Lifting Our Voices

As daughters of Vatican II, my friends and I were energized by Pope Francis’s call for a Synod on Synodality. It was a chance for us to share our concerns—and our joys and our hopes—with one another and with the wider church. Since there were no synod meetings held at our parish, we formed our own gatherings, meeting in person and online for the better part of a year. We live in a small town, and though we have much in common, there’s some diversity among us as well. Most of us are Catholic; some are divorced or separated, some are married mothers and grandmothers, some are single. Some have stopped attending Mass but still consider their faith a vital part of their lives. Several non-Catholic Christians joined us as well, representing a variety of Protestant traditions; they brought a richness to our group, in the spirit that Francis called for.

Our conversations ran the gamut. We discussed a few books: Louise Erdrich’s acclaimed The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, which examines the meaning of the priesthood and the role of the priest in the world against the backdrop of a Native American community. We also looked at Karol Jackowski’s The Silence We Keep, which looks at the repercussions of the clergy sex abuse scandals. Both books were springboards to conversations about how we, as women of faith, experience the church.

We reflected on Scripture, too, finding strength from one passage in particular: Mark 7:24-30, the account of the Syrophoenician woman, who challenged Jesus, engaged in dialogue with him, and managed to change his mind. (We wondered why this remarkable passage is not included in the Sunday lectionary.) We took particular inspiration from Galatians 3:28: “In Christ there is no male or female.” And the example of the women at the foot of the cross, as well as the role of Mary Magdalene as the first apostle to preach the good news of the resurrection, were sources of encouragement to all of us.

To guide our reflections, we used materials downloaded from the Vatican’s Synod website. We gathered for the comfort of expressing our concerns to listening ears, and in the hope that Francis—and others in the official church—would listen to our voices.

Because our group was composed entirely of women—and because our conversations were guided by Scripture—it was only natural, I think, that much of our focus was on the role of women in the church. All of us have had the privilege of an education, the gift of a personal prayer life, a familiarity with Scripture, and a lifelong, deep love for the church. We know that we have so much to contribute, but most of us noted that we felt dismissed and diminished by the attitudes of male church hierarchy toward women. All of us found the official teaching of “complementarity” to be unhelpful and even offensive.

“All my life I contented myself with accepting these attitudes,” said one of our group, “even though it was unjust. But to have heard a woman’s perspective in the pulpit or as a confessor would have been helpful to me, both growing up and as an adult. Now I realize that ignoring the call of my sisters in the Church is wrong. It’s like ignoring others’ hunger because my own belly is full or ignoring homelessness because I have a place to live. It’s wrong of the church to deny women equality, and it’s wrong of me not to speak up. I am complicit in injustice for accepting it so willingly. But the church fails women in not even allowing it to be brought up and in not recognizing what Paul clearly says: ‘There is no male and female; we are all one in Christ Jesus.’ Had Jesus come today, I cannot believe he would refuse to recognize women as equal to men.”

Other issues surfaced as well, many of them tied to gender. The church’s opposition to “artificial” birth control, for example, seemed to us simply a way to control women. Raising children is a noble task and being a mother a holy vocation. But trying to remove from a woman’s hands the decision of when and how many children to have feels misogynistic. As a Catholic, I honor and respect life but recognize that life is about more than fetuses. I long for church leadership that speaks out just as vigorously on other life issues, including gun control, health care, and homelessness.

The church’s stand on divorce and remarriage affects women as well—those who are struggling to keep a marriage together and raise children in the face of abuse, violence, and mental illness and those who are denied sacramental remarriage because of the actions of a former spouse.

Our meetings, though, were more than just a laundry list of complaints. All of us came to the table with a strong devotion to the church. As one woman said, “I love the richness of our liturgy, and I love the Divine Presence. This has fed me and helped me all my life. I have been blessed to have known some excellent pastors who, besides giving sermons that connected me with the divine, held classes in meditation and spirituality. I am so grateful for Richard Rohr, Henri Nouwen, and many other Catholic writers who have inspired me to greater spirituality.”

But we all agreed that the church needs to pay attention to women. Of course they should be ordained—it is indefensible that they are denied admission to the priesthood and the diaconate. But apart from that, women’s ideas and talents should be welcomed. It’s encouraging that Francis is opening more roles to women in Rome, but I would like to see that happen at the diocesan and certainly the parish level. There are very few roles open to us—but we have so much more to offer. It is tempting to jump ship and go to a denomination where we would be valued. And though we don’t expect to see women ordained in our lifetime, we would like to see women preach. We’d appreciate hearing a woman’s voice and experience from the pulpit. We would like to see the church welcome all the baptized to the proclamation of the Word.

The church has always been at the center of my life, despite everything. I love the liturgy and the richness of our traditions. I am nurtured by the Eucharist and I have often felt the presence of God within my parish community. They have been there for me through difficult times and shared my joy on countless happy occasions. I have always loved being Catholic. I am deeply grateful to the sisters for sharing their faith and their charism with me. But I fear the patriarchy is a bit uneasy with the strong women those sisters produced. Though I’d rather be Catholic than anything else, I feel that the church doesn’t really want me. At least, it doesn’t know what to do with me.

At our monthly gatherings, we were just a small group of women in a small town, but the experience of coming together to take part in a worldwide synod was a deeply meaningful—and hopeful—experience for all of us. It was an opportunity to think about what the church means to us and how the gospel influences our lives. It was a chance to talk about the importance of community. It was a time to imagine—and pray for—a church where all are welcomed and treated with respect and care. Think of what that would be like!

Our gatherings showed me how much I long for a church where the Gospel of Jesus, rather than lectures about abortion and birth control, are at the center of our common life. I hope for a church that responds to the realities of our lives, speaking encouragement and inspiration in the face of terrible things like violent insurrection or school shootings. I have such a strong sense of what the church could—and should be—and I long to see that become reality. I pray that Francis will hear our voices.