Holiness

Holiness is not something to which I think I am called. Holier than thou is something I might be accused of. But in hearing on the news about Pope Francis’ new document, Gaudete et exsultate, I felt pretty good. I try to follow the Great Commandment and I resist over-intellectualizing things, as you can figure out if you read this blog. So maybe this document is going to be comfortable for me.

Now I’ve read a lot more, though not the document itself. 99 pages are beyond me this week. I appreciate very much Joshua McElwee’s summary in NCR, though I immediately wonder how this exhortation will be cherry-picked by various sides in church debates, and I proceed to do the same.

The “genius of women” emerges again. In America, Meghan J. Clark gives the Pope a pass and James Martin uses “parent” instead of “mother” in recapitulating the Pope’s example of caring for a child. Gerald O’Connell notes that Francis “has frequently emphasized the need to give women a greater role in the church, has appointed women to some key positions in the Vatican and has also set up a commission to study the diaconate for women.” Small consolation for a small view of women’s roles.

For example, the Pope both strongly defends the right to life, yet criticizes those who elevate this above other justice issues, as in this excerpt from Massimo Faggioli in Commonweal: 

On the one side there is “the error of those Christians who separate these Gospel demands from their personal relationship with the Lord, from their interior union with him, from openness to his grace. Christianity thus becomes a sort of NGO” (§ 100). On the other side there is “the other harmful ideological error [that] is found in those who find suspect the social engagement of others, seeing it as superficial, worldly, secular, materialist, communist, or populist” (§ 101). This is relevant to the church’s engagement with the “life” issues, as Francis makes clear: “Our defense of the innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate, for at stake is the dignity of a human life, which is always sacred and demands love for each person, regardless of his or her stage of development. Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable in infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection…. We often hear it said that, with respect to relativism and the flaws of our present world, the situation of migrants, for example, is a lesser issue. Some Catholics consider it a secondary issue compared to the ‘grave’ bioethical questions. That a politician looking for votes might say such a thing is understandable, but not a Christian.” (§ 101–102).

I quote this at such length because I am concerned about the Pope’s view of women, who are found on both sides of this equation: those who have abortions and those who are trafficked and enslaved. I cannot ignore the dignity of women who choose to end a pregnancy, as I cannot ignore the women who have no choice in their victimization due to social conditions. I want my church to stand for both of them, and I know it does not. I am also concerned about the way abortion comes into every papal document. It seems to me that this is fundamental to how Francis thinks about women. Paul Moses has reflections today on the Argentinian sources of these concerns; Moses focuses less on women and more on politics, and I start to wonder if I should have waited until more comments are in.

No. I want to urge you to read Jamie Manson in NCR, which also came out online as I am writing this. Unlike me, Manson stays away from the abortion question and gets right to the heart of holiness as Francis understands it in the lives of women. Whereas Rita Ferrone is happy women are included, Manson recognizes the limits of his vision: women are present but secondary; I say, similar to his critique of those who elevate unborn life above those suffering in this life.

I examine my conscience as I read these summaries because I don’t want to be a single-issue ideologue – yet I believe at my core that women and men are equal and need to be treated by the church as such. Am I guilty under this Pope’s call to holiness? This is Manson’s conclusion:

But Francis’ prescribed path to holiness for women will remain narrow as long as he celebrates the patriarchal idea that God created men to be leaders and action-takers and women to be nurturers and servants. The path will remain truncated as long as he continues to exalt ideas that justify the rule of men over women.

Can women really achieve wholeness in an institutional church that does not see them as equal? Can women grow into holiness under a pope who insists that they are incapable of administering sacred rites? Can women reach the fullness of life to which God calls them in a church that rejects their gifts and bars them from ministering to the body of Christ?

As long as these limits remain on a woman’s ability to be fully alive in her church, there will be serious limits on the extent to which she can truly rejoice and be glad.

I always urged my students to explain why they used a quote, but I think I do not have to do that now. We are still waiting for a further development of doctrine to come from the Vatican.