Step by Step

This labor song by Waldemar Hille and Pete Seeger uses lyrics from a miner’s union in the 1860s. It kept coming to my mind as I thought about today’s blog. I love the simple complexity of the lyrics and I especially love these singers whose purpose is to teach the song. I hope you’ll sing along because there’s a lot to sing about this week.

Competence and humility are words that come to mind in reading The Tablet’s story about Marianne Pohl-Henzen. She’s been appointed by her bishop in Switzerland “to succeed the present episcopal vicar” for part of the diocese. What struck me most about the interview was her statement: “However, as the last three episcopal vicars were all only part-time episcopal vicars and I did a lot of their work, it will hopefully be a lot easier for me now and easier for the faithful and the population to accept me (in the position).” Of course, she did a lot of their work and now she’s been given the job, just not the title and not the sacramental responsibility. Enough of the title to cause a tizzy in among the Church Militant crowd, but she feels confident that the bishop is trying to “promote women in the Church.”

Journalist and biblical scholar Anne Soupa has taken that one step further by suggesting herself as the next Archbishop of Lyon in France. La Croix International says that officials in the archdiocese of Lyon told them that they do “not want to dismiss the ‘symbolic’ character of Soupa’s initiative, which is aimed at promoting the place of women in the Church.” Soupa herself is quoted as saying “there is an ‘intellectual laziness’ in the way bishops are chosen. ‘As the pope invites us to do, it is appropriate to dissociate governance from ordained ministry.’” Maybe when women are managing enough of the church, administering the sacraments will seem like the next step. The officials note that their chief financial officer, “number two,” is also a woman. I find all that extraordinarily positive coming from the chancery.

La Croix International is also beginning another one of its series about women, this one profiling Catholic feminists in Africa. The day before the series started, Lucy Sarr published an interview with Sister Christiane Baka, dean of philosophy at the Catholic University of West Africa. It is a model of ambiguity! Baka presents both sides of the ordination question adequately, so I guess that she’s in favor but she just can’t say. At least she does not mention complementarity. The first profile in the actual series is of Lala Meïta Soumahoro Koné. Characterizing herself as a “Marian feminist,” Koné came to the church through devotion to the Rosary. That’s the Marian part. The feminist part was “de facto,” she says, after discrimination as she developed her career as communications entrepreneur and blogger, as well as marital challenges.

Last February Koné participated in the #RealAfricanWoman campaign. “Through lots of humor and irony, it challenged the stereotypes about African women. The initiative got a lot of attention and revealed a new generation of Afro-feminists who are outspoken and very active on social networks,” Sarr writes. Knowing about Catholic women involved in efforts like this in many places around the world is so encouraging.

Yet Koné’s comment about ordination is again ambiguous. “‘I’ve never had the feeling that God is not a feminist. Of course, it challenged me that, in my religion, it is always men who preside at Mass, but I have never seen this as a problem,’ she insists. ‘The religious sisters and the laity of the new communities have ministries that are also essential.’”

Balance is how I’d characterize the article in the The Toledo Blade about Rev. Bev Bingle, a Roman Catholic Women Priest. Prompting the article was the bishop’s receipt of the letter from the Vatican formally excommunicating Bingle, whose ordination was in 2013. His reaction is not exactly as sympathetic as the Lyon chancery to an expanded role for women in the church, to say the least. In this article, Bingle also speaks. “They can’t burn me at the stake, they can’t put me on a rack and make me recant.” She looks forward to the day when “we will eventually be seen as doing what we should have done, which is break an unjust rule.”

Finally, I was absolutely charmed by the video included in NCR’s article about the ordination of Shanon Sterringer by the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests in Austria last August. The video is beautiful, and mostly in German. I traveled right there along the Danube with my family later in August so it was especially meaningful to me.

In an unusually complete profile of a woman priest for NCR, we learn that Sterringer served 22 years at her parish. Her pastor – and mentor – says, “She was like an associate pastor here. I mean, she just did it all within the scope of what she was able to do and just transformed this place beautifully. The people love her very, very much.” A bit more pastoral than the episcopal vicar, but equally competent. Sterringer wore her alb on the altar there, and says, “Seeing a sanctuary that’s not just full of men forms people. There’s always a desire first to bring about as much positive change as you can within the fold.”

In 2016, Sterringer bought a property from the Byzantine Catholic Church and opened the Hildegarden, a nondenominational retreat center in Fairport Harbor, Ohio. Spending a few years in discernment before her ordination, she now leads the small faith community of Hildegard Haus there.