Women in the Catholic Church
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Women play a significant role in the life of the Catholic Church, and the Church affects societal attitudes to women. |
Women play significant roles in the life of the
Biblical perspective
Prominent women in the life of the church have included
Educational perspective
Through its support for institutionalised learning, the Catholic Church produced many of the world's first notable women scientists and scholars – including the physicians
Church influences
The Catholic Church has influenced the status of women in various ways: condemning abortion,
Historical development
Early Christianity
The
The New Testament is instructive of the attitudes of the church towards women. Among the most famous accounts of Jesus directly dealing with an issue of morality and women is provided by the story of
Jesus' own attitude to women is found in the story of Jesus at the house of Martha and Mary. The Gospels suggest Jesus broke with convention to provide religious instruction directly to women. Mary sits at Jesus' feet as he preaches, while her sister toils in the kitchen preparing a meal. When Martha complains to Mary that she should instead be helping in the kitchen, Jesus says that, "Mary has chosen what is better" (Luke 10:38–42).
According to historian
Other writings ascribed to Paul appear to both recognise women leadership in the early Church (Romans 16) and to put limits upon it (1 Timothy 2:12). According to the Book of Acts, the early church attracted significant numbers of women; many of these were prominent in cultures that afforded women more substantial roles than Judaism did and they shaped the church. According to Alister McGrath, Christianity had the effect of undermining traditional roles of both women and slaves in two ways:
- By asserting that all were "one in Christ", regardless of whether they were Jew or Gentile, male or female, master or slave.
- By asserting that all could share in Christian fellowship and worship together, again regardless of status.
McGrath describes Paul's egalitarian approach as "profoundly liberating" in that it implied new freedoms for women.[10] McGrath comments that, although Christianity did not effect an immediate change in cultural attitudes towards women, the influence of Paul's egalitarianism was to "place a theoretical time bomb under them." He asserts that, ultimately, "the foundations of these traditional distinctions would be eroded to the point where they could no longer be maintained."[11] Similarly, Suzanne Wemple notes that, although Christianity did not eliminate sexual discrimination in the late Roman Empire, it did offer women "the opportunity to regard themselves as independent personalities rather than as someone else's daughter, wife, or mother."[12]
Women commemorated as saints from these early centuries include several martyrs who suffered under the
While the
The tradition of a ritual form of the consecration of virgin women dates to the 4th century, although it is widely held that a more informal consecration was imparted to virgin women by their bishops dating from the time of the Apostles. The first known formal rite of consecration of virginity is that of
Medieval era
In 735, the Latin Church, but not the Eastern Churches, decided that women must be allowed to attend liturgies and receive Holy Communion during their menstruation.[13]
Women religious have played an important role in Catholicism through convents and abbeys, particularly in the establishment of schools, hospitals, nursing homes and monastic settlements, and through religious institutes of nuns or sisters such as the
As Western Europe transitioned from the Classical to the Medieval Age, the male hierarchy with the Pope as its summit became a central player in European politics. However, many women leaders also emerged at various levels within the Church. Mysticism flourished and monastic convents and communities of Catholic women became powerful institutions within Europe.
Petra Munro contrasts the early Christian Church as being inclusive of women as opposed to the medieval Church, which she describes as being "based on a gender hierarchy".[14] The historian Geoffrey Blainey, however, writes that women were more prominent in the life of the Church during the Middle Ages than at any previous time in its history, and they initiated a number of church reforms. The Belgian nun, St Juliana of Liège (1193–1252), proposed the Feast of Corpus Christi, celebrating the body of Christ in the Eucharist, which became a major feast throughout the Church. In the 13th century, authors began to write of a mythical female pope – Pope Joan – who managed to disguise her gender until giving birth during a procession in Rome.[15]
Blainey cites the ever-growing veneration of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene as evidence of a high standing for female Christians at that time. The Virgin Mary was conferred such titles as Mother of God and Queen of Heaven and, in 863, her feast day, the "Feast of Our Lady", was declared equal in importance to those of Easter and Christmas. Mary Magdalene's Feast Day was celebrated in earnest from the 8th century and composite portraits of her were built up from Gospel references to other women Jesus met.[16]
According to historian Shulamith Shahar, "some historians hold that the Church played a considerable part in fostering the inferior status of women in medieval society in general" by providing a moral justification for male superiority and by accepting practices such as wife-beating.[17] Despite these laws, some women, particularly abbesses, gained powers that were never available to women in previous Roman or Germanic societies.[18]
Although historians have argued that church teachings emboldened secular authorities to give women fewer rights than men, they also helped form the concept of
Women who had been looked down upon as daughters of
In
According to Bynum, during the 12th-15th centuries there was an unprecedented flowering of mysticism among female members of religious orders in the Catholic Church. Petra Munro describes these women as "transgressing gender norms" by violating the dictates of the
An example is provided by the 12th-century Speculum Virginum (Mirror of Virgins in Latin) document which provides one of the earliest comprehensive theologies of cloistered religious life.[28] The growth of the various manuscripts of the Speculum Virginum in the Middle Ages had a particular resonance for women who sought a dedicated religious life. Yet, its effect on the development of female monastic life also influenced the proliferation of male monastic orders.[29]
Catholic nobility
Among the most notable of all Christian noblewomen must be
During the Medieval period, aristocratic women could wield considerable influence. The first Russian ruler to convert to Christianity was
As sponsor of
After the refusal of Pope
Of the remaining European monarchies, all are now constitutional monarchies, with some still ruled by Catholic dynasties, including the
17th–19th centuries
Amidst the backdrop of Industrial Revolution and expanding European empires, a number of notable educational and nursing religious institutes were established by and for Catholic women during the 17th–19th centuries, and Catholic women played a central role in the developing or running of many the modern world's education and health care systems.
Rose of Lima, the first Catholic saint of the Americas, was born in Peru in 1586, and became known for her piety. Kateri Tekakwitha was born around 1656 in the Mohawk village of Ossernenon, Canada. Canonised as the first Native American saint in 2012, Takakwitha lived at a time of conflict between the Mohawks and French colonists, lost her family and was scarred by smallpox before converting to Catholicism, leading to persecution from her tribesmen. She became known for her piety and charity.[35] In 2012, she became the first Native American to be canonized by the Catholic Church. Elizabeth Ann Seton was born in New York. She would become the first saint born in the newly declared United States of America. A Catholic convert, she was attracted to the spirituality of St. Vincent de Paul and founded a religious community dedicated to the care of the children of the poor – the first congregation of religious sisters founded in the US.
Although various devotions to the Sacred Heart had been practiced as early as the second century, and Saint John Eudes had written about it shortly before Margaret Mary Alacoque, her reported 1673 visions of Jesus were instrumental in establishing the modern devotion.[36][37][38][39] Alacoque established the devotion for receiving
The
Sister
When in 1858 Saint Bernadette Soubirous reported the Lourdes apparitions she was a 14-year-old shepherd girl.[51] She asked the local priest to build a local chapel in Lourdes because the Lady with the Rosary beads had requested it. Eventually, a number of chapels and churches were built at Lourdes as the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes—which is now a major Catholic pilgrimage site with about five million pilgrims a year.[52]
In 1872, the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco (also called Daughters of Mary Help of Christians) was founded by Maria Domenica Mazzarello. The teaching order was to become the modern world's largest institute for women, with around 14,000 members in 2012.[53]
Saint
The Sacred Heart devotion was later influenced by another Catholic nun,
20th century
For much of the early 20th century, Catholic women continued to join religious institutes in large numbers, where their influence was particularly strong in the areas of education and healthcare.
St. Joan's International Alliance, founded in 1911, was the first Catholic group to work for women being ordained as priests.[61][62]
German nun
Catholic lay women were involved in Catholic Arts and Letters in the 20th century, especially in English language literature. Sophie Treadwell was a Mexican-American Catholic laywoman who was both a journalist and a playwright in the first half of the 20th century. She wrote dozens of plays, several novels and serial stories, as well as countless newspaper articles. She gained international notoriety in 1921 when she secured an exclusive interview with Pancho Villa at his military outpost in northern Mexico.[67] Treadwell often wrote about "the inequity experienced by 'ordinary' women in extraordinary situations."[68] Upon her death the production rights and royalties to her plays were gifted to the Diocese of Tucson.[69] Caryll Houselander was an English woman who wrote prolifically in the 1940s and early 1950s. Her spiritual reading and writing was centered mostly in the Gospels; so, her theology placed the meaning of human suffering within existence in the Mystical Body of Christ.[70] American Flannery O'Connor also wrote in the middle of the 20th century from the 1940s to the 1960s. Calling herself a "Hillbilly Thomist", she expanded on St. Thomas Aquinas' thought that "grace perfects nature".[71] With short stories and novels involving extreme violence her works alluded to God's Grace offered, but refused by humanity.[72] Newspaperwoman turned social activist for life at all stages in all conditions, Dorothy Day, founded the Catholic Worker House system for homeless persons and immigrants, while writing numerous articles supporting the poor for the journal she published with the organization (The Catholic Worker), as well as for other news outlets well into the 1980s. Her theology showed an enhanced participation by lay people in the Church's mission.[73]
In 1963 the
The Catholic position on
In 1970 Ludmila Javorova attempted ordination as a Catholic priest in Czechoslovakia by a friend of her family, Bishop Felix Davidek (1921–1988), himself clandestinely consecrated, due to the shortage of priests caused by communist persecution; however, an official Vatican statement in February 2000 declared the ordinations invalid while recognizing the severe circumstances under which they occurred.[80]
In 1979 Nancy Ledins, born William Griglak, underwent gender reassignment surgery in Trinidad, Colorado. Ledins was previously ordained as a Catholic priest and was not returned to lay status, and is considered by some to be the first official woman priest in the Catholic Church.[81] However, the Catechism of the Catholic Church does clearly state that gender is exclusively binary and every person should "acknowledge and accept his sexual identity." It strongly implies that birth anatomy and gender expression are equal.[82][83]
In the latter 20th century three Catholic women were declared
In 1976, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith discussed the issue of the ordination of women and issued a Declaration on the Question of the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood which concluded that for various doctrinal, theological, and historical reasons, the Church "... does not consider herself authorized to admit women to priestly ordination". The most important reasons stated were first, the Church's determination to remain faithful to its constant tradition, second, its fidelity to Christ's will, and third, the idea of male representation due to the "sacramental nature" of the priesthood. The Biblical Commission, an advisory commission that was to study the exclusion of women from the ministerial priesthood from a biblical perspective, had three opposing findings. They were, "that the New Testament does not settle in a clear way ... whether women can be ordained as priests, [that] scriptural grounds alone are not enough to exclude the possibility of ordaining women, [and that] Christ's plan would not be transgressed by permitting the ordination of women."[87]
In the developing world, people continued to convert to Catholicism in large numbers. Among the most famous women missionaries of the period was Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her work in "bringing help to suffering humanity".[88] She was beatified in 2003.[89]
In Western nations like the US, Catholic women continued to be heavily involved in areas like health and education. The Second Vatican Council of the 1960s liberalized the strictures of Catholic religious life; however, in the latter half of the 20th century, vocations for women in the West entered a steep decline. This was accompanied by the 20th century's women's movement, sexual revolution, ethnic assimilation and the Council's opening of the church to lay leadership.[90]
Many Catholic women and religious are prominent advocates in social policy debates—as with American sister
Social attitudes to sex and marriage in the West moved away from traditional Catholic teachings and Western governments also liberalized laws relating to
While a modern feminist theology developed, Pope John Paul II emphasized traditional roles for women within the church and in his Ordinatio sacerdotalis of 1994, declared that the Church "has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful.[93]
However, a circular letter
21st century
A Catholic document from 2001[95] made clear that, even if a bishop decided to permit female altar servers, the priest in charge of a church in that diocese was not obliged to accept them, since there was no question of anyone, male or female, having a right to become an altar server. Furthermore, the document states that: "it will always be very appropriate to follow the noble tradition of having boys serve at the altar."[95]
The
In 2014 Angeline Franciscan
In 2016 it was announced that the Roman Missal had been revised to permit women to have their feet washed on Holy Thursday; previously it permitted only males to do so.[103]
In March 2019, the Vatican-published magazine Women Church World experienced a series of staff resignations over alleged whitewashing attempts by male management.[104] The month before, the magazine had "exposed the sexual abuse by priests of nuns who are forced to have abortions or give birth to children who are not recognized by their fathers. The article said nuns have kept silent about the abuse for years out of fear of retribution." Pope Francis had acknowledged the abuse after the article.[105]
On 24 May 2019, five women and one man were appointed consultor to the general secretariat of the Synod of Bishops in the Catholic Church. This was the first time women were appointed to this position.[106]
On 15 January 2020,
In January 2021, Pope Francis issued the motu proprio “Spiritus Domini,” which changed canon 230 § 1 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law from "Lay men who possess the age and qualifications established by decree of the conference of bishops can be admitted on a stable basis through the prescribed liturgical rite to the ministries of lector and acolyte" to "Lay persons of suitable age and with the gifts determined by decree of the Episcopal Conference may be permanently assigned, by means of the established liturgical rite, to the ministries of lectors and acolytes." This meant women could begin to be admitted to the instituted ministries of acolyte and lector, which they could not before.[110][111]
On 5 February 2021, Pope Francis appointed an Italian magistrate, Catia Summaria, as the first woman promoter of Justice in the Holy See’s Court of Appeals.[112] On 6 February 2021, he appointed Nathalie Becquart an undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops,[113] making her the first woman to have the right to vote in the Synod of Bishops.[114] On 9 March 2021, he chose Núria Calduch to be the Secretary of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, making her the first woman to reach this office.[115][116]
On 13 July 2022, Pope Francis appointed women as members of the Dicastery for Bishops for the first time. He appointed two nuns and one laywoman - Raffaella Petrini, Yvonne Reungoat, and María Lía Zervino (Zervino being the laywoman).[117]
On April 26, 2023, Pope Francis announced that women would be allowed to vote at the Sixteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops,[118] marking the first time women were allowed to vote at any Catholic Synod of Bishops.[119]
Current status
According to Catherine Wessinger, Catholic lay women have been increasingly called to play important roles in the Catholic Church; this trend is particularly strong in the United States.[120]
Cynthia Stewart asserts that, although the hierarchy of the Church is entirely male as a result of the
- a shift in cultural attitudes leading to greater acceptance of women in leadership roles
- an increase in outreach ministries targeted at groups with whom women have traditionally worked (e.g. elderly and children)
- a greater willingness on the part of women to accept lower salaries than those offered by the secular world.[121]
The importance of women to the "life and mission of the Church" was emphasized by Pope John Paul II who wrote:
"The presence and the role of women in the life and mission of the Church, although not linked to the ministerial priesthood, remain absolutely necessary and irreplaceable. As the Declaration Inter Insigniores points out, 'The Church desires that Christian women should become fully aware of the greatness of their mission: today their role is of capital importance both for the renewal and humanization of society and for the rediscovery by believers of the true face of the Church' " ( No. 10).[122]
Virgin Mary
:Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
- Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
:Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy,
- our life, our sweetness and our hope.
- To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve;
- to thee do we send up our sighs,
- mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.
The prominence of Mary in the life of the Church grew gradually. In AD 431, the
Mary Reichardt comments that the Blessed Virgin Mary is "paradoxically, both virgin and mother, both submissive and the preeminent mulier fortis".[128]
As the mother of Jesus, Mary has a central role in the life of the
Prior to the solemn definition of 1870, the only agreed upon
Since the end of the 19th century, a number of progressive and liberal perspectives of Mariology have been presented, ranging from feminist criticisms to interpretations based on modern psychology and liberal Catholic viewpoints. These views are generally critical of the Roman Catholic approach to Mariology as well as the
Some feminists[who?] contend that as with other women saints such as Joan of Arc the image of Mary is a construct of the patriarchal mind. They argue that Marian dogmas and doctrines and the typical forms of Marian devotion reinforce patriarchy by offering women temporary comfort from the ongoing oppression inflicted on them by male dominated churches and societies.[142] In the feminist view, old gender stereotypes persist within traditional Marian teachings and theological doctrines. To that end books on "feminist Mariology" have been published to present opposing interpretations and perspectives.[144]
Since the
Some groups of liberal Catholics[
Virginity
Christian orthodoxy accepts the New Testament claim that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a virgin at the time Jesus was conceived, based on the accounts in the gospels of
.The Catholic Encyclopedia says: "There are two elements in virginity: the material element, that is to say, the absence, in the past and in the present, of all complete and voluntary delectation, whether from
Thomas Aquinas emphasized that acts other than copulation destroy virginity as well. He also clarified that involuntary sexual pleasure or pollution does not destroy virginity; says in his Summa Theologica, "Pleasure resulting from resolution of semen may arise in two ways. If this be the result of the mind's purpose, it destroys virginity, whether copulation takes place or not...another way this may happen beside the purpose of the mind, either during sleep, or through violence and without the mind's consent, although the flesh derives pleasure from it, or again through weakness of nature, as in the case of those who are subject to a flow of semen. On such cases virginity is not forfeit, because such like pollution is not the result of impurity which excludes virginity."[150]
Some female
Marriage
Catholic marriage is a "covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring, [which] has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized."
The nature of the covenant requires that the two participants be one man and one woman, that they be free to marry, that they willingly and knowingly enter into a valid marriage contract, and that they validly execute the performance of the contract.
Divorce
In the Roman Empire, husbands were allowed to leave their wife. Wives were denied a reciprocal right.[152][153] Early Church Fathers pointed to the Gospel of Mark, which describes Jesus labelling men or women who divorced and remarried as adulterers. Gregory of Nazianzus wrote vehemently against the practice of punishing women who committed adultery while overlooking the same acts by men.
Married women were attracted to the Christian ideal that men and women shared the same obligatory moral code. Women often converted first and introduced the religion to their social network; it was in this way that the religion often spread to the upper classes of society.[154]
As the Church gained greater influence in European society, its teachings were occasionally codified into law. Church teaching heavily influenced the legal concept of marriage.
Several Biblical passages imply subordination, such as "Let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands" (Eph. 5:24). In 1988, Pope John Paul II clarified that "subordinate" should be defined as a "mutual subjection out of reverence for Christ."[165]
Reproductive issues
Contraception
The Catholic Church is morally opposed to contraception and orgasmic acts outside of the context of marital intercourse. This belief dates back to the first centuries of Christianity.
The
The only form of birth control permitted is abstinence. Modern scientific methods of "periodic abstinence" such as
Therefore We base Our words on the first principles of a human and Christian doctrine of marriage when We are obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children. Equally to be condemned, as the magisterium of the Church has affirmed on many occasions, is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary. Similarly excluded is any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means.
Abortion
The
The
Roles of women
Women constitute the great majority of members of the
In religious vocations, Catholic women and men are ascribed different roles, with women serving as nuns, religious sisters or abbesses, but in other roles, the Catholic Church does not distinguish between men and women, who may be equally recognised as
Abbess and prioress
An abbess, as defined by the Thomas Oestereich, writing in the Catholic Encyclopedia, is the female superior in spirituals and temporals of a community of 12 or more nuns.[173]
The historical roles of abbesses have varied. In medieval times, abbesses were powerful figures whose influence could rival that of male bishops and abbots: "They treated with kings, bishops, and the greatest lords on terms of perfect equality; ... they were present at all great religious and national solemnities, at the dedication of churches, and even, like the queens, took part in the deliberation of the national assemblies..."[173] In England, abbesses of major houses attended all great religious and national solemnities, such as deliberations of the national assemblies and ecclesiastical councils. In Germany the major abbesses were ranked among the princes of the Empire, enabling them to sit and vote in the Diet. They lived in fine estates, and recognised no church superior save the Pope. Similarly in France, Italy and Spain, female superiors could be very powerful figures. In Celtic Christianity, abbesses could preside over houses containing both monks and nuns[25] and in mediaeval Europe, abbesses could be immensely influential, sitting in national parliaments and ruling their conventual estates like temporal lords, recognising no church superior save the Pope. In modern times, abbesses have lost their aristocratic trappings.[173]
Her duties, authority, and method of election are similar to those of an abbot. She is elected by the votes of the religious sisters over whom she will be given authority. An abbess has supreme domestic authority over a monastery and its dependencies, though she does not formally "preach" in the way of a priest, she may "exhort her nuns by conferences". She may discipline, but not excommunicate members of her monastery.[173]
A
Religious vocations
In religious vocations, Catholic women and men are ascribed different roles. Men serve as
Nuns and sisters may house themselves in convents – though an
In religious institutes for women that are called
Women may also become numenaries in Opus Dei, they live separately from their male counterparts in Opus Dei, but are not cloistered from men.
Religious institutes for women
Religious institutes for women may be dedicated to contemplative or monastic life or to apostolic work such as education or the provision of health care and spiritual support to the community. Some religious institutes have ancient origins, as with
In 2012, the largest women's institute was the
The number of professed women religious has been decreasing in recent decades. Worldwide, the number dropped from around 729,371 in 2009 to around 721,935 in 2010. The decline resulted from trends in Europe, America and Oceania (-2.9% in Europe, in Oceania -2.6% and -1.6% in America), however In Africa and Asia, there was a significant increase of 2%.[179]
The website of the Vicariate of Rome gives a list of over 700 religious institutes for women.[180]
Contemplatives, mystics and theologians
Some religious institutes host communities who devote their lives to contemplation. Many Catholic women, both lay and in religious orders, have become influential mystics or theologians – with four women now recognised as
During the Middle Ages, monastic settlements were established throughout western Europe and convents and abbeys for women could become powerful institutions. Saint Dominic founded the Dominican movement in France in the 12th century and Dominican nuns have gathered in contemplative religious communities ever since.[181]
Care givers
In keeping with the emphasis of Catholic social teaching, many religious institutes for women have devoted themselves to service of the sick, homeless, disabled, orphaned, aged or mentally ill, as well as refugees, prisoners and others facing misfortune.
Ancient orders like the Dominicans and Carmelites have long lived in religious communities that work in ministries such as education and care of the sick.
The Claretian Sisters were founded in 1855 Venerable María Antonia París, growing to be the third largest women's institute in the church by 2012.[53]
Saint
In the United States, the
Mother Teresa of Calcutta established the Missionaries of Charity in the slums of Calcutta in 1948 to work among "the poorest of the poor". Initially founding a school, she then gathered other sisters who "rescued new-born babies abandoned on rubbish heaps; they sought out the sick; they took in lepers, the unemployed, and the mentally ill". Teresa achieved fame in the 1960s and began to establish convents around the world. By the time of her death in 1997, the religious institute she founded had more than 450 centres in over 100 countries.[186]
Many other religious institutes for women have been established down through the centuries, right up to modern times – though in the West, their work in education and medical care is increasingly being taken up by laypeople.
Educationalists
Education of the young has been a major ministry for Catholic women in religious institutes and the Catholic Church produced many of the world's first women professors.
Among the notable historical Catholic women teachers have been
The Englishwoman Mary Ward founded the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Loreto Sisters) in 1609, which has established schools throughout the world. Irishwoman Catherine McAuley founded the Sisters of Mercy in Dublin in 1831, at a time where access to education had been the preserve of Ireland's Protestant Ascendency. Her congregation went on to found schools and hospitals across the globe.[188]
In 1872, the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco (also called Daughters of Mary Help of Christians) was founded in Italy by Maria Domenica Mazzarello. The teaching order was to become the modern world's largest institute for women, with around 14,000 members in 2012.[53]
In the United States, Saint Katharine Drexel inherited a fortune and established the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People(now known as the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament), which founded schools across America and started Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans in 1925 for the education of African Americans.[189]
Ordination of women
The Catholic Church doctrine on the ordination of women, as expressed in the current
According to Zagano, "While in modern times ordination has been restricted to men, this has not always been the case. Women were ordained deacons up until the fifth century in the West and up to the 11th century in the East."[194]
According to Macy, the meaning of ordination during the Medieval Era was not what it is today. "Clergy came from and were assigned to a particular function within a particular community. Ordination in fact entailed and demanded appointment to a particular role in a particular church. Only in the twelfth century would ordination become an appointment for spiritual service not tied to any particular community."[195]
Also according to Macy during that period, women and men held the same power within their own orders. "Women's orders appear along with the orders of men in many early medieval documents."[196] Not only popes but also bishops included women among the ordained. Bishop Gilbert of Limerick included in his De usu ecclesiae (On the Practice of the Church) the injunction, ‘The bishop ordains abbots, abbesses, priests, and the six other grades.’ "[197] One story written in the second half of the twelfth century describes the role of female clerics. A learned holy woman was in the Church reading from a book, the life of a virgin, in front of the altar to other women religious. A man came in and saw this going on. He stated, "She was a good cleric."[197]
According to Macy In the tenth century, Bishop Atto of Vercelli wrote that due to the "shortage of workers, devout women were ordained to help men in leading the worship."[198][dubious ] "...Abbesses exercised functions that were later reserved to the male diaconate and presbyterate."[199] When the power of the priests was established during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the word "ordination" took on a different meaning. "The central role of the priest as an administrator of the sacraments became essential to ordination only with its redefinition...abbots and abbesses in the earlier centuries preached, heard confessions, and baptized, all powers that would be reserved to the priest in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries."[200] During this shift of roles in the Church, "the power to celebrate the Mass" was reserved for men.[200]
However others argue against this "Though in former times there were several semi-clerical ranks of women in the Church (see DEACONESSES), they were not admitted to orders properly so called and had no spiritual power".[201]
In front of a general audience in 2007, Pope Benedict XVI addressed the topic of the roles women have had during history in the Church. He stated, "The history of Christianity would have developed quite differently without the generous contribution of many women."[202] This goes to show that influential people within the Church believe that women have contributed to the growth of the Church. Pope Benedict XVI said, "The women, unlike the Twelve, did not abandon Jesus at the hour of His Passion. Outstanding among them was Mary Magdalene ... who was the first witness of the Resurrection and announced it to the others"[202] Mary Magdalene is one of the many women who were a significant figure. The Pope then "recalled how St. Thomas Aquinas referred to Mary Magdalene as ‘the apostle of the apostles.’ "[202]
The reservation of priestly ordination to men is listed by contemporary critics of the Catholic Church's treatment of women.[206] Several Protestant religious traditions have authorized women ministers and preachers. Many churches in the Anglican Communion already permit women to serve at the altar. The 23 sui iuris Catholic Churches and the Eastern Orthodox are committed to an exclusively male priesthood, and these churches comprise three-fourths of all Christians in the world.
"The need for women deacons is present in the life of the ministry of the Church. Women already serve in diaconal positions in the parish; visiting the homebound and hospitalized, catechizing the youth, aiding the poor with programs that provide food and clothing, caring for the church building and arranging for liturgies."[194] These roles are important, yes, but they fall below the roles in which men play within the Catholic Church.
A Catholic Youth Catechism states, "In male priests the Christian community was supposed to see a representation of Jesus Christ. Being a priest is a special service that also makes demands on a man in his gender-specific role as male and father."[207] This catechism also states that it is not demeaning to women that only men receive the sacrament of Holy Orders. "As we see in Mary, women play a role in the Church that is no less central than the masculine role, but it is feminine."[207]
In 1976, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith discussed the issue of the ordination of women and issued a Declaration on the Question of the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood which concluded that for various doctrinal, theological, and historical reasons, the Church "... does not consider herself authorized to admit women to priestly ordination". The most important reasons stated were first, the Church's determination to remain faithful to its constant tradition, second, its fidelity to Christ's will, and third, the idea of male representation due to the "sacramental nature" of the priesthood. The Biblical Commission, an advisory commission that was to study the exclusion of women from the ministerial priesthood from a biblical perspective, had three opposing findings. They were, "that the New Testament does not settle in a clear way ... whether women can be ordained as priests, [that] scriptural grounds alone are not enough to exclude the possibility of ordaining women, [and that] Christ's plan would not be transgressed by permitting the ordination of women."[87] In recent years, responding to questions about the matter, the Church has issued a number of documents repeating the same position.[208] In 1994, Pope John Paul II, declared the question closed in his letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis, stating: "Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance...I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful."[209] This encyclical further explained that the Church follows the example of Jesus, who chose only men for the specific priestly duty.[210][211]
Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) continued the church teaching regarding women's ordination as being "founded on the written Word of God, and from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium."[212]
Presently, the Catholic Church has a shortage of priests in developed nations. To compensate, the Church has used "lay ecclesial roles". "Various forms of lay ministry in Catholicism have developed in the last quarter-century without any formal blueprint, but rather in response to the practical reality that parishes and dioceses could not catechize their new converts, run small faith groups, plan liturgies, and administer facilities if they had to rely exclusively upon priests to do so."[213]
"We have in the United States 35,000 lay ecclesial ministers, of whom something like 80 or 85 percent are women."[214] This is a significant percentage, and this number shows how many women do not hold a leadership position within the Catholic Church. There may be a possibility of women being ordained as deacons, but this may seem improbable because Canon Law prevents women from being ordained as anything. People tend to believe that if a person is ordained a deacon then they are on their way to priesthood, but this is not true. Deacons and priests are two completely different orders.[214]
The argument for women being ordained as deacons is based on the fact that "the first deacons were called forth by apostles, not by Christ." The Church claims that Jesus called on his apostles and his apostles were male. Though according to this theory it does not apply to deacons. Also, again citing scripture, the only person who had the job title of "deacon" is Phoebe, a woman.[214] Pope Francis rejected the possibility of women deacons in February 2020.[215]
See also
Notes
- ^ For example, Pope Paul VI reduced and rearranged the number of feast days March 12, 1969, Sanctitas Clarior, as did several of his predecessors.
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