At least it’s not feminism

Perhaps you’ve heard that Joseph Ratzinger (formerly known as Pope Benedict XVI) published a letter last week about the causes of sex abuse and other problems in the church. He does not once mention the evils of feminism! He makes glancing references to women, like the danger when a “girlfriend” of a lay pastoral worker, presumed male, might dine with seminarians, or the victim of a priest who presented his body to her as the body of Christ, a truly horrible example of an abuser. But feminism is not among the evils on his mind.

Actually, I feel somewhat neglected. As a true second-wave feminist, I thought I should do some educating about the previous positions of this head of the CDF and then Pope, so I checked on WOC’s website. New Woman, New Church is not indexed; there is only Ivone​​ Gebara’s article, an ecofeminist perspective on theological ideas of the human. The Table, this blog, is indexed, but feminism is not one of the categories, and I did not find my posts on feminism in the categories I checked. Kate McElwee writes, “We have a bibliography page that is not well-organized or maintained, but does have a reading list and some quotes.” I say, with few resources, what’s more important, the work or the indexing? There’s plenty on the site and the work gets done.

But after a lively discussion on feminism at last week’s Catholic Organizations for Renewal (COR) meeting, the bad angel in me decided to check the website for Catholics for Choice (CFC). Feminism is indeed a category in the topics box, but the only link there is to the first chapter of the 2014 history of the organization, Patricia Miller’s Good Catholics: The Battle Over Abortion In The Catholic Church. She begins with the conflicts over birth control, including Margaret Sanger, and she gets around to feminism by quoting various theologians and activists.  It’s a good review of the struggle to change church policy about reproductive issues, though Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique is misnamed “Feminist,” which it is, just not called that. And for me, feminism must continue to be a movement, not a mystique.

Then your intrepid blogger relied on the more bibliographically talented to find more from the CFC. There’s an article from the Washington Post  that quotes CFC’s then-president, Frances Kissling, on a letter Ratzinger issued in 2004. I’m not interested in his objections then; I’m interested in the strong position Kissling takes for feminism. “The demonization of feminism is most disturbing,” she said. “The feminism I know is all for partnerships and is all for empowering both men and women. The feminism I know does not ignore the fact that there are sexual differences.” Yea, Frances!

The following year a long article by CFC Board member Susan Farrell explores feminism more fully. She begins:

I became a feminist because of Roman Catholic social justice teachings. Born and raised Catholic, I found feminism totally compatible with what I had learned from my parents and my church. As reaffirmed in Cardinal Ratzinger’s latest “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and the World,” I believe that women and men are equal and made in the image of God. Supporting equality and human dignity, for me, means supporting feminism. This is not the feminism characterized by Ratzinger, but the feminism that seeks to liberate women and men from any form of oppression. This to me is the essence of social justice—human liberation leading to the authentic advancement of all humankind.

My experience exactly, including in the church. Equal wRites, the publication of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Women’s Ordination Conference (SEPA WOC), begins its mission statement, “As women and men rooted in faith, we call for justice, equality, and full partnership in ministry.” I love that, and I didn’t write it. SEPA WOC has almost always had at least one man on its Core Committee, and we don’t do a real index, either, though we do say ours is a “Catholic Feminist Newsletter.”

Farrell goes on to argue that true respect for women includes respect for their choices, including their reproductive choices, as conscience rights. She suggests reframing the debate beyond abortion and other negatively coded words to instead talk about empathy for women and the responsibility to meet social and family needs.

Emerita CFC board member Rosemary Radford Ruether writes about feminism from another perspective in 2001. She details “a similarity among fundamentalist movements: namely their efforts to reestablish rigid patriarchal control over women.” I find her use of “reestablish” surprisingly optimistic; I’m not sure that in the modern church, at least, there was a golden age when women exercised such freedom. Nevertheless, she continues, “This hostility to feminism or women’s autonomous agency, particularly in sexuality and reproduction, links all these right-wing groups together.”

Perhaps Joseph Ratzinger has matured, as feminism has. Certainly we have been strengthened and challenged by third wave feminism and the #MeToo movement. The articles analyzing the resigned Pope’s letter in NCR, Commonweal,  and LaCroix International suggest that he’s pursuing the political agenda he’s had for a while. America finds the letter fair. As we exist in this Holy Saturday moment, let us treasure our past and look forward to our future, knowing that we will continue to be called to witness for our truth, our justice, our faith, and our feminism.

Oh, that reminds me. You might be interested in the current issue of Conscience, CFC’s magazine. “What Women Want” includes various statements by women. I’m just embarrassed that I didn’t use the word feminist.