GENDER ISSUES

Feminism in the Vatican's view

NANDAGOPAL R. MENON

A recent document from the Vatican denounces "certain currents" of feminism but turns a blind eye to the important contributions made by the feminist movement and thought towards criticising a male-dominated society and partially emancipating women.

JOSEPH CARDINAL RATZINGER'S book Introduction to Christianity begins with an anecdote from the renowned Danish philosopher Sĝren Kierkegaard. When the coulisses in a theatre company caught fire, the clown, in full attire, went out to warn the people in the neighbourhood. But the people took it as just another trick by the clown to persuade them to visit the theatre. The clown repeatedly tried, in vain, to convince the people. Meanwhile, the fire spread and engulfed the whole area.

AP/OSSERVATORE ROMANO

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger with Pope John Paul II.

Ratzinger, the Prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (also known as the Holy Office), basically the modern avatar of the Inquisition, uses the anecdote to explain the plight of the theologian trying to speak about the relevance of faith to a modern and indifferent world. But Ratzinger, a respected German theologian who has taught in the Universities of Tübingen, Bonn and Münster, does not blame the world alone. He also speaks of the "oppressive power of unbelief in the midst of his [theologian's] own will to believe" (Introduction to Christianity; Ignatius Press, 1990; page 17).

The Cardinal's lament is understandable. But what if, in a reversal of roles, the people were right in suspecting the motives of the clown? What if the clown got it all wrong? What if there was no fire?

Such an impression and healthy scepticism cannot escape one who reads the Vatican's invective against "certain currents" of feminism, "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World", published on July 31 (but dated May 31) by the Holy Office. The document attacks a relatively less influential trend in feminist thought and ignores completely the substantial contributions made by women's rights groups and feminist thought towards disclosing, criticising and agitating against gender-based discrimination and the patriarchal power structures that legitimise such acts. It also reiterates the teaching of the Church, "expert in humanity", on women and their role in the familial, social, political and ecclesiastical spheres. Issued under the name of Ratzinger and Archbishop Angelo Amato, S.D.B., the Secretary of the Holy Office, the document has been endorsed by Pope John Paul II.

The document, several years in the making, identifies two tendencies in "new approaches to women's issues" that are detrimental to the "authentic advancement of women". The first one underscores the "conditions of subordination" of women and depicts them as "adversaries of men". One of the "lethal effects" of this trend is the "harmful confusion regarding the human person" and the destruction of the traditional two-parent (father and mother) structure of the family. However, the truth is far more sophisticated. The pioneer feminist theologian and activist Rosemary Radford Ruether, currently Carpenter Professor of Feminist Theology at the Pacific School of Religion, California, notes: "Very few feminists have been consistently female-dominant in their views; more often there has been a mix of egalitarian and feminine superiority themes" ("The Emergence of Christian Feminist Theology"; The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Theology, edited by Susan Frank Parsons; Cambridge University Press, 2002; page 3).

A corollary of this school of thought is the tendency to deny the fundamental differences between the sexes. "In this perspective, physical difference, termed sex, is minimised, while the purely cultural element, termed gender, is emphasised to the maximum and held to be primary." The results, inter alia, include legitimisation of homosexuality. This second tendency, it is alleged, basically stems from a desire for "liberation from biological determination", which is defined as attempts and belief in the ability to mould oneself irrespective of his or her "essential constitution".

In an apparent reference to feminist biblical hermeneutics, the document denounces readings of the Bible which portray it as putting forward a "patriarchal conception of God nourished by an essentially male-dominated culture". It alleges that feminist theologians reject the importance of the fact that Jesus "the Son of God assumed human nature in its male form".

THE Church's corrective to such tendencies is based on a "biblical vision" of the "collaboration of men and women", which affirms that differences between the sexes ought to be viewed as complementary rather than competitive or contradictory. A major portion of the document is devoted to explaining this "vision", primarily through an exegesis of the first three chapters of Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew Bible. In a nutshell, the "gender complementarity model" suggests that at the time of "creation", sexuality of a person was inscribed and encoded in his or her very being (ontological dimension) and not just in his or her body and psyche. Hence man, being the first to be "created" by God, is essentially active and dynamic like his "Creator"; and woman, "created" to be a "helper fit for him [man]", is essentially passive and receptive. The document observes: "... [I]n her deepest and original being, [she] exists `for the other'... "

Similarly, the whole of "created" reality and the Church (both brides) have a nuptial relationship with God (bridegroom). Importantly, this theological perspective and exegesis have been challenged by feminist theologians. Prominent Catholic feminist theologian Susan A. Ross says: "Its [the Vatican's] exegesis is primarily a `spiritual' and `allegorical' one, and does not take into account historical-critical exegesis, which would highlight not only the various positive but also negative ways that this metaphor has been used".

The document says that the complementary relationship between man and woman was upset by Original Sin and, as a result, "love will frequently be debased into pure self-seeking, in a relationship which ignores and kills love and replaces it with the yoke of domination of one sex over the other". However, in the context of the spiritual mysteries linked to the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (termed Paschal mystery in theology), the "rivalry, enmity and violence which disfigured the relationship... can be overcome and have been overcome".

Earlier papal documents that dealt with women-related issues, especially Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae (1968), and John Paul II's Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem (1988) and "Letter to Women" (1995), too were based on the same theological vision. This theological anthropology, sometimes misleadingly called "new feminism", has also been profoundly influenced by the thought of the Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar and often been associated with the journal Communio: International Catholic Review, founded in the late 1970s by Ratzinger, Balthasar and the French Jesuit theologian Henri de Lubac.

Based on this model, the document narrates the importance of "feminine values" in the Church and society. Interestingly, it is in this section that the Vatican, without acknowledging it, raises issues that have been part of the feminist agenda since the origins of the movement. After proclaiming "capacity for the other", basically manifested in motherhood, as one of the fundamental "feminine values", it adds that "women should [not] be considered from the sole perspective of physical procreation". The document says: "The Christian vocation of virginity... refutes any attempt to enclose women in mere biological destiny." Also praised is woman's "respect for what is concrete" in contrast to "abstractions" and her "singular capacity to persevere in adversity". It goes on to stress the importance of women's role in the family and in places of work and of their taking up social responsibilities. Restating a traditional demand of women's rights groups, it asserts that "a just valuing of the work of women within the family is required". Women ought not to be confronted with the choice of "relinquishing their family life or enduring continual stress" at the workplace.

In the ecclesiastical realm, the document is by and large a repetition of certain basic insights of the Magisterium on the Virgin Mary and advances, yet again, theological reasons for the non-ordination of women. Mary is "a mirror placed before the Church" and "fundamental reference" for the Church in its vocation of proclaiming the Gospel. Moreover, Mary's "dispositions of listening, welcoming, humility, faithfulness, praise and waiting" are to characterise and distinguish women who are expected to "live them with particular intensity and naturalness". Above all, the document reaffirms the stand of earlier ones - especially the Holy Office's 1976 Declaration Inter Insigniores and Pope John Paul II's 1994 Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis - to defend the reservation of priestly ordination exclusively for men.

Significantly, in recent times, the Vatican has included some women at senior positions in the overwhelmingly male-dominated structure of the Roman Curia. Especially noteworthy was the appointment, on April 24, of the Italian Sr. Enrica Rosanna as under-secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, a powerful curial body responsible for overseeing all activities of the religious orders of the Church. The last and only woman to occupy a post at this level was the Australian Rosemary Goldie, who was an under-secretary in the Council for the Laity, set up by Pope Paul VI on an experimental basis in 1967. However, when that office was upgraded as a Pontifical Council in 1976, she was shown the door.

It took another 28 years for a woman to hold such a top post in the Curia. On March 6, the American Sr. Sara Butler, M.S.B.T., and the German laywoman Barbara Hallensleben were nominated members of the International Theological Commission, a forum comprising theologians who advise the Holy Office. On March 9, Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law at the Harvard Law School, was appointed president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

THE document comes in the wake of a series of others that have cracked down upon perceived deviations from the Vatican's teachings.

* The Holy Office criticised moves, especially in the United States and some European countries, to legalise marriages between homosexual persons. A July 2003 document reiterated the Church's teaching that homosexuality is "objectively disordered" and homosexual acts are "sins gravely contrary to chastity".

* Catholic politicians were reminded that "in the face of fundamental and inalienable ethical demands" they and all lay faithful had the right and duty to defend the fundamentals of faith and moral truth. This January 2003 note of the Holy Office added fuel to a political and religious controversy in the U.S. regarding the Democratic Party's presidential candidate John Kerry's recorded support to abortion. There were demands, especially from some bishops and in the form of a private memorandum from Ratzinger termed "Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion: General Principles", that Kerry, a Catholic, be denied communion. However, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops refused to lay down hard and fast rules in this regard and left the issue to the discretion of the individual bishop concerned.

* "Relativistic theories" that justified, both de facto and de jure, religious pluralism were criticised and rejected. The Holy Office's August 2000 Declaration, Dominus Iesus, attacked fashionable theories in the philosophy of religion and theology that proclaimed the fundamental similarity and equal relevance of all religions and disputed the uniqueness of the Christian revelation and the Catholic Church. It was also meant to act as an important point of reference in inter-religious dialogues. In this regard, the Belgian Jesuit Fr. Jacques Dupuis' book, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, was examined by the Holy Office in 2001 for alleged deviations from orthodoxy. Fr. Dupuis was interrogated and a notification clarifying "notable ambiguities and difficulties on important doctrinal points" in the work was issued to be included in all its future editions and translations.

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