|
|---|
|
Elisabeth (Betsie) Hollants, retired newspaperwomen, is founder and director of CIDHAL, a center for the promotion of women’s liberation Latin American style in Cuerne-vaca, Mexico. A former associate of Ivan lllich, she has also advised bishops and religious congregations on the problems of the church in Latin America and the training of women and men for work in those countries.
Friends,
This conference is asking itself various questions. Yolanda Lallande and I, coming from South of the Border, will try to formulate some answers based on the present situation in Latin America. These answers are based on limited information; but on Yolanda’s part they are based on a lot of experience.
In Latin America, matters like women’s ordination are not the objects of Gallup polls or of any type of serious research. The topic is not really publicly treated either. You could say that it belongs underground. Just one good study based on experiences in Latin America, written by Jose Luis Idigoras, a theologian (a foreigner at that, he is a Spaniard), has come to our attention in the last couple of years. This good study has not been followed up by public comments anywhere.
Recently, 2,000 delegates of Catholic middle-class and bourgeois organizations met to prepare suggestions for the Latin American Bishops decisive Conference on evangelization, soon to be held in Puebla, Mexico. Not a word about female priestly ministry is to be found in the conclusions, sent in the name of 25,000 women members, among them many professionals and nuns.
This past week, the newest book about liberation theology appeared in bookstores in Mexico. Among the authors is Gustavo Gutierrez, father of liberation theology. The book has not a word about women. There is more. The first official preparatory document for the Puebla Conference of Bishops has little to say about women but does mention twice that the previous conference, the famous Medellin Conference, did not mention women at all.
In spite of all this, and many more facts that could be mentioned, there is among men and women alike a large measure of dissatisfaction with the priesthood as it is lived today. Nevertheless, the fact that women could be part of the solution to this situation seems only to have caught the attention of those contemporaries whose perception of reality and courage are exceptional, among them, some bishops, some priests, and more nuns and women catechists.
Let us only talk about the women for awhile. Nuns, especially those who have abandoned teaching private schools and are not committed to evangelizing the poor, and catechists who serve in this task of the whole Church, are daily confronted with the lack of priests and the need for an adequate priesthood. The question that arises is, “Do these catechists and nuns want to be priests themselves?” They are outstanding evangelizers and act where priests are absent. But when asked if they want to be priests themselves, their answer is a loud and definite “no.” They have known the priests too closely. They are highly critical of them. These women are working in areas where everything belonging to the priestly function, except certain sacraments and rituals, is entrusted to them. Jose Luis Idigoras calls attention to the contradiction existing in many rural areas and also in urban settings where women declared unfit for the priesthood are fulfilling the mission of evangelizers with no objections from Church authorities and no open approval either. Saint Paul, Idigoras recalls, considered evangelizing the most important of the priestly functions. And this is the task, he adds, that requires theological preparation, missionary zeal and dedication. Nevertheless, the women cannot be ordained. Some of those women would accept to be priests but on condition that an evangelical renewal make the priesthood less sacralized and more of service to the community of the faithful. Led to unselfish dedication they could make a real contribution within the vocation of the Church. They also could take into their own hands the formation of other women, very simple women, who have received the similar calling, sharing with them the awareness of the reality in which they live and suffer as responsible members of society and Church.
The theological knowledge and experience in ministry acquired by many women, nuns and adult lay persons can compare favorably with that of the best among their counterparts in the clergy. This offers the possibility of steering away from seminaries that only know about male priests and consider female priests as a threat to their monopoly. However, these female theologians ought to leave their hiding places and make themselves seen and heard. They are too timid to speak in public.
They ought to find listeners among their male colleagues who have not yet acknowledged that God created the human female as well as male. This is important especially for Latin America. And this is the moment to stress that an honest study of human sexuality and acceptance by the Church of the conclusions that would be reached is a must — even if those conclusions should lead to other views, to different views, on birth control and abortion. All of this has to happen not only in view of female priesthood, but of the urgency of women’s liberation in Latin America. Let us remember that it is not easy to change culture. It is easier to change nature, as someone has said. In Latin America a cultural revolution is necessary so that women can occupy their rightful place. Women themselves have to have a main part in this cultural revolution, unafraid of taboos, ridicule and ferocious opposition. Even if the priesthood would be less sacralized, women still would encounter many obstacles. Just to mention a few, there is the attitude of most of the bishops; there is the inflexible magisterium of the Church; and the unflinching opposition of the majority of men.
A renewed priesthood is a theme for reflection found everywhere in the Church but it looks like smoldering embers. Those who are afraid of change avoid mentioning the issue, hoping that the embers will soon become dust and will be swept away for good. Among those who can be counted on for favorable attitudes are increasing members of religious, male and female. Unfortunately, they will be hardly allowed to make themselves heard in Puebla at the Bishops’ meeting in January. Only one woman religious and one man for every Latin American Republic will be admitted behind the high walls of the severely-guarded meeting place. That is representing the people!
Religious having experienced community must be able to grasp what community can mean for isolated poor people far away from materialist and spiritual sources of help. They are the ones they should be listening to.
We have heard the word “community” repeatedly during the last few minutes. In Latin America Christian grassroots communities are multiplying rapidly. They are spontaneous creations, born of a new need that has not been understood in time by priests. Moreover, since the number of priests has been insufficient for many years, the people have had to find, to look for, their own solutions. This refers especially to simple people.
Also in recent years, due to the generosity of several countries, among them the United States, Canada and those of Europe, thousands of so-called missionaries have come to our part of the world. But their presence and the money which came with them served mostly to bolster structures that were inadequate and doomed to disappear. A new understanding of Church and mission were and are necessary — an understanding born in great part thanks to Vatican Council II. Some bishops in Rome spoke more and more about the People of God, the Church of the poor, who are mostly Latin Americans. And the Bishops’ meeting at Medellin ten years ago encouraged action in accordance with the words that have been finding favor throughout many areas. Tens of thousands of small, grassroot Christian communities have come into existence in the poorest parts of Brazil — fewer in other countries, but the trend will not stop.
In Mexico, for instance, we know of the existence of whole clusters of these communities in the few dioceses where the bishops do not oppose them but rather accept them humbly as signs of the times and expressions of the Holy Spirit at work. Women active as evangelizers and animators of new Eucharistic celebration are very well accepted by the faithful who more than once wonder why these fulfillers of most of the priestly tasks cannot consecrate bread and wine as well. The voices of the people sound different from those that dominate in the Vatican. Women are coming to the fore in these and other circles.
In the light of the common people, priests belong to a caste far removed from everybody else’s life. There is a sort of magic surrounding them. The priests are more to be feared than to be loved. The alienation occurs because of innumerable differences in race, culture, economic circumstances, language, between the people and the clergy from the lowest step of the ladder to the top of the hierarchy. The inspiration to build up these Christian grassroots communities often comes from people’s reflections on their own lived experiences in the light of Scripture. It does not come from the top of the hierarchy. The Exodus and the Prophets have the greatest appeal for them. In them the people discover themselves as the People of God, oppressed then and oppressed now, called to the same liberating struggle by the God of history who always takes sides with the underdog.
Women with more education residing in the cities have opportunities to know what is said abroad and discuss it with their peers; among them are some looking forward to the coming of women priests, married ones as well as celibate. They seek the presence of female priesthood as a means of obtaining from the Church’s authority the clearest recognition of the equality of women and men that can be expected. Surely this recognition would have the greatest impact on society which still has to take equality of the sexes seriously. But from a Christian point of view such attitudes are far from that which is to be found in the grassroots communities. Their common sense and common struggles for freedom, total freedom, and I include political freedom, bring about a real fraternity. Women who see female priesthood as a guarantee of their liberation should proclaim first of all their commitment to the cause of the oppressed, the forgotten, to a priesthood of service and generosity towards all.
Friends, why have you come to tell me all this about the world so distant from your daily experiences? We wanted to offer you an expression of solidarity in your remarkable endeavor for a great cause. We also want to learn from you, not copy you. We want to warm our hearts at the sight of your generosity. Sharing findings of your theologians, both men and women. Their Scripture studies have been very useful to us. You have been so generous and thoughtful as to offer us also your findings in the language Hispanic people speak. I extend my thanks to people like Rosemary (Radford-Ruether), to Sister Carroll (Elizabeth), to Sheila Collins, to Elisabeth Schüssler and others, who all have given us Spanish texts of their best writings or have given us permission to translate and publish them without ever mentioning copyrights.
We wanted to ask you to keep in mind that what I really have been trying to convey to you about renewal of the Church has been based on what is happening on our side of the border. Misunderstanding is possible. We realized this when looking over the conclusions of the Second National Hispanic Encounter on Pastoral Ministry held a year ago in Washington. The base communities described there are current North American ecclesial structures — with Spanish language measures underneath but they fit totally in the structure as it is now. There is little there that applies to the poor people that make out the majority in Latin A-merica. Very little of what appears right for you here can fit the majority of those south of the Rio Grande. Sharp contrast in social, political, economic circumstances make identification impossible.
Another difference, which I want to mention, difference with the United States, is that here often women who want the priesthood and are working for women’s liberation find inspiration in Protestant leaders. According to a spokesman for Latin American Protestants, the role of women in their churches is limited and the recent Protestant leaders’ conference in Mexico showed that although invited as openly as the men, only ten percent of the invited women came and only one or two of them made themselves heard. Among Latin American Protestants ministry by women is at a low. It is a fact that eighty percent of the congregations consist of women but even if one hundred percent were women the pastor would still be a man.
You must forgive me for having made so many generalities. We’re sure you would have liked to hear more about experiences. May I invite you to gather at any free time around our Mexican friend, Yolanda Lallande? She has been many years in ministry — a ministry sometimes risky to talk about She has just gone ahead when she sees the need and never stops to look for approval. That doesn’t come to her mind and probably she would not have gotten it! She is a full-fledged theologian from one of the most prestigious universities in Latin America, and a Jesuit one at that. She is a mother of three and a grandmother of seven. She is excellent in bringing about, together with the working-class community, the most striking changes in the celebration of the Eucharist within a diocese considered to be one of the advanced ones in Mexico.
My friend and others like her, and I know there are many here, are being inspired by the recent comments which our new Pope made about Catherine of Siena, the saint who was not afraid to speak to the Popes of her time on behalf of the real interests of the real Church. “Our women have formed more than half of the Church members, should they not carry more than half of its responsibilities, and have more than half of the voices in the decision-making?”
Let us join people everywhere, and I think especially now of those in Europe, who are working hard for partnership of women and men in the Church, remembering that women and men are equally in dedication to the one real Church of all.
Thank you.
|
|
|---|
Please, credit this document
as published by www.ministryforwomen.org!
