The Holy See, the United Nations and Women's Rights

'Theology that hears the poor'

This is the text of an article by me published in this week's Tablet. Scroll down to see the published version, but as it's awkward to navigate I'm posting the text here as well.

--> If you are interested in reading more about the issues covered in this article, I highly recommend Half the Sky: How to Change the World by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn. You might also appreciate Margaret Atwood's poem, Christmas Carols.

Pope Francis claims that the Church lacks ‘a deep theology of woman’. This is only partially true. Since Vatican II, Catholic women theologians from all continents have been reflecting on women’s lives in the spirit of the Council, but these theologies have yet to find official acceptance. On the other hand, ‘theology of the body’, inspired by Pope John Paul II’s catechesis on the Book of Genesis and his 1988 apostolic letter on women, Mulieris Dignitatem, now forms the basis for all the Church’s official teachings on women and sexuality, as can be seen from the website of the Women’s Section of the Pontifical Council for the Laity.

This year sees the twenty fifth anniversary of Mulieris Dignitatem, and the Women’s Section is organising a symposium to mark the event. The report on the last such symposium, held in 2008, suggests that the participants were selected on the basis of their support for theology of the body and their condemnation of feminism and gender theory. There has been little attempt by the Women’s Section to engage with women theologians who might offer a different perspective.

John Paul II’s teachings on the goodness of the body and the positive significance of married sex were in many ways a transformation in Catholic theology. He also arguably did more than any other Pope to promote women’s rights within the parameters of Catholic teaching. Nevertheless, his understanding of motherhood and femininity was highly romanticised, as was his theology of marriage, based on the principle of sexual complementarity between male and female. This has provided theological inspiration for some heterosexual couples who, by luck, judgement or circumstance marry the right person, find satisfaction in traditional gender roles and are able to practise natural family planning, but theology of the body has little to offer to those whose experience of marriage is wounded by divorce or blighted by violence, abuse or poverty. Theology of the body is also hostile to homosexuality.

As the United Nations and international NGOs have become increasingly focused on issues of gender, sexuality and women’s rights, theology of the body has been promoted by the Vatican as a form of resistance to feminism and gender theory, and to the perceived threat posed by contraception, abortion and homosexuality to marriage and the family. Yet in its romantic sexual stereotypes, in its tendency to misrepresent or silence the voices of those with whom it disagrees, and in its glossing over of complex ethical issues to do with sexuality, reproduction and motherhood, theology of the body is in many ways an obstacle in the way of developing the ‘deep theology of woman’ that Pope Francis invites.

If Catholics are to respond to Francis’s call to become a Church of the poor, then the challenges posed by questions of women’s rights, maternal well-being, reproductive choice and the scandal of maternal and infant mortality have to be addressed by those most qualified to speak with and for poor women. Pope Benedict XVI’s 2009 social justice encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, makes no mention of maternal mortality or HIV/AIDS, despite the fact that an estimated 800 of the world’s poorest women die every day through causes relating to pregnancy and childbirth. By contrast, a pastoral letter on the Millennium Development Goals published in June 2013 by the Bishops of Uganda and addressed to that country’s Government dedicates significant space to HIV/AIDS and to questions of justice for women and combatting maternal mortality. Perhaps this is a symptom of how a change in papal style is creating space for different voices to be heard within the Catholic hierarchy.

Next year is Cairo +20 – the twentieth anniversary of the 1994 UN Cairo Conference on Population and Development. This might be the first real test of Francis’s determination to bring about a shift in emphasis, from a Church obsessed with questions of contraception, abortion and homosexuality, to a Church whose identity and mission comes from living the Gospel in radical solidarity with the poor.

The 1994 Cairo Conference was regarded as a diplomatic disaster for the Vatican. The Holy See aligned itself with some Islamic states in opposing resolutions which included terms such as ‘reproductive rights’ and ‘sexual health’, because it perceived these as attempts to promote abortion and population control policies and to undermine marriage and the family. More recently, in March 2013, the Holy See once again attracted widespread condemnation for joining with Russia, Egypt and Iran to oppose a UN declaration against gender violence because it included reference to sexual, reproductive and gay rights.  

Such reports fuel hostility towards the Catholic Church, some of which is based more on prejudice than on informed debate. In an effort to avoid a repeat of the 1994 fiasco, John Paul II went to considerable lengths to ensure that the Vatican was well-represented at the UN Beijing Conference on Women in 1995, with a delegation led by the then Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon. Reporting in The Tablet afterwards, Annabel Miller wrote that the Holy See’s delegates ‘had been chosen not only for their loyalty to the Church, but for their intellectual – and street – credibility’, but she goes on to say that ‘this was not enough to break through the wall of prejudice, even hatred, among some secular feminists’. So there is a need for bridge-building on both sides.

The Vatican is already a significant voice for the poor around issues such as migration and refugees, economic exploitation, human trafficking and war and conflict, and the Catholic Church is a leading provider of female education through its religious orders. However, its credibility will continue to be undermined unless it also engages in more constructive dialogue within the UN and other agencies about maternal mortality, reproductive health, gender-based violence and women’s rights. This includes ensuring that the poor are defended against population control policies directed more at protecting the interests of the rich than the rights of the poor. There is also evidence that female education is more effective in reducing family sizes than campaigns focusing exclusively on contraception, and the Vatican is right to point this out. Yet educated women are able to limit the number of children they have because they can make informed choices about pregnancy, and that requires access to reliable contraception. If the Church’s opposition to abortion is to be seen as a genuine concern for the rights of the unborn and not as simply another attempt to deny women’s rights, and if it is to have credibility in its interventions on the stage of international politics, then the benefits of contraception must be recognized, as must campaigns for gender justice and sexual equality.

Catholic health care providers are often in the forefront of dealing with the realities of these issues, beyond the ideological to-ing and fro-ing between the Holy See and the UN. For example, research currently being undertaken by Dr. Jill Olivier and others at the University of Capetown shows that, in some African countries, post-abortion care makes increasingly heavy demands on Catholic clinics and hospitals. Women and girls who experience heavy bleeding after inducing abortions at home go to Catholic facilities because they know they will not be turned away. For many, help comes too late. Accurate statistics are impossible to come by, but an estimated 68,000 women die every year as a result of unregulated abortion. A woman who would rather risk death than face an unwanted pregnancy is in despair.  Often these are young girls who have been victims of abuse or rape, and sometimes they face rejection by their communities. A Catholic agency I know of in Zimbabwe has set up a home for such girls, and tries to reconcile them with their families when their babies are born.

Such Catholic initiatives constitute the Church of the poor, providing an active daily response to Pope Francis’s call for the Church to be ‘a field hospital’ which responds to the call to ‘Heal the wounds, heal the wounds … And you have to start from the ground up’. Yet there is a blanket of secrecy thrown over some aspects of this work when it concerns reproductive health or providing condoms for people at risk of HIV/AIDS, because of the need not to be seen to contravene official Church teaching. Catholics working in such contexts are usually reluctant to go on the record, because of the well-founded fear that they will be condemned by their bishops and their funding will be withdrawn.

Starting from the ground up means allowing theology to grow out of the grass roots experience of those who put human suffering before moral absolutes. There is far more to women’s theology than questions of reproduction and motherhood, just as there is far more to the Church’s work among the poor than crisis intervention. Yet if a deep theology of woman cannot provide a compassionate response to those women who suffer most acutely because of sexual violence, poverty and the lack of adequate reproductive health care, then it is failing to hear the cry of the poor.

A deep theology of woman must be a theology by and for women, which learns from women’s visions and struggles in terms of justice and ethics, sexuality and motherhood, sacramentality and prayer. There are many who would welcome an opportunity to discuss these issues more openly within the Church. The Women’s Section of the Pontifical Council for the Laity would be an ideal forum for such discussions. In this age of reform, might we yet see such a space opening up? This would allow the official Church to engage with the resources it needs to develop that deep theology of woman which Francis says it currently lacks.

An Appeal to Pope Benedict XVI

Statue of Mary found in the Abbey of Tre Fontane in Rome

The image presents Mary as the Abbot of the monastery. She wears the robe of a Cistercian monk, but she also carries the paraphernalia of a bishop. The Episcopal sedilia, the crozier, the ring and even the keys of the Kingdom. (Taken from the website womenpriests.org)

Pope Benedict XVI gave a General Audience in St. Peter's Square on Wednesday, 7th July, during which he spoke about the legacy of medieval Franciscan theologian John Duns Scotus. Here is part of what he said:

The People of God therefore precede theologians and this is all thanks to that supernatural sensus fidei, namely, that capacity infused by the Holy Spirit that qualifies us to embrace the reality of the faith with humility of heart and mind. In this sense, the People of God is the "teacher that goes first" and must then be more deeply examined and intellectually accepted by theology. May theologians always be ready to listen to this source of faith and retain the humility and simplicity of children!

Far be it from me to demand a hearing from the Holy Father, but let me indulge a little fantasy. The Tablet is currently running a column in which prominent Catholics are asked to record what they would say to the Pope if they had a private audience. If I were to meet the Pope today, here is what I might say:

Your Holiness,

I know that the press is often guilty of distortion when it comes to reporting on the Roman Catholic Church. There is a significant level of anti-Catholicism in British society which also infects the British media. That is why I have spent some time this morning trying to track down exactly what the Vatican is now saying in its latest directive on the treatment of abusive priests, which was reported in today's Daily Mail under the heading 'Vatican labels the ordination of women a "grave crime" to be dealt with in the same way as sex abuse'. Surely, I thought, this cannot be true. Finally, I settled on the Associated Press account, which reports a press briefing by Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the Vatican's sex crimes prosecutor. He told reporters that

including the two canonical crimes, sex abuse and ordination of women, in the same document was not equating them but was done to just codify the most serious canonical crimes against sacraments and morals that the congregation deals with.


For example, in addition to sex abuse, the document also includes crimes against the sacraments including desecrating the Eucharist, violating the seal of the confessional and for the first time, apostasy, heresy and schism. Attempting to ordain a woman violates the sacrament of holy orders and was therefore included, Scicluna said.

"They are grave, but on different levels," he said.

Your Holiness, I like to believe that you have been badly briefed, that you still do not understand the real nature of the crisis facing the Church, and that some of these statements are issued without your full knowledge or consent. This may be naive on my part, but I would urge you to shrug off your minders and find a way to listen to the voices of many thousands of ordinary Catholics when you visit Britain in September. If you are serious when you say that 'the People of God is the "teacher that goes first"', then in the name of God listen to the people and what they are trying to say to you.
 
First, you might discover that the greatest sense of outrage is not against abusive priests - shameful though that abuse has been - but against senior members of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, bishops and cardinals alike, who have been engaged in a systematic process of deception, corruption and dissimulation, allowing for the proliferation of abuse by individuals whom they were capable of stopping. The real problem is not the sins of individual priests, but the structures of sin which have infected the institutions and governance of the Church. We do not want you to impose ever more punitive restrictions and condemnations on abusive priests, unless you are also willing to acknowledge and repent of the sins that go to the highest levels of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and to take accompanying action by way of a thorough-going overhaul of the Church's institutions and structures to initiate a new era of transparency, democratic participation, accountability and inclusivity - including the full inclusion of women in the sacramental, doctrinal and institutional life of the Church. This brings me to my second point.
 
If you opened your ears and your heart to the women of the British Catholic Church during your visit, you would hear many, many stories of women who love the Church, who have struggled to remain loyal, but who have finally been exhausted and defeated and have quietly left or gone elsewhere - many to the Church of England. Far from seeing the ordination of women as a grave crime and a violation of holy orders, you might find many welcome this as a great sacramental act of fulfilment in recognition of the dignity of all humans made in the image of God, and able to stand in the person of Christ who took human flesh (not male flesh) for the sake of all humans. The ordination of women is for some of us a significant doctrinal development, representing a coming of age in the sacramental life of the Church within the Anglican communion, and fully capable of being coherently supported within the Catholic theological and sacramental tradition.
 
To equate the 'grave crime' of priestly sexual abuse with the 'grave crime' of the ordination of women suggests a profound contempt for the sacramental significance of the female body, and it also means that the Archbishop of Canterbury and the majority of Anglican priests and bishops now stand accused by the Roman Catholic hierarchy of a crime equal in gravity to priestly sexual abuse. This of course may be arbitrary insofar as the Roman Catholic Church doesn't recognize Anglican orders anyway, but it does highlight just how ludicrous it is to try to equate the two. Sexual abuse violates the body of another human being in the most profound way, and it does not depend on codes of canon law to make it wrong. It is wrong in communities and societies which are not bound by canon law, and its objective wrong does not depend on whether the abusive adult is a Catholic priest, an Anglican priest or indeed any other adult. Holy orders are specific to one religious community's self-understanding, and the language of criminality is therefore entirely context-specific.If the curia is really saying that there is no objective moral difference between ordaining a woman and sexually abusing another human being, then we are indeed in the throes of a moral crisis of staggering immensity. I have been to Masses celebrated by Anglican women priests. I have often found them holy and beautiful occasions, more meaningful than so many Roman Catholic Masses I attend. Are you really asking me to believe that participating in these times of prayer and worship is the moral equivalent to standing by and watching a child being raped? I am outraged.

I received an e-mail today from a woman who laments that 'It’s becoming increasingly difficult to explain to others and even myself at times why, as an intelligent woman, I remain part of this hostile institution.' I share her feeling, but perhaps you are indifferent to our struggle. Perhaps you dream of a 'purer' Church - it seems our own archbishop shares your dream - in which people like us would simply disappear. Maybe by the People of God you don't mean those of us who struggle to attend Mass Sunday after Sunday despite a palpable sense of exclusion and marginalisation. Maybe you don't include those of us who try to speak up and defend the Church when she is unjustly accused, but who also feel called to criticise the hierarchy when we believe that grave errors are being perpetuated in our name, and in the name of the Chuch we love. Maybe, among the People of God, all people are equal, but some are more equal than others. Maybe the Church's shepherds would rather not wait until Judgement Day to separate the sheep from the goats, but would rather ask the goats to leave now, so that only the most docile sheep remain.

Today, I am ashamed to be Roman Catholic. It has become a Church blighted by ignorance, arrogance and the decadence of a dying regime mired in its own obsessive clinging to power. But I am not leaving for, along with Peter, I would have to ask, 'Lord, where else would we go?' The Church is and always has been more than the very great sum of her parts, and so much more than the sum of her leaders.