‘A long way to go’

— Catholic women call for wide-ranging church reforms in new international survey

By and

Catholic women across the world are calling for a wide range of reforms to the church, according to the results of our survey of more than 17,000 Catholic women from over 100 countries published this month.

A substantial majority were concerned about the prevalence of abuse, racism, and sexism in church contexts, and many raised issues relating to transparency and accountability in church leadership and governance.

The International Survey of Catholic Women is one of the most extensive surveys of Catholic women ever undertaken, and its findings should inform lasting and genuine change in the Catholic Church.

Why we did this survey

The survey was initiated by Catholic Women Speak in response to the invitation of Pope Francis for the Catholic Church to engage in a process of “synodality” for the 2021-2023 Synod of Bishops. The Synod will examine how the church comes together and is considered to be of great importance to major issues facing the church.

The aim of the survey was to gather feedback on the experiences of Catholic women. It provides insights into the complex realities of Catholic women’s lives, the ways in which they express their faith, and their relationships with the institutional church. We devised and managed the survey along with Professor Tina Beattie from the University of Roehampton, London.

The large number of responses clearly indicates a desire by Catholic women to share their aspirations and frustrations, and to make their views on the situation of women in the Catholic Church known to the Synod.

Respondents identified themselves as women from all walks of life – single, married, divorced, LGBTIQ, and religious. While the findings cannot claim to be representative of all Catholic women, they articulate the diverse hopes and struggles of women in the worldwide church.

The views of Catholic women reflect the cultural and communal contexts within which their faith is experienced and practised. This diversity is rarely represented in church documents or theology, and many women struggle to see the relevance of church teachings to the complex realities of their lives.

Many women ‘conflicted’ with the Catholic Church

The survey found that even when women have considerable struggles with Catholic institutions, nearly 90% said their Catholic identity is important to them. Many continue to practise their faith despite ongoing difficulties with the institutional church.

Several respondents used words like “frustrated”, “hurt”, “angry”, and “conflicted” when describing their relationship with the church.

Most respondents said they would welcome reform in the Catholic Church, especially – but not exclusively – regarding the role and representation of women.

One woman from Australia observed “we walk the line of being valuable members of society but voiceless in many elements of the church”. Another, from Nicaragua said, “stop making women invisible”.

Respondents raised issues related to:

A minority of respondents expressed a preference for church reform based on a pre-Vatican II model of authority, priesthood, and liturgy. Vatican II was an important meeting of all Catholic bishops held in Rome between 1962-1965 who made progressive decisions about the future of the worldwide church.

Abuse remains a central problem

Respondents consistently identified the sexual, physical, and emotional abuse of women, children, and other vulnerable people as a central problem for the church.

Some respondents disclosed experiences of abuse and harassment, while others expressed disappointment at the lack of effective action to address the crisis of sexual abuse.

One woman from Canada wrote:

they have a long way to go in dealing with the scandal and cover up. I know this firsthand. I feel as betrayed by the institutional betrayal as I do by my abuser […] This is coming from a committed lifelong Catholic who has never left the church.

Many respondents were deeply concerned about transparency and accountability in church leadership and governance. There was agreement that a less hierarchical and authoritarian model of the church was urgently needed, with greater collaboration and sharing of authority between clergy and laity (lay people).

A substantial majority of respondents identified clericalism as having a negative impact on church life. Clericalism is the idealisation of male clerics and subsequent abuses of power.

A respondent from Panama remarked, “I wish that women had more voice and that we were not abused by clericalism that excludes us and takes away our dignity”.

Most respondents linked their Catholic identity with social justice, and wanted church leaders to address poverty and marginalisation. Several raised the issue of economic justice in church affairs, including the lack of adequate pay for female church workers, both lay and religious.

The challenge for the Synod is to demonstrate that the many concerns raised by respondents in the survey are carefully listened to and addressed.

Complete Article HERE!

Pope Names First Women to Office That Helps Select Bishops

The three women will serve five-year terms in the Vatican office that vets candidates, enhancing the role of women in the church’s operations.

A Vatican courtyard. One expert said the appointment of three women to a previously all-male committee would resonate throughout the church.

By Gaia Pianigiani

Pope Francis on Wednesday appointed women for the first time to the office that advises him in the choice of bishops across the globe, a move that bolsters efforts to give women a larger voice in the church’s operations.

The decision to name the three women — two nuns and a laywoman — as members of the Congregation for Bishops will put them in position to influence the selection of the 5,300 bishops who lead dioceses and play a prominent role in the church’s interaction with the faithful all over the world.

“The Pope is saying that the church is choosing bishops together with women,” said Paolo Rodari, a Vatican expert for the Italian daily La Repubblica. “Even in the most male chauvinist niches of the church, his message will resonate.”

The priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church is restricted to men only, based on doctrinal teaching that all of Jesus’ apostles were male. But women’s groups have been pressing for more authority, given that women participate so actively in church life.

The three women who were selected are Sister Raffaella Petrini, the highest-ranking woman in the Vatican City State and the deputy governor of the area; Sister Yvonne Reungoat, the French former superior general of an Italian religious order, the Daughters of Mary the Helper; and a laywoman, Maria Lia Zervino, president of the World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations.

The office’s members meet a couple of times a month in Rome to evaluate candidates for bishop submitted by Vatican ambassadors and archbishops. It then advises the pope, who has the final word and has the latitude to appoint candidates who have not been assessed by the panel.

The size of the office varies, but the group announced on Wednesday includes 14 people — the three women, along with 11 cardinals, bishops and priests, who will serve five-year terms.

Francis signaled his intention to appoint women to the office in an interview with Reuters earlier this month. “I am open to giving an opportunity,” Francis told Reuters, referring to women. “This way, things are opening up a bit.”

The pope noted in the interview that the new Constitution for the Holy See, which went into effect last month, allows any baptized Catholic to lead most sections of the Vatican’s central administration, indicating that he planned to appoint more women.

He cited the department for Catholic Education and Culture, and the Apostolic Library, now all run by male prelates, as other prominent positions that might soon be held by women.

In recent years, Francis has appointed other women to influential roles that had previously been held only by men, including Sister Alessandra Smerilli, who was named to a deputy position in the Vatican’s development office, which deals with justice and peace issues.

Yet not everyone was convinced that the presence of women on the bishop-selection office would lead to meaningful change.

“These women were chosen because they are in line with the Vatican’s hierarchy,” said Lucetta Scaraffia, a feminist, church historian and founder of Women Church World, the Vatican’s women magazine that exposed the economic exploitation and abuse of nuns, said in a phone interview. “Nothing will change, I think.”

Although women will now be significantly involved at the end of the process of evaluating potential bishops, she expressed concern that the pipeline for identifying and proposing candidates begins at the local level, which is dominated by men.

The process begins with bishops, who identify the priests who are deemed to be suitable. Their names are vetted by Vatican ambassadors, who then forward them to the Rome-based office.

Ms. Scaraffia is a Vatican critic on the role given to Catholic women. She resigned from her editorial post at the magazine, citing an “arid method of the top-down selection, under direct male control, of women who are perceived as being reliable.”

“Things change slowly at the Vatican,” she said.

Complete Article HERE!

Why the Catholic Church vote on women deacons feels personal

Elizabeth Young was professed as a Sister of Mercy in 2010.

by Elizabeth Young

The Australian Catholic Church’s vote last week on the role of women in the church felt personal.

From when I was seven years old, I longed to commit my life in ordained ministry, and expressed this to my Archbishop at age 11. He responded, “There are many other things that women can do in the Church.”

Well, I am now 37, and have sincerely tried. I have been privileged to become a Sister of Mercy, youth ministry co-ordinator, pastoral worker, pastoral associate and chaplain. My whole employed life has been in the church, at the grassroots, on the margins.

However, ordination – which would allow women to serve in the ministry – is our official recognition and authorisation of this as a stable lifelong calling. This would allow us to perform weddings, funerals and baptisms, which have been shown to serve the most valued role for churches in Australian society.

Last week, bishops and representatives of the Australian Catholic Church concluded over four years of consultations in the highest form of church assembly with legislative authority: a Plenary Council.

At a time when the census shows that Catholics have decreased from 22.6 per cent to 20 per cent of the Australian population, the Council was to renew us in following Jesus, to reach out with hope, spirituality, ethics and justice inspired by faith. The 277 members listened to hundreds of thousands of Australians before voting on motions for a final document.

What started well turned into a crisis. On Wednesday, the two motions relating to “Witnessing to the Equal Dignity of Women and Men” did not receive a qualified majority from the bishops, whose votes count. Soon, worldwide news reported that more than 60 members stood up in shock.

The whole Council stalled. At that point I was starting to question my own humanity and the value of my baptism. Others I spoke to were pained, bruised and disillusioned.

One of the most controversial motions, it seems, was the potential ordination of women to the diaconate. Across the Christian world, there has been a revival of permanent deacons, to complement bishops and priests in ordained ministry. Here, women deacons exist in the Anglican and Uniting Church, among others.

Evidence shows that women were ordained as deacons until the 12th century. Strangely, however, we heard no reason why some voted against reinstituting this possibility. Women like me can only imagine why our participation might be unwelcome.

Is it a fear of women, or our “impurity” that prevented us from serving on the sanctuary? Is it the 13th-century legal phrase: “the impediment of sex”? Or is it that there are many available lay ministries and we don’t need to “clericalise women”?

That last one hits hard. What I already do appears very similar to the ministry of a deacon. I am not asking for power, but to better serve people’s spiritual needs, and to open more ministry pathways for future generations of Catholics. Furthermore, I want to acknowledge and appreciate many other callings, including parents, consecrated, priests, educators, evangelists, catechists, administrators and lay ecclesial ministers.

When the entire permanent diaconate flourishes – men and women – everyone should be encouraged and empowered in their own vocations. In ordaining women, bishops would gain ministerial security and oversight, firmly within the tradition of the Church. Compared with less biblical and historical options, this is quite a conservative ministry proposal.

Last Friday at the Council, a redeveloped set of motions finally passed. While parts were toned down, the final document tentatively states that, “should the universal law of the Church be modified to authorise the diaconate for women, the Plenary Council recommends that the Australian Bishops examine how best to implement it in the context of the Church in Australia”.

After an unexpectedly emotional week, I am actually excited. Since the 1960s, four Vatican Commissions have studied the question of women deacons, without conclusion. However, journalist and Vatican expert, Christopher Lamb, says that Pope Francis expects change to happen from the ground up. That is, if a consensus is formed at the grassroots in local church assemblies, only then will he, or a future Pope, move forward.

So I am praying that our voices reach the local and international level. That we model a Church where there is “no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus”. (Gal 3:28)

That we serve the needy and challenge the comfortable. And I would like to thank everyone who is sharing this conversation, now and in the future.

Complete Article HERE!

Vatican Church reforms: Now, women to have a say in appointment of bishops

Pope Francis revealed that women may have a say in choosing the Catholic Church’s Bishops who are all men. This is a significant step forward in including women in higher decision-making roles.

The current Pontiff has made several other appointments of women to high-ranking administrative posts.

By Dipavali Hazra

Pope Francis has been spearheading some radical reforms in the Vatican Church that have opened up doors for women to play a role in the seat of Catholic power. While women cannot move up in the religious hierarchy in the Catholic Church, they will, for the first time ever, have a say in the appointment of Bishops- who are all men.

Though this has not been officially announced yet, the Pope revealed in an interview with Reuters that: “Two women will be appointed for the first time in the committee to elect bishops in the Congregation for Bishops.”

He did not elaborate on who were the women who could be appointed to this committee that comprises cardinals, bishops and priests nor did he say when the announcement would me made official. However, the presence of women in one of the top decision-making bodies is a significant step forward in the fairly orthodox religious organisation. This image of the Catholic Church is one that Pope Francis has been trying to modify.

His tenure has been marked with more openness toward not only women but also homosexuals. He has previously supported same-sex “civil unions” calling for their right to be in a family. As Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he did not support same-sex marriage but did back legal protection for those who chose such living arrangements.

Though his previous comments have appeared to flip flop on homosexuality, his more conciliatory approach has divided people, with liberals welcoming his words, conservatives unhappy and analysts observing that real change would come only when legal protections are given in the church doctrine and homosexual behaviour is no longer considered a “sin”.

Also, in the backdrop of the US Supreme Court abortion ruling, the Pope condemned the practice and compared it to “hiring a hit-man to solve a problem”.

Meanwhile, as far as women’s representation is concerned, Pope Francis, during his 9-year tenure, has certainly paved the way for more opportunities in the Vatican.

In March 2022, he had approved a new constitution for the Vatican’s central administration known as the Curia. The new constitution replaced St John Paul II’s founding constitution, which was written in 1988. One of its key reforms was to permit any baptised lay man and woman to head any of the Vatican’s ministries. In a big shift from positions of power being held only by male clergy, the preamble to the new constitution which was adopted on June 5 says, “The pope, bishops and other ordained ministers are not the only evangelizers in the Church.” Another section of the constitution reads: “Any member of the faithful can head a dicastery (Curia department) or organism.”

When he was asked during the Reuters interview about which Vatican departments could be headed by a member of the public as opposed to the clergy he said that such positions could be cleared in the department for Catholic Education and Culture and the Apostolic Library.

Last year Pope Francis had appointed Sister Raffaella Petrini, to the number two position in the Vatican City Governorate which oversees the Vatican offices and residences in the Vatican city state as well as in Rome. Petrini is the first woman to hold the position.

The current Pontiff has made several other appointments of women to high-ranking administrative posts. In January 2020, Francesca di Giovanni was named Undersecretary for the multilateral sector in the Secretariat of State’s Section for Relations with States and International Organizations, another first.

Sister Nathalie Becquart, Sister Alessandra Smerilli, Sister Carmen Ros Nortes are other women who have been appointed to important positions.

Despite the advances made so far, women have traditionally never been ordained and cannot become priests, bishops or popes in the Catholic Church. The Anglican Church, however, has set a precedent by ordaining women Bishops.

Complete Article HERE!

Black Catholic nuns: A compelling, long-overlooked history

by DAVID CRARY

Even as a young adult, Shannen Dee Williams – who grew up Black and Catholic in Memphis, Tennessee – knew of only one Black nun, and a fake one at that: Sister Mary Clarence, as played by Whoopi Goldberg in the comic film “Sister Act.”

After 14 years of tenacious research, Williams – a history professor at the University of Dayton – arguably now knows more about America’s Black nuns than anyone in the world. Her comprehensive and compelling history of them, “Subversive Habits,” will be published May 17.

Williams found that many Black nuns were modest about their achievements and reticent about sharing details of bad experiences, such as encountering racism and discrimination. Some acknowledged wrenching events only after Williams confronted them with details gleaned from other sources.

“For me, it was about recognizing the ways in which trauma silences people in ways they may not even be aware of,” she said.

The story is told chronologically, yet always in the context of a theme Williams forcefully outlines in her preface: that the nearly 200-year history of these nuns in the U.S. has been overlooked or suppressed by those who resented or disrespected them.

“For far too long, scholars of the American, Catholic, and Black pasts have unconsciously or consciously declared — by virtue of misrepresentation, marginalization, and outright erasure — that the history of Black Catholic nuns does not matter,” Williams writes, depicting her book as proof that their history “has always mattered.”

The book arrives as numerous American institutions, including religious groups, grapple with their racist pasts and shine a spotlight on their communities’ overlooked Black pioneers.

Williams begins her narrative in the pre-Civil War era when some Black women – even in slave-holding states – found their way into Catholic sisterhood. Some entered previously whites-only orders, often in subservient roles, while a few trailblazing women succeeded in forming orders for Black nuns in Baltimore and New Orleans.

Even as the number of American nuns – of all races – shrinks relentlessly, that Baltimore order founded in 1829 remains intact, continuing its mission to educate Black youths. Some current members of the Oblate Sisters of Providence help run Saint Frances Academy, a high school serving low-income Black neighborhoods.

Some of the most detailed passages in “Subversive Habits” recount the Jim Crow era, extending from the 1870s through the 1950s, when Black nuns were not spared from the segregation and discrimination endured by many other African Americans.

In the 1960s, Williams writes, Black nuns were often discouraged or blocked by their white superiors from engaging in the civil rights struggle.

Yet one of them, Sister Mary Antona Ebo, was on the front lines of marchers who gathered in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 in support of Black voting rights and in protest of the violence of Bloody Sunday when white state troopers brutally dispersed peaceful Black demonstrators. An Associated Press photo of Ebo and other nuns in the march on March 10 — three days after Bloody Sunday — ran on the front pages of many newspapers.

During two decades before Selma, Ebo faced repeated struggles to break down racial barriers. At one point she was denied admittance to Catholic nursing schools because of her race, and later endured segregation policies at the white-led order of sisters she joined in St. Louis in 1946, according to Williams.

The idea for “Subversive Habits” took shape in 2007, when Williams – then a graduate student at Rutgers University – was desperately seeking a compelling topic for a paper due in a seminar on African American history.

At the library, she searched through microfilm editions of Black-owned newspapers and came across a 1968 article in the Pittsburgh Courier about a group of Catholic nuns forming the National Black Sisters’ Conference.

The accompanying photo, of four smiling Black nuns, “literally stopped me in my tracks,” she said. “I was raised Catholic … How did I not know that Black nuns existed?”

Mesmerized by her discovery, she began devouring “everything I could that had been published about Black Catholic history,” while setting out to interview the founding members of the National Black Sisters’ Conference.

Among the women Williams interviewed extensively was Patricia Grey, who was a nun in the Sisters of Mercy and a founder of the NBSC before leaving religious life in 1974.

Grey shared with The Associated Press some painful memories from 1960, when – as an aspiring nurse – she was rejected for membership in a Catholic order because she was Black.

“I was so hurt and disappointed, I couldn’t believe it,” she said about reading that rejection letter. “I remember crumbling it up and I didn’t even want to look at it again or think about it again.”

Grey initially was reluctant to assist with “Subversive Habits,” but eventually shared her own story and her personal archives after urging Williams to write about “the mostly unsung and under-researched history” of America’s Black nuns.

“If you can, try to tell all of our stories,” Grey told her.

Williams set out to do just that – scouring overlooked archives, previously sealed church records and out-of-print books, while conducting more than 100 interviews.

“I bore witness to a profoundly unfamiliar history that disrupts and revises much of what has been said and written about the U.S. Catholic Church and the place of Black people within it,” Williams writes. “Because it is impossible to narrate Black sisters’ journey in the United States — accurately and honestly — without confronting the Church’s largely unacknowledged and unreconciled histories of colonialism, slavery, and segregation.”

Historians have been unable to identify the nation’s first Black Catholic nun, but Williams recounts some of the earliest moves to bring Black women into Catholic religious orders – in some cases on the expectation they would function as servants.

One of the oldest Black sisterhoods, the Sisters of the Holy Family, formed in New Orleans in 1842 because white sisterhoods in Louisiana, including the slave-holding Ursuline order, refused to accept African Americans.

The principal founder of that New Orleans order — Henriette Delille — and Oblate Sisters of Providence founder Mary Lange are among three Black nuns from the U.S. designated by Catholic officials as worthy of consideration for sainthood. The other is Sister Thea Bowman, a beloved educator, evangelist and singer who died in Mississippi in 1990 and is buried in Williams’s hometown of Memphis.

Researching less prominent nuns, Williams faced many challenges – for example tracking down Catholic sisters who were known to their contemporaries by their religious names but were listed in archives by their secular names.

Among the many pioneers is Sister Cora Marie Billings, who as a 17-year-old in 1956 became the first Black person admitted into the Sisters of Mercy in Philadelphia. Later, she was the first Black nun to teach in a Catholic high school in Philadelphia and was a co-founder of the National Black Sisters’ Conference.

In 1990, Billings became the first Black woman in the U.S. to manage a Catholic parish when she was named pastoral coordinator for St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Richmond, Virginia.

“I’ve gone through many situations of racism and oppression throughout my life,” Billings told The Associated Press. “But somehow or other, I’ve just dealt with it and then kept on going.”

According to recent figures from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, there are about 400 African American religious sisters, out of a total of roughly 40,000 nuns.

That overall figure is only one-fourth of the 160,000 nuns in 1970, according to statistics compiled by Catholic researchers at Georgetown University. Whatever their races, many of the remaining nuns are elderly, and the influx of youthful novices is sparse.

The Baltimore-based Oblate Sisters of Providence used to have more than 300 members, according to its superior general, Sister Rita Michelle Proctor, and now has less than 50 – most of them living at the motherhouse in Baltimore’s outskirts.

“Though we’re small, we are still about serving God and God’s people.” Proctor said. “Most of us are elderly, but we still want to do so for as long as God is calling us to.”

Even with diminished ranks, the Oblate Sisters continue to operate Saint Frances Academy – founded in Baltimore by Mary Lange in 1828. The coed school is the country’s oldest continually operating Black Catholic educational facility, with a mission prioritizing help for “the poor and the neglected.”

Williams, in an interview with the AP, said she was considering leaving the Catholic church – due partly to its handling of racial issues – at the time she started researching Black nuns. Hearing their histories, in their own voices, revitalized her faith, she said.

“As these women were telling me their stories, they were also preaching to me in a such a beautiful way,” Williams said. “It wasn’t done in a way that reflected any anger — they had already made their peace with it, despite the unholy discrimination they had faced.”

What keeps her in the church now, Williams said, is a commitment to these women who chose to share their stories.

“It took a lot for them to get it out,” she said. “I remain in awe of these women, of their faithfulness.”

Complete Article HERE!