Sexism, sin, & grace:
Patrick, Jane Redmont, Marylee Mitcham, Mary C Segers, Emilie Griffin, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Anne E
SEXISM, SIN, & GRACE RESPONSES TO THE BISHOPS' LETTER W hat do the bishops want? More discus- sion. The first draft of Partners in the Mystery of Redemption: A Pastoral Re- sponse to Women's...
...The bishops, too, have a chance to respond at their bi-annual meeting, Collegeville, Minnesota, June 24-27...
...They require of themselves, and the reader, that he or she "listen" to these diverse voices...
...For all its length it's never boring, even the footnotes, and it effectively conveys the sound of a single pastoral voice worthy of partnership with women...
...Slaves and slave owners were partners on the ante-bellum plantation, yet they were hardly equal...
...But several of these works are governed by assumptions that are anathema to everything the bishops stand for, including the ugly falsehood that everything is violence and that male/female relations are beyond redemption...
...The question now is whether the bishops are willing to distance themselves as well from the neoconservative political and economic proponents who have so brilliantly captured the Catholic vote since 1972 by claiming to value human life, and who stand to gain by preserving a social order in which women are deprived of full civil rights and economic justice...
...Could we please stop using circumlocutions...
...How much...
...Augustine called cupiditas, a lust to dominate that warps and perverts personality, marriage, family, society, politics, all things, the bishops insist that the church must serve as a counter-cultural force, a community that honors and sustains caritas, that principle which makes possible the flourishing of the individual personality, sustains the dignity of each person, and binds together those human beings who share what Augustine called a "holy yearning...
...Change the title of the pastoral to reflect the bishops' firm conviction that sexism is a moral and global problem of staggering proportions, adversely affecting half of humanity...
...Where did they develop the audacity-nay, arrogance-to tell us women who we are and where we are going...
...it will be a continual challenge to monitor the extent to which "partnership" is real as well as rhetorical...
...Did any of us give you any good ideas about this...
...they have heard us reflect on our heritage of equality before God, our inheritance of sin and redemption...
...Without sounding flippant, may I suggest that anyone who's fully man is allowed to change his...
...For the most part, the bishops have succeeded...
...its proper focus on the sacramental meaning of commitment...
...This is a conventional church document which endorses equal pay, flex-time, affirmative action, child-care policies, and pay equity...
...To read it is to hear a thousand voices of liberation rising, sweet birds of freedom calling out for release...
...Humans, it is clear, are to glorify God in their bodies...
...The whole dilemma is sad...
...Both divine and human reality look different...
...Yet it is thin in its analysis of the roots of sexism in society, and pays insufficient attention to ways in which a male-dominated church reproduces the sexism of the larger culture...
...I find it curious that whereas specialists in social ethics were highly involved in drafting the other recent NCCB pastorals- J. Bryan Hehir on nuclear issues and David Hollenbach on the U.S...
...Equality of respect...
...mind...
...But they feel guilty about this need, as though they don't deserve these good things...
...Spell out in stronger and more compelling terms the markers of that "false equality" that seeks to "eliminate all differences...
...This is especially true of lay women...
...Though organized feminism and the bishops differ on just what differences can or should be maintained, opening up this debate is vital and another strength of the document...
...Who gave the bishops leave to comment...
...And it is one of the hard reasons why this document must be taken seriously...
...I groaned when the bishops tiptoed...
...All of us, women and men, laity and clerics, have sexist stereotypes to question and throw out...
...You still have a long way to go" (April 22,1988...
...For me, the greatest values of the draft are its rejection of aggression, power, dominance, and control...
...Eliminate the word "Partners" from the text...
...They want us to view the draft as a whole, to reflect and respond...
...To call for gender equality and justice is the beginning, not the end of the story...
...The topic is important, the scope is grand, the bishops address secular society as well as fellow Catholics on the subject of economic justice...
...Do we have in mind formal-legalistic equality...
...JANE REDMONT has also written a commentary on the pastoral's first draft for the Sunday Boston Globe...
...In the first place, it is highly readable...
...In this first draft these bishops of ours speak to us as partners in personhood...
...If I were advising the bishops, I would suggest the following to strengthen the next draft: Listen to voices from the past, particularly those of affirmation that flow from exemplary lives and texts that offer an alternative to tales of woe and victimization: There are so many remarkable women in the Catholic tradition, it seems a pity not to draw them into the narrative...
...But more is needed...
...The bishops' pastoral inevitably invites comparison with two previous major statements of the 1980s on war and peace (1983) and on the economy (1986...
...Our voices are raised as we speak of dignity created by God, our gifts and talents, our efforts to resist exploitation, our desire to be fully free...
...Here, the bishops would do well to emulate their pastoral, The Challenge of Peaee, by situating current women's concerns within a historical framework...
...The framers of the pastoral urge us not to rip their sentences or statements out of context...
...In addition, the bishops received responses from a hundred dioceses, sixty college campuses, and forty-five military bases...
...Beginning with the clarion call of Gaudium et spes for fundamental rights to be honored, the bishops acknowledged their past insensitivities with regard to women, declaring that' 'anyone who ventures to speak to people about justice must first be just in their eyes...
...Women's experience will lead to the formulation of a better policy," the bishops write...
...But does sexism require that all differences between men and women be eliminated...
...The word "friend" appears once, tucked away in Section 193, in the "Partners in the Church" section: "women are saddened and hurt . . . when priests see them as sexual and/or professional threats rather than as potential friends, colleagues, and co-workers...
...But it's hard to see the way...
...As it stands, the pastoral is very thin on history...
...How far will the bishops have the courage to carry this kind of reflection...
...There is a subtext in certain quotes from "voices of affirmation" that escapes scrutiny...
...Thirty-six specialists testified on issues of war and peace...
...For the past two years she has been at work on a book about American Catholic women...
...The introduction acknowledges ' 'the helplessness of minority women trapped in a cycle of crushing poverty, the exhaustion of mothers trying to maintain a family, a home, and outside employment, the frustration of intelligent women being stereotyped as emotional and incapable . . . the anguish of women who have wide ranging spiritual and intellectual gifts that could be of service to the church, but who are not afforded the chance to use it.'' After this enumeration, one can almost hear the bishops say, in hushed voices, "We had no idea...
...Do the bishops express contrition...
...Another value for me is the scriptural espousal of our humanity...
...over a hundred economists, labor leaders, corporate managers, theologians, and researchers were consulted for the economics pastoral...
...Spell out why justice is not well served by demands that every difference is itself a blight...
...The pastoral on women's concerns marks a new stage in this development, with its attention to the personal and collective experience of women...
...How to present such material...
...Then there is the process by which the bishops have written their 1980s' pastorals...
...The title of this pastoral is stately and magisterial, suggesting the importance with which the bishops regarded their task...
...A new title might be: Liberty and Justice for All: A Pastoral Letter on Sexism in Society and in the Church...
...economy-it is not clear that moral theologians or ethi-cists have had such direct impact on the present draft, although the topic of the pastoral is nothing if not an issue, or set of issues, in moral theology...
...What motives lie underneath the hem of their text...
...Their desire is to learn from women and be responsive to their concerns...
...As a current resident of Puerto Rico-where the population, although U.S...
...candidate in theology at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans...
...No mention is made in this draft of the fact that internalized oppression often makes women complicit in their own subordination...
...In footnote 98, for example, the bishops cite with apparent approval about ten "authorities...
...It may be, of course, that the limits set by Rome have ruled out from the start the most logical source of theologically trained analysis, for few if any Catholic women moral theologians are persuaded that official teachings on contraception and women's ordination can be justified in our day...
...Equality of opportunity...
...The first draft of Partners is above all a testimony to a conversion process: the bishops pay attention not only to the experience of women, but to their own isolation from this experience...
...I did not have high expectations for the pastoral...
...One of the more disturbing aspects of this letter relates to things left unsaid or unacknowledged...
...its pinpointing of the "Eve syndrome" that has created such turbulence in relations between men and women...
...In preparing this new statement, the bishops heard testimony from twenty-four Catholic women's organizations...
...economy, many opposing voices were heard, but in the end the bishops were courageous and normative, taking positions that disappointed certain parties a great deal...
...Sometimes I feel about the church the way Mae West felt about marriage-it's a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution...
...But more than mere promises will be needed to bridge the troubled waters of our disenchantment...
...And now, four very miscellaneous comments on the text: Ironically, the bishops so convincingly witnessed to the truth that women are disciples in the fullest sense of the word, that I was inadvertently converted to the belief that it's only a matter of time until "the mind of Christ'' changes in regard to women's ordination...
...I no longer call you slaves," Jesus is said to have told his companions, "rather, I call you friends...
...I am glad they understand that women's work is often undervalued, be it mothering, painting houses, sewing hems, or performing surgery...
...Who asked them...
...No, the bishops insist, and the burden of current feminist argument would concur...
...Dioceses, organizations, and individuals have been invited to comment...
...Reexamine a few footnotes...
...Above all, the document's analysis of sexism and injustice must go deeper...
...That is how it functions in a quote from an abused woman in the pastoral...
...The NCCB has had the courage to distance itself from the U.S...
...I want the bishops to honor friendship and call it sacred, to give it not an ancillary place but a fundamental one...
...The first draft of Partners in the Mystery of Redemption: A Pastoral Re- sponse to Women's Concerns for Church and Society was released on April 12 this year for discussion and further consultation...
...I am pleased the bishops called sexism a sin...
...The document's format is creative and original, and it is there, particularly, that I sense a female contribution...
...Even their 1979 pastoral on racism was addressed to American society as a whole...
...I am less comfortable with the document's implied vision of justice, only because the bishops have failed to state sharply and with precision what they mean by economic freedom and justice for all...
...In this relationship, two human beings-or a group of them-can experience genuine emotional and spiritual intimacy, whether or not the relationship also includes sexual intimacy...
...Constructing an interpretive dialogue, even as one affirms many received norms and condemns many traditional and current practices, is no easy task...
...This change signifies that a relationship in which the power to name issues and define possibilities was once wielded unilaterally is growing into something more mutual...
...Friendship: the most universal and accessible of relationships, which can bind any one of us to any other, regardless of age, gender, race, sexual preference, physical ability, or socio-economic class...
...It's clear that efficiency and competition are a two-edged sword...
...Seventy-five thousand women offered their views on women in church and society...
...The discussion continues in our pages with six commentators who were asked: first, to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the present draft and, second, to suggest improvements, deletions, and additions...
...Also a strength is the recognition of diversity among women-differences of class, race, ethnicity, life-situations, politics, spirituality-in a word, experience...
...Finally-this will seem deceptively simple-I want the bishops to talk about friendship...
...When one reads the carefully worded pastoral in the perspective of past Roman Catholic history-with the same eye for nuance and subtle change one brings to a diplomatic release from the Kremlin or the State Department-the bishops' discussion of ordination of women to the diaconate is a milestone...
...The draft's most obvious strength lies in the fact that women have been heard, and the bishops have been affected by what women have said...
...Some women respondents have stereotyped the roles of lector and parish council member, while demeaning those of food server and sacristan...
...If the church wishes to dialogue honestly with American women and American society, it should acknowledge in fairness that it has learned from Theresa Kane, Mary Daly, Eleanor Smeal, Rosemary Ruether, Agnes Mary Mansour, the Vatican 24, Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, Geraldine Ferraro, Arlene Violet, Mary Hunt, Liz Morancy, Barbara Mikulski, Carol Coston, and the countless others "who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith...
...This recognition is symbolized in the decision to structure the draft so that divergent voices are heard on the document's several themes: personhood, relationships, society, church...
...Strongly encourage the introduction of women's studies programs in all seminaries and novitiates and in Catholic colleges and universities, so that the fruits of twenty years of new scholarship on gender may be made available to all...
...This in itself is progress, a new channeling of our resources of mind and body toward personal and communal freedom...
...Whereas Vatican II' s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, for example, failed to mention rape or domestic violence in its list of crimes against life and human dignity, the new draft pastoral specifies these crimes and, even more important, names the sin of sexism as the moral and social evil that it is...
...The number of responses the bishops garnered as preparation for composing the first draft of their pastoral on women's concerns is enough to make the average social scientist turn green with envy-or collapse with exhaustion at the prospect of organizing mountains of material...
...Take, for example, Economic Justice for All: Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S...
...What this says to me is that the committee of bishops was virtuous enough to produce something whole, not a mean feat and one, no doubt, that numerous women consultants and staff helped them accomplish...
...I cheered the bishops' statement that men too are responsible for the care of children...
...The picture, therefore, seems somewhat unflattering, when one recalls that all roles are appropriate to servanthood, whether male or female...
...that women's contributions ought to be acknowledged...
...moreover, it suggests that the injustice and oppression experienced by many women in contemporary America belong to the category of "women's concerns"-when, instead, sexism- like racism-is, or should be, a concern of all persons, male and female...
...Sexuality has broken the bonds of' 'patent-leather occasions of sin...
...In light of the many twentieth-century pronouncements of bishops opposing women's suffrage and the Equal Rights Amendment, reiterating ancient views of women's special and subordinate "nature," and generally seeking to limit women's participation in ecclesiastical and civil society, the draft of the NCCB pastoral is a refreshing change indeed...
...A new draft will then be prepared and a final version will be presented to the full body of bishops at their November 1989 meeting...
...For the bishops have heard these womanly voices crying...
...Resist the temptation (Par...
...While it is a good thing to represent the diversity of Catholic women's lives, there is danger that the letter's unusual format may end up romanticizing victims by reporting conflicting testimony that, if granted equal weight, will cancel itself out...
...Turned against our hearts they can destroy us, so we must grapple with them...
...It is...
...What do the bishops fear...
...Is it superfluous to add that most women who are free of grave circumstances experience a need for beauty, quiet time, and rich reading material...
...By working to improve the status of women, the NCCB may actually reduce incentives to resort to abortion...
...Rather than simply summarizing reactions, or, even worse, reducing complex reflections to simplistic numbers, the bishops resort to a sic et non hermeneutic as they play the "voices of affirmation" off against the "voices of alienation...
...I find the scene in Puerto Rico hard to sort out...
...It's unfortunate that "offering it up" has apparently become a cynical phrase that really suggests backing down or caving in...
...How soon...
...to do so would mislead...
...To lift up friendship as the standard against which to measure other relationships is a profoundly political act and a religious one as well...
...In the cases of the pastoral letters on nuclear weapons and the U.S...
...As a result, some voices previously tuned out of church conversations are being picked up, and "new" words and ethical concerns are being introduced...
...Actually, it is a great institution, and Partners in the Mystery of Redemption is an impressive draft, polished enough to be final, if not perfect...
...In an activist society we all need the contemplative dimension, lest, anxious and upset about many things, we stumble over the stern words of the Magnificat, which as a church we are privileged to say...
...The title Partners in the Mystery of Redemption is clearly intended to symbolize the new ideal of mutuality...
...The word "friendship" appears nowhere in the draft, even in the section entitled "Partners in Relationship...
...and anyone who's fully God knows the right moment...
...Human sexuality is a positive good...
...There appears to be considerable sexism, yet the women here are models of strength and fervor...
...Economy...
...There is hope, perhaps, in the idea of a revisionist Mary: underprivileged, poor, walking in darkness...
...Future drafts of the pastoral will give us an indication, but only the life of the church in the next decade will give us an answer...
...For example, the bishops rightly claim their teaching on sexuality and divorce is counter-cultural...
...But how do they speak...
...in citizenship, is not within the jurisdiction of the United States bishops-I was recently denied Communion in the hand...
...I hope the bishops will keep stressing questions of process...
...One may affirm diverse experiences, but this is not to agree with everyone's analysis of the situation...
...Interpretations over its meaning fill rows and rows of library shelves and lie at the heart of many political stories, both glorious and terrible...
...Doubtless the bishops are intending a similar shattering...
...Since practicing invasive medicine on a patient who's already recovering is to risk new, iatrogenic disease, I suggest treating this draft like a friend who is well enough for discharge, a dear friend who nearly died, but didn't...
...I know why the caged bird sings.'' These words of Maya Angelou fluttered through my mind as I leafed through the pages of the bishops' pastoral response to the concerns of women and society...
...EMILIE GRIFFIN author of Turning: Reflections on the Experience of Conversion, and a writer and consultant on the creative and analytical aspects of marketing, is an M.A...
...Instead, a freer understanding makes intimacy possible within the framework of discipline and self-control...
...The bishops addressed these major statements to secular society as well as to Catholics...
...that masculine and feminine gifts must be brought together, interwoven, harmonized...
...I respect the bishops' careful acknowledgment of the diversity among Catholic women...
...With these words, the Gospel challenges our understanding of both power and holiness...
...The NCCB Pro-Life Committee should be strongly encouraged to give top priority to the issue of violence against women in its many forms...
...The point is well taken, but friendship belongs everywhere in this document, especially in the section on relationships...
...But what precisely our shepherds are proposing with regard to transformation of the social order is less than clear...
...Yet this portrayal of women's victimization invites pity and neglects the many achievements of American women which evoke pride...
...its tender grasp of the joy of motherhood...
...Even Catholic feminists are ignored by the bishops in this letter...
...By contrast, Partners in the Mystery of Redemption: A Pastoral Response to Women's Concerns for Church and Society sounds trite and bland...
...Equality of result...
...However, in addressing sex discrimination, the bishops speak only to the church and consult only Catholics, excluding many persons working for social justice in the women's movement over the last twenty-five years...
...Are they violating our boundaries when they presume to tell us women who we are...
...I am not sure whether the bishops will acknowledge the influence of feminist and liberation theologies upon their method of reflection...
...The pastoral rightly records women's expressions of alienation...
...Would you care to name them...
...She grew up a Lutheran in a small Colorado town...
...Why the difference...
...military lobby, thereby demonstrating that American Catholicism has matured to the point of not confusing patriotism with militarism...
...They promise us an examination of the modes of acting, accumulating possessions, and lifestyles found within the church itself, and this is refreshing...
...All things considered, this draft is a promising development in a dialogue that needs to go on for a long time...
...its awareness of the double messages being sent to women by society, with a commitment to lead us through these challenges safely...
...Others know, I don't, how this draft is likely to be received by the entire body of bishops...
...Surely this has implications for the lives of women...
...First, by listening...
...It notes the pain and bitterness experienced by many women over Humanae vitae and their exclusion from discussions and decisions leading to the evolution of moral teachings that govern their reproductive lives...
...Insist that policymakers give top priority to remedies for sexism in all its forms...
...It's hard to think of anything more spiritually profound than uniting one's own suffering with Christ's, but women apparently can't hear that from men, although another woman might be able to suggest it, as I do now...
...MARY C. SEGERS is associate professor of political science at Rutgers University and Henry Luce Fellow in theology at Harvard Divinity School...
...Some practices, clearly, deserve this condemnation-battering, sexual abuse, refusal to share responsibility for child-rearing, unfair labor practices...
...this is in marked contrast to the economic and nuclear pastorals in which the NCCB consulted a wide variety of experts, regardless of their religious affiliations...
...But what of a hermeneutic of trust...
...They are not, strictly speaking, doing liberation theology, but beginning to engage in what Sister Marie Augusta Neal has called the counterpart to liberation theology: a theology of relinquishment...
...JEAN BETHKE ELSHTAIN is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst...
...MARYLEE MITCHAM is a nurse and the author of An Accidental Monk: Her Domestic Search for God...
...They have listened, too, to our voices of alienation: lack of recognition, and the sin of sexism...
...Articles by Patricia B. Jung and Margaret A. Farley are cited in the notes, as is the forward-looking 1981 pastoral from Bishops Victor Balke and Raymond Lucker, to which Jung contributed ("Male and Female God Created Them"), but otherwise the work of American Catholic women recognized in the field of Christian ethics has not apparently been utilized...
...Shorten the section on sexuality in chapter two, and invite lay women to develop a practical theology of marriage...
...Consulting with women on matters pertaining to birth control will contribute to church teaching on sexuality...
...ANNE E. PATRICK is associate professor and chair, department of religion, Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota and vice-president of the Catholic Theological Society of America...
...Women's tussles for position as reflected in the draft are less reassuring...
...Most of us have learned about gender equality and justice from our sisters outside the church...
...they also received feedback from a hundred American dioceses, which conducted listening sessions for women to express their thoughts and feelings...
...To carry out this counter-cultural mission, the bishops confront the paradox that the church itself, as well as the wider social and historic surround in which the church finds and has found itself, is guilty of the sin of sexism, practices that fail to respect the dignity of the female person...
...I hope their statement will lead people to consider the evils of sexism rather than to devalue the currency of the word "sin...
...Once approved, I hope this pastoral is widely read and absorbed in all parishes because it offers a refreshed view of leadership...
...I was pleasantly surprised by some parts of it and reduced to sighs and groans by others...
...The pastoral is vivid and attuned to the particular lives lived by single, married, separated, divorced, widowed, lesbian, young, old, Caucasian, Asian, black, Hispanic, and native American women...
...The best thing, of course, is that they listened to us-at least those of us who showed up...
...The move from the "cult of true womanhood," which presumed that woman's "nature" is easily defined and uniform, is yielding to the recognition that women are as complex, autonomous, and various as men...
...She is co-author of Elusive Equality: Liberalism, Affirmative Action, and Social Change in America (Associated Faculty Press...
...This allowed me to reflect on our status as a world church and the need to keep various agendas in perspective since we worship and move as one body...
...In a society-our own-more and more traduced by what St...
...Yet they fail to see that on issues of social justice, the women's movement has been prophetic and counter-cultural while the church has sought to protect a sexist status quo...
...Despite its fuzzy topic sentences and its lack of clear focus, the letter manifests a confessional brilliance which is startling...
...Surely this is progress...
...In the past decade, they have strengthened their belief in dialogue and consultation...
...I almost feel I'm living in a matriarchal society...
...The draft is strong in its condemnation of sexism as sinful...
...It is difficult to regard the bishops' draft pastoral on women's concerns as making any major contribution to the endless struggle against the oppression of women in contemporary society...
...One wants to ask:''How so...
...A good substitute might be "Colleagues," which connotes relations of equality and mutual respect...
...Mulling that over, I went from busily conceiving minor additions that could be made to a sudden fear that there might be wholesale deletions, a disturbing thought...
...59, for example) to define the "traditional family" in economic terms as a "male wage earner and a mother who stays at home to care for the children .'' This bourgeois norm is of relatively recent vintage and is not essential to the moral vision of the family the bishops otherwise elaborate...
...it is visible in their attention to experience as a basis for theological reflection and in their realization that this reflection must lead to profound communal change...
...Commonweal did so in an editorial,' 'You've come a long way, bishops...
...These, no doubt are the questions that would be voiced by any hermeneutic of suspicion...
...When one reads it in the light of contemporary reality, the talk about the permanent diaconate seems ludicrous: many women engaged in pastoral ministry already have the wisdom, the training, the experience, and the gifts to be bishops...
...Quoting large chunks from diocesan and individual reactions helps the voices of affirmation and alienation to come alive, making the often angry condemnations and the less frequent hopeful confirmations both poignant and particular...
...This is no sentimental, privatistic request...
...Admittedly, the bishops have thrown in the kitchen sink, but because they did it so eloquently, with such economy of motion, one can refer to the pastoral's breadth of vision...
...Friendship sustains women's lives-in neighborliness in local communities, in the women's movement, in relationships with men...
...For equality is an essentially contested concept...
...Note that the bishops elected to consult only Catholic women about women's concerns...
...What draft revisions would I suggest...
...Their attention is on us women as we affirm who we are...
...They have stated their own response: that sexism is a moral and social evil...
...This is evident in their willingness to change the title from the proposed topic of' 'women''-which implied that men would once more speak unilaterally about an oppressed group-to the more respectful "women's concerns," probably a compromise after some women's insistence that the real need was for a pastoral on "sexism," not on "women...
...Jesus, surely, was a person who broke through barriers...
Vol. 115 • June 1988 • No. 12
