The new edition of Dialogue and Encounter magazine number 36 will be available soon. This issue, entitled Women in the Church, invites us to take a definitive step towards a synodal and inclusive Church. It addresses the protagonism of women in the Church and the urgent need to move from awareness to active involvement.
Today we highlight an article in the Focus section written by Mª Luisa Solaun, ccv, titled For equality in the Church. In this text, the author reflects on the historical role of women in the Church, from the beginnings of Christianity to the present day, denouncing the invisibility suffered and celebrating the current movements that fight for equality.
Mª Luisa Solaun, ccv
“The claims for the legitimate rights of women, based on the firm conviction that men and women have equal dignity, raise profound questions for the Church that challenge her and that cannot be superficially evaded.”
(Evangelii Gaudium, 104)
The very broad topic of the presence and significance of women in the Church is awakening more and more interest, more research and, above all, more questioning due to their incomprehensible situation after XX centuries of Christianity.
We are faced with the gender inequality that has crossed and continues to cross all societies in all ages. Patriarchy has left half of humanity in the shadows, and official history ignores the contribution of women in many areas of life, knowledge, art, medicine, literature and spirituality.
The Church, under the influence of society, has also been built on patriarchy and clericalism, in the image of a patriarchal and hierarchical society, far removed from Jesus of Nazareth.
By way of brushstrokes we make a brief overview of the historical journey of women in the Church, recognizing that much remains to be investigated and revealed about their role in the Church in the different continents.
Brushstrokes of history
We start from Jesus, who transgressed the norms of the deeply patriarchal Jewish society of his time and dialogued with women on an equal footing, treating them as equals and disciples, as is recorded in the Gospels. And, as Paul’s letter to the Galatians says: “As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ: there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, you are one in Christ” (3:27-28).
But in the history of the Church, women have been made invisible. Only in the last forty years, thanks to feminist historians and biblical scholars, have we come to know their contributions and functions throughout the centuries. Throughout the history of Christianity, the cry of women has resounded, strong and resilient, a slow birth of liberation rooted in the Church that has silenced it and that today we are unveiling.
In the origins of Christianity, their role was central. The ekklesia was built with the collaboration of women and men equally linked to Christ and committed to the Good News. Today we know of women leaders who presided over their communities, ordained deaconesses, prophetesses, collaborators, benefactors and martyrs.
Towards the 3rd and 4th centuries, in the new situation of Christianity under the Roman Empire, the spirituality of the desert arose, men and women of the desert. They are our Mothers of the desert, in the Near East and North Africa, free women, marked by nakedness and thirst for the Mystery, passionate for Jesus and his Gospel, protagonists of a new ecclesial way of life.
From the 12th century onwards we know great women in the West, such as Hildegard of Bingen, Clare of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Jesus, and many others, who bring mysticism and prophecy to the present day.
And, in this strongly clerical and patriarchal Church where there seems to be no room for women, the Beguine women’s movement emerged, once again silenced in the official history of the Church.
More than a million women in the 13th and 14th centuries crossed almost all of Europe with their presence, living their Christianity with freedom and creativity to express their spiritual feelings in fidelity to the Gospel. With freedom, the Beguines organized their way of life and communicated their experiences. It was a non-institutionalized movement, with a simple lifestyle, a very synodal government for what affected everyone, and very close to the people, communicating the Gospel to them in the vernacular. They lived a spirituality centered on passionate love for Jesus, contemplative prayer and service to the least in shelters, hospitals and prisons.
They were viewed with suspicion by the hierarchical Church and the clergy and were uncomfortable for them as they were not subject to any male authority. They were welcomed and appreciated by the people. Thanks to the support of some monasteries that collected their writings and experiences, some of their names and deep mysticism have reached us today.
Modernity brought important changes in history. Its ideals of equality, liberty and fraternity placed the human person at the center with the recognition of his dignity. It was the beginning of a slow transformation of institutions and human relations. And, in the case of women, traditionally subordinated to men and the domestic sphere, it opened a horizon of change, freedom, dignity and new possibilities.
In the Church, new dilemmas arise between faith and culture, between faith and reason, the strongly hierarchical and clerical structure of the Church is questioned in the face of emerging parliamentary governments and secularism. Women remained irrelevant in the Church, but many charismatic women emerged, living Christianity in community, without monastic walls, dedicated to the service of the dispossessed of their time, under the approval of the Church. Among them Joaquina de Vedruna.
Proclamations of equality
The Declaration of Human Rights (1948) in its first article stipulates: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”. It is a revolutionary declaration to build peoples in freedom and equality of rights of men and women.
Since Vatican II, there has been no lack of declarations on the equality that Baptism confers on men and women. Among others, we recall the encyclicals “Evangelii Gaudium, Fratelli Tutti”, the last Declaration “Dignitas Infinita” of the Dicastery of Faith, without forgetting the Exhortation Dear Amazon, which recognizes the mission of women in Christian communities for centuries as the soul that has kept them on their feet.
And, since the second Assembly of the Synod of Synodality, the just recognition of the baptismal dignity of women and the abolition of all forms of discrimination and exclusion that impede their equal participation in the Church are still pending.
The equal dignity and rights of men and women have been proclaimed, and in all times and cultures there have been people who have opened spaces of recognition and liberation, but the reality is that patriarchy and clericalism prevail in Christian communities, followers of Jesus of Nazareth. The Church finds it difficult to recognize the place of women in the Church from its beginnings until today.
New collective conscience
There have certainly been few changes in gender equality, but what has changed a great deal is the awareness of women in the face of patriarchy and clericalism. A collective and universal maturation of women at all levels can be perceived in our days, in such a way that, in the different cultures, a clamor and a common effort towards empowerment can be heard, which is beginning to bear fruit.
And, something new has been emerging in the Church, feminist theology, which, throughout its 30 years, has been interpreting the Word of God, not from the traditional patriarchal perspective but from a gender perspective.
To point out just a few features, the patriarchal perspective has shown us a male God, lord, masculine, white, powerful, creator, who legitimizes power, clericalism and the subordination and devaluation of women. The gender perspective unveils the Mystery of God the Father-Mother, the Holy Ruah, the feminine face of God, and elaborates symbols and inclusive languages. It values precious images of God, for example, in Isaiah and Psalms, God is the womb that bears life, is the nurturing mother, is maternal fidelity.
What is new in humanity and in the Church is the current movement of women, walking together and in a coordinated manner at the global level for the recognition of equality in the Church. It is a serene and persistent claim because they feel that their current situation in the Church violates their rights and they demand justice for the good of all.
It is a vindication against all types of domination and exclusion and proposes a new masculinity, inspired by Jesus of Nazareth who broke the religious taboos of his time.
The worldwide coordination is carried out by the Catholic Women’s Council, which includes multiple movements: Indian Women Theologians Foirum, Red Miriam, Asociación de Mulleres Cristiás Galegas Exeria, Col-lectiu de Dones en l’Església per la Paritat, Grupo de Mujeres y Teología, Revuelta de Mujeres en la Iglesia and many others.
Walking with other women
Our document “Born Again” of the XXVIII Vedruna General Chapter, urges us to become aware of this sign of the times, and to give an urgent and decisive response from our Charism, walking with other women for equality in the ecclesial and social sphere.
We are moved by a deep desire for justice and brotherhood, which leads us to join the causes for the defense of the dignity of the person, encouraging their full and integral development, inspired by Joaquina de Vedruna.
Joaquina opened the doors of her house to welcome young women who had no place in the convents because they were poor. She put an end to the exclusion of women from religious life in the Church of her time, and she did so by enlarging the space of her house, building a new family, promoting the growth of the young women who shared her project and, together, they built a new liberating way of being and being in the Church and in society. Together they put their lives at the service of the empowerment of other women and of a more just and egalitarian Church and world.
“We want to engage in women’s movements that are involved in creating healthy relationships, actively working to eradicate inequality, abuse or indifference in society and in the Church.”
NdN 2.3.
“From the Word and the Ruah we can regenerate what we often see as impossible, and be reborn as women excited about the Kingdom, available for change, spreading hope, illusion, transforming reality and transforming ourselves”.
NdN 9.
We are many and we say enough to be invisible and silenced, enough to be dominated and discriminated against because of our gender, enough to work together for a society and a Church of equals, where women are recognized as full persons with a voice and a vote. We will show the world the feminine face of God.
