thecatholicspirit.com/archives.php?article=4612
They are already puffing their proverbial feathers.
Whether they are committed to church tradition or dream that women someday will be priests, people who attended a listening session on women’s issues last week had something in common: They want women to play a more vital role in the life of the church.
Not enough women are in influential roles in the church, they said. Not enough make policies or handle finances. Although women proliferate in supporting roles, they are not heard as leaders.
“Many people don’t know Catholic leadership that is not a priest,” one woman said. “We don’t know how to acknowledge anyone but the priesthood.”
The desire for more attention to women’s voices has been a recurring theme in the nearly 20 listening sessions that have been held around the archdiocese this fall, said Mary Crossen, a member of the Archdiocesan Commission on Women, the group that organized the sessions.
“Everyone wants women more involved,” said Crossen, who helped facilitate several sessions, including the Nov. 3 one at St. John in Little Canada.
The commission plans to compile the results of the listening sessions and give a summary to Archbishop Harry Flynn and other archdiocesan leaders at the beginning of 2006.
The report will not include a request for any action, said Joe Claus, another commission member and facilitator.
“So even though we heard people tonight, and the results will be published,” he said, “there’s no guarantee that there will be some follow-up, or that there will be some acknowledgement that there’s pain.”
Group sizes have ranged from a low of four to a high of two dozen. (The largest meeting took place at the College of St. Catherine.) Most participants have been middle-aged or older, but the St. Catherine listening session drew students, and there have been a few moms with young children, Crossen said.
At the Nov. 3 listening session, six women and three men joined facilitators Crossen and Claus in the church social hall. They sat at round tables, cupping mugs of coffee and tea in their hands, and let loose with their passions and concerns about issues facing the church.
Because the listening sessions guarantee confidentiality, the participants were not identified for this article.
Several women said they had asked friends to join them at the listening session but were met with skepticism, cynicism and resignation. “We’re getting too old for this,” one woman reported hearing. “People say they’re not going to be listened to.” “Why should I go?”
A discussion of concerns affecting women generated comments about a lack of leadership roles and not enough attention given to the plight of disenfranchised women, such as the poor and abused.
“Where would we be without the women?” someone noted. “Who staffs the offices? Who does the ministries? If we went on strike for one day . . .” she said, shaking her head.
Another woman talked about how inspiring it was to see women in pastoral and spiritual leadership roles in Protestant churches. Contrasted with that was the story of a local Catholic parish’s pastoral council, which is all male.
Even men suffer when women’s gifts are ignored, one man said.
“Men are being cheated by the way women are being treated,” he said. “All I hear is men preach. It’s a disenfranchisement for women . . . the whole feminine perspective. It undermines what women have.”
The discussion evolved into a laundry list of concerns participants have about the church at large. Issues ranged from not enough preaching about the evils of abortion to the fallout of the clergy abuse scandal, which is burdening some dioceses with dire financial problems.
Some do not agree with the church’s policy of a celibate priesthood. Others did not care for the masculine language used in liturgies. Still others mentioned a lack of dialogue about sexuality, racism and war.
In the final moments, the group at St. John dreamed of what roles they’d like to see women play.
“All roles — any roles that men have,” one woman said. She said she’d like to see the church function as “a circle with varying roles, rather than top-down.”
“Someday, I would like to see women priests because we are made in the likeness and image of God,” another woman said.
Added one of the men: “If I can dream, I would like to see our women administer all the sacraments as much as any of the men can.”
Others disagreed. “Women can have any role they want except that of priest,” a woman said.
“I’m against having women priests,” her husband added. “I think we should concentrate more on vocations” to resolve the priest shortage. “But if the pope said we could have married men, I could go along with that.”
She was a beautiful woman and my uncle guided me to her casket today and said to me, “Here’s my bride…isn’t she beautiful?”
