'So far, so bad . . . '

...It is best translated as shared partnership and commitment...

...Commonweal: 46...

...Without question the synod was a splendid manifestation of patriarchal church...

...between redemption and emancipation, the mystical and political...

...I became increasingly "blocked...

...In conclusion, I would like to make two practical suggestions: First, as long as the collegium of bishops is restricted to men, the collegium of cardinals should become restricted to women...

...Those of us who had believed that some of the bishops had heard our call to conversion from patriarchal sexism realized that we were again betrayed in the name of "fraternal unity...

...His most recent book is Solidarity with Victims: Towards a Theology of Social...

...Stated boldly and rather oversimply, the Catholic church is the only cohesive international institution with millions upon millions of active members in the first, second, and third worlds...

...She recently published Bread Not Stone (Beacon Press...

...II, B, 3...

...Therefore when the church preaches Christ we (she) announce salvation to everyone (mankind) (cf...

...Perhaps," he muses, "the synod we need is the one we would hold in our own hearts...

...This ecclesiology provides the sacramental foundation for collegiality and co-responsibility, ecumenical partnership and mission to the world, especially "in the service of the poor, the oppressed and the outcast" (cf...

...In a study on Pauline Partnership in Christ (Fortress, 1980), J.P...

...According to the synodal prononncements,' the main task for Catholic theology seems to be the study and exegesis of the documents of Vatican II and the explication of the forthcoming universal catechism...

...I I Ill Ill I reasons for this change are obvious...

...Then we could wear our red . . . speak the unspeakable, and take our place in the sanctuary...

...II, D, 2...

...Consequently, a distinctively Christian ethic can only proceed from eucharistic celebration: empowering a praxis which follows Christ rather than absolutizes a cause...

...Chris advised me to look for key-words or key-paragraphs...

...Surely the synod did not want to say that we are fifth-class rather than second-class citizens[ "So far, so bad . . . . " The year changed from 1985 to 1986 and I still had not found a topic sentence...

...Not only were there -- as was to be expected -- no Catholic women members of the extraordinary synod, but we were also absent from the ten ecumenical observers...

...bishops such as Thomas Gumbleton or P. Francis Murphy are not rewarded for their ecclesial leadership while others have become cardinals despite their support for the Reagan government which is responsible for increasing poverty and militarism...

...Transformation (Crossroad...

...Not aggressive secular but ecclesial feminism raises the most difficult theological issues for the patriarchal hierarchy...

...I ELISABETH SCHOSSLER FIORENZA D URING THE holidays I started to study the official synodal documents in preparation for this article...

...II, D, 6...

...II, A, 3...

...Perhaps we should wear.., red . . . . Red to acknowledge courage...

...Does the "salvific love of God for the world" include women...

...This topic sentence, however, was not feasible because I knew of too many "casualties...

...First, I tried the headline "So far,,so good, so what...

...All things" must indeed be recapitulated...

...How boring -- to use a favored expression of my daughter, Chris, who is twelve...

...Whenever a theologian uses the word mystery he [and he said he] has something to hide...

...This is spelled out, for example, as "The child (son) of God became human (man) in order to make people (men) children 31 January 1986:45of God...

...Some attention along these lines by the extraordinary synod would do much to calm the present unrest...

...I I II I I I I Illll FATHER MATTHEW L LAMB is a priest of the archdiocese of Milwaukee and associate professor of systematic theology at Boston College...

...Nothing had changed...

...Sample), has shown that koinonia is a legal Greco-Roman term and was used as such by St...

...According to the cardinal, women need to feel that they are wanted and that their gifts are "put to good use...

...Have Christian women entered this consensual partnership with God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit in the church for the salvation/weUbeing of everyone...

...Should we wear some sign, some signal that says, "I am woman -And what my sister endures, I, too, endure...

...The synod had been a visual demonstration of the patriarchal church or, in the words of the "Holy Father," an "act of ecclesi(astic)al fraternity...

...Once more the mystical element comes to the fore: God's grace ever precedes and enables human response...

...Crucial to such an ecclesial vision is a more nuanced consideration of the relation between Gospel and culture, church and society...

...Second, the synod declares "reciprocal dialogue between bishops and theologians" as necessary "for the building up of the faith and its deeper comprehension" (cf...

...I T SEEMS tO me, however, that the second theme proposed by the synod "the church as koinonia/communion" (cf...

...Women are, as they have ever been since Eve, described as the problem...

...Instead it advocates an ecclesiology of koinonia as the "foundation for order in the church...

...Jl l I l I THEOLOGY AFTER THE SYNOD: ACKNOWLEDGING WOMEN 'So far, so bad...

...What, prior to Vatican II, often seemed sundered, has, in the twenty years since the council, become at times rhetorically fused...

...Red to acknowledge that we are angry...

...WE are Church...

...However, it needs to be better translated and understood...

...Mystery theology is bad theology...

...but each accorded its proper place...

...Without disputing the desirability of such an "interior" synod, if it is not to remain tongue-tied or lapse into the purely individualistic, then it must, surely, draw upon what the extraordinary synod has provided: a comprehensive language wherewith to form those habits of the heart which bespeak communal Catholic identity...

...feminist nuns are asked to acquiesce or be expelled from their religious communities...

...Peter Steinfels, commenting in these pages upon the significance of the synod, concluded his "Sober Look at the Synod" [December 20, 1985] somewhat somberly...

...Red to acknowledge the blood that flows from us with each birth, with each abortion, with each battering, and with each a s s a u l t . . . Let us cloak ourselves in solidarity with our sisters who are in pain...

...If, as Karl Rahner stated, Vatican II expressed a shift from a predominantly Eurocentric church to a truly world church, then the synod was a clear indication of how irreversible that shift has become...

...The majority of Catholic women are very happy in their allegiance.'" When speaking of problems which have affected negatively Catholic life in the past twenty years in the United States, Commonweal: 44Bishop Malone, the president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, stated: "I think of such things as . . . confusion about sexual morality, widespread breakdown of marriage and family, and the emergence of aggressive, secularized feminism...

...Urgently needed is a differentiated integration...

...Thus the synod, following Lumen Gentium, teaches that in Christ the church is sacrament, that is, sign and instrument of communion with God and also of communion and reconciliation of people with one another (cf...

...The bishops' "Message to the People of God" (Part IV) has a formidable list of the"ills of the world" : "lack of respect for human life, the suppression of civil and religious liberties, contempt for the rights of families, racial discrimination, economic imbalance, insurmountable debts and the problems of international security, and the race for more powerful and terrible arms...

...I shall attempt to trace these, sketching a few of the tasks they pose for Catholic practice and theology...

...II, D, 6), the majority of whom are women and children dependent on women...

...Since we both are fans of "Murder She Wrote," I was tempted to select a topic sentence like "Post-synodal Roman Catholic Theologians Must Become Mystery Writers" producing headlines such as "Synod Releases Mystery Story: No Corpse Found...

...Not just the Roman Catholic but the whole Christian church was represented solely by men...

...As the second millennium of our Common Era draws to a close, there seems to be no other institutional framework -- whether economic, political, educational, or religious -which is simultaneously so firmly rooted in local communities and neighborhoods, while also having such extensive global networks of cooperation and authority...

...But it does not mention patriarchal sexism as the cause for the dehumanization of half the world's population...

...If the church is sacrament only in Christ, as the body, the making visible of Christ, its transforming mission, inspired by the Spirit, is to recapitulate all things in Christ...

...It was obvious, I needed a new topic sentence...

...Even a cursory reading of the synodal statements indicates that such a key-word is "mystery...

...Communion indicates, then, both the substance of the church and the shape of salvation...

...If you get the topic sentence right the rest will flow from it...

...Why couldn't the other Christian churches send women priests, bishops, ministers, and preachers to make up what the Roman church is lacking in catholicity and universality...

...teenagers become pregnant and are expelled from Catholic schools, because Catholic schools do not teach responsible and effective birth control...

...II, A, 2...

...Only within a eucharistic setting does secular service become social ministry...

...Representatives of Women-Church Convergence protested at the annual meeting of NCCB against this attempt to lay the blame on women: A report in Probe, the newspaper of the National Assembly of Religious Women, stated, "Women are becoming for the bishops, the scapegoat that secular humanism is for the religious right...

...All things contribute to the communion of the Spirit...

...Red to acknowledge that we are passionate...

...The common purpose and commitment ofail Christians is, according to the synod, the witness to "the mystery of God through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit...

...The next synod or council of the Catholic church would then be able to live and model koinonia, consensual partnership, on an international and ecumenical level...

...from the report on the synod in Commonweal [December 20], but I quickly realized that I had to change it to: "So far, so bad . . . . " The !1 I II I ELISABETH SCHUSSLER FIORENZA is Talbot Professor of New Testament at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and president-elect of the Society of Biblical Literature...

...In a remarkable statement the synod's report rejects a !'purely hierarchical understanding of the church" but warns: "We cannot replace a false unilateral vision of the church as purely hierarchical with a new sociological conception which is also unilateral" (cf...

...and lifting up the paschal mystery as central to a definition of the comprehensive Christian understanding of salvation (cf...

...II I HEOLOGY AFTER THE SYNOD: BEYOND CULTURE Chorus of the hemispheres I I MATTHEW L. LAMB T HE SYNOD was another manifestation of the profound changes and challenges occurring within both the church and the world...

...Theologians such as Leonardo Boff are still silenced or threatened with loss of their teaching jobs...

...Although the final synod report does not link secularism with feminism, it treats the "vexatious subject" of women in the church under the heading "Participation and CoResponsibility in the Church" on "all levels": "May the church [i.e...

...Not surprisingly, the evil of patriarchal sexism was never mentioned...

...Red to acknowledge that we are sexual, and, like our sisters of herstory, are still officially barred from the sanctuary because we menstruate...

...Curiously, women are declared to be a separate group constituting a distinct level of the church, since we are mentioned after the collaboration of bishops and priests, deacons and religious, clergy and laity...

...Since the collegium of cardinals does not go back to Jesus nor stand in apostolic succession nor require ordination, no presumed theological obstacle would stand in the way of such a suggestion...

...When "mystery" is used in place of theological argument, I couldn't agree more...

...But rather than reflecting on the causes of such injustice and violence and the church's participation in them, it advocates a theology of suffering and the cross: "It seems to us that in the present-day difficulties God wishes to teach us more deeply the value, the importance, and the centrality of the cross of Jesus Christ" (cf...

...The final report of the synod witnesses "an increase in hunger, oppression, injustice and war, sufferings, terrorism and other forms of violence of every sort...

...II, A, 2...

...patriarchal hierarchy?] do its utmost so that they [women] might be able to express, in the service of the church, their own gifts and to play agreater part in the various fields of the church's apostolate" (Part II, C, 6...

...Then we could wear our r e d . . , and proclaim: It is OUR church...

...Such a permanent reciprocal dialogue between bishops and feminist theologians ought to be instituted on a national and international level in order to foster a deeper comprehension of the church as a discipleship of equals in consensual partnership, in order to acknowledge women as ecclesial and theological subjects in the post-synodal period...

...Since Catholics in North America saw the "women question" as one of the major issues to be addressed by the synod, bishops sought to scale down such expectations in the presynodal period...

...And we will NOT disappear...

...But it cannot truly be the church of Christ unless it also subserves the salvation of the world: "for the love of Christ impels it...

...Through this familiarity with God, persons (men) are raised to a most high dignity...

...I had an old dogmatics teacher who used to warn us: "Never use the word mystery...

...but not all do so in the same way or with equal directness...

...II, D, 2...

...Paul...

...Moreover, the pronouncements of cardinals arguing that women cannot be ordained because Christ was a man had become theologically embarrassing...

...In an article in Probe, "We Are Catholics and We Are Feminists," Mary Congo, Marge Goodwin, and Maureen Smith have provided the theological symbology for the selfunderstanding of women-cardinals electing the next pope: What must we do to change this institution which betrays woman who has served so faithfully...

...In the search for an integral vision, the synod offers valuable guidelines, stressing the distinction, not the separation of the two orders (cf...

...divorced and remarried Catholics are barred from the sacraments...

...But Chris also had some words of advice: "When I have a difficult assignment I always write and rewrite the topic sentence...

...Such consensual partnership is operatire as long as the partners are of the "same mind" about the purpose and commitment upon which the partnership was founded in the first place...

...Cardinal G. Emmett Carter of Toronto, for example, spoke in a pastoral letter under the subheading "The Church 'Ad Extra' " about "the vexatious subject of the role of women in the church," and made clear that he did "not subscribe to the sometimes shrill clamor that women are second-class citizens in the church...

...Catholic theology and episcopal teaching has to clarify whether my inclusive translation is justified or not...

...If, C) is pregnant with possibilities for Catholic theology and ecclesiology in the post-synodal period...

...If Catholic theology in the postsynodal period should serve the whole church and not just those "in secular or spiritual power," its main task will be the defense of its intellectual freedom and ecclesial integrity...