the women at the foot of the cross, the news of the resurrection would not have been shared.

The only other person there was a Roman centurion who was unlikely to have dared to impart such heretical information.

The end of Paul's letter to the Romans lists women without whom Paul could not have continued his ministry.

These women, Phoebe, Prisca (with her husband Aquila), Mary, Tryphena and Tryphosa, Persis, and Junia, (Lydia could also be included here) were instrumental in the church of Acts, some opening their homes as house churches at a time when the followers of Jesus Christ were forced underground by the Roman occupation.

It is likely they were women of means, like Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward, Chuza, and Susanna "who provided for them out of their own resources" (Luke 8:3; see also Mark 15:40).

We know that Lydia was a businesswoman of some means because she managed a lucrative business in dyeing and selling purple cloth - highly prized for ceremonial use in the society of the time.

It is worth rereading Acts to reflect on the role of these powerful women at the forefront of the foundation of house churches in such towns as Ephesus and Corinth.

Yet, by the end of the first century a male-led movement in the church had succeeded in silencing these women and their successors. It is important to see this silencing of women in the church in the context of the time.

In Graeco-Roman society, women were confined to their homes while the men discussed politics in the public spaces, often in the public toilets where they would sit for hours with others arguing points of law or politics.

Women in Church

In the second thousand years there was a tussle to wrest control of the church from the laity.

The idea of married clergy was universally accepted but, in the middle of the opening century, a war against clerical marriage started with Leo IX, intensified under Gregory VII and reached a canonical climax at the second Lateran Council in 1139.

To institute clerical celibacy, the church had to get rid of the wives of its priests.

This debate which raged for more than a century, was primarily about the clergy, but also about the role of women in Christianity and the debate extended to explore the very nature of women (Malone vol II:21).

One difficulty was that women were presented through the eyes of the clergy who had been schooled in female suspicion.

The struggles for clerical celibacy were exacerbated by a new ecclesiastical marriage teaching that insisted on mutual consent. But this was conspicuously ignored in many marriage arrangements being made when the bride was as young as four years of age. She was seen as an available and hopefully fertile womb (Malone II:25).

There were women through the ages who worked against this anti- woman movement. These include Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich and St Teresa of Avila.

Malone says Hildegard "would have to be considered among the geniuses of any age" (III:301) and Julian saw God as "only, always and everywhere Love, and one could never conclude from her writings ... the existence of a sinful ancestor called Eve..." (III:300).

Catherine of Siena went around Europe trying to convince church and political leaders that their goal should be "the public exercise of compassion".

Hundreds of women leaders of religious orders, including the Beguines and the Ursulines, worked hard to convince church leaders that their mission should be in the service of the poor and that this was not a danger to humanity but an expression of gospel living (Malone III:301).

Barely out of her teens, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake for leading the French army to victory against an English attempt to conquer France during the Hundred Years' War.

She was believed to have been hearing voices. She died in 1431 and was canonised 500 years later in 1920.

Feminist historian Anne Llewellyn Barstow's analysis of the witch craze of the Renaissance, found that some 200,000 witches were burned to death between 1560 and 1760 - a mass murder of women by the Christian churches (Catholics and Protestants).

These figures do not include lynchings, those who died under torture, or those simply murdered in prison.

Malone notes that most were "the poorest of the poor, condemned to live as outcasts, surviving as best they could".

This highlights the quality of Christian life in the period of the most profound theological debate and conciliar reform" (32-33). Barstow calls it "a burst of misogyny without parallel in Western history" (Malone III 31-32).

The judges, torturers and executioners were men, "and even more ambiguously, those who initiated the process and prayed over the final moments were ordained men."

She also questions the effect on villagers and townspeople of watching daily executions.

I have not discussed the sea change wrought by the Council of Trent (1545 - 1563) which reinforced the cloister for religious women from the Jewish tradition and the strict obedience of wives to their husbands (this requirement for wifely obedience is also seen in Islam. Vatican II (1962-65) will have to wait for another article.

I will stress though the impact on women of Vatican II's promotion of ecumenism as they met and mixed with women leaders of other faiths.

• Cecily McNeill is a pastoral mentor in the Archdiocese of Wellington. She is a former editor of the Archdiocese's Wel-Com publication.
• Most of his material is inspired by Mary T Malone: Women & Christianity Volumes I, II (2001) and III (2003), Orbis.

Witches from around the US say they will be casting a mass spell every night of a waning crescent moon until he is no longer president.

They began their mass hex programme last month.

Rather than calling on God for protection, the spell calls on spirits, which include the "Demons of the infernal realms,".

The spell is publicized on the Internet and includes a supply list such as an unflattering photo of Trump, a tarot card, a stub of an orange candle, and earth.

Father Vincent Lampert, who is the designated exorcist for the archdiocese of Indianapolis, said the witches are relying on evil that feeds on anger and revenge.

He pointed out that while spells only work on "the spiritually weak", they can cause serious problems for those who meddle with them.

"Anyone who would dare say they want to challenge that God is in charge is using the power of evil as their own. They should realize that we can't use the devil; the devil uses us. People can't control it and the devil ends up using them for his own purposes," he said.

Source

• RT
• CNA
• Image: wiccanspells.info

Gibbs, who has spent more than four decades in Papua New Guinea, has met surviving victims of accusation and torture, as well as those who have committed witch-related torture and killings.

The Church's message against witch hunting is delivered with particular emphasis in the Highlands region, where much of the nation's witch-related violence takes place.

In those communities, many of which are remote, the Catholic bishops have posted anti-witch hunting statements on noticeboards and addressed the issue during Sunday services.

One Catholic bishop, Arnold Orowae, is threatening excommunication for any Catholic who perpetrates a witch hunt.

Although Gibbs said he doesn't know how many perpetrators have been excommunicated formally, he points out that, "in a way, the people involved excommunicate themselves".

Although most Papua New Guineans identify as Christian, their Christianity often is mixed with indigenous beliefs, which include magic: both "white magic", such as medicinal faith healing, and "black magic", such as hexes and sorcery.

These are so ingrained in Papua New Guinean culture that as recently as 1971 the government passed the Sorcery Act, which instituted prison for witches and, even more problematically, made suspicions of witchcraft a legitimate legal defence for attacking someone.

The Sorcery Act was repealed in 2013.

But old habits die hard, particularly when they involve the supernatural, and even more so in a place like Papua New Guinea, where many inhabitants are unacquainted with scientific explanations for illness and natural disaster.

During the "witch craze" of Europe, which lasted about three centuries, it is estimated that at least 50,000 people (and possibly many times more) were executed.
Source

• asopa.typepad.com
• Image: i1.wp.com

Based in Mt Hagen, Gibbs, 65, said it was hard to work out what to say to congregations which included people who would have taken part in burning alleged witches.

"If as an expat you tell people they are longlong (crazy) to believe such superstition, many will just close down," he said.

Witch doctors are paid well to identify witches.

"Divination is a lucrative job, and there is also the temptation to accuse others falsely just to get one's hands on the money," Gibbs said.

Gibbs, who marked 40 years as a priest in PNG last December, advised the Constitutional and Law Reform Commission which last year reported that it was commonly believed that sanguma - sorcery - was the cause of sickness and early deaths, and that the Act was not working.

"When people die, especially men, people start asking 'who's behind it?', not 'what's behind it?'," he told the commission.

Gibbs said sanguma or puripuri (also meaning sorcery) attacks have become much more brutal.

Issues of old beliefs and Christianity, which in part still preached of demons, was part of the growing increase in violence, he said.

"As a Catholic I try to introduce more modern and scientific concepts, such as asking a medical doctor the cause of death," Gibbs said.

He believed more than just changing the law needed to happen. He said even the well-educated were not quite sure about witchcraft.

Gibbs says he wishes to take a constructive approach developing what Bishop Anton Bal has been doing in Simbu

(1) Helping people broaden their understanding of the causes of illness and death

(2) Early intervention before or during a funeral,

(3) Promoting law and order in communities,

(4) Fostering faith to influence attitudes and emotions

(5) Immediate family members taking ownership of the death of a family member

He wants to look at the effectiveness of this as a strategy and examine how it might be revised and promoted elsewhere.

Medical authorities needed to be more open about causes of death and in a country that often had no death certificate system, he wanted one introduced.

In Papua New Guinea the Catholic Church has banned the sacraments and any role in church life to anyone who has accused others of being witches and who were involved in abusing, torturing or killing.

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• PNG Attitude
• Image: AllVoices.com