Humility

Pope Francis talked about vocations to Greek Jesuits late last year, Christopher Lamb reports. The number of Jesuits has been halved since he joined in 1958, and other orders of men and women are seeing similar declines. At least, I would add, and in the diocesan priesthood as well.

Francis’s further reflections are worth thinking about. “The Lord sends the vocations. If they do not come, it does not depend on us. … For us it has meaning in the sense of humiliation … What does the Lord mean by this? Humble yourself, humble yourself!”

In WOC, we know that God is sending priestly vocations to people who do not fit the narrow categories of sexuality and gender presently allowed. But will Rome allow humility to take hold and change that? Lamb goes on to discuss Cardinal Ouellet’s conference on the priesthood in February. The Pope will participate; will he be critical of the conservative bent of the program? Rita Ferrone is much more optimistic about that event than I am in her review of the ways ministry has opened since Vatican II.

The press paid more attention to Francis’ Christmas address to the bishops and cardinals of the Roman curia, where he again discussed humility: “The humble are those who are concerned not simply with the past but also with the future, since they know how to look ahead, to spread their branches, remembering the past with gratitude. The proud, on the other hand, simply repeat, grow rigid and enclose themselves in that repetition, feeling certain about what they know and fearful of anything new because they cannot control it.” Robert Mickens’ headline is “A lump of coal.” Gerald O’Connell called it a humdinger, and, like Christopher White, all go on to describe how Francis urged the Curia to bring this attitude of humility to the Synod. Even Massimo Faggioli weighs in with a long article on how difficult curial reform has been in history, which may inspire humility in the Pope.

I want to urge us to bring an attitude of humility to the Synod as well. Since reading Sandra Schneiders long ago, I have been suspicious of the virtues urged on women that lead us to limit our power. But I want us to not be so rigid in what we want that we are unable to respect those who cannot imagine what we have in mind. I am called to this insight on reading the comments of Dublin Archbishop Dermot Farrell, who says, “Radical change is coming in the church” and goes on to discuss parishes, structure, and numbers. Please, NO! Have humility, Regina! I want really radical change, a return to the roots, to small, spirit-filled communities with equality for women and men as reported in the beginning, and for people of all genders as needed now.

Cindy Wooden gives me more hope than I might otherwise have in her article boldly headlined “Humility and Trust” over a huge photo of Sister Nathalie Becquart. Wooden goes beyond Christmas and brings in the Pope’s thoughts on the Epiphany, when he calls us to trust and risk like the Magi, and she alone thinks to interview the woman most prominent in the Synod effort:

            Her shorthand explanation of synodality is “coming from the ‘I’ to the ‘us.'”

Which, of course, requires humility, but will not happen without trust. Ever the optimist, Becquart notes that “more than 50% of the dioceses in the U.S.” have done something to begin to implement the synodal process. I note much more serious discussion of what the Synod means among the leaders of the effort in France than I see in our country.

But then Wooden also takes the opportunity to discuss the Pope’s talk on Mary for the always new-to-me celebration on January 1. Here she emphasizes that Francis says the church needs “mothers, women who look at the world not to exploit it, but so that it can have life. Women who, seeing with the heart, can combine dreams and aspirations with concrete reality, without drifting into abstraction and sterile pragmatism.”

Becquart deflects that, responding to Wooden that “she does not believe it is possible to say, ‘Women are like this; men are like that, so women can bring this to the church,’” and I am glad; I have had too much essentialism. Rather, the Synod leader goes to women’s experience by saying: “the experience of women is mainly of being dominated by men,” and then regresses to a bit of essentialism, saying that “they also tend to have ‘a capacity of resilience.’” These are important indicators of how she frames gender issues.

The concluding paragraph of this article?

The Xavière Missionary knows the symbolic power of a woman having a vote at a Catholic Synod of Bishops, something she is expected to have as undersecretary of the synod, but she insisted “what is more important is to have the voices of women at every stage” of the process, and not just its final deliberations.

For now, I will have the humility to trust that both will be so.