More on 'Women in the Church'
MOBE ON 'WOMEN IN THE CHURCH' Kansas City, Mo. To the Editors: It is sad to see those who favor the ordaining of women in the Catholic Church approach it as a power struggle. That for many it...
...When all the theological pindancing is finished, it takes more than an implication and historical practice to discern this exclusion as the will of God...
...so such a rite would reinforce the opinion that a woman is nothing without a man...
...The Church is, after all, nothing without Christ...
...The many ministries in which women are serving, their part on pastoral teams, their preparation for ordination in seminaries and schools of theology, the needs of the Church suggest that we will have women priests sooner than many think possible...
...One woman visitor wept during the communion service a few weeks ago and told me afterwards that never, in a Protestant church, had she felt so close to the female side of the divine mystery...
...Other traditional words will of course take on newer and deeper meanings...
...It is entirely logical that his weaker alternative would have a woman stand always at the altar with the priest in a serving role...
...It is observed every week during such special seasons as Advent and Lent, about twice a month the rest of the year, and occasionally at special parish events...
...With Vatican II, the stream began to flow clear again...
...By and large we have tried to use entirely inclusive language for "humankind" (not "mankind...
...Eastern rite candidates may marry before ordination if they are to be parish priests...
...We need this kind of preparation to avoid trauma like that suffered in postVatican II liturgical reform, if we are to welcome women priests...
...MARY ROSE D'ANGELO MORE ON 'A DUAL.SEX EUCHARIST' HARVEY COX The proposal for a "dual-sex eucharist" made by Michael Novak in this journal a few weeks ago [Dec...
...GERALD l v. WHITB Washington, D.C...
...It also implies, inevitably, the subordination of the "Church figure" to the "Christ figure," and has always done so, to the best of my knowledge...
...female metaphors and male symbols for the Creator God...
...In fact it has involved the entire congregation in a memorable theological discussion over almost every item in the creeds...
...But we all --women and men--put on the image of Christ at our baptism, and we all --men and women--are members o f Christ's Body, the Church...
...JAMES M. HAYES New Haven, Conn...
...ANNE PETICOLAS Boston, Mass...
...17 article...
...He proposes that a new role of celebrant be created, one reserved for a woman and intended to represent the Church...
...in both church and society requires the equal visibility and presence of both sexes at the highest symbolic moment of Christian worship, the celebration of the Lord's Supper...
...Such a change would embody sexism in the liturgy in a fundamental way in which it is not now present...
...The task ahead is too great to bicker over ordination...
...On the pattern of Ephesians and its imagery, we have a dual-sex Eucharist now: what we need (if you will pardon the barbarium) is a uni-sex Eucharist, a celebration not determined by sex-roles...
...There is no scriptural evidence of any theological significance to the masculinity of Christ...
...The Western Church's discipline of a celibate priesthood is an important tradition...
...What is wrong with a mass celebrated by a single male celebrant with a single male attendant is not that there is no woman to represent the sexual aspects of communion (contra Mr...
...To the Editors: Some years ago a friend of mine told me that he had sat through a Mother's Day sermon in which the preacher had supported the ordination of women with every male chauvinist pig clich6 in the book...
...17] concerning the need for a broad base of womanpower in the Church rat,her than concentration on priesthood for 'women were both perceptive and wise...
...As married women with long service in CCD and on pastoral teams are preparing for the priesthood to which they feel called with the encouragement of husbands, priests with whom they have worked and a few bishops--it is time to pray for readiness to be enriched by their gifts...
...In any case, I report them here in the hope that Christians now facing the challenge of adequate symbolism in the eucharist, especially vis d vis men and women, might profit from our experience...
...MARY BETH LE rAVE (Member--The Brooklyn Coalition of the Women's Ordination Conference) Austin, Tex...
...If there is any one group we have had a surfeit of in the Church, it is the pursuers of power...
...Even without the role-playing aspec t , suppose Novak had suggested that since blacks and whites make up humanity, a black and a white celebran~ should preside at each Eucharist...
...One well-respected spiritual director, whom I know, finds her ministry hampered by the fact that she hasn't the power to forgive sins...
...In his "DualSex Eucharist" [Dec...
...Novak would like to see consecrated for the task...
...The cooperation of men as fellow-Christians is seen by Episcopal women as the critical force which brought about the positive decision in the Convention...
...Before ordination, the necessary consciousness-raising confrontation that will lead to enlightenment, healing and growth will not require a "time out" in the movement, as Sister Spear suggests, but will result inevitably...
...SISTER) MARY O'CALLAGHAN, RSCJ Christian Feminist Westchester, Ill...
...sexist language should be eliminated...
...The Christian is ordained at baptism, confirmation and orders to be alter Christus, or rather to be Christ, as one spirR with him...
...Boycotts, strikes, pressure tactics, and massive assaults may shore up a power base but will not convert a single heart...
...Novak's assumptions that "the most intimate symbol of the union between Christ and his Church is the imagery of husband and wife,' that "there can be no doubt at all that a woman is the appropriate cultural and bodily symbol for the Church/' and that "because God chose to become incarnate in the male, the most appropriate symbol for the people to whom Christ united himself is a woman...
...No one is ordained to be altera ecclesia, because there is no other: the church is we ourselves, Christ as his members, and the priest is ordained to speak on our behalf the thanksgiving, the sacramental word of Christ which unveils in the broken bread and the gathered community the body of Christ...
...27, after the appearance of Commonweal's issue on "Women in the Church" and after the responses on these pages were written, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a 6000word document reiterating opposition to the idea of women priests...
...it is that there is no community--or barely a sufficient community--for there to be a communion...
...If ordination is indeed a prerequisite to exercising the major ministries, and that is arguable, it is unlikely God intended half the human race to be ineligible to so minister to his community...
...I thank Michael Novak for applying himself to this serious question, but I ask him to think again...
...Is the implication that once we let down the bars and admit women into the liturgy the mysteries will be profaned by all sorts of over-eager and emotionally immature female candidates...
...Women should, of course, be ordained...
...Sister Spears fails to point out that the call for ordination developed out of women's growing involvement in the ministry...
...Problems like wife abuse, which will plague us as long as wives are considered property, and respect for life, which in the case of abortion has been articulated by male celibates without the contribution of women, may have some connection to the denial of the fight to ordain women...
...Our tolerance may increase if we doff cultural blinders...
...The concept of power as proper to ministry lost its strength and Christ's admonition that he who would be great must be servant to all was remembered...
...It said "the priesthood is not conferred for the honor or advantage of the recipient, but for the service of God and the Church . . . . " The document has been the object of considerable protest...
...Too many men have spent too many years for too many centuries obtaining and consolidating power within the clergy and over the laity...
...Men will use every excuse they can--legal, religious, moral~to keep the power they have...
...But no image is complete, and every theological use of imagery must take account of the limitations of that imagery...
...Novak professes to reject...
...is also frightening...
...To re-apply this imagery to the internal structure of the church rather than to its relation to Christ is to institutionalize the clericalism that Mr...
...They pose a real obstacle to the kind of powerbase Spear envisions...
...There are distinct dangers to our self-understanding, both as human beings and as the church, in the symbolization of Christ and the church as male and female, particularly in the form expressed in Mr...
...The tradition of the personification of the church as a woman to express the relationship between Christ and the church basically derives from Ephesians and implies its ecclesiology over against the Pauline images of Christ and his members...
...Doesn't he trust the Holy Spirit to exercise any discernment in promoting vocations in the female sex...
...In an article as closely packed as Doctor Cardman's there is small space for extra baggage...
...One of the most depressing aspects of sexist ecclesiology is that it permits us to continue to speak of the church as Commonweah 111 "she" (like machines, ships and automobiles) instead of as "we...
...Francine Cardman's "Woman, Ordination, and Tradition" is a clear, compact analysis of a long, complex history...
...The minister of Christ is not head of his body but its tongue, speaking at once for the members and for the spirit of Christ that is in them...
...To the Editors: Lois Spear's observations [Dec...
...Her command of the matter and carefully nuanced statements help the reader to understand the state of the question...
...and those most vigorous in the seeking have generally demonstrated they are the least qualified to be trusted with it...
...The secular in its own way, is as integral to the Christian life as the sacred," wisely contends Sister Spear...
...Novak...
...It will ~ake all the love, compassion, service and understanding we can give to one another to make it...
...The first question concerns motives...
...male pronouns, of course, for Jesus...
...Sister Spear implies that a psychological study now underway of female aspirants to the Catholic priesthood will make a necessary contribution...
...The Pauline image of Christ and his members avoids all of these...
...The words "my body" and "blood" along with gestures of feeding, when spoken 18 February1977:112...
...If women see ministry only as power, they may well be squabbling over dry husks while the living substance has gone elsewhere...
...It could not fail to suggest that women a r e fundamentally incomplete human beings...
...As the women--and men--of Old Cambridge Baptist Church became increasingly aware of the theological wrongness and human injustice of the situation, three changes were instituted...
...Holy Communion is now celebrated much more frequently than it used to be...
...As old structures crumble, old pre-occupations no longer arouse interest, and old practices no longer meet the felt needs of the community, new approaches with the help of the Spirit must be found...
...Black people do not need white people to be fully human...
...They have to be willing to fight for it, however, and there are a lot o f women who don't have heart for the battle, or even an interest in it...
...not Tradition...
...Novak proposes "the development of a new role within the Catholic Eucharist liturgy," to involve the "active participation of a . . . woman...
...This has not been an easy task, as anyone who has tried to "dechauvinize" religious ritual knows...
...Novak's article should be taken as just another illustration of a hardlearned lesson: beware of men who profess to be pro-woman---they are sometimes women's worst enemies...
...Let us concelebrate indeed as Michael Novak suggests...
...I wish, however, she had tackled the practical problem of women who don't want the power, women who would much rather retain the special treatment they get as women in a traditional role than, in its place, having a real part in leadership and decisionmaking...
...17] encourages me to report on the eucharistic practice in one congregation which has struggled with this issue over the past five years...
...They finally built a Church easily recognized as an organization which all too often bullied its members with canon law, bound them w/th legalistic and pietistic restraints, and enjoined obedience with threats of eternal damnation...
...17] The Church is the Body of Christ, Christ is the Head of the Church...
...His suggestion that a man and a woman represent the communion of the Eucharist as alter Christus and altera Ecclesia creates as he says, "a second priesthood"mfor the second sex...
...One plus one does not equal one...
...Women are indispensable in fulfilling such a ministry, for men and women alike are called to it...
...Novak's clearly well-intentioned article, "Dual-Sex Eucharist [December 17...
...It was made possible, though not any easier, in our congregation since the prayers and formulas used in the liturgy can be recomposed by the congregation itself with no necessity for episcopal approval...
...This may sound tedious...
...To the Editors: It is heartening that a man has perceived and published an expanded vision of woman's role in the liturgy...
...To promote full equality, in the words of John Courtney Murray SJ., demands "The sanctification of the secular activities of .the world...
...What a rel i e f to all of us...
...Commonweal: 109 The practice of Eastern rite Catholics and Orthodox in a tradition that reaches back to New Testament times shows married Apostles ordai~ned by Jesus and celibate John and Paul...
...the grace released in their long and often painful process reaches us too...
...Such a suggestion would be deeply insulting to blacks...
...The Mass, although it has iCs dramatic elements, is basically an action, not a play, an action at which a woman is no less fit to preside than is a man...
...Each one grew out of the congregation's recognition that the equality of women HARVEY COX is Victor Thomas professor o/ divinity at Harvard Divinity School...
...If we cannot each find at least the resources of wholeness within ourselves then we must abandon our vision of wholeness...
...Christ's one commandment to love God and our neighbor does not come easy...
...Practically, the problem of how to finance a his and hers clergy may be much the more formidable obstacle to female ordination in the present structures...
...17] Sister Lois Spear recommends that women discard the rhetoric, get down to action, and profit from the experiences of past reformers, prior to detailing her approach, Sister Spear attempts to tackle some of the hard questions...
...That for many it has so become is nicely pin-pointed by Sister Lois Spear in her Dec...
...To the Editors: Thank you for the "Women in the Church" articles which continue Commonwears consciousnessraising service [Dec...
...Gu,ss what kind of a woman Mr...
...With some dismay I recognized a similar reaction in myself as I read Mr...
...It has also reintroduced into our worship---very explicitly at times--more attention to Mary the Mother, and has enlarged the religious sensitivity of both men and women members of the congregation...
...I carefully scan his article to see whether he similarly hedges his male holder of the priestly office with stipulations...
...and mainly female designations for the Holy Spirit...
...Similarly, women are fully human persons by themselves, as are men...
...His most recent books are The Feast of Fools and The Seduction of the Spirit...
...This "would symbolically unite . . . Christ with his Church, the masculine with the feminine...
...Freedom from old restraints is good but it Vatican Statement On Jan...
...By citing some alarming needs in society today, Sister Spear wonders whether the ordination of women has the same priority...
...All of this does not preclude the use of feminine imagery for the church, or of sexual imagery for the union between God and the lover of God...
...Unfortunately, unless women also preside, this sign of service will convey not that the first shall be last and the last first, but that the second will continue to b e second...
...Dec...
...Speaking the truth in love bears no resemblance to rhetoric yet has the vower of leaven in bread...
...No, he does not...
...As well, such a symbolical equar of maleness with 18 February 1977:110 masculinity, femaleness with femininity would be very harmful...
...can we not learn to say: "because God chose to become incarnate, the most appropriate bodily and cultural symbol for the humanity to whom the Word is united is the human person...
...WAYNE BRASLER Lansing, Mich...
...The distinction between Tradition and the traditional can be found in reading the first three Gospels and I Corinthians: the central Eucharistic formula used at the Consecration of the Mass is given in four different renderings...
...Not that all of us do not need God and other human beings--but women do not need men qua males for anything but reproduction...
...And there are many who don't want the battle won...
...To the Editors: In her article "Some Practical Observations," [Dec...
...To the Editors: By and large I approve of so many of Michael Novak's statements that I am somewhat reluctant to take issue with him on a sexist matter...
...If called to celibacy the Orthodox can take "monastic vows" without living in community...
...It was difficult to find Christ's presence in such a temple and many did not...
...The experience of the Episcopalians is at the least part of our subconscious now...
...No amount of outside additi.ons can create an essential unity...
...17], Mr...
...But here goes...
...1. The first change involved the careful rewriting of the prayers and other liturgical elements of the communion service to emphasize inclusive language...
...I would suggest to those who wish to implement Novak's suggestion that the visible presence of a woman serving communion along with a man will make some of the words now ordinarily used seem odd and unacceptable...
...ANNE C. GARRISON (a mature woman) Flushing, N.Y...
...To foster an identification of woman as altera Ecclesia to complement the already mis-emphasized identification of the male priest as alter Christus will be to symbolize no new vision but old, sorry stereotypes of a church of pious females overseen by insecure males...
...Cardman's emphasis on the "uniqueness of Christ's priesthood" is important here...
...In the Baptist tradition, women have always been accepted for ordination but the general male dominance of the culture at large has operated both to minimize the number of women ministers and to perpetuate male rule in most churches...
...Like many churches outside the Catholic tradition, Old Cambridge Baptist Church has been assigning an increasingly important role to the eucharist in worship over the past ten years...
...Not a gum-chewing twenty-year-old delinquent, or a movie sex goddess-no, he carefully specifies that the woman should be mature...
...The document stated that because a priest "truly acts in the place of Christ" there should be a "natural resemblance" between Christ and his minister in keeping with the "sacramental sign" of Holy Orders...
...Ministry as a Spiritgiven charisma for the service of the people of GOd and not for their domination has a new birth...
...To the Editors: Michael Novak has managed to make the worst suggestion I have ever seen about the Eucharistic liturgy [Dec...
...It is heart-breaking that it should be so short-sighted, drawing on and reinforcing that false dichotomy that has kept us, women and men, out of touch with the potential fullness o f our human nature...
...buz no matter how elegant the arguments or powerful the institutions behind them, in the end, I think, it is inevitable that women in our society, and the Church, will gain their rightful equal place...
...In my limited understanding, women with a priestly vocation want to be priests of and for but not as ehe Church, but sharing in the priesthood of the incarnate Word of God...
...It would provide a more realistic and symbolically accurate witness both to the meaning of God's revelation and to the union-in-duality of humankind...
...Ripe Italian caucasians" will not surrender the powers within orders without a drama.tic change in the consciousness of the Church...
...A similar study, doubtlessly not in progress of males aspiring to priesthood, would make an equally compelling study...
...I do think Spear is right about the real issue concerning women in the Church being one of power...
...Such an institutionalized drama of heterosexuality would also offend, and rightly so, all homosexuals...
...How can Novak hold that furthering, that glori/ying the inequality o f men and women at the altar, will lead to peace and union among and indeed within ourselves...
...R also rejected the admission of women to the priesthood on the grounds of the equality of rights of the human person, stating that it is wrong to consider the ministerial priesthood as a "human right...
...To apply the image of Christ and the chur,'h as husband and wife to the internal structure of the church tends to explain the community as basically institutional, to reinforce the subordinate status of women and to distort the meaning of the Eucharistic communion which is not between Christ and the church but between God and humanity in Christ...
...Surprisingly the current practice looks very much like one of the models he advocates, but with other dimensions that, although they might appear to be too "experimental" to some Christians, correspond to other ideas in his article...
Vol. 104 • February 1977 • No. 4
