O America

I expect more from the Jesuits. I admit that I idealize the intellectual tradition I have always believed they embody. So I cannot understand why America magazine has begun publishing Pia de Solenni, who recently ended her tenure as Chancellor of the Diocese of Orange in California.

Her first article in May is “What the debate over deacons get wrong about Catholic women in leadership.” I found it unremarkable at the time. De Solenni reminds readers that some women already have important positions like hers, and many others do the work of the church in roles like teachers and social justice providers. She echoes various papal documents to deliver what she sees as a greater challenge: for lay persons to to influence “the culture and the world” through “social media, politics, science, the arts, education and business.”

De Solenni’s second article this week is remarkable, however. “Should Catholic women preach at Mass? Here’s a better question.” She gets to the question at the very end of the article:

We have already proven that women and men can do many of the same things. Now we need to advance the conversation to one of being. Specifically, how does the reality of being a specific sexually differentiated human person—a woman or a man—impact what a person does? Maybe the first question we need to ask is: Does being a woman or a man affect what I do?

Judging from our cultural perceptions of men, which limit in harmful ways what is considered to be properly masculine, we need to do this work as it relates to both women and men. Maybe even together.

Leaving out the obvious cases of transgender and other persons who identify as queer, this still feels incredibly dated, and shifts the focus from women to men. These issues have been studied by experts in sexuality and gender for the last seventy years, at least.

No, a clue to de Solenni’s position is in that italicized word “being.” Women can’t “be” priests, and therefore preachers, because their nature has not been ontologically changed by Holy Orders, making them “truly another Christ.” This doesn’t really lead to clericalism, she suggests; it protects the church from defects in “the character of the priest.” Well, we know all about that.

The problem with allowing women a similar ordination is “Christ’s relationship to the church, namely that of the bridegroom to the bride, a specific image that points to a reality.” This image has been reinforced in “countless works of art” and the words of Pope Francis and Thomas Aquinas.

But you already know all that. You would not be reading this blog if you agreed with de Solenni’s position. What amazes me is that America publishes it. This is not the Catholic Women’s Forum, part of the theologically conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), for which de Solenni also writes.

An image only points to a reality, as she suggests. It is not the reality. It is idolatry to cling to an image that violates justice and charity, and this image of the bridegroom does both. It does harm to the church by depriving it of worthy priests and to the people of God by depriving them of sacramentally validated people of all genders.

Rebecca Bratten Weiss also considers de Solenni’s article in her Patheos post from her blog “Suspended in Her Jar,” an image I could idolize. She’s more interested in evaluating de Solenni’s theology than I am. I’m more interested in the politics of it all. Weiss begins her article with a recent tweet from America stalwart, Jesuit James Martin:

It is stupefying to me that women cannot preach at Mass. The faithful during Mass, as well as the presiders, are missing out on the wisdom, experience and inspired reflections of half of its members. St. Mary Magdalene, pray for us.

I wonder if there is an internal debate at America. Maybe some are uncomfortable with such overt support for women. Editor Matt Malone’s celebration of a study of Catholic women which reached very conservative conclusions almost a year ago suggests that the magazine is not ready to challenge orthodoxy.

This is also the week that Pope Francis weighs in, in a way. Widely reported is his airplane comment: “Ideology is infiltrating doctrine,” he said. “And when doctrine slips into ideology, there is the possibility of a schism.” I always get a little scared when I see headlines about this – will the Pope be criticizing us? But he’s not. “Today, we have many schools of rigidity within the church, which are not schismatic but are Christian paths that are pseudo-schismatic, which will end poorly,” he said. He is concerned about the growing strength of conservative groups like the EPPC. In this case, America might consider the historic role of the Jesuits in defending the Pope.

I also take the Pope’s comments as a warning to us not to be rigid, but, honestly, we’d love to dialogue with the Pope about women. In fact, we might use the questions Weiss poses to de Solenni at the end of her article:

If there is a better question, how about this one: why?

Why is it so important for them to keep us silent?

What do they have to lose, should we women find our voices?

That does get into the politics of it, and I will be interested if and how America answers.