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| Photo by Giulia Bianchi, award winning photo journalist |
Link to your 1 minute movies from ARCWP Retreat:“what I want the world to know about my call to priesthood.”
Living Gospel Inclusivity and Empowerment Now- https://bridgetmarys.blogspot.com/2025/10/rev-dr-bridget-mary-meehan-arcwp-chat.html
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Saturday, December 22, 2018
The International Roman Catholic Women Priests Movement Chosen by Vogue Magazine as One of Our Favorite Longreads From 2018, See 1 Minute Movies by ARCWP Members: "What I want the world to know about my call to priesthood"
https://www.vogue.com/projects/13543313/roman-catholic-women-priest-movement-giulia-bianchi/
https://bridgetmarys.blogspot.com/2018_07_08_archive.html
Friday, December 21, 2018
"Jamie Manson Castigates Vatican for Harmful Language About Gay Priests" , New Ways Ministry
https://www.newwaysministry.org/2018/12/20/jamie-manson-castigates-vatican-for-harmful-language-about-gay-priests/
Manson described the pope’s comments as “meandering” and “muddled” in her column before focusing in on his use of the phrase “deep-seated [homosexual] tendency” as grounds for denying someone entry to the priesthood. This phrasing first emerged in a 2005 Vatican instructional document on gay priests, which differentiated between “deep-seated” and “transitory” tendencies. Manson explained:
“The instruction doesn’t define precisely what deep-seated homosexual tendencies are, but does declare that they are ‘objectively disordered’ and ‘often constitute a trial.’
“Transitory tendencies, on the other hand, are inclinations that either go away or can be overcome, ‘for example, that of an adolescence not yet superseded.’
“‘Nevertheless,’ the instruction continues, ‘such tendencies must be clearly overcome at least three years before ordination to the diaconate.’
Manson noted both that the language of “transitory tendencies” seems quite close to “reparative therapy” thinking and that it is language Pope Francis has used previously. Indeed, he reaffirmed in 2016 a Vatican document explicitly barring gay men from being accepted to seminary.
The columnist explored the grounds the Vatican uses to differentiate between two kinds of homosexual tendencies, citing easily discredited, conservative researchers with links to several anti-gay Catholic groups as the only voices making such a distinction. Manson challenged church leaders, asking:
“Is this the kind of junk science that Francis, the bishops, seminary rectors, and members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are relying on to support the barring of gay men from ordained ministry and gays and lesbians from consecrated life? Is this the ‘research’ that is keeping all LGBTQ people from enjoying the fullness of life in their church?”
Manson believes that the pope does endorse such ideas, and though he does not link gay priests to sexual abuse, his words are incredibly damaging. Francis seemingly holds LGBT people to a “special standard of sinless perfection” and believes they are “powerless against their sexual desires.” Then she makes an interesting point about why the pope might take this approach to gay priests:
“The fact that Francis returns to this issue so frequently suggests it is one of his top concerns. The question is why? And why doesn’t he fret nearly so much about heterosexual priests breaking their vows of celibacy?
“Many Vatican insiders predict that at next year’s Synod of Bishops, Francis may attempt to relax the celibacy requirement. He has said more than once that the celibacy rule is changeable. Is the pope’s preoccupation with the celibacy requirement for gay priests his way of shoring up this rule, should the time come that there will no longer be mandatory celibacy? Is he afraid that, when that day comes, gay priests will feel as entitled to sexual love as straight priests?
“Regardless of his motivations, Francis’ characterizations of gays and lesbians and his notion of ‘deep-seated homosexual tendencies’ will only foster the toxic homophobic attitudes that are already so prevalent in seminaries and religious communities, as well as in the wider church. In his attempt to discuss ‘the strength of a vocation,’ he has only weakened what little hope LGBTQ Catholics still have for his pontificate.”
Manson has been one of the pope’s sharpest critics on gender and sexuality issues, and she is correct that Francis’ recent comments were “meandering” and “muddled.” And even more so, her critique of how the Vatican discusses gay priests with derogatory, baseless concepts is well-researched, incisive, and correct. I would quibble with Manson over how negative we should read the pope’s intentions when speaking on gay priests in this latest interview, and my overall assessment of Francis and his reforming efforts is more positive and supportive than hers.
Church observers may debate this point or that question, but the average Catholic is impacted most by mainstream news reports. Headlines like the pope condemning gay priests, whether accurate or not, harm people and cause them to lose hope. That is why Pope Francis cannot afford to be meandering and muddled in his remarks, nor rely on junk science. He has a responsibility to the People of God to educate himself on current scientific and theological understandings about homosexuality and human formation. By doing so, he will hopefully come to understand that gay priests are a blessing to the People of God and make headlines for clearly affirming them in a way which can give so many people greater hope."
New Ways Ministry has re-launched our campaign, “The Gift of Gay Priests’ Vocations” to show our support for gay men and religious who faithfully, dutifully, and effectively served the People of God and to call on church leaders to end the falsehoods about and lift the ban on gay priests.
Pope: 'Church will ‘never again’ cover up clergy sex abuse-‘Hand yourself over to human justice’: Pope Francis tells priests guilty of abuse the church won’t shield them By Julie Zauzmer and Michelle Boorstein December 21, 2018
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/pope-catholic-church-priest-sex-abuse-scandal-coverup/
"Pope Francis used one of his major annual Christmas speeches to offer some of his strongest words about this year’s heightened sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic church, telling guilty priests the church will not protect them and they should turn themselves in. Francis’ remarks capped a dreadful year for the Catholic Church, one that began with his own botched handling of a sprawling sex abuse scandal in Chile and ended with the U.S. hierarchy in a free-fall of credibility as state prosecutors have begun uncovering decades of cover-up. His remarks this year had a more global outlook, noting that all around there are priests who “without batting an eye” are ready to betray all that the church stands for and enter into a “web of corruption” by abusing those in their care.
My response: Finally, Pope Francis states that the Church will no longer cover-up clergy sex abuse. However, under Pope John Paul 11, the Vatican ordered that clergy sex abuse cases be sent to the Vatican. So, what is the plan going forward to hold bishops accountable? A council of Catholics in each diocese should be appointed in consultation with the people of the diocese to recommend removal of bishops who are guilty of abuse and/or cover-up abuse.
Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP, https://arcwp.org
https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2018/12/21/hand-yourself-over-human-justice-pope-francis-tells-priests-guilty-abuse-that-church-wont-shield-them/?utm_term=.45908785f89
"Pope Francis used one of his major annual Christmas speeches to offer some of his strongest words about this year’s heightened sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic church, telling guilty priests the church will not protect them and they should turn themselves in. Francis’ remarks capped a dreadful year for the Catholic Church, one that began with his own botched handling of a sprawling sex abuse scandal in Chile and ended with the U.S. hierarchy in a free-fall of credibility as state prosecutors have begun uncovering decades of cover-up. His remarks this year had a more global outlook, noting that all around there are priests who “without batting an eye” are ready to betray all that the church stands for and enter into a “web of corruption” by abusing those in their care.
“Often behind their boundless amiability, impeccably activity and angelic faces, they shamelessly conceal a vicious wolf ready to devour innocent souls,” he said.
My response: Finally, Pope Francis states that the Church will no longer cover-up clergy sex abuse. However, under Pope John Paul 11, the Vatican ordered that clergy sex abuse cases be sent to the Vatican. So, what is the plan going forward to hold bishops accountable? A council of Catholics in each diocese should be appointed in consultation with the people of the diocese to recommend removal of bishops who are guilty of abuse and/or cover-up abuse.
Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP, https://arcwp.org
https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2018/12/21/hand-yourself-over-human-justice-pope-francis-tells-priests-guilty-abuse-that-church-wont-shield-them/?utm_term=.45908785f89
African Jesuit Priest Supports Women's Inclusion in Church Structures., Joshua J. McElwee, National Catholic Reporter
https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/african-jesuit-fr-orobator-quests-womens-inclusion-church-structures
My Response: It is refreshing to encounter an African theologian and Jesuit who strongly supports gender justice in a more inclusive, egalitarian Church. Perhaps, this is the push Pope Francis needs to move forward with women deacons as well as to open more top jobs in the Vatican to women. If not now, when? Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP, https://arcwp.org
When theologians or others raise concerns about the exclusion of women from decision-making roles in the Catholic church, critics often say such concerns only come from a certain subset of the Western faith community. They say those in places like Africa, where the church is burgeoning, have other worries.
Yet one of the most trenchant voices in recent years for the full inclusion of women in Catholic ministry has been a Nigerian Jesuit theologian and priest. In 2012, for example, he came to the premier annual theological conference in the U.S. with an unsparing message.
Discrimination against women within the Catholic community is so manifest, said the priest, that the church "totters on the brink of compromising its self-identity as the basic sacrament of salvation."
Fr. Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator told that year's annual gathering of the Catholic Theological Society of America that the state of women's participation in the church leads to a deeply discomforting question.
"We stand before God, as Cain was, befuddled by a question that we simply cannot wish away at the wave of a magisterial wand," he said. "The question is: 'Church, where is your sister? Church where is your mother?' "
Support independent Catholic journalism. Become an NCR Forward member for $5 a month.
In the years since, such blunt words on the situation of women in the church have become common for Orobator, who heads Kenya's Jesuit Hekima University College. In March 2015 he addressed the matter at the Vatican itself, telling the second Voices of Faith event that girls in Africa are often treated as if they were "children of a lesser God."
Orobator, 49, previously served as the head of the Jesuit province in eastern Africa. He was one of the delegates sent to Rome for the order's October election of their new global superior and many Jesuit leaders openly speak of him as a possible future superior himself.
The Nigerian is also widely influential in U.S. theological circles, often making trips to speak at American Catholic colleges and universities. He has published several books that are frequently cited in others' works, focusing on the African experience of Catholicism, the struggle to end violence across his continent, and feminist theological ethics.
In an October NCR interview in Rome shortly after the election of the new Jesuit superior, Orobator praised Pope Francis for creating a new commission to study the possibility of Catholic women deacons.
Related: "Nigerian Jesuit calls new superior general 'someone you can relate with' " (Oct. 17, 2016)
Calling the idea a "real and present question," he said he hoped the pontiff would not continue "dragging this out for centuries or decades ... but [come] to some clearly defined position now because it is a question for now."
"It involves lives of people and people who feel called to ministry in the church but at the same time feel they are not able to live out this call," said the priest. "My hope is that we don't drag this out for another decade."
In an earlier, wide-ranging interview in 2015 on the sidelines of a pan-African theological conference hosted in Nairobi, Kenya, by his university college, Orobator said he is compelled to speak about the status of women in the church largely because of how he saw his mother and sisters face sex discrimination in Nigeria.
The theologian also portrayed the struggle for women's inclusion as something personal, or even almost selfish. He said he cannot feel whole or complete until women are better represented in church structures.
"I feel almost violated because I feel that my humanity, which should be full and complete on the basis of mutuality and equality, is not being given that opportunity to have that experience of completeness," stated the Jesuit.
"Humanity is not about one side," he continued. "It's about both. It's man, it's woman; it's male; it's female — it's all together."
"I feel that there's something in me that will continue to be violated as long as that wholeness is not achieved, or as long as I participate, whether unconsciously or inadvertently, or by virtue of my belonging to this institution," stated the Jesuit. "As long as I participate in that process of exclusion, I still feel violated. I feel responsible."
"This is my deeply held conviction," he concluded. "As long as there's exclusion, we're not whole. We're not complete. We're not an integral body. Something about our integrity is violated. And we're responsible for that."
African symbols, images of God
Orobator's vision of a more mutually inclusive church draws on a background of symbols and images that are far from the American or western European experience.
In his 2008 book Theology Brewed in an African Pot, for example, the Jesuit centered his considerations on how Africans understand the Trinity with a reflection on an archetype of a particular woman in the culture of Nigeria's Yoruba people, known as the Obirin meta.
In the Yoruba language obirin means woman and meta three. It is an image of a mother strenuously at work in three different ways at once: perhaps walking while balancing a big pot of water or produce on her head, with one baby strapped to her back and another in her womb.
Taking the image even further, Orobator described a painting by Ugandan Jesuit priest and artist Kizito Busobozi that shows an Obirin meta type balancing firewood on her head, a baby on her back, and a bearded man suckling at her breast.
"This image of an African woman offers a unique way of understanding the reality called Trinity," the theologian broke into the narrative in the 2008 book. "Talking about God, it would not be out of place to think of God using the symbol of Obirin meta."
In the 2015 interview, Orobator said the issues he sees with exclusion of women in the church are rooted deep in how the faith community imagines and describes God.
"We've cut out this image that suits us perfectly but it's only one side," he said, calling it a "truncation of the richness of our symbolism."
He compared how we describe God today to how Jesus described God in his various parables in the Gospel teachings.
"Look at Jesus describing the faith as the mustard seed or seed that is sown," said the theologian. "There's such richness to it that it would almost appear sinful to want to reduce it to one thing and hold onto that thing for the rest of eternity."
"We never exhaust it," said Orobator. "It's inexhaustible. It's the font of mystery. We can't exhaust it. It's always something new that comes out when we peek, when we search, when we look."
"But then, we have developed a theological tradition that is so monolithic, that is so one-sided," he continued. "And we have almost sort of entrenched this in a set of codes and creeds and doctrines and dogma that we are so wedded to we can't let go. Because we think we're going to destroy God's image, or our image of God."
The Jesuit said one question facing the global faith community is: "Where do we find the resources for generating even richer images of God?" His answer: A combination of scriptural analysis and exploration of our own human experiences.
"That means not just male or female [experience] but both," he clarified.
"When my mother greets our God, she uses a variety of images," said Orobator. "It's God who is father, it's God who is mother, it's God who is provider, it's God who is strong, it's God who is compassionate."
"That's how I grew up," he said. "If God is father to me, I want to be able to celebrate that in the experience that ... my mother has. That's when it becomes complete for me."
Inequality of experience for women
A convert to Catholicism from African traditional religion, Orobator says his decision to speak loudly about women's exclusion stems mainly from how he saw his mother and sisters treated in Nigerian society.
Growing up, he said he saw his mother minister as what he calls a priestess, with "all the freedom in the world to express and to participate and to be fully integrated into our religious experience."
"Yet outside of that religious experience, where my mother or several of my sisters who feel deeply appreciated, the rest of society was in a way for me unkind to them," he said.
"Unkind to my sisters, who never had opportunities for education like I did because I was a man and they were women," he continued. "Unkind to my mother, who didn't have the opportunities to go to school and be educated because she was a woman."
Something in me.png
"On the one hand in the religious space there was some mutuality, almost equality and freedom to be part of an experience that is so deeply formative," he explained. "Yet on the other hand, such stack evidence of exclusion and marginalization."
"Becoming a Catholic, there is almost a sort of replication of that, that structure of on the one hand acknowledgement, recognition; on the other hand, exclusion," he stated.
"I struggle with that and I ask myself why?" he said. "Who benefits from this?"
Becoming a Jesuit, Orobator said he recognized he had been given resources and an institutional standing that allow him to speak out in a way many women cannot.
"I realized that there are certain privileges that I can draw on ... on the basis of who I am as a man, a Jesuit, a priest in a church that claims to be champion of justice, of equality, of mutuality but which other people cannot draw on simply, as far as I can see, on account of their gender," he stated.
"And a lot of that takes me back to my experience before Catholicism and I say why this duality?" he continued. "Why this tired system where people are placed on different levels, and sometimes it's down to gender? Why?"
"I cannot live with that duality," he stated bluntly, giving the example of his sisters, who he said are "disadvantaged for life" because they did not have the opportunity he did as a Jesuit to go to high school or college.
"Something in me revolts against that," said Orobator. "Something in me simply refuses to accept that on the basis of some category we have created we can then determine who is in, who is out; who belongs and who doesn't belong."
"I have a fundamental — I would even say existential difficulty — in accepting such dichotomy, such arrangements that are fabricated based on norms that I believe don't come out of the Gospel, but rather are elements of a tradition that in my own reading may have been taken out of context or rather no longer apply to our present context," he continued.
"As a Jesuit ... I have come to know women who are competent in their right, in whatever field they are [in], but especially as women in religion, in theology," said Orobator.
"My belief is that such competence, or such depth of religious conviction, they add up to a wealth of resources and gifts for building the church," he continued. "And it would seem to me almost irrational not to take that into consideration, not to be open to that wealth of resources and gifts that the body of the church, which we call the body of Christ, needs."
Acting to include women in education
Orobator's words on better including women in the church have been backed by rather substantial action.
Several years ago an international theological group called Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church secured funding for seven African women to pursue doctorates at African Catholic universities.
They are among the first women on the continent to have the opportunity, and their supporters hope their education might serve to further the advancement of women just as similar U.S. initiatives in the 1960s and '70s have led to substantial increases in the number of women teaching theology and participating in church leadership structures.
Orobator has served as the academic advisor for several of the women, dedicating time and effort to help them pursue their research and keep on track for their degrees. The first of his advisees, Sr. Veronica Rop, graduated in May with a doctorate from The Catholic University of Eastern Africa, which is affiliated with Hekima.
The Jesuit is also taking steps to encourage more female enrollment at Hekima, an undergraduate institution that also educates many of his province's young Jesuits. He says he is in talks with several international groups to get funding for scholarships for east African women, so they might have the resources the young Jesuits are offered by being part of the order.
Orobator says having more women in classes with the future priests is a priority.
"I think it's healthy for Jesuits and people who are studying ministry to study in an environment that is much more reflective of real life situations," he stated, adding that seminarians can sometimes have a sense of "feeling special, sequestered, consecrated."
"I think it's also formative in a sense that we learn to relate to the other, even in our language, in our theological discourse, when at least we notice that we're not the only ones," he continued. "That's very important."
"When I've taught courses in Christology or Trinity and raised issues relating to feminism, I just feel that the reaction would have been so much different if there were other women in the room than what I got from the Jesuits, who are all men," he added.
'The way you live, move, have your being'
Orobator is shaped by a faith experience that is a mix of cultures and attitudes, religions and schemes of thought.
One small window into that mix is the soft clinking sound that comes from his left hand as he gestures while speaking. Around his wrist is a thin bracelet of cowries, the small seashells that an American might find at a seaside surf shop.
Those small shells, with spotted patterns and teethed grooves, indicate something that Orobator says other African Catholics have questioned him about: that although a Christian convert, he still maintains ties to his upbringing in traditional religion.
He says he has worn the shells since he was a child and considers them a cultural marker of who he is and where he comes from.
"I don't see how that conflicts with being a Christian," he stated. "I wear cowries because this was so ... important for us in my own religious tradition as an Africa."
"Cowries played a very important role in mediating relationship with God," Orobator explained. "You offered cowries to God or to the gods as offering, or as a sign of something you were giving up."
"It's a reminder that I am still in that relationship with God," he stated. "I'm not cut off from it."
"I'm not saying that I'm practicing African religion and it's syncretistic," he said. "I feel there is African religion, there is Christianity, but for someone who has had experience of both it's hard to say where one stops and the other begins."
One aspect of maintaining ties to his prior faith life, Orobator says, is that African traditional religions do not have written norms or expectations of behavior as most Christian denominations do.
"It was more like a way of life that you lived in and moved in and had your being," he explained. He says that in his practice of African religion there is a "concreteness" to one's relationship with God.
"It's not through abstract concepts," said the Jesuit. "It's very, very concrete symbolism of relationship, of friendship, of direct encounter, which makes me want to even go deeper, closer to this experience that I call God."
Asked to explain the visceral nature of that relationship, Orobator speaks of his prayer life as an active experience full of sights, sounds and tastes, not "simply trying to be still and meditative."
His description of the experience interestingly mirrors how 16th-century St.. Ignatius of Loyola, one of the founders of the Jesuits, taught his confreres to pray.
In his set of spiritual exercises, Ignatius encourages his followers to place themselves fully within a Gospel story -- Jesus healing the blind man, or speaking to the woman at the well -- and to imagine all the physical aspects of the story: the sun beating down over the Mediterranean, or the smell of dirt and muck on the blind man's cloak.
Orobator says his prayer is not some abstract experience: "No, I'm in my body and I talk to God."
"In African religion, there's that presence," he continued. "You are surrounded by a world of deities and spirits. And I feel that in my experience as a Christian, that when I pray as one example, it's not a transcendental relocation or evacuation of my senses of anything material."
"No, I just feel at home when I feel and speak and smell and touch and hear who God is and who God is with me," he stated. "I feel God is encountering me here and now. And I'm trying to reciprocate, to respond to, to be present to that invitation and encounter."
[Joshua J. McElwee is NCR Vatican correspondent. His email address is jmcelwee@ncronline.org. Follow him on Twitter: @joshjmac.]
My Response: It is refreshing to encounter an African theologian and Jesuit who strongly supports gender justice in a more inclusive, egalitarian Church. Perhaps, this is the push Pope Francis needs to move forward with women deacons as well as to open more top jobs in the Vatican to women. If not now, when? Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP, https://arcwp.org
When theologians or others raise concerns about the exclusion of women from decision-making roles in the Catholic church, critics often say such concerns only come from a certain subset of the Western faith community. They say those in places like Africa, where the church is burgeoning, have other worries.
Yet one of the most trenchant voices in recent years for the full inclusion of women in Catholic ministry has been a Nigerian Jesuit theologian and priest. In 2012, for example, he came to the premier annual theological conference in the U.S. with an unsparing message.
Discrimination against women within the Catholic community is so manifest, said the priest, that the church "totters on the brink of compromising its self-identity as the basic sacrament of salvation."
Fr. Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator told that year's annual gathering of the Catholic Theological Society of America that the state of women's participation in the church leads to a deeply discomforting question.
"We stand before God, as Cain was, befuddled by a question that we simply cannot wish away at the wave of a magisterial wand," he said. "The question is: 'Church, where is your sister? Church where is your mother?' "
Support independent Catholic journalism. Become an NCR Forward member for $5 a month.
In the years since, such blunt words on the situation of women in the church have become common for Orobator, who heads Kenya's Jesuit Hekima University College. In March 2015 he addressed the matter at the Vatican itself, telling the second Voices of Faith event that girls in Africa are often treated as if they were "children of a lesser God."
Orobator, 49, previously served as the head of the Jesuit province in eastern Africa. He was one of the delegates sent to Rome for the order's October election of their new global superior and many Jesuit leaders openly speak of him as a possible future superior himself.
The Nigerian is also widely influential in U.S. theological circles, often making trips to speak at American Catholic colleges and universities. He has published several books that are frequently cited in others' works, focusing on the African experience of Catholicism, the struggle to end violence across his continent, and feminist theological ethics.
In an October NCR interview in Rome shortly after the election of the new Jesuit superior, Orobator praised Pope Francis for creating a new commission to study the possibility of Catholic women deacons.
Related: "Nigerian Jesuit calls new superior general 'someone you can relate with' " (Oct. 17, 2016)
Calling the idea a "real and present question," he said he hoped the pontiff would not continue "dragging this out for centuries or decades ... but [come] to some clearly defined position now because it is a question for now."
"It involves lives of people and people who feel called to ministry in the church but at the same time feel they are not able to live out this call," said the priest. "My hope is that we don't drag this out for another decade."
In an earlier, wide-ranging interview in 2015 on the sidelines of a pan-African theological conference hosted in Nairobi, Kenya, by his university college, Orobator said he is compelled to speak about the status of women in the church largely because of how he saw his mother and sisters face sex discrimination in Nigeria.
The theologian also portrayed the struggle for women's inclusion as something personal, or even almost selfish. He said he cannot feel whole or complete until women are better represented in church structures.
"I feel almost violated because I feel that my humanity, which should be full and complete on the basis of mutuality and equality, is not being given that opportunity to have that experience of completeness," stated the Jesuit.
"Humanity is not about one side," he continued. "It's about both. It's man, it's woman; it's male; it's female — it's all together."
"I feel that there's something in me that will continue to be violated as long as that wholeness is not achieved, or as long as I participate, whether unconsciously or inadvertently, or by virtue of my belonging to this institution," stated the Jesuit. "As long as I participate in that process of exclusion, I still feel violated. I feel responsible."
"This is my deeply held conviction," he concluded. "As long as there's exclusion, we're not whole. We're not complete. We're not an integral body. Something about our integrity is violated. And we're responsible for that."
African symbols, images of God
Orobator's vision of a more mutually inclusive church draws on a background of symbols and images that are far from the American or western European experience.
In his 2008 book Theology Brewed in an African Pot, for example, the Jesuit centered his considerations on how Africans understand the Trinity with a reflection on an archetype of a particular woman in the culture of Nigeria's Yoruba people, known as the Obirin meta.
In the Yoruba language obirin means woman and meta three. It is an image of a mother strenuously at work in three different ways at once: perhaps walking while balancing a big pot of water or produce on her head, with one baby strapped to her back and another in her womb.
Taking the image even further, Orobator described a painting by Ugandan Jesuit priest and artist Kizito Busobozi that shows an Obirin meta type balancing firewood on her head, a baby on her back, and a bearded man suckling at her breast.
"This image of an African woman offers a unique way of understanding the reality called Trinity," the theologian broke into the narrative in the 2008 book. "Talking about God, it would not be out of place to think of God using the symbol of Obirin meta."
In the 2015 interview, Orobator said the issues he sees with exclusion of women in the church are rooted deep in how the faith community imagines and describes God.
"We've cut out this image that suits us perfectly but it's only one side," he said, calling it a "truncation of the richness of our symbolism."
He compared how we describe God today to how Jesus described God in his various parables in the Gospel teachings.
"Look at Jesus describing the faith as the mustard seed or seed that is sown," said the theologian. "There's such richness to it that it would almost appear sinful to want to reduce it to one thing and hold onto that thing for the rest of eternity."
"We never exhaust it," said Orobator. "It's inexhaustible. It's the font of mystery. We can't exhaust it. It's always something new that comes out when we peek, when we search, when we look."
"But then, we have developed a theological tradition that is so monolithic, that is so one-sided," he continued. "And we have almost sort of entrenched this in a set of codes and creeds and doctrines and dogma that we are so wedded to we can't let go. Because we think we're going to destroy God's image, or our image of God."
The Jesuit said one question facing the global faith community is: "Where do we find the resources for generating even richer images of God?" His answer: A combination of scriptural analysis and exploration of our own human experiences.
"That means not just male or female [experience] but both," he clarified.
"When my mother greets our God, she uses a variety of images," said Orobator. "It's God who is father, it's God who is mother, it's God who is provider, it's God who is strong, it's God who is compassionate."
"That's how I grew up," he said. "If God is father to me, I want to be able to celebrate that in the experience that ... my mother has. That's when it becomes complete for me."
Inequality of experience for women
A convert to Catholicism from African traditional religion, Orobator says his decision to speak loudly about women's exclusion stems mainly from how he saw his mother and sisters treated in Nigerian society.
Growing up, he said he saw his mother minister as what he calls a priestess, with "all the freedom in the world to express and to participate and to be fully integrated into our religious experience."
"Yet outside of that religious experience, where my mother or several of my sisters who feel deeply appreciated, the rest of society was in a way for me unkind to them," he said.
"Unkind to my sisters, who never had opportunities for education like I did because I was a man and they were women," he continued. "Unkind to my mother, who didn't have the opportunities to go to school and be educated because she was a woman."
Something in me.png
"On the one hand in the religious space there was some mutuality, almost equality and freedom to be part of an experience that is so deeply formative," he explained. "Yet on the other hand, such stack evidence of exclusion and marginalization."
"Becoming a Catholic, there is almost a sort of replication of that, that structure of on the one hand acknowledgement, recognition; on the other hand, exclusion," he stated.
"I struggle with that and I ask myself why?" he said. "Who benefits from this?"
Becoming a Jesuit, Orobator said he recognized he had been given resources and an institutional standing that allow him to speak out in a way many women cannot.
"I realized that there are certain privileges that I can draw on ... on the basis of who I am as a man, a Jesuit, a priest in a church that claims to be champion of justice, of equality, of mutuality but which other people cannot draw on simply, as far as I can see, on account of their gender," he stated.
"And a lot of that takes me back to my experience before Catholicism and I say why this duality?" he continued. "Why this tired system where people are placed on different levels, and sometimes it's down to gender? Why?"
"I cannot live with that duality," he stated bluntly, giving the example of his sisters, who he said are "disadvantaged for life" because they did not have the opportunity he did as a Jesuit to go to high school or college.
"Something in me revolts against that," said Orobator. "Something in me simply refuses to accept that on the basis of some category we have created we can then determine who is in, who is out; who belongs and who doesn't belong."
"I have a fundamental — I would even say existential difficulty — in accepting such dichotomy, such arrangements that are fabricated based on norms that I believe don't come out of the Gospel, but rather are elements of a tradition that in my own reading may have been taken out of context or rather no longer apply to our present context," he continued.
"As a Jesuit ... I have come to know women who are competent in their right, in whatever field they are [in], but especially as women in religion, in theology," said Orobator.
"My belief is that such competence, or such depth of religious conviction, they add up to a wealth of resources and gifts for building the church," he continued. "And it would seem to me almost irrational not to take that into consideration, not to be open to that wealth of resources and gifts that the body of the church, which we call the body of Christ, needs."
Acting to include women in education
Orobator's words on better including women in the church have been backed by rather substantial action.
Several years ago an international theological group called Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church secured funding for seven African women to pursue doctorates at African Catholic universities.
They are among the first women on the continent to have the opportunity, and their supporters hope their education might serve to further the advancement of women just as similar U.S. initiatives in the 1960s and '70s have led to substantial increases in the number of women teaching theology and participating in church leadership structures.
Orobator has served as the academic advisor for several of the women, dedicating time and effort to help them pursue their research and keep on track for their degrees. The first of his advisees, Sr. Veronica Rop, graduated in May with a doctorate from The Catholic University of Eastern Africa, which is affiliated with Hekima.
The Jesuit is also taking steps to encourage more female enrollment at Hekima, an undergraduate institution that also educates many of his province's young Jesuits. He says he is in talks with several international groups to get funding for scholarships for east African women, so they might have the resources the young Jesuits are offered by being part of the order.
Orobator says having more women in classes with the future priests is a priority.
"I think it's healthy for Jesuits and people who are studying ministry to study in an environment that is much more reflective of real life situations," he stated, adding that seminarians can sometimes have a sense of "feeling special, sequestered, consecrated."
"I think it's also formative in a sense that we learn to relate to the other, even in our language, in our theological discourse, when at least we notice that we're not the only ones," he continued. "That's very important."
"When I've taught courses in Christology or Trinity and raised issues relating to feminism, I just feel that the reaction would have been so much different if there were other women in the room than what I got from the Jesuits, who are all men," he added.
'The way you live, move, have your being'
Orobator is shaped by a faith experience that is a mix of cultures and attitudes, religions and schemes of thought.
One small window into that mix is the soft clinking sound that comes from his left hand as he gestures while speaking. Around his wrist is a thin bracelet of cowries, the small seashells that an American might find at a seaside surf shop.
Those small shells, with spotted patterns and teethed grooves, indicate something that Orobator says other African Catholics have questioned him about: that although a Christian convert, he still maintains ties to his upbringing in traditional religion.
He says he has worn the shells since he was a child and considers them a cultural marker of who he is and where he comes from.
"I don't see how that conflicts with being a Christian," he stated. "I wear cowries because this was so ... important for us in my own religious tradition as an Africa."
"Cowries played a very important role in mediating relationship with God," Orobator explained. "You offered cowries to God or to the gods as offering, or as a sign of something you were giving up."
"It's a reminder that I am still in that relationship with God," he stated. "I'm not cut off from it."
"I'm not saying that I'm practicing African religion and it's syncretistic," he said. "I feel there is African religion, there is Christianity, but for someone who has had experience of both it's hard to say where one stops and the other begins."
One aspect of maintaining ties to his prior faith life, Orobator says, is that African traditional religions do not have written norms or expectations of behavior as most Christian denominations do.
"It was more like a way of life that you lived in and moved in and had your being," he explained. He says that in his practice of African religion there is a "concreteness" to one's relationship with God.
"It's not through abstract concepts," said the Jesuit. "It's very, very concrete symbolism of relationship, of friendship, of direct encounter, which makes me want to even go deeper, closer to this experience that I call God."
Asked to explain the visceral nature of that relationship, Orobator speaks of his prayer life as an active experience full of sights, sounds and tastes, not "simply trying to be still and meditative."
His description of the experience interestingly mirrors how 16th-century St.. Ignatius of Loyola, one of the founders of the Jesuits, taught his confreres to pray.
In his set of spiritual exercises, Ignatius encourages his followers to place themselves fully within a Gospel story -- Jesus healing the blind man, or speaking to the woman at the well -- and to imagine all the physical aspects of the story: the sun beating down over the Mediterranean, or the smell of dirt and muck on the blind man's cloak.
Orobator says his prayer is not some abstract experience: "No, I'm in my body and I talk to God."
"In African religion, there's that presence," he continued. "You are surrounded by a world of deities and spirits. And I feel that in my experience as a Christian, that when I pray as one example, it's not a transcendental relocation or evacuation of my senses of anything material."
"No, I just feel at home when I feel and speak and smell and touch and hear who God is and who God is with me," he stated. "I feel God is encountering me here and now. And I'm trying to reciprocate, to respond to, to be present to that invitation and encounter."
[Joshua J. McElwee is NCR Vatican correspondent. His email address is jmcelwee@ncronline.org. Follow him on Twitter: @joshjmac.]
Thursday, December 20, 2018
"Condemned by the Vatican, Women Priests Demand Place at Catholic Altar" by Caitlin McGlade, Louisville Courier Journal
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2018/12/20/roman-catholic-church-women-priests-break-rules-demand-change/1976004002
Women ordained as priests have been condemned by the Roman Catholic Church. But instead of just leaving the church, they say they want to change it Sam Upshaw Jr., Louisville Courier Journal
They packed tightly in a circle in a Unitarian Church office in downtown Louisville, warmed by space heaters and the glow from tea candles flickering on a table.
The men and women prayed for immigrants seeking asylum, for the homeless on Louisville's streets, for the people who feel they've been betrayed by organized religion.
About 15 turned out for this Mass on a cold November night. One said she came in secret, fearing other Catholics would punish her for attending.
That's because this Mass is not sanctioned by the Vatican: The priest giving Holy Communion was the Rev. Mary Sue Barnett, a woman excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church since her ordination by the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests in 2013.
The Vatican has denounced female ordination, adding it in 2010 to a list of grave crimes that includes child sex abuse and making the offense punishable by excommunication for both the woman and the cleric who ordained her.
But Vatican condemnation isn't enough to stop Barnett and some 265 other women around the world who have been ordained as priests, deacons or bishops from offering communion.
While they tend to focus more on activism than church services, women priests head at least 80 known congregations. Some serve only a handful of people on an irregular basis, while others, like one in Indianapolis, attract up to 70 people for special events and regularly see 20 worshipers on Sundays.
Two organizations ordain Roman Catholic women in the United States: Roman Catholic Womenpriests and the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests. Combined, they have nearly 8,000 Facebook followers.
"The dismantling of patriarchy is what we're about," said Martha Sherman, president of Roman Catholic Womenpriests and a resident of Salem, South Dakota. "Women have been put down and have not had a voice in society."
Their movement is small when compared with more than 400,000 ordained male priests ministering to nearly 1.3 billion Roman Catholics worldwide. But movement leaders say the church's long-running scandal over sexual abuse by priests and efforts to cover it up have prompted more Catholics to attend women-led services.
In Louisville, where the Roman Catholic archdiocese still struggles to regain trust 15 years after a $25.7 million settlement paid to victims, some rank-and-file Catholics argue the church must accept female leaders, including priests, if it truly wants to heal.
"It’s a hard time for some people to be Catholic. We feel Catholic, we are Catholic. But there are things within the institutional church that cry out for change," said Jeanne Denny of Louisville, who considers herself Catholic to her bones.
"For a lot of us, it is a palpable ache," said Denny, who attends vigils and protests with Barnett.
Some people who follow women priests also attend traditional church services, while others solely rely on women priests for spiritual leadership. Many are lifelong Catholics, like Marian Foster, 57, who as a child played at giving communion to her friends using pickle slices and Hawaiian Punch.
"That was the day I learned what blasphemy was from my mother, and apparently I was doing it," she said. "But it didn’t feel blasphemous at all. It felt authentic."
Another Louisville woman, Cindy Starr, left St. William Catholic Church in Park Hill after discovering her priest had sexually abused children. Church leaders had moved him there in 1990, knowing his history, thinking the risk was lessened because the parish had few children.
"So many of the people I cared about were making excuses for (him)," she said. "It hurt me."
Starr said she so longed for a less male-dominated approach to Scripture that she crossed out references to men in her Bible. Yet she only felt at home in Catholicism.
In 2015, after reading about the women priest movement, she attended a service with Barnett.
It felt like home.
"We're half the population and need to be included," she said. "I come from a large, good Catholic family and the boys were allowed to do things that we couldn't because we were girls. I'm bucking that."
'Helping people wherever they are'
Women in the movement argue they're on firm theological ground to be ordained, noting that Christ appeared first to women after the resurrection and that St. Paul affirmed a woman named Junia. They also point out that Mary Magdalene is revered as an apostle to the apostles.
Representatives from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops did not return requests for comment for this story. Cecelia Price, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Louisville, said it has nothing to add to the church's broader teaching.
The woman priest movement started in 2002 with seven women ordained by a Roman Catholic bishop on a ship cruising Europe's Danube River.
The bishop's identity remains a closely guarded secret, but his involvement lends legitimacy to the movement. Catholics believe in "apostolic succession" — the uninterrupted transmission of spiritual authority from the apostles through successive popes and bishops. The women priests say the unidentified bishop had the authority to include them in that lineage.
The women also assert they remain a part of the Roman Catholic Church, rather than being a separate sect, because they were baptized Roman Catholic and always will consider themselves as such. Just as Lutherans or Anglicans who broke away from the church do, they use terms such as Mass and Holy Communion to describe their rites and sacraments.
And, as the Rev. Debra Meyers of Cincinnati puts it, the movement seeks to aid the church in "helping people wherever they are."
"I have an obligation to help bring the church back to what it is supposed to be and not become an Episcopalian, or a member of the Church of God," Meyers said. "They're doing great things to make the world a better place. But I was baptized into this group, and I'm trying my best to make it better."
But they diverge from the Catholic Church on key issues: supporting same-sex marriage; supporting access to contraception; and allowing everyone to take Holy Communion.
The women priests don't have a unified stance against abortion.
The women also reject the hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church and rely on their bishops for support and ordination rather than direction, decision-making or selecting their ministry.
The movement puts a heavy emphasis on activism and protecting the vulnerable, such as marginalized women and children. Like Barnett, they stand with people abused by priests in demanding more accountability from Roman Catholic leaders.
Their message, Barnett said, is more relevant than ever in light of recent revelations about sex abuse in Pennsylvania Catholic dioceses and the role of church leaders in covering up crimes.
The Kentucky attorney general's office has proposed legislation that would allow an investigation similar to Pennsylvania's sweeping grand jury review. Lawmakers will decide in the 2019 legislative session whether to authorize it.
"The all-male hierarchical institution nationally and worldwide, which has severely abused so many children and continues to lie about it, is an institution sick at its core and has to be transformed," Barnett said.
It's not that women don't abuse — some nuns have been accused of crimes. But many who favor women clergy argue they bring a perspective men cannot.
People abused by men, or girls with sensitive personal issues, may not feel comfortable confiding in male priests, Foster said.
"Women know what it’s like to not be valued by the powers that be and that puts us in a unique position to be a voice for children who are not valued," Foster said.
'Illicit ordinations'
Barnett and others say they want to lead the Catholic Church into a new era, but their message isn't always welcome.
A priest once called Barnett "the embodiment of the enemy."
Among the reasons cited by Roman Catholic leaders in limiting ordination is that Jesus chose only male apostles and that the church has consistently imitated Christ in choosing only men.
Pope Francis told the National Catholic Reporter in 2016 that women "can do many other things better than men" and that Mary is more important than the apostles on Pentecost. But he said he thinks the ban on female ordination is eternal.
He cited a 1994 letter by Pope John Paul II asserting that the exclusion of women follows "God's plan for the Church," according to the article.
This "cannot mean that women are of lesser dignity, nor can it be construed as discrimination against them. Rather, it is to be seen as the faithful observance of a plan to be ascribed to the wisdom of the Lord of the universe," John Paul wrote.
He cited the Virgin Mary's significance as the mother of the church though she was never ordained a priest.
Angelo Stagnaro, a National Catholic Register columnist, wrote this March that "illicit ordinations ... destroy the Church's unity by creating a competing authority structure."
Stagnaro cited a 2010 poll by the New York Times and CBS News that found 59 percent of American Catholics favored female ordination, then dismissed the idea, saying "morality and theology are not matters of democratic popularity."
"The reason I'm content with being Catholic is because the Church understands and accepts that Truth is eternal and not dependent upon fads, trends, polls, arbitrary whims, rarified tastes and 'personal revelation,' ” Stagnaro wrote.
Kathy Schiffer, a blogger published in the National Catholic Register, asserted in a 2017 column that there is no "right" to the priesthood. She called it a gift from God.
"The group that calls itself Roman Catholic Womenpriests are not priests," she wrote. "They are, by virtue of their having attempted ordination, merely excommunicated women."
In some instances, diocesan leaders have tried to block their efforts. The Diocese of Venice in Florida in 2008 asked the Herald-Tribune to stop running ads for Rev. Bridget Mary Meehan's services. A spokesman told the newspaper it was against church law for Meehan to claim to be a priest and celebrate Mass.
The Diocese of Cincinnati in 2014 withdrew a grant for a shelter for homeless mothers after it was announced that Meyers planned to offer a prayer service there.
Both moves backfired. Meehan's congregation tripled in size. Meyers in three weeks received donations far exceeding the canceled grant.
"Women across the country were just outraged that somehow an archbishop takes precedence over the needs of single moms," Meyers said.
Women priests interviewed by the Courier Journal were not particularly concerned by their excommunication. Sherman said they find it interesting that the church feels threatened by "a bunch of gray-haired ladies."
Yet some have felt the sting of the rejection. Meyers said it took months to get over it.
"There was a period of grieving. It was almost as if the institution I dedicated my life to didn't want me and didn't want me to be doing all of these things for single moms," she said. "But since then, I have moved on. The things that I do with the people that follow me are so much more important than not being able to be buried in a Catholic cemetery."
'Prophetic bones'
The Rev. Jennifer Marie Marcus, who lives near Detroit, said she was 8 years old when Jesus came to her on Christmas Eve and told her she would be "his priest."
"I wanted to be closer to God and I thought by being a priest I would be," she said. "When I was being ordained, when I was lying prostrate, I was sobbing. I felt this incredible energy going through me. This awe."
Yes, she could be a nun — but nuns are forbidden from certain priestly duties.
"Being a nun doesn't cut it. Most of the nuns I knew really wanted to be priests, but they knew they couldn't," Marcus said. "It seems unfair to many of them. Being behind the scenes, doing all the work and not being able to ... have a full ministry."
For many women priests, ministry looks different than a typical parish assignment.
The Rev. Janice Sevre-Duszynska, ordained in Lexington in 2008, has been arrested at sit-ins and protests. She recently offered liturgy in Nogales, Mexico, in solidarity with migrants.
The Rev. Kathleen Bellefeuille-Rice, from Olympia, Washington, bathes the feet of the homeless and poor on skid row in Los Angeles.
And the Rev. Beverly Bingle of Toledo, Ohio, launched an initiative to plant one tree for every Toledo resident. Her congregation rents space in a nondenominational church.
"We never intend to have a building,'' she said. "We think one of the problems with the church is that they're so involved in keeping up the building ... they don't serve the poor; they serve the building."
Unlike men ordained by the Catholic Church and financially supported in their assignments, women priests often must support themselves and find creative ways to minister.
"When you take on the Catholic Church, doors will be closed," Meehan said. "At the end of the day, you have to have prophetic bones in your body and say, 'This is who I am. I am doing this as an act for gender justice in the church and in the world.' "
Barnett ministers as a paid chaplain for a secular hospital and volunteers as director of the Louisville chapter of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, a United Nations treaty initiative.
When she has time, she celebrates Mass, as she did last month in downtown Louisville.
At that service, Barnett and deacon Betty Smith sat in the circle with their parishioners — a deliberate break from traditional elevation of priests and deacons at altars above the congregation, Barnett noted.
Barnett's service, including her homily, or sermon, was interactive. Members took turns reading Scripture, leading prayers and even answering questions she posed.
They celebrated communion using homemade bread from a recipe developed by nuns.
Cindy Starr, finally at her spiritual home, did the baking.
TO LEARN MORE:
Additional information and locations of services offered by women priests:
Roman Catholic Womenpriests: romancatholicwomenpriests.org
Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests: arcwp.org
Caitlin McGlade: 502-582-4144; cmcglade@gannett.com; Twitter: @caitmcglade. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/caitlinm.
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