Friday

In watching the Pope's funeral today (I work in a newsroom -- no escaping it), I was struck yet again by what I believe the Catholic church's biggest problem to be: no women running the show.

And the church seems to have gotten a get-out-of-jail free pass on this. We hear a lot about whether the Episcopal church (my own denomination) will or won't accept gay priests (we will. and mostly do), but the Catholic church is still mired in the middle ages on this issue of no-girls-allowed and no one ever mentions it.

As the camera panned across row after row of priests and bishops and cardinals from all over the planet, gathered in Rome for the funeral, I realized how jarring it is to see that many men, all convened for some major world event, without a single woman among them. Yet the Square was filled to overflowing with ordinary and extraordinary women from all over the world, to whom the church belongs just as much as all those men in silk robes and hats.

There are many things I admire about the Catholic church. But no matter how much it appealed to me, I could never raise my daughter in a religious tradition in which she could never be a priest.

Separate but equal (and I'd argue that nuns aren't equal anyway) doesn't work for me: not in schools or churches or politics.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Before you blast the Catholic Church on the basis of American political structures, Ms. Granju, it might be wise to find out why the Catholic Church says that it does not have the authority to ordain women. For example, see John Paul II's Ordinatio Sacerdotalis.

As philosopher Peter Kreeft has pointed out, only boys can be daddies. Likewise, only girls can be mommies. Since a priest is a spiritual father, that, by that very fact, leaves out women.

But before you complain, consider this: Just as spiritual fatherhood belongs to men, so physical motherhood belongs to women. And just as it would be ridiculous for men to shake their fists at God in outrage over the fact that they cannot bear children, so it is ridiculous for women to shake their fists at the Church for upholding the supernatural fact that women cannot be spiritual fathers.

There is equality in the Church, Ms. Granju. It is simply not patterned after the American civil rights movement.

Mia Storm
(storm_mia@yahoo.com)

Lisa said...

I agree that the Catholic Church is stuck in the dark ages on this issue of not allowing women to be priests... and anonymous, I'd have no problem allowing men to bear children :)

Anonymous said...

I think the first poster said it far better than i could. this is a lot of why I left the episcopal church...