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Sister
Sharon Euart, RSM Three areas in which "women can be influential in effecting further change for the lives of women in the Church in the 21st century" were examined in an address by Mercy Sister Sharon Euart during a Jubilee Day for Women observance March 25 in the cathedral of the Diocese of Stockton, Calif. Euart, a canon lawyer, is an associate general secretary of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. She reviewed the history of women of faith, ranging from Mary, Jesus’ mother, and other early saints, to three modern women: Blessed Katharine Drexel, about to be canonized, St Edith Stein and Dorothy Day, whose sainthood cause recently was opened. "It is hard to pigeonhole the role for women in a church which has come to revere three women who charted for themselves such different roles of service" as these latter three, Euart said. And "it is hard to imagine any organization which could so comfortably embrace the rich diversity offered by the examples of these three". Euart reviewed changes during the past 35 years in church and society related to women’s roles, and issues, challenges and opportunities faced "as we enter a new millennium". In Vatican Council II’s vision, she stressed, the sacraments of initiation "are the starting point for any consideration of the Church’s ministry". Also,"the council emphasized that there is one people of God but many forms of service". In the past 35 years "many official church voices have been raised on behalf of women’s increased participation in the church", said Euart. "There is no doubt", she added, "that today more women are involved in numerous and varied ministries ... than there were in 1965 or 1975". "Yet" she said, "progress has not kept pace with the call issued by the institutional church itself". Euart said that "in an effort to eliminate obstacles to fair treatment in the church, it seems to me that the first andforemost challenge we face is to be advocates for women in the society in which our church lives, especially for those who are economically disadvantaged. " Second she said, "we should encourage offi- cial Church leadership in their efforts to promote collaborative models of ministry in which clergy, lay and religious work together. " Third she said, "women must take advantage of the opportunities to participate in those areas of church life that are legitimately open to them". Euart’s text follows.
In any consideration of the role of women in the Church we must start with Christ himself, the saviour of all, and with his most perfect disciple, his mother, Mary. The images of Jesus and Mary are like jewels which, lifted to the light, show a multitude of facets and colors. It is natural that at various periods in the history of the church believers have chosen to emphasize some facets over others, which is one more example of how grace builds on nature. Certainly in our times we recognize more clearly than ever before the high regard that Jesus had for his women disciples, beginning with this mother. At the Annunciation, which we celebrate today in this cathedral dedicated to it, her words to Gabriel, "Let it be done to me according to your word", are not words of passive acceptance but of positive affirmation of God’s will and of her own decision to participate in it. Can we not hear an echo of the faith of the mother in the words of the Son, in that moment in the Garden of Gethsemani when the prospect of his self-sacrifice causes his sweat to be like drops of blood, "Father not my will but yours be done"? It is Mary who prods Jesus to his first sign at the wedding feast of Cana. She stands beside the cross in his death agony, enduring what no mother should have to endure, the death of her child. At that time she also hears his words of consolation, by which he makes her the mother not only of St John but of all the faithful, "Mother, behold your son". Mary remains with the Disciples in "constant prayer" in the Upper Room after the Ascension while they await the Holy Spirit. We can imagine how, with the example of her discipleship, she helped sustain their faith until the day when, by the power of the Holy Spirit, they were transformed from a small frightened band into the heroic missionaries who are a model for us all. Mary is not only the new Eve, helping to repair the breach opened up by the sin of our first parents, but she is also the heir to the faith of all the great women of the Hebrew Testament with their longing for God’s will to be done. She affirms this in her mighty prayer, the Magnificat, which made kings tremble as they prayed about God’s "deposing the mighty from their thrones and raising the lowly to high places". It continues as a challenge to us today in our relatively affluent circumstances with its image of God giving the hungry "every good thing" while the rich are sent away empty. But it is not with his mother alone that Jesus showed a respect unmatched in his own time for the role of women. Mary Magdalene is a trusted disciple and, contrary to the popular image of her, a close reading of the New Testament does not confirm her as a woman "with a past". Whatever her background, she is given singular honours by God. It is she who discovers the empty tomb and runs to tell the Disciples of it. She first sees the risen Lord, whom she does not recognize immediately, in the garden. In that tender moment in St John’s Gospel, she recognizes him not by sight but by the way he says her name, "Mary". It is to her that Jesus announces his ascension and tells her to go to the disciples and tell them: "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God". There are other examples as well, such as the Samaritan woman whom Jesus engages in the dialogue about living water. When the disciples come upon this discussion, they are "surprised that Jesus is speaking with a woman"— which is very revealing for their ordinary attitude toward women. We all remember from this passage that Jesus tells the woman about her past, with her five husbands; but he also reveals more of himself to her than he usually did during his lifetime. When she remarks, "I know there is a Messiah coming", he replies unambiguously, "I who speak to you am he". Even more significantly, her town comes to believe in Jesus, first through her word about him and then through their own experience of him: "No longer does our faith depend on your story. We have heard for ourselves, and we know that this really is the saviour of the world". Can there be a better description of the mission of every Christian: to announce the Gospel and to help people to their own lived faith in Christ? Two other examples will show the Lord’s concern for women, which goes well beyond the conventional attitudes of his time. The first is the story of the woman caught in adultery who the Pharisees callously use to trap him into contradicting the law of Moses, asking whether the woman should be punished by stoning to death or not. At first Jesus puts them "on hold", tracing his finger in the dust. When he does deign to speak to them, he tells them that the one without sin should cast the first stone. After the group has left humbled, he asks the woman, "Has no one condemned you?". She replies, "No one, sir". He answers that neither does he, but cautions, "From now on avoid this sin". There can be no greater contrast between the attitude of Jesus and that of his contemporaries. The latter use the woman as a pawn. Jesus treats her as someone worthy of respect. Perhaps the most touching story is the passage in St. Luke’s Gospel in which a penitent woman interrupts what today we might call a dinner party to reach Jesus. Hear how Luke describes it: "Bringing an alabaster flask of ointment, she stood behind him at his feet weeping and began to bathe his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and anointed them with ointment". It must have been an extraordinary scene and for many of the guests an embarrassing one. The attitude of Jesus’ Pharisee host is judgmental. Luke describes him as thinking to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner". However, Jesus’ attitude couldn’t be more different. He says to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace" (Lk. 7:50). In Matthew, Mark and John there is a similar scene, except here the woman is criticized not for her sinfulness but for not using the money spent on the ointment on the poor. Again Jesus is accepting of the woman’s gesture, taking it as preparation for his burial; and he places her actions high among the important moments of his life on earth, saying that "wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be spoken of in memory of her" (Mt 26:13). In the Acts of the Apostles and the epistles, numerous other women’s names appear, indicating a continuing influential participation in spreading the Gospel by women; and the centuries since have recorded many women who founded communities, started movements and even, like St Catherine of Siena, changed the history of the Church. However, I would like to move into our own times to find other examples of how women lived the Gospel and thus profoundly made a difference in the Church. In a few minutes I will offer a more systematic overview of the Church’s law and teaching as it relates to women’s role, but my point here is that no discussion of law or theology fully conveys what it means to serve a Lord who "came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as ransom for the many" and who told his Disciples that whoever would be first among them must serve the rest. It is hard to inscribe such an attitude in an organizational chart. It is not an exaggeration to say that the Church’s true leaders are those determined to become saints. They may not have put it quite like that, but these persons, in their pursuit of love of God and love of neighbour, allowed no obstacle to stand in their way, including Church authority. It is sobering to remember the saints who were not only not encouraged by their church superiors but actually found them hostile — at least at first. Teresa of Avila or Ignatius of Loyola never got into trouble with the church until they became zealous for the Gospel. And it is the saints whose influence remains well after they are dead. While we still name churches after St Catherine of Siena, it is only church historians who know the names of the Popes who lived during her lifetime. And so in addition to Mary and other women of the Gospel of whom I have spoken, I ask you to consider also the lives of three modern women: Mother Katharine Drexel, Sister Benedicta, born Edith Stein, and Dorothy Day. Edith Stein has been canonized, Mother Drexel is about to be and the cause for sainthood for Dorothy Day has only recently been accepted by the Holy See. How different they all are: Mother Drexel, the daughter of a wealthy and prominent family; Edith Stein, brilliant philosopher, born Jewish; Dorothy Day, a natural community organizer and agitator. Yet it came about that all three would have in common belief in Christ and a commitment to his Church. And all would travel far in their lives on account of that belief and commitment. Mother Drexel would move from the drawing rooms of Philadelphia to the service of our Black and Native American populations, founding a religious community to take care of a need she rightly saw as pressing. Edith Stein, who worked in some of the most important circles of contemporary philosophy, would move into the world of Catholic philosophy and education until, deprived of her teaching post by Nazi anti-Semitic legislation, she followed a call which she had long considered and entered a Carrnelite convent as Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Dorothy Day would move, after her Catholic conversion, from the most liberal, not to say libertine, circles of socially conscious New York to found the Catholic Worker Movement, which has influenced generations of Catholic young people throughout the country. Two of these women would die in revered old age, and Edith Stein would die in the horrors of Auschwitz. It is hard to pigeonhole the role for women in a Church which has come to revere three women who charted for themselves such different roles of service. It is hard to imagine any organization which could so comfortably embrace the rich diversity offered by the examples of these three. However, the Church does have a tradition of theology and law which deals with the role of women, and I would now like to turn to that for the balance of my reflections today. The topic of the role of women in the Church often evokes a variety of responses: great expectations from some persons; conflict, anger and even alienation from others. In the rest of my presentation I hope to identify some of the changes that have occurred during the past 35 years in this regard and some of the issues, challenges and opportunities that face us as we enter a new millennium In order to appreciate the changing role of women in the Church as the positive contribution that it has been and continues to be to the mission and ministry of the Church, I think it is important first to reflect briefly on the changes we have witnessed over these years and the church’s teaching on mission and ministry that has been renewed on account of them. Context for Change The context for such changes is the Second Vatican Council, that major event in the history of the modern Church, and how it has been implemented. The council gave impetus and direction to our understanding of what it means to be Church. While some people have exaggerated the break with the past represented by the council, especially in terms of doctrine, which remained intact, it would be hard to exaggerate the break which the council made with the past attitude toward the world which existed, if not since the 16th century Council of Trent, certainly since Vatican I in 1870. It was an attitude which considered the Church under siege by forces of the modern world which were trying to bring it down and which had even infiltrated within its walls. Modern historical studies, the scientific method, and freedom of thought and expression seemed all to be attacks on the church’s foundations — whether the Bible itself or on tradition. In the 1 9th and early 20th centuries there was probably good evidence for at least some of this hostility on the part of the modern world. But if the Church had preserved itself from real threats, it had also closed itself off to many of the good things offered by the world and from fully understanding the needs of the world to which it might hold the key. The council recognized, in a more balanced way, the deficiencies, the benefits and the needs of our day. The council also decided to look at the Church itself, first of all, in its totality. Many expected the council fathers to treat the Church primarily according to its hierarchical structure, beginning with the Pope and Bishops and working its way to the person in the pew. Instead, before discussing the Church’s hierarchical structure, it spoke of the People of God, all of whom — women and men — receive in baptism the commission for service to the Gospel. The fathers of the council affirmed the "priesthood of all believers", which had not been emphasized since the Reformation due to the Reformers’ rejection of Church teaching about holy orders. The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, affirms that while the ordained priesthood and the common priesthood differ "essentially and not only in degree", they exist for one another (n. 10). As Pope John Paul II wrote in 1990, the ordained priesthood "is not an institution that exists ‘alongside’ the laity or ‘above’ it. The priesthood of Bishops and priests, as well as the ministry of deacons is ‘for’ the laity, and precisely for this reason it possesses a ministerial character, that is to say, one ‘of service"’ (1990 Holy Thursday Letter to Priests, n. 3). The ordained priesthood and the common priesthood are to work together for the sake of the Gospel. Thus from the council comes the affirmation of the mission of the Church as belonging to the whole People of God on pilgrimage to the kingdom. Each of us is called to accept the responsibility of giving witness and service to the world in the name of Christ. Each of us is incorporated into the body of Christ by baptism. And as a result of this incorporation, every Christian shares in each aspect of Christ’s threefold mission: to teach, to sanctify and to govern. Related to this changed understanding of responsibility for mission, there has developed within the church a different and broader insight into ministry. In the vision of the Second Vatican Council the sacraments of initiation (Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist) are the starting point for any consideration of the Church’s ministry, for it is through these sacraments that each person is called to and empowered for ministry. The council went on to say that each person committed to further the mission of the Church should be recognized by the faith community as actively participating in the Church’s ministry. Thus the council emphasized that there is one People of God but many forms of service. Also, since the council did not look on the world as totally bereft of God’s saving presence, the Church’s mission was now not solely a one-sided one of bringing salvation to the world. It is also a mission to identify the grace-filled riches present in the mysteries of human life, of which the world itself may not yet be fully aware. Thus the council also spoke of mission and ministry in the context of the human experience. We find the clearest expression of the integration of the Church and the world in Gaudium et Spes, the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, which represented the beginning of an effort to bridge the estrangement of church and world. Gaudium et Spes described the links between Gospel and culture. Its perspective was determined by its vision of the human person and the rights and duties belonging to each one. With regard to the rights of women, even before Gaudium et Spes, the Church had begun to recognize a new situation developing with regard to a more equal role for women in society. This was seen as a positive sign of the times. In his 1963 Encyclical Pacem in Terris, Pope John XXIII identified "three things which characterize our modern age". The second of them had to do with "the part that women are now playing in political life". Pope John went on to write, "Women are gaining an increasing awareness of their natural dignity. Far from being content with a purely passive role or allowing themselves to be regarded as a kind of instrument, they are demanding both in domestic and in public life the rights and duties which belong to them as human persons" (Pacem in Terris, n. 41). Gaudium et Spes recognized the urgency to further the cause of treating all women and men with dignity and equality, emphasizing the rights and freedom of every person (n. 60). The document refers to "new social relationships between men and women"(n. 3) and for the first time refers to marriage as "an intimate partnership" (n. 60), an emphasis and focus that were new at this level of the teaching of the universal Church. The Second Vatican Council also called for a recognition of the equality of persons within the Church. In Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, the council recognized the wonderful diversity in the Church and taught that there is "in Christ and in the Church no inequality on the basis of race or nationality, social condition or sex" (n. 32). All share a true equality with regard to their dignity and to the common activity of all the faithful for the building up of the body of Christ. Changing Role of Women With regard to women’s changing role, I want to look first at how this is occurring in society at large. When we look at some of the societal changes of the past 35 years in our country, I think it is fair to say that during the last generation the change in women’s roles can be described as increased freedom, that is, the degree of legal and social freedom women experience themselves as enjoying. These changes include shifts in patterns of relationship between men and women in marriage and in family life, legal protections in the workplace and in education, and a new awareness of sexism in virtually every social structure, including the Church. In addition, both men and women are developing skills and confidence in a variety of roles that were once the domain of the other gender. The really significant change, however, is in the self-concept of women, in a movement toward autonomy and self-determination, where the self is not defined solely in terms of a relationship to a man. Some equate this developing self-concept with a rejection of the traditional roles of wife and mother. On the contrary, I think that this self-concept is not only compatible with these roles; it makes a contribution to living them in a more salutary fashion. The signs of progress are all around us. Women have headed some of the most important and largest nations on earth such as Great Britain, India and Israel. Two women serve on the Supreme Court of the United States, and a woman serves as U.S. secretary of state. Women serve in the House and Senate and as governors. A woman entered the presidential race last year and was considered a serious and viable candidate. Women are now in boardrooms as well as classrooms; they serve as chief executive officers of major corporations. Still, more is needed by way of reform. For example, how will children be cared for? What about the women who do not have the economic and educational resources needed to move upward in our society? Their choices are few, and the pressures are many. There has been progress, yes, but there still remains a cycle of helplessness among so many women who have barely enough resources to live by. We know, too, that the new poor are single mothers and children. Progress in our society is sporadic. What progress can we chart in the Church? Over the past 35 years, many official Church voices have been raised on behalf of women’s increased participation in the Church. The documents of Vatican II, as I mentioned earlier, Papal statements, statements of individual Bishops, synodal statements, the many statements of Pope John Paul II, especially his Letter "On the Dignity and Vocation of Women", the 1995 statement of the U.S. bishops, "Strengthening the Bonds of Peace", and the 1998 statement of the bishops’ Committee on Women in Society and the Church, "From Words to Deeds", all speak persuasively to the principle of equality. Changes in the role of women in the church, however, have also been shaped by circumstances unforeseen by the fathers of the Second Vatican Council. For example, the number of laywomen and laymen wanting to play a more formally active role in Church ministry and the unexpected decline in the numbers of active clergy and religious in the United States are phenomena that have significantly influenced changes in who is ministering in the Church at the dawn of the third millennium. There is no doubt that today more women are involved in numerous and varied ministries on both the parish and diocesan levels than there were in 1965 or 1975. Some of these changes reflect a shift in the deployment of personnel in traditional forms of ministry. We have experienced in this country, and will continue to experience, a decrease in the number of women religious serving in schools and hospitals. At the same time, the number of lay and religious women serving in parish-based ministries (such as religious education, youth ministry, sacramental preparation programmes, services for the sick, the elderly and the disabled) has continued to increase over the same period. A recent study conducted by the National Pastoral Life Center in New York for the Bishops’ Subcommittee on Lay Ministry reports that 82 per cent of parish lay ministers are women. In addition, growing demands for pastoral ministry have witnessed increasing numbers of women providing institutional pastoral care in health care facilities as prison chaplains, in direct services to the poor and homeless, and in services to women and children. More recently, perhaps over the past 10 years, the number of women holding decision-making positions in parishes and Dioceses has increased as well. Today women serve as parish coordinators, pastoral associates or assistants, heads of diocesan departments and secretariats, chiefs of staff and as chancellors, positions traditionally held by ordained priests. As a canon lawyer — a specialty an increasing number of women are interested in, let me say a few words about the Code of Canon Law and its treatment of the role of women in the Church. Although canon law is not often thought to be particularly "friendly" toward women, (an allegation that was certainly true under the 1917 code), I do think that the revised code has helped to advance the role of women in the Church, if only slightly, by its acknowledgment of a proper role for the laity in the mission and ministry of the Church. Laypersons, and therefore women, are permitted to perform several liturgical functions and hold a number of ecclesiastical offices heretofore open only to clergy. However, while we acknowledge the undisputed fact that many more positions in the Church are now open to women than were 35 years ago, progress has not kept pace with the call issued by the institutional Church itself, in a spirit of co-discipleship, for increased participation of women in church service. Women, for example, are still prohibited from exercising certain liturgical functions such as preaching the homily and being officially installed as lectors or acolytes. Women are still barred from holding certain offices in the Church, particularly those which require the exercise of the power of governance or jurisdiction; nor can a woman be appointed an episcopal vicar, say, for example, vicar for religious. So, despite the beginnings of progress, there remains a cycle of frustration among those women in the Church who want to be genuine partners in ministry, who seek better ways to serve and create a caring community, who want to be judged by their character and competency and not by preconceived notions of their roles, and who want the Church as an institution and community to be committed to creating a human environment of collaboration in which the dignity of every person is respected and each baptized believer is called and given a chance to use the gifts God has given to him or her. Challenges for the Future At this moment in our history, what then are some of the issues and challenges that we face as we move into the third millennium? I have selected three areas in which I believe women can be influential in effecting further change for the lives of women in the Church in the 21st century, areas that present both challenge and opportunity in shaping that future. First, Pope John Paul II, in his various statements and addresses, as well as the Bishops of the United States have given attention to societal reforms that would support women’s right to equality in society at large such as equal pay, equal opportunity for advancement, equal pension and benefit plans, child care provisions, flextime and alternate work schedules. In an effort to eliminate obstacles to fair treatment in the Church, it seems to me that the first and foremost challenge we face is to be advocates for women in the society in which our Church lives, especially for those who are economically disadvantaged. We should be concerned about such issues as just wages, equality of women with men in the workplace, equal opportunities for education, and the value of parenting and family life. As we all know, the concerns of women are not confined to the Church. The movement to address such concerns, in fact, began outside the Church and gradually has made itself felt within. The second area of challenge concerns models for ministering in the Church. In his exhortation on the vocation and mission of the lay faithful, Christifideles Laici, Pope John Paul II states that "it is necessary that the Church recognize all the gifts of men and women for her life and mission, and put them into practice" (n. 49). The Holy Father goes on to encourage the "coordinated presence of both men and women ... so that the participation of the lay faithful in the salvific mission of the Church might be rendered more rich, complete and harmonious" (n. 52). To support such coordination, we should encourage official Church leadership in their efforts to promote collaborative models of ministry in which clergy, lay and religious work together as responsible, capable persons in service of the Church. In "Strengthening the Bonds of Peace", the U.S. Bishops call for ongoing dialogue between women and men in the Church and pledge themselves to continue the dialogue "in a spirit of partnership and mutual trust". Collaborative ministry, if taken seriously, will require parish staffs and archdiocesan offices to promote the inclusion of women in ministerial work and collegial decision-making. To build a community of collaborative ministry is to build a community characterized by mutual respect for the gifts of all of its members and an openness to their participation in the life of the community according to those gifts and in accord with the respective status and role of each person. Third, if we are to enhance the role of women in the Church today, women must take advantage of the opportunities to participate in those areas of church life that are legitimately open to them, that invite women to use their gifts for the building up of the body of Christ and for its mission of salvation. It is true that the opportunities for such service will vary from Diocese to Diocese and even from parish to parish. Where they do not exist we should advocate the opening of such ministries to women; where they do exist we should encourage and affirm the participation of women as readers of the word of God, extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, altar servers, members of diocesan and parish councils, team ministry participants, marriage and family life counselors, child and adult catechists, spiritual directors, educators, members of diocesan and parish committees, participants in diocesan synods and collaborators in decision-making and policy-setting processes. Finally, we must go beyond encouraging and affirming the involvement of others. Women themselves must become active participants in the mission and ministry of the Church. Pope John Paul II urges us to put into practice all the gifts of men and women for the life and mission of the Church, to make real the possibilities that have already been stated by the Second Vatican Council for the mission of the community (Christifideles Laici, n. 49). The Pope goes on to say that the acknowledgment in theory of the active and responsible presence of women in the Church must be realized in practice (n. 153). He challenges us "to move from words to deeds" as we move forward into the new millennium. Conclusion In concluding, let me try to draw the two parts of my talk together. As an organized community of people with a body of belief and law that governs all, the Church will continue to face the issues and challenges associated with the role of women in the Church. Women and men together should have more than a passing interest in this issue, since it is undoubtedly one of the ones contributing in large measure to the shape the Church takes in the future. But there is another side of the story, one that should be remembered especially by those grown fainthearted and weary in the face of discussions — and sometimes outright arguments — over law and theology. The Church exists not only as an organized society, with leadership and rules, visible for all to see, like any other society. It is also the community vivified by the breath of the Holy Spirit, who blows whither he wills and by the grace of Christ, which is not limited to the few but poured abundantly on all. If you are ever tempted to forget how dynamic and alive our Church is and needful of the gifts we have to bring, I ask you to remember just four names: Katharine, Edith, Dorothy and Mary. Ref.:Origins, 13/4/2000, Vol. 29, n. 43.
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