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.

While some have presented Spiritus Domini as no more than giving formality to what has been common practice in some places since the 1970s.

Others see it as ‘too little, too late' in the movement towards the ordination of women within the Catholic Church.

Perhaps the key thing is to step back and look at what it signifies within a stream of Roman documents guiding the renewal of the liturgy that began in the mid-1950s.

Since the decree beginning the reform of Holy Week (16 November 1955: Liturgicus Hebdomadae Sanctae Ordo instauratur) down to today, one theme has been a constant: to enable the whole People of God to have ownership of the liturgy, to take part in the liturgy as their vocation, and to see themselves as ministers within the Church. Spiritus Domini is but the latest moment in a long-term process.

A nail in the coffin of clericalism

Let's start with a simple question.

Walk into any Roman Catholic building while a ceremony - for example, the Eucharist - is taking place and ask yourself: whose liturgy is this?

Most people would say that it is this parish's or this group's liturgy led by their priest.

If one asked that in the 1950s the answer would have been that it was the priest's liturgy done on behalf of the parish.

The shift from it being a clerical affair to the business of the priestly people; activity of all the baptised, has been a slow one.

While the rituals changed quickly especially over a period of just a few years around 1970, the shift in understanding has been slow, very patchy, and made against a great deal of resistance.

Moreover, the shift in appreciation by most Catholics has been even slower: many people still think that they are just ‘going' to something that the priest does.

The clericalist church is based around the notion that the clergy are ‘the real church' or, at least, its core.

They are happy to be ‘churchmen.'

But this term should surely apply to all the baptised and since they are made up of both males and females it would be better to speak of ‘churchpeople' - but the very notion would shock most ‘churchmen.'

These clergy celebrate the liturgy not with their sisters and brothers in baptism but for them.

The real work of the liturgy is what the clergy do, others attend (or, at most, they just help out in the way that altar servers have done for centuries).

This is the way the reading of the scriptures at the Eucharist has been treated by the clericalist church since 1970.

It is not a case that this is the liturgy of the whole assembly, but rather the priest has asked someone to read and just delegated them.

It is as if the most authentic reader is the priest (as was always the case before 1969), but just ‘to get people involved' he lets someone else do it.

Having ‘a lay reader' - still far from being what one expects in many countries - was seen as no more than an application of the teacher's trick of giving everyone in the class a job to make them feel involved.

Likewise, when it came to helping the assembly to share the broken loaf and shared cup (aka ‘give out communion') this involvement was not seen as needed by nature of the activity, but simply an ‘extraordinary' measure to ‘help speed things up!'

This was not a real ministry, but just clergy being ‘user friendly.'

One sees the old clerical mindset time and again.

The presider steps in and does all the readings unless someone makes a fuss, he does not call on ‘extraordinary ministers' or even thinks about sharing the cup and presents himself as the only real minister in the assembly.

This mindset until now has not been formally challenged because that cleric could point to the law, and filled with legal righteousness perpetuate the notion that the baptised are only present at his liturgy.

Instead of the unified vision of a people with the Christ worshipping the Father, this older idea was of a priestly tribe inside the sanctuary with the laity located outside.

Now it is formally the case that it is our common memory as a whole people which we celebrate in the Liturgy of the Word.

The scriptures are the books of our common memory, and so any one of the baptised who is skilled in their performance (a task far more demanding that just literacy) has the right not only theologically, but canonically, to take on this ministry and have it formally conferred by the community of faith. It may have taken canon law centuries to catch up on theology, but on 15 January 2021 it did!

Better late than never!

Likewise, eating and drinking at eucharistic celebrations is not a matter of acquiring some sacred object consecrated by a presbyter, but the celebration of the supper of the Lord as the community of faith whereby in our eating and drinking together we, with the Christ, offer the sacrifice of praise to the Father.

This community meal is our meal not simply the presbyter's meal, and so there should be within each community those who help in serving the meal and bringing that meal's food to those community members who cannot be there.

This is a ministry arising from the nature of the Eucharist, not simply a job that needs to be done to hasten a ceremony or ‘help out' a tired or busy priest.

It has been a sad reflection of how little we value the Ministry of the Word that since 1970 we have treated readers as just ‘doing a job' rather than giving them, in each community a formal standing.

Likewise, it shows, alas, how we have seen the Ministry of the Eucharist as only the work of a presbyter (‘deep down it's really the priest that counts') because we saw those who ‘helped' as really not being needed if we had ‘enough priests.'

Sadly, members of the clerical establishment do not like any suggestion that the Liturgy of the Eucharist is the common property of all the baptised.

They like to think of it as their special property; hence their reluctance to changes such as moving from pre-cut rondels to a single broken loaf or their resistance to sharing the cup or their objections to any but clerics helping at the meal.

But Spiritus Domini is one more reminder to them that their vision of the church is not that of Sacrosanctum concilium.

If I were one of those who hanker after ‘the good old days' or saw myself among that well-organised phalanx who resist Pope Francis and who want to continue in a clericalist church, then 15 January 2021 (the day the decree became law) would be marked down as a black day for the clerical army.

It is a day when an explicit legal act took place that removed two potent weapons in frustrating the reform of the liturgy.

New reading of the status quo

Most liturgical change takes place in such a way that those who want to subvert it can find little ‘workarounds.'

Indeed, it is the hallmark of those who have tried to slow down change in the Roman Church not so much to oppose developments as to seek to get them to run into the sand.

Already, I have heard one cleric bemoan Spiritus Domini precisely because he sees just what a well-aimed dart it is at the notion of ‘the church = the clergy' and his sigh was all the deeper when he added: "Pope Benedict would not have let this happen!."

I fear I was less than sympathetic and replied: "I fear it's worse than that, Pope Francis has not simply ‘let it happen' but has mandated it in canon Law."

My friend, shocked, said goodbye and put the phone down.

Canon 230, 1 now reads:

Lay persons who possess the age and qualifications established by decree of the conference of bishops can be admitted on a stable basis through the prescribed liturgical rite to the ministries of lector and acolyte. Nevertheless, the conferral of these ministries does not grant them the right to obtain support or remuneration from the Church.

Instead of lay persons it used to read ‘lay men' (Viri laici), and so an important threshold has been passed in having the law reflect the faith of the Church that the liturgy is the work of all of us, sisters and brothers of Jesus in baptism.

Will bishops now take the corresponding step forward?

In the Roman Pontifical - the book with those liturgies only performed by bishops - there is a formal ritual for instituting lectors and another one for instituting acolytes.

How many have ever seen these being used?

In the period of over forty years since they were promulgated, I have never seen them used outside a seminary!

In seminaries, they were seen as just steps toward the diaconate and as progress markers that a seminarian was doing all that was expected and was on track for ‘greater things.'

Meanwhile, readers were often just anyone who was willing to help out and not afraid of meeting ‘awkward words' in a reading, such as Nebuchadnezzar - and often did little preparation because they were ‘just helping because the priest wanted it!'

Likewise, ‘Extraordinary ministers' were given the occasional retreat day but it was seen, again, as just a convenience, an intrusion, or somehow less than ideal.

Will the bishops now see these as ministries that they actually institute? This is the acid test for the importance of Spiritus Domini.

The five challenges of Spiritus Domini

1. Will communities shift their perception of those who perform the readings from being simply those ‘helping out the priest' to those who are taking up part of the baptismal call to witness in word before the assembly to the Good News preached by the Christ? Will these women and men see this as a ministry and part of their conforming their lives with the work of Jesus?
2. Will presbyters take this vision to heart when they seek out readers and encourage them to see this as a real ministry? Will they take to heart that this changes their own relationship with the assembly and that this shift is part of the death of clericalism?
3. Will those who help in the Ministry of the Table see this as part of their baptismal calling and not just a ‘job' to ‘help out Father?' Acolytes are not just ‘jumped up altar boys' but part of the community's celebration of its identity.
4. Will presbyters see that this shift in the law is a reminder of a deeper shift in the Church's understanding that has been going on since the 1950s, but which has often barely affected the Church's practice?
5. Will bishops / episcopal conferences take Pope Francis's letter to heart and actually institute these ministries of lector and acolyte?They can hardly say that it will need a lot of time to think about - the actual structures of these ministries was established thirty-nine years ago in 1972 by Ministeria quaedam (as Pope Francis reminds us now), and they already have the necessary liturgical texts with them in the book they carry around from parish to parish.

So many have already dismissed Spiritus Domini as of no importance in the actual life of the church - would that it were so!

Spiritus Domini can only be dismissed when every bishop has formally instituted lectors and acolytes - and provided the means to train them for their ministries - in every community in their care.

• Thomas O'Loughlin is a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton, emeritus professor of historical theology at the University of Nottingham (UK) and director of the Centre of Applied Theology, UK. His latest award-winning book is Eating Together, Becoming One: Taking Up Pope Francis's Call to Theologians (Liturgical Press, 2019).

The letter, sent ahead of the upcoming Fifth Plenary Council of the Church in the country, urges the bishops to remain committed to the Church's teaching. Ordaining women should therefore be rejected.

"Many submissions to the Plenary Council have made the laudable recommendation that women be more effectively integrated into the existing governing structures of the Church," says the letter signed by students and alumni associated with the Australian Catholic Students Association.

"However, it was with great sadness that we note many submissions have called for a change to the very constitution of the Church also willed by Christ," they added.

"We call on the Plenary Council and the Bishops of Australia to reject unambiguously all calls for the ordination of women."

Delayed by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Fifth Plenary Council is set for October next year. It will be followed in July 2022 by a second assembly.

While the students say they fully support the respect owed to the roles women play in the Church, they do not believe that these roles extend to ordination to the priesthood.

Instead, they have "wholehearted support for the integration of women into even more prominent roles in areas such as sacred theology, communications, evangelization and (insofar as lay people are able) governance."

"This letter expresses our longing to share Christ with others unashamed, with clarity and with the help of our leaders," ACSA Vice President Claudia Tohi says.

"Truth is not determined by the mood of the times, nor is it a mere abstract concept. Truth is a person, the Son of God who gave up his life for the salvation of all humankind."

The Australian Catholic students told the bishops the emphasis on the lay vocation would be "far more encouraging of women than any tokenistic program or power-wrangling we have seen in some of the Plenary submissions."

They were also critical of certain assumptions about the path young people wish to see the Church take in the coming years.

"Young people desire an authentic relationship with Christ; this will not be facilitated by a committee," they wrote.

"We believe true reform of the Church will not come from merely shifting resources from one committee to another, but in the rediscovery of, conviction about, and love for the Catholic faith by every Catholic."

Advocating for "the dilution of truths of the faith," is likely to "alienate young people and society at large."

"Why should anyone take the doctrine and mysteries of Christ and His Church seriously if her members do not," they asked.

"We call on the Plenary Council to recommit the Church in Australia to the timeless truths of the Gospel as proclaimed by the Church for twenty centuries."

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: australiancatholicstudents.org

St. Paul mentions deacons along with bishops in his letter to the Christians of Philippi.

Later, in the first epistle to Timothy, Paul (or more likely someone writing in his name) talks of the qualifications for those ministries. There is a sentence about women that might refer to deaconesses since it is in the middle of the list of qualities that should typify a deacon.

Art historians have discovered early representations of the liturgy that show women sharing a role at the altar with men.

So, it is clear that from the early days of the Church, at least in some places, there were bishops and deacons, perhaps of both genders, though they would have been very different from their evolved descendants.

Those ministries postdate Pentecost when the Church received the power of God to fulfill its mission.

Presbyters (we call them priests, though the ordination rite calls them presbyters) apparently came to share the priestly ministry of bishops sometime after the New Testament period.

The Acts of the Apostles presents the origins of a ministry that evolved into the deaconate we know today.

In Acts, seven men were appointed in response to a practical problem in the Church. The charitable work of the community was expanding beyond the ability of the leaders to equitably serve all (Acts 6:1-6).

So, the community, at the behest of the leaders, chose men to engage in that work.

After the Ascension, the newborn Church had no problem organizing its life and ministry in accord with needs and opportunities with which Jesus did not, could not nor needed not deal.

The ordained ministries of bishop, presbyter and deacon arose out of concrete needs and were intended to meet those needs that could only arise after the Church developed into a more or less structured community.

It is need, not precedent, that determines the way the Church meets new situations.

The Vatican has been studying the question of ordaining women as deacons, focusing on history.

However, whether or not women in the first, second or third century exercised what we would call ordained ministry is irrelevant.

Answers to situations back then in the Mediterranean basin are, in themselves, of no use in the 21st century.

What is relevant, and is the true tradition, is confidence in the presence of the Holy Spirit guiding the Church to innovate in meeting the needs and cultural situations of that time and place.

What does that mean two millennia later when the Church has become truly catholic, truly universal?

Obviously, there are different needs, needs that will not and cannot be answered by continuing or restoring ancient precedents.

In major parts of the world, the spread of the Gospel is hampered by the increasing perception of the irrelevance and injustice of the Church's relationship with women.

Women are taking their place as equals of men.

That is not the case everywhere, but it is a major and growing trend in large parts of the world.

Therefore, the need facing the Christian community today is to respond to that fact where the roles and relations of men and women are rapidly diverging from what they have been in the past.

Ordaining women will not be a panacea and may not even be desirable when there are more important needs that should be met by involving women.

However, it may be step toward being a sign of openness to the call of the Spirit to once again answer the needs around us with creativity and confidence.

We do have a precedent for recognizing that women may not be excluded from full discipleship by their gender. The one who broke the precedent was Jesus himself.

When he visited Martha and Mary, Mary sat at the feet of Jesus.

In the world in which he lived and taught, that posture had a special meaning that those who saw it and those who originally read Luke's Gospel would have understood.

And that meaning would have surprised or even shocked them.

It bothered Martha.

One who sat at the feet of a teacher was that teacher's disciple.

We still speak of disciples sitting at the feet of a master.

Mary was a disciple of Jesus, entitled to sit at his feet as any other disciple would.

But in that time and place, women belonged in the kitchen, doing what Martha was doing.

For a woman to occupy the position of a full disciple was a radical challenge to the society in which Jesus lived.

Mary was claiming equality with men!

And Jesus not only allowed it; he even said to Martha that Mary had "chosen the better part."

And, he added, "it will not be taken from her."

In fact, not much time passed before it was taken from those women who followed Mary as disciples of Christ.

Jesus' and the early Church's radical view of equality did not long survive.

Customary attitudes toward women, even among women, were just too strong.

Today, as attitudes toward women that subverted the practice of Jesus are changing in many places, we are challenged to accept the fact that Jesus still has something to teach us that seems subversive of the so-called "normal" ordering of society and the Church.

What has been is not what need be.

• Father William Grimm is a New York-born priest active in Tokyo. He has also served in Cambodia and Hong Kong and is the publisher of ucanews.com. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of ucanews.com.
• Image: Supplied

The Church has to acknowledge a history of male domination and sexual abuse of women and children and it must repair its reputation among young people or risk becoming "a museum", he says.

Francis made these comments in the 50-page "Apostolic Exhortation" he released on Tuesday, written in response to last October's synod of the world's bishops on ministering to young Catholics.

The "youth" synod took place against the Church's clergy sex abuse crisis. Demands for greater women's rights within the Church were among the issues discussed.

Among the bishops' recommendations at the end of the synod was one saying the need for women to hold positions of responsibility and decision-making in the church is "a duty of justice."

In response, Francis's Exhortation says a church that listens to young people must be attentive to women's "legitimate claims" for equality and justice, as well as better train both men and women with leadership potential.

"A living church can look back on history and acknowledge a fair share of male authoritarianism, domination, various forms of enslavement, abuse and sexist violence.

"With this outlook, she [the Church] can support the call to respect women's rights, and offer convinced support for greater reciprocity between males and females, while not agreeing with everything some feminist groups propose," Francis's Exhortation says.

He does not, however, respond to demands by women participants at the synod that they be allowed to vote in future synods.

Although Francis acknowledges women's claims are legitimate and and notes young people are complaining of a "lack of leading female role models," his Exhortation offers no new ideas as to how to rectify this.

Source

• Reuters
• ABC
• Time
• Image: YouTube

One of those women, Australian journalist Geraldine Doogue, lent her support to major institutions including the Catholic Church.

Speaking at an event organised by the Australian embassy to the Holy See, Doogue acknowledged "It's been an exceptional few years" for Australia.

The country has been "a bit convulsed" with scandals involving several major institutions, including the Church, banks and healthcare, she said.

"Yet despite the problems with big institutions, they're better than the alternatives on offer," she added.

In her opinion, the question is how to improve institutions "without undermining them".

Pointing out institutions are often scrutinised for their faults while the benefits they offer are taken for granted, she challenged people at the event to reconsider their views in this time of global mistrust of institutions as they are "crucial to opportunities for people at all levels of society".

Another International Women's Day event in Rome, a panel of three of the highest-ranking women in the Vatican spoke of Francis and his good grasp on the issue of women in leadership positions in the Church.

The event was organised by the Opus Dei-run Pontifical University of the Holy Cross as part of an annual course for journalists covering the Vatican.

At the event, Vatican Museums director Barbara Jatta praised Francis for having a keen grasp on the issue of women in leadership positions in the Church and for taking concrete steps in the right direction.

She said while providing more leadership for women in the Catholic Church is "complex," her overall experience "is more than positive".

"There's talk of misogyny, but that's because [30 years ago] it was a completely masculine environment, so there wasn't the attitude of having a professional relationship with women," she said.

But "the role of women has radically changed" in the 30 years she's been at the Vatican, she added.

While changes in society as a whole are partly responsible, she credits Francis with the increased presence of women in leadership.

Gabriella Gambino, undersecretary for the "life" section of the Vatican department for Laity, Family and Life, spoke positively of Francis's comments about women's views at the recent summit on child protection.

"I am not a theologian or a canonist [but] I felt that he was expressing the true presence of women in the Church…he was vocalising what I have always felt as a woman of faith, as a woman who today works in the Church."

Natasa Govekar, head of the theological-pastoral office of the Vatican's communications department, said Francis's words helped clarify the "mistaken way" in which discussion on women in the Church is sometimes viewed.

Woman "was created to bring man to relation," and to speak of women in the Church means trying to "illuminate men and women together," she said.

Source

• Crux
• Image: Catholic News World

In her piece, Dowd's assertions often lack context and the column itself is not particularly interesting, but it was a welcome one, nevertheless, because it allows us to consider how the Catholic Church, more than any other institutional body in history, has uplifted women and encouraged them to live to their highest potential.

Yes, a very sound argument can be made that the Catholic Church has been the means of freeing women, and not - as many unthinkingly charge - the means of their oppression.

Prior to perhaps the last 150 years, the great majority of educated and accomplished women were Catholic female religious, who conceived completely original ideas and ran with them.

Think of Elizabeth Bayley Seton, a widow with 5 children, cut off from her own family's fortune due to her conversion, conceiving of what we have come to think of as Catholic elementary education, and essentially inventing a means for the children of the poor and the marginalized to become educated and competitive in the "new world."

Think of Teresa of Avila, who not only reformed a corrupted religious order, but then went on to build 16 monasteries, both for men and women, while often in paralyzing pain.

Oh, and she wrote a few books that are considered classics of theology, and is now a Doctor of the Church.

Not bad for a woman who had spent her youth reading romance novels.

Think of Henriette DeLille, the daughter of freed slaves, and Katharine Drexel, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, both founding individual orders of women who spent their time and energy building schools and hospitals for Native Americans and African Americans in the deep south.

Think of Catherine of Siena, counselor to both popes and royalty, dictating her letters to two scribes at a time. Another Doctor of the Church.

Interestingly Catherine was almost entirely uneducated and "unaccomplished" by worldly standards, but the church - hardly an elitist institution - calls her "Doctor" just as it does Saint Hildegard of Bingen, an intellectual giant of music, science, medicine, letters and theology.

Just as it does Saint Therese of Lisieux, who entered a Carmel at age 15 and never left it, but whose influence has travelled far.

Oh, and let's not forget Joan of Arc. Continue reading

• Elizabeth Scalia is Editor-at-Large at Aleteia and the award-winning author of Strange Gods, Unmasking the Idols in Everyday Life and Little Sins Mean a Lot: Kicking Our Bad Habits Before They Kick You.

Rocío, a Peruvian married to a New Zealander, holds a doctorate in Systematic Theology with a specialisation in Christology from the Gregorian University.

She lectured in Spiritual Theology for five years at the Giovanni Paolo II seminary in Salerno, Italy. She served for four years on the Pontifical Council for the Laity. Her section of the Pontifical Council focused on the advancement of women in different parts of the world.

Since her time in Rome she has lectured at the Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla in Puebla, Mexico. There she was also responsible for the social project "Emprende y Crece" (Learn and grow).

The core of this project was the promotion of women through education, while it also offered specific entrepreneurship training based on human values.

She is also a specialist in issues related to reciprocity between men and women. Dr. Figueroa has published and communicated through books and conferences about theology, anthropology and women's studies.

Since coming to New Zealand Rocio joined the Theology Faculty of the University of Otago as a part-time Research Assistant. She has been working on a project investigating the immediate and longer-term impact on victims of sexual abuse from a theological perspective.

Source

• Supplied
• otago.ac.nz

Error: CathNews acknowledges an error in initially posting an incorrect image with this story and apologises to Rocío Figueroa for any offence. A correct image is now in place.

There were at least four faifekau in the room. One of them shouted, "You women should know your place!"

The roundtable meeting was called to discuss the Tonga's ratification of CEDAW. [The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women].

It was made up of relevant stakeholders from the community.

Vanessa Heleta who runs the Talitha Project for the development of young women said, "They are using the bible to say the male is the head of the family and they say to us don't be selfish, women are under men - just be content where you are."

"They all know it is unfair. When they say there is no need to address the gaps…I feel disgusted - absolutely disgusted," she said.

Tuna Aleamotu'a, Technical Advisor to Tonga's oldest women's organisation the Langafonua-‘a-Fafine Tonga, said "I don't have a place, where is our place? It's everywhere. There is no place."

"In a good loving home you don't need to define a place to know where you are."

"When the faifekau says women should know their place - it's the faifekau who should know his place."

"His place is to be humble and know his people. There are many women-headed households in Tonga - just see the census," she said.

"But in my life, in our culture, I'm the head of the people who are dependent on me, somebody has to lead, so that we can survive."

"But with my leadership I have to look at each one and cater for their shortcomings."

"It's difficult but it doesn't mean that you lead and dominate, it doesn't mean that nobody speaks and suggests anything."

Only seven countries, including Tonga have not signed CEDA.

The other countries include Iran, Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia - four nations known for their human rights violations.

The other two countries are Palau and the USA, which is regarded as "the only democracy that has not ratified the convention "- although internally President Carter signed CEDAW at its outset and President Obama has also committed wholeheartedly to it.

Source

• Matangi Tonga
• Image: pbs.twimg.com

After an unnamed Jesuit was quoted in Spain as saying "It's something that Pope Francis has thought about before", Italian and American media picked up the idea.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan said somebody told Pope John Paul II he should made Mother Teresa a cardinal and the Pope said: "I asked her. She doesn't want to be one."

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In a chapter entitled Rediscovering Forgotten Features: Scripture, Tradition and Whose Feet May Be Washed on Holy Thursday Night, Rushton conducts a detailed investigation into the feet washing rite.

Her concern is with the little known history of the insertion of the word viri (men) into the feet washing rite, an innovation that she says "departs from tradition which prior to our own time never excluded women formally." She concludes that, "Both scripture and the history of the tradition of the foot washing critique the present rubric as ‘distorting' and gendered."

Rushton is one of three Mercy sisters to contribute to the book, Reinterpreting the Eucharist: Explorations in Feminist Theology and Ethics, which is a collection of writings on the Eucharist by female scholars.

It was launched in Melbourne on 28 February.

Source

• Sisters of Mercy New Zealand
• Image: Patheos

He said women have always had a special mission in the Church as "first witnesses" of Christ's Resurrection, and because they pass the faith on to their children and grandchildren.

"Faith is professed with the mouth and heart, with the word and love," the Pope told an estimated 50,000 pilgrims at his weekly audience in St Peter's Square.

Pope Francis said the fact that women were recorded as witnesses to the Resurrection is an argument in favour of the historical truth of the event.

"If it had been an invention, in the context of that time it would not have been linked to the testimony of women", since the Jewish law of period did not consider women or children as "reliable, credible witnesses".

"This tells us that God does not choose according to human criteria," the Pope said. "The first witnesses of the birth of Jesus are the shepherds, simple and humble people, and the first witnesses of the resurrection are women."

Pope Francis said Jesus' male apostles and disciples found it hard to believe in the risen Christ.

By contrast, the women "are driven by love and they know to accept this proclamation [of the resurrection] with faith", he said. "They believe and immediately transmit it; they do not keep it for themselves."

Marinella Perroni, a leading member of the Association of Italian Women Theologians, said the Pope's words were "very encouraging".

"Pope Francis is taking up, with a stronger emphasis, the teaching of previous popes about the role of women in the foundation of faith and the resurrection of Jesus," she told Reuters.

"The fact that the Pope acknowledges that the progressive removal of female figures from the tradition of the Resurrection...is due to human judgments, distant from those of God...introduces a decidedly new element compared to the previous papacy."

Sources:

Catholic News Service

Reuters

Rome Reports (video)

Image: CBC

"Anyone who works with the Holy See network will be aware of the vital role played by women religious in almost every aspect of Church life on the ground and across the world, be it in education, development work, health care, managing parishes, supporting papal nuncios, or spreading the word about the faith," wrote Nigel Baker, who is not a Catholic.

"I wonder whether the Holy See is doing all it might to mobilise this great resource — Catholic women worldwide? No society can afford not to do so."

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Argentinean Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, who heads the Vatican department for Eastern Catholic Churches, said the next pontificate should see women having more leadership positions in the Vatican and beyond.

"The role of women in the world has increased and this is something the Church has to ask itself about," he said.

"They must have a much more important role in the life of the Church ... so that they can contribute to Church life in so many areas which are now, in part, open only to men .... This will be a challenge for us in the future."

Cardinal Sandri said women "must also be co-participants in the dialogue and the analysis of the life of the Church and in [other] areas, even in the formation of priests, where they can play a very, very important role".

In Germany, the Catholic bishops' conference devoted one day of a three-day plenary meeting to considering the role of women in the Church.

Cardinal Karl Lehmann of Mainz called for a "convincing job profile for women that also requires a sacramental blessing and a liturgical ceremony for a binding commitment".

Cardinal Walter Kasper, former president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, suggested creating a new diaconal office for women.

He envisaged women being officially appointed for pastoral, charitable, catechetical and certain liturgical services at a special "Benediction", as abbesses used to be. Then they could participate in synods, pastoral councils and commissions.

This "deaconess" role would be different from the classic deacon's role, he said. The deaconess would not be nominated through the sacrament of orders, but through a blessing.

Cardinal Kasper argued that many women already perform the functions of a deacon, so in principle the matter could not be ignored.

He said such changes "would do the Roman curia good".

Sources:

Reuters

The Tablet

America

Image: Kipa-Apic

Journalist-historian Lucetta Scaraffia is campaigning for women's rights in the male-dominated Vatican and pushing for women to teach in seminaries to give future priests the social and cultural skills to help them handle celibacy.

In an interview with AFP, Scaraffia said the new women's supplement she edits in the 150-year-old Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, has ruffled feathers, despite having the support of Pope Benedict XVI.

"There are those who say ‘I have not read it'," said the 64-year-old journalist. "They don't want to say it's not good. They prefer to say ‘it doesn't interest me'. The indifference is terrible."

But, she added: "It was the Pope who decided to have women work at L'Osservatore Romano."

Scaraffia, who lost her faith in the 1960s and became an ardent feminist, returned to the Church 20 years ago.

"There is misogyny in the Church," she said. "It's a closed world, caught up with issues of power. Many in the clergy are afraid that if women come onto the scene there will be less room for them."

Scaraffia also believes the Pope Benedict is changing attitudes to Church scandals by tackling the Holy See's long-standing policy of secrecy.

The Pope "is very alone and has a very difficult papacy because all the problems which were hidden have now come to light...problems which took root in the Church 30 or 50 years ago," she said.

"He has the courage to see things as they are," she said.

"We have always covered scandals up, he lets them come to light. Many people believe it is better to hide things. He says the Church is not protected by silence," she added.

"He thinks that, for purification, there needs to be shame."

Source:

Agence France-Presse

Image: Alleporteditalia