https://international.la-croix.com/massimo-faggioli
Message to Vatican:Together we are one as baptized equals, diversity is our strength and it is not us vs. them, we are one Body in Christ, a church for everyone! ) including women priests)
Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP
As the United States moves toward potentially electing its first female president, the Catholic Church grapples with gender issues at the 2024 Synod. While American politics normalizes women's leadership, the church continues to debate women's roles, revealing a growing gap between societal progress and ecclesiastical practices.
August 29th, 2024 at 04:00 am
What happens in America, rarely stays in America
The American theologian Phyllis Zagano wrote recently: “The Catholic Church is in a bad way when the Democratic Party in the United States brings more hope and joy to people — especially to women than Pope Francis.” In the same two months that elevated Harris as the U.S. presidential candidate who may become the first woman president of the United States, different events developed in the Catholic Church. On July 9, the office of the Synod published and presented to the public the Instrumentum Laboris for the second assembly of the Synod on synodality of October 2024. At the press conference, the four speakers were all members of the clergy, despite the fact that several women are members of the Synod and have worked in various positions since the Synodal process's opening in 2021. The Instrumentum Laboris instructed the Synod not to address the issue of the diaconate of women: “Some theological and canonical questions concerning specific forms of ecclesial ministry — in particular, the question of the necessary participation of women in the life and leadership of the church — have been entrusted to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, in dialogue with the General Secretariat of the Synod (Study Group No. 5)” (par. 30). At the same time, the Instrumentum Laboris puts that question front and center in the text (par. 12), while having to deal with that May interview with the American television network CBS, where Pope Francis voiced his firm opposition to women deacons unequivocally, “if it is deacons with Holy Orders.”
Further reading: Women deacons: "What seems unimaginable today will become natural tomorrow," says archbishop
What happens in America rarely stays in America. Harris might become the first woman president of the United States. But even if she does not, the message emerging from American politics in 2024 is that during the last decade, the country has moved beyond the question of “can a woman be president?” We are observing the normalization of the idea of a Madam President, also in light of more pressing concerns, especially the future of American democracy.
The reality of lived Catholicism in many churches
Now, the situation in the Catholic Church presents a different picture. We do not know what will happen at the Synod and after the Synod on the issue of women. It is clear that Pope Francis does not want the Synod to be hijacked by any issue — such as women but also gender and LGBTQ Catholics. But it is also clear that women in the Catholic Church today still need to say things that American (and not only American) women no longer need to say or to say as much concerning their participation and leadership in politics and society. In the church, more than a problem of doctrine, it is an issue of confronting already existing practices, the reality of lived Catholicism in many churches around the world (as has emerged already at the 2019 Synod for the Amazon region).
Further reading: Women will enable the church to overcome clericalism
The 2024 assembly of the Synod and the post-synodal handling of the issue of women by the Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith, led by Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, might decide to kick the can down the road once again. Currently, there is no document from the Catholic Church that says that women cannot be ordained to the diaconate, and the reports from the two commissions created by Pope Francis to study the issue remain unpublished, leaving their content unknown. This is relevant because it would be important to know what Francis received in those reports and if and how they shaped his decisions.
“During the last century, the gap between women’s opportunities for participation in politics and in the church has increased. Now this gap has become visibly greater, especially from the point of view of Catholic women in the United States.”
The Vatican might resort to the argument that women cannot be ordained to the diaconate because women cannot image Christ. If this happens, regardless of one's position on the ordination of women to the diaconate, it will be difficult to convince women, especially those who believe in the synodal process, to avoid the conclusion that the club of male celibates, known as the Roman Catholic clergy, seems on the verge, once again, of doing its best to keep women in their place. During the last century, the gap between women’s opportunities for participation in politics and in the church has increased. Now, this gap has become visibly greater, especially from the point of view of Catholic women in the United States, in the Anglo-American sphere, and in many European countries. This is a serious problem for what the church needs to do in terms of evangelization.
Massimo Faggioli @MassimoFaggioli
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