Thinking Thanksgiving

We are so grateful to those of you who replied to the survey about The Table, and especially those of you who might think about writing for it. You are absolutely welcome to share your insights. We look forward to hearing from you all.

I am listening to Fresh Air on Tuesday as I write this. Steve Lopez, now of Los Angeles but formerly a beloved writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, discusses his new book about whether to stop writing his column for the Los Angeles Times, and I’m with Steve. I love writing this blog every week and I am deeply grateful to you for reading it. Only a writer like Steve would do a whole book about deciding to keep writing!

I was going to title today’s blog Synod = Irrelevant Bishops because I have been so amused by several articles that have been published since I wrote my blog last week. I made pretty much the same point, and I’ll alert you to the other articles after I write about feminism. That’s what more of you wanted to read about than any other topic, and two articles just happened to come in today.

One is old, and its very publication makes me wonder why Ruth Gledhill in The Tablet pulled it out of the files. My theory is that everybody is getting on the Women’s Ordination bandwagon, even those outlets that we suspect might have avoided the topic in 1999. Ruth, of whom I have become very fond in reading her introductions to The Tablet’s free weekly newsletter, is highlighting the availability of the paper’s archives, and what does she pick as a sample article? “The priesthood of Mary” by John Wijngaards. It’s so good. If you haven’t ever read it, download and save to your library. Be sure to click the two-page spread in order to get either a photocopy of all three pages or a text version of the same, ads and all.

Wijngaards surveys every theologian in history on Mary as priest and evaluates what was going on:

Do we not have here the voice of latent tradition: an awareness in the heart of Christian belief, strong in spite of surrounding prejudices, that the priesthood should not be refused to women because of their sex, since, if any is a priest, Mary is?

The acceptance of women priests that seems implied in the recognition of Mary as Priest may well exemplify the ancient concept of the “Gospel in the heart”, the “sense of the faithful”.

In 1913, any discussion or images of Mary as priest were shut off by the Vatican. Wijngaards asks: “Is it a coincidence that just at that time the campaign for women’s ordination began to stir in other Christian Churches?”

My second feminist article on Tuesday is in the Washington Post. Jessica Goldstein asks, “Why don’t more men take their wives’ last names?” What seems to be a light-hearted inquiry exposes deep cultural roots. “The legal construction of marriage in the United States is modeled on coverture…which decreed that a married woman’s identity and existence was legally ‘covered’ by her husband…The woman’s identity is essentially erased,’” Princeton historian Tera Hunter told Goldstein, who adds, “Probably the average modern man isn’t thinking about the dehumanizing framework of coverture laws when he bristles at the prospect of taking his wife’s name (if he thinks of it at all). But as Hunter sees it, these norms are so deeply ingrained in our society that even people without any awareness of the history feel an imperative to abide by those customs, or are wary of the cost of rejecting them.” The same could be written about women on the altar. It takes thought to change.

Bishops, what about you? Let’s get to the concerns I have been writing about for the past three weeks and about the Synod, all year. In La Croix International, Robert Mickens states the question clearly: “Can the Catholic Church’s fledgling experiment with synodality eventually lead to an overhaul of its top-down, monarchical structure of authority?” Not accustomed to reading Canon Law, I learned the frightening truths about how firmly ensconced papal (Supreme) and bishops’ power actually is. Mickens is generous when it comes to bishops who might want to operate more collegially – he finds them more effective –but he concludes “there seem to be too many bishops who are careful how they share their power. It doesn’t matter whether that is out of a noble sense of duty or out of fear of losing control, it’s often a recipe for disaster.” Ignoring the results of the Synod process may be one step along that road, he argues.

The German bishops are not doing that. They visited Rome last week and generated headlines – or at least the head of the Synodal Path, Limburg Bishop Georg Bätzing, did. Cindy Wooden of the Catholic News Service reports that:

At the news conference, Bishop Bätzing told reporters the role of women in the church and the possibility of expanding women’s ministries “is the most urgent question and the one that separates us most” from the Curia officials. “Women have put up with so much and are getting impatient. Many younger women say that a church that denies all of this cannot be my church.”

It’s too late in this blog to go into all the detail of this visit, but note that the German bishops met with three top Curial cardinals, who asked them to declare a moratorium on the Process. They agreed to reflect on the objections presented, but did not “accept” the moratorium because, Bätzing said, they could not ignore those who “make up the largest part of the people of God: the laity.” What we all should expect of our bishops!

Before the meeting, the German bishops’ conference released a text saying “the issues we are dealing with…are also being discussed in other parts of the church,” and then referenced the conclusions of the Synod Process around the world. At the news conference, Bätzing rejected intimidation. “We are Catholics, and we will remain Catholics, but we want to be Catholics in a different way…it was important to me to make it clear that the uncovering of abuse and structures that facilitated abuse in the church have so shattered trust and called into question the authority of the bishops to such a degree that new paths are necessary in order to confront the crisis in the church.”

Massimo Faggioli, in La Croix carries both discussions in a different direction but arrives at a similar conclusion. He reviews church participation in international politics during the 20th century, and finds whatever moral authority it had – as in the Helsinki Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe in 1975 – has been eroded because of the sex abuse crisis: “Its work for peace and inter-religious dialogue risks not being taken seriously anymore – not to talk about the Church’s credibility to announce the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Is the church’s “legitimacy… in crisis” internationally as it is “internally”?

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, what about you? I do want to report that Thomas Reese in NCR uses the election for USCCB secretary to create a different ratio than I estimated of pro-Francis bishops. “Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, lost to conservative Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City by a vote of 104 to 130,” which is 44% looking forward.

Michael Sean Winters headlined “irrelevance” in his summary of the bishops meeting. In addition to continuing his complaints about new President Archbishop Timothy Broglio and his non-response to the sex abuse crisis, he notes how Coakley manipulated those who wanted a new approach to the “Faithful Citizenship” document. He finds the election of several committee chairs “hopeful,” so I want to remember them: Bishop Joseph Bambera of Scranton to Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs; Bishop Barry Knestout to Richmond, Virginia, on the Protection of Children and Young People; and Archbishop Charles Thompson of Indianapolis to Evangelization and Catechesis. Finally, he finds the highlight of the meeting the address by Archbishop Borys Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia. “This is what episcopal leadership looks and sounds like.”

Phyllis Zagano’s headline for Religion News Service is kinder, only “confusing,” but her evaluation emphasizes another failing: “What is most telling is that the time the bishops spent on these issues far exceeded the time spent on what the church is called to do: minister to the poor, to the hungry, to the thirsty, to the homeless, the sick, the imprisoned and the dead.”

the clearest statement about dedication to Christian charity came from Dominican Sister Donna Markham, retiring president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA… Markham detailed the ways her agency directed what she termed “the Catholic Church’s response in this country to people who reside along the margins of our society … this is where our Church puts the Gospel into action.” Markham said the largest percentage of Catholic Charities’ budget comes from outside sources: Only 1% comes from the annual USCCB collection, another 5% from member agency dues.  

The fact that a woman gave the strongest example of what the church is and needs to
do is instructive of the quagmire the bishops find themselves in.

I could unpack this at much greater length, but I have gone on too long about church politics and the Vatican, a shade less important to the WOC survey respondents than feminism and spirituality. I know mine is a spirituality formed in activism. As we work for change, we must know who is on our side and who is trying to stop us, and I take it as my responsibility to let you know that.