Synod Evaluation III: Ireland!

Last week no new article appealed to me. This week, the results of the Irish Synod came out, and WOW. Literally, Women’s Ordination Worldwide!

After Australia and Germany, here we go again. In contrast to the Australian kerfuffle over the role of women, the Irish are not afraid to say what they really want.

Mary McAleese, the former Irish president, described the document as “as explosive, life-altering, dogma-altering, Church-altering”, The Irish Times reported. “There’s no denying these voices now,” she said. “I hope that when it is received in Rome it will be fully honoured.”

Sarah McDonald and Madoc Cairns quote her and summarize in The Tablet:

The synthesis notes that the role of women in the Church was mentioned in almost every submission received and there was a call for women to be given equal treatment within the Church structures in terms of leadership and decision making.

One submission quoted in the report states: “Women have a special place in the Church but not an equal place.” Many of the women consulted remarked that they are not prepared to be considered second class citizens anymore and many are leaving the Church. “They feel that even though their contribution over the years has been invaluable, it has been taken for granted.” 

Several of the submissions called for the ordination of women to the permanent diaconate and the priesthood. Women’s exclusion from the diaconate is regarded as “particularly hurtful”.

The report also highlights how many young people cannot understand the Church’s position on women. “Because of the disconnect between the Church’s view of women and the role of women in wider society today, the Church is perceived as patriarchal and by some, as misogynistic.”

Every Irish newspaper seems to have reported on women’s ordination and many of the other “Church-altering” conclusions in the Irish synthesis. You will pardon me for not writing about them all, except to quote The Tablet again: “there was ‘a clear, overwhelming call for the full inclusion of LGBTQI+ people in the Church, expressed by all ages and particularly by the young and by members of the LGBTQI+ community themselves.’” 

I will simply note that among all I have read in other countries, the Irish are most conscious of the harm caused by the sex abuse crisis and how it reveals the sin of clericalism which must be overcome if the Church is to survive. Their attitude is that apocalyptic, and abuse in institutions operated by sisters is not ignored.

Mary McAleese is quoted in many articles, but she’s not the only one. I decided not to subscribe to the Irish Times to read one of the full articles. Here’s the headline:

“Clonliffe has gone and the Irish Catholic Church may not be far behind it.

An unfashionable truth, and to some unpalatable, is that the church has no future without priests.” This opinion piece is by Gerard Howlin, and a caption says “Clonliffe was a powerhouse that together with Maynooth and All Hallows educated clergy to man a global religious empire for more than 100 years.” We don’t plan on a global empire, except one of universal recognition of women’s call to ministry.

Analysis, apparently, can be shared; this article is by my new favorite Irish writer, Patsy McGarry. “Fear National Synthesis document sent to Rome would be watered down by bishops prove unfounded. Major milestone in history of Catholic Church in Ireland as Vatican urged to make radical changes.” He says the revolutionary nature of this document is due to “the arrival at the episcopal table of younger colleagues with no baggage and a refreshing honesty,” and then:

Credit, and it is the accurate word, must also go to those articulate women who have trenchantly argued the case for equality for their gender in the church down the years as well as speaking forcefully on behalf of marginalised groups such as LGBTI+ people; women such as former president Mary McAleese, Ursula Halligan of We Are Church Ireland and long-time advocate for women’s ordination Soline Humbert, among others.

Nor should the contribution of the Association of Catholic Priests over the past 10 years be underestimated, particularly of co-founders Fr Brendan Hoban and Fr Tony Flannery, who is himself now 10 years out of public ministry in the church because he called for the changes subsequently repeated in the National Synthesis document.

We know Tony Flannery because of his US tour several years ago sponsored by Catholic Organizations for Renewal, but cheers to Ursula and especially Soline, who celebrated a WOW liturgy not long ago. We’d love to see you here, too!

My sense is that McGarry is not going to let this go, and perhaps has covered it for a long time.  He goes beyond this week’s synthesis to note the story of Josepha Madigan, “the somewhat less than shy and retiring…then minister for culture,” who took over in the absence of a priest and conducted a service of the word with communion using pre-consecrated hosts – in 2018, at her parish. He predicts:

Madigan’s intervention offers an insight into the future of the Catholic Church in Ireland. What she did that Saturday will, within a decade, be replicated at Masses all over this island as women — the backbone of parishes — assume a greater role in lay ministry. They will not have to be ordained to do so.

Lay women will conduct Liturgies of the Word, baptisms, marriages, funerals and also play a leading role in catechetics (religious instruction). Lay men will too, but it is women who are most likely to rise to these tasks, given they have always been the foundation of faith in Ireland, as elsewhere.

McGarry documents other similar cases as well as the endorsement of a greater role for women by the Association of Catholic Priests. He continues:

Ten years later it would appear that no less a person than the Catholic Primate, Archbishop Eamon Martin, is thinking along the same lines.

Speaking in Maynooth late last month, he said: “Ten years from now, in the Patrician year 2032, we will celebrate the 16th centenary of the coming of Christianity to Ireland. My prayer and hope is that during this decade we will be honest with ourselves, having the courage to ‘let go’ of those ways of being [a] church which may have served us well in the past, but which no longer respond to the urgent and primary need for new evangelisation in our country.”

By 2032, all will have changed, changed utterly where the Catholic Church in Ireland is concerned. A clerical caste will effectively have disappeared and been replaced by an active laity, mainly women, with some visiting priests to celebrate the Eucharist and administer relevant sacraments.

By then, too, it will be back to the future for the Catholic Church on this island, back to pre-Famine Ireland when priest numbers were small and a Catholic laity still practised their faith as they had before emancipation and even during the centuries of persecution prior to that.

I quote McGarry at such great length though I know he is writing only about ordination to the diaconate. He communicates the urgency inspiring the Irish participants in the Synod process, and their intense hope for a “Church-altering” future, a future changed because of ministers of every gender, especially women.