This morning I was a little early to class due to some errands that were time sensitive, so I went into the NYU bookstore (for like the second time ever--which is amusing considering how much time I used to spend just wandering around BU Barnes and Nobel...what can I say, the Strand has stolen my heart), and I was browsing around when my eye caught the cover of this week's Newsweek Magazine. "What Would Mary Do?", it asked, featuring the article Catholics: Time To Break Up the All Males Club by Lisa Miller (who just came out with a new book about Heaven which looks mad interesting).
I plucked the magazine from the rack, hid in the back of the store and delved into Miller's article (aside: Why is this tiny newsweekly $5.95 for a half a magazine. Ridiculous! Too bad--I love this cover art!). Her question is frankly: Can women save the Catholic Church? As the piles of scandals continue to stick upon Pope Benedict XVI's reign, one must wonder, does MIller have a point: has the Catholic church been an "all boys club" for way too long ("The cause of the Catholic clergy's sex-abuse scandal is no mystery: insular groups of men often do bad things. So why not break up the all-male club?" -Lisa MIller)? If men and furthermore celibate men are the problem-- what would be the advantage of letting married clergy and women into the higher ranks? We cannot say that married clergy will be the end of scandal (I'm thinking about the case of Jimmy Swaggart)-- but Lisa Miller seems to be suggesting that letting the ladies in may help.
Women have been a part of the Catholic Church for centuries, but remained on the outskirts. The greatest contributing ladies of the Catholic tradition, in my humble opinion, have remained on the margins of official Church society. These are the mystics and poets, many of whom used their relationship with Christ as a way to escape the social milieu of their day (I'm thinking of Catherine Walker Bynum's fantastic book Holy Fast, Holy Feast. These woman only gained their formal recognition in death and beatification, and still many remain on the margins as the mystics they were.
Skip ahead past the Reformation, the French and American Revolutions to the 1960s and the Post-Vatican II life of the more Modern Church, woman began to be recognized as important members of the Church and its institutions while still being denied the right to vocation. Miller points out that today 60% of Mass attendance and the majority of collection money comes from women. Furthermore that, "nuns dramatically outnumber priests worldwide, [however] they are mostly so invisible that when a group of them speaks up, as they did recently on health-care reform, everyone takes notice" (Miller). Like the females of yesteryear, despite their numbers and their devotion, "[e]ven with a mother, Mary, at the center of the Christian story, the women of today's church have found themselves marginalized" (Miller). Even with the priesthood in sharp decline, 80% of parishes being run by women , and 60% of American Catholics (wonder if they are the 60% that are women? haha) being ok with female priests (what about the other parts of the Catholic world that may be more traditional or even less Protestant influenced than Americans?), the inner sanctums of the Vatican remain men-only.
Lisa Miller, however, isn't the only one who is wondering if its time for the ladies to take over. Last week, New York Times Columnist Maureen Dowd called for Pope Benedict to step down and for the instillation of a "Nope" (a nun who is a Pope) in her opinion piece A Nope for Pope. Dowd simply states: "If the church could throw open its stained glass windows and let in some air, invite women to be priests, nuns to be more emancipated and priests to marry, if it could banish criminal priests and end the sordid culture of men protecting men who attack children, it might survive. It could be an encouraging sign of humility and repentance, a surrender of arrogance, both moving and meaningful." I don't know if this would be the case, but its an interesting position to consider: what would happen if the Ladies were allowed to take over the Church? Where would it lead and would there be a liberation of ladies who have felt the strain of the patriarchy? Would the marginal mystical ladies of old finally be glorified?
Aside from the loss of the Patriarchal power (and this would be the sharpest blow, for sure), what would the Catholic Church lose in letting women in? Are they afraid of the rise of the feminine divine (I'm thinking more along the lines of this fantastic blog post by Donna Freistas than Kevin Smith's amusing depiction of God played by Alanis Morisette)? Secular feminism? Contraception? Abortion? Liberalism? What does the Catholic Church have to lose in the empowerment of women inside the clergy is the real question we must ask. To consider this requires a longer look into the history of women in the Church as well as the various reforms that have been made by the Church over the centuries to adapt to "Modern Times" (Let's face it, there are plenty, including the Pope himself, who still resent Vatican II and consider it WAY too liberal). All of these considerations must be taken into account before one can really judge if Catholic culture is ready for such an upset as to let the women, particularly those mystical marginal ladies, into the center. Lisa Miller tells us that it is necessary, or else the Church faces to crumble as women with their children, the building blocks of the next generation of Catholics, will move further and further away into the margins of Catholicism (such as this interesting article from NPR called Leaving the Church, But Not the Identity.
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