Yolanda Alba: "Religions are the temple of non-parity"

https://evangelizadorasdelosapostoles.wordpress.com/2018/06/19/yolanda-alba-la-religiones-son-el-templo-de-la-no-paridad/

Yolanda Alba   is an author of Renaissance spirit, who began writing in the historic newspaper  Pueblo  and since then has exercised journalism in multiple written and audiovisual media. 
She is especially proud of having directed the international monthly The UNESCO Bulletin on Mediterranean women (French, Spanish, Arabic).

| ANDRÉS LAINAJUNE 19, 2018 (10:22 H.)

Yolanda Alba

The author of " Priests " has written several essays, almost all related to the feminine world. Militant of this movement is committed to disclosing hidden aspects about women that have not had just diffusion. On this occasion he writes about women and their relationship with religion. Almost all have separated women from the centers of power. It's about time that this changes. In the interview, he reveals some of the secrets of his interesting book.

Congratulations for the title. The index is bright and the book is deep and daring.  Did the word "priests" exist before you used it?

It is, first of all, a provocation that wants to provoke a reflection automatically: are there women in the 21st century who exercise the priesthood in the Catholic Church? There is a whole chapter devoted to this topic in the essay: think that not so long ago there were no words like judge or doctor or bombera or bishop; and the appearance of women in different professions has made the words to designate them feminized, logically. And so for many significant scholars and linguists and anthropologists and journalists and other dissident professionals who question the sexist use of the Spanish language (worldwide), priests are the name of the female priest; Simply: it is a woman who exercises the priesthood. That is: a woman a priest or priest, as many prefer to be called, this in the Catholic context. Let them decide how they want to call themselves. Secondly, I use it in the title as a term that encompasses the different officiating women of all religions, as opposed to the term priestess, a definition that only has validity for antiquity, that is, as a consecrated woman or girl dedicated to the cult of a divinity. And in the other religions: rabbis, imanas, santeras, bishops, shepherdesses, shamans, etc ...

What could have been an apostolic court composed of men and women in the Christian religion?

It is that there was but the version of the history of primitive Christianity that has dominated contemporary culture (what the Harvard Early Christian History professor Karen King calls "dominant story") is an incomplete and biased account where the roles of the women are hidden and / or omitted. Thus, Jesus (male) chooses disciples who transmit the tradition to the male bishops as well. But we already know today that this was not the only reality. Precisely regarding the woman, Yeshua-Iesous-Jesus did not abide by the uses of her Jewish cultural environment. And then in the first centuries of Christian history it is necessary to repeat, proactively and tirelessly, that women played prominent roles as apostles, teachers, preachers, prophetesses, priests, and regents of the communities or ecclesias . In addition to being part of the rabbi's usual followers, the women helped him, supported him and were apostles of his message: Maryam the Magdala, Miriam / Maryam of Nazareth (his mother Mary), his sister Maryam, the sisters Marta and Maryam de Bethany (those of Lazarus), Miriam of Cleophas, The mother of the Zebedeus, Phoebe the deaconess, Juana and Susana, Salome, Junia, Juana, Trifonia, Persis, Trifosia, Julia ... and many more. All active disciples who shared with him, some his years of preaching, others his trial, his condemnation, his death and his resurrection, and others extended his teachings later.

Affirms that there are women priests and Catholic bishops in different countries ......

It is that they exist and exercise, as officiants and as religious authorities, let us not forget that only the European environment is Christian: there are Catholics whose profound call of the Spirit has helped them to face the legal prohibitions of the Vatican, and to which their desire to administering the sacraments without constraints matters much more than the criticism they receive. They already live in another Christian paradigm exercising their functions of healing and apostolate with their communities. In this sense, they are similar to the first suffragists, women who dared to break the established rules and therefore were insulted and punished in their endeavor, and the historical future would later give them reason ... There is the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests (ARCWP stands for English), the collective that promotes the equality of rights of men and women within the Catholic Church, whom the Vatican obviously does not recognize but knows well that they exist! I also speak of the WOC (Conference for the Ordination of Women), the national association more old and extensive that works to ordain women as priests, deaconesses and bishops within an inclusive and responsible Catholic Church. Founded in 1975 in the USA, it represents 70% of American Catholics who support the ordination of women. With proactivity, he manifested immediately a great impulse when, in 1978, several of his activists broke into a conference of bishops in Washington demanding the equal rights of women in the Catholic Church. Since then, the WOC has carried out multiple actions of protest and has managed to weave a wide support network around the world. Another is the WOW (Women's Ordination in the World), founded in 1996, which is the network of ecumenical organizations for the ordination of Catholic women in the world. It includes associations from countries as diverse as Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Ireland, Portugal, USA, Bangladesh or Poland. The association was the one that organized in 2016 the Jubilee of Women Priests in Rome, with its corresponding parallel manifestation to vindicate before the Vatican the ordination of women and great mediatic noise ... .She ordered Catholic priests do what is just without waiting to the approval of the Pope. Another is the WOW (Women's Ordination in the World), founded in 1996, which is the network of ecumenical organizations for the ordination of Catholic women in the world. It includes associations from countries as diverse as Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Ireland, Portugal, USA, Bangladesh or Poland. The association was the one that organized in 2016 the Jubilee of Women Priests in Rome, with its corresponding parallel manifestation to vindicate before the Vatican the ordination of women and great mediatic noise ... .She ordered Catholic priests do what is just without waiting to the approval of the Pope. Another is the WOW (Women's Ordination in the World), founded in 1996, which is the network of ecumenical organizations for the ordination of Catholic women in the world. It includes associations from countries as diverse as Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Ireland, Portugal, USA, Bangladesh or Poland. The association was the one that organized in 2016 the Jubilee of Women Priests in Rome, with its corresponding parallel manifestation to vindicate before the Vatican the ordination of women and great mediatic noise ... .She ordered Catholic priests do what is just without waiting to the approval of the Pope. Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Ireland, Portugal, USA, Bangladesh or Poland. The association was the one that organized in 2016 the Jubilee of Women Priests in Rome, with its corresponding parallel manifestation to vindicate before the Vatican the ordination of women and great mediatic noise ... .She ordered Catholic priests do what is just without waiting to the approval of the Pope. Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Ireland, Portugal, USA, Bangladesh or Poland. The association was the one that organized in 2016 the Jubilee of Women Priests in Rome, with its corresponding parallel manifestation to vindicate before the Vatican the ordination of women and great mediatic noise ... .She ordered Catholic priests do what is just without waiting to the approval of the Pope.

In Spain, in A Coruña, there is a woman Catholic priest who has come out in various media ...

Yes, we have that honor: it is Christina Moreira, of the ARCWP, theologian also, who explained to me that they do not agree with Canon 1024 of canon law that states that only a man can be ordained a priest since the Bible does not say that Nowhere. She is a very brave woman who works in inclusiveness according to the proposal of Jesus of Nazareth. In that spirit he dedicates his life to the service of his communities. They are new times ... the Church certainly needs a facelift ... I believe that they are their future ...

What institutional sins would have been unlikely in the church with women on staff? As a man it hurts me greatly that pedophilia has crossed the Catholic Church. Would this have happened with a female clergy?

I refer to chapter VIII ... answering your question I think that sexual abuse would not have existed ... neither the genocide of witches nor the burning of heretics ... In general, that religious phallocracy so patriarchal and oppressive for women ... And perhaps less wars in the name of religion.

What ethical and aesthetic differences mark the presence of women in priestly positions in different religions?  

In Catholicism (in other Christian branches they do exist) an equity more proportional to the human race, more just, undoubtedly, I would say that they apply the egalitarian message of Jesus. In the Muslim religion, for example, Sherin Khankan, the first female imam of Denmark, sociologist specialized in Islam and master in sociology of religions and philosophy of the University of Copenhagen, seeks above all to spread the progressive Islamic values, including Islamic feminism , which also means a return to the roots. Other imams also answer the patriarchal interpretations of Islam, demonstrating that it is possible to practice it and at the same time be a member of a democratic society. Imam Sherin Khankan celebrates marriages between people of different denominations and their marriage contracts prohibit polygamy and spousal violence and recognize the right of women to divorce. I think that women officiating, or women as religious authorities (the Primacy of the Swedish Church and the Bishop of London are women) take more into account the feminine side of the divinity, ergo  gender equality between men and women is more present. And the fact that women occupy priestly positions can have political connotations, such as bringing a change of the symbolic order towards a more egalitarian and more joyful and wiser society, and more just and more ecological, more to the extent of the human. I am convinced that the irruption of women in the structures of power and in the ecclesiastical hierarchies and in the direction of rituals in temples, synagogues, churches and mosques is the last possibility to resurrect infinitely richer and more exciting religions. , more playful and mysterious. In the magical-symbolic sphere, women possess a totalizing energy that is not totalitarian, that is, inclusive.

In the first centuries of Christian history women played prominent roles as apostles, teachers, preachers, prophetesses, priests, and regents of communities or  ecclesias

Is there a religion in which, according to you, women are institutionally accepted on equal terms?

In Judaism (except the fundamentalist who does not admit them) there is no difference between rabbis and rabbis. But in general, religions are the temple of non-parity ...

After his thorough investigation, what historical figure is closer to the 'priest' or ideal officiant woman?

Ufff ... ..complicated the answer ... I believe that perfection does not exist in the human race but among the most significant I would name: in ancient times to Enheduanna (2285-2250 BCE), daughter of the Emperor of Acadia Sargon I the Great, the furthest case that is documented. In the Christian environment Mary, the mother of Jesus the Galilean. In Judaism, the first contemporary rabbi, the German Regina Jonah, who in 1944 at age 42 was murdered in Auschwitz, where she had been deported.

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