This Week in Catholic News: Women in the Church

Last month, in the wake of increasing Vatican scrutiny, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) gathered in Nashville, Tennessee, for its annual assembly.  During her keynote address, Sr. Nancy Schreck, in responding to Vatican criticism, stated that “we have been so changed that we are no longer at home in the culture and church in which we find ourselves.”  Sr. Elizabeth Johnson (a Fordham theologian whose books have been sharply critiqued by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith but who was honored at the assembly with an Outstanding Leadership Award) urged her sisters to continue to resist the “patriarchal structure” of the church’s institutions, arguing that the Vatican’s criticisms of her work and the work of the LCWR are “careless” and “vague.”  Many observers in the media have taken up the LCWR’s line, claiming that the nuns are being “abused” by the male hierarchy, which is apparently engaged in a “Nunquisition.” 

On the flip side, however, those who defend the Vatican and the CDF accuse the sisters of a “defiance against ecclesiastical authority” that may justify revoking the LCWR’s status as a Catholic organization.  Others, such as Ann Carey of the Catholic World Report, point to the fact at the LCWR does not represent all women religious in the U.S., and that even the leadership of the LCWR does not reflect the viewpoints of its own members.  Some argue that the LCWR’s increasing irrelevance is demonstrated by the decreasing number of young women who are joining their orders.   The decrease in numbers among LCWR congregations is, reportedly, in contrast to the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious (CMSWR), which split with the LCWR in the 1992 and whose congregations are supposedly more youthful and vibrant than those in the LCWR. (CMSWR communities include, among others, the Little Sisters of the Poor, who recently butted heads with the Obama administration over the requirement to provide birth control to their employees.)

The arguments on both sides are very emotionally wrought.  A sociological study on women religious conducted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate attempted to bring some objective balance to the debate – although, of course, statistics are tricky things.  The study found, among other things, that, in terms of pure numbers, vocations to LCWR and CMSWR congregations are about the same (and both regrettably low), and that one reason for the apparent “youthfulness” of CMSWR congregations is that LCWR accepts older members.  Even more interestingly, however, the study also examined reasons why Catholic women do not choose religious life.  Among the top eighteen reasons Catholic women give for not considering religious life, only a few (such as “disagreement with some Church teachings,” “vow of obedience,” or “stigma of clergy sex abuse”) relate directly to issues of patriarchy within the Church.  The top reasons are the desire to marry and become a mother, the desire to choose one’s own lifestyle and career, and the sense that God is “not calling.”  Perhaps if women religious congregations are seeking to increase their numbers, they would do well to examine these issues, and explore how they themselves might better respond to the deepest desires of young women in the modern world.   

Despite all this mudslinging and number crunching, however, what I find missing in the various arguments is any meaningful discussion of precisely what the CDF has criticized about the LCWR.  Smokescreen words like “patriarchy” and “feminism” make the struggle between the Vatican and the LCWR seem like a battle for power, rather than a dialogue aimed at theological and ecclesiological truth.  (Indeed, Eugene Cullen Kennedy in the National Catholic Reporter has explicitly argued that the Vatican’s complaints against the LCWR are based on “trivialities” and that the main issue concerns not theology but authority.)  But if any critique of the LCWR is going to be written off as “patriarchy,” and if any response on the part of the LCWR is going to be condemned as “defiance,” any serious theological inquiry is automatically forestalled.

The role of women religious in the Church is an important piece of a broader issue – namely, the role of women in the Church as a whole.  Where and how should women be allowed to utilize their intellectual and spiritual gifts in the life of the Church?  One particularly contentious issue is the sacramental role of women.  As several Catholic news services have reported, the new bishop of Rochester, NY, is in the process of ending his predecessor’s custom of allowing lay people (among them lay women) to preach at Mass.  Sr. Christine Schenk, former director of the reform group FutureChurch, opines that the move towards “silencing” lay (women) preachers is not justified by canon law, since their preaching was “in dialogue” with the priest and provided “reflections” rather than “homilies.”  A strict interpretation of canon law, however, such as that provided by Redemptionis Sacramentum, seems to preclude lay preaching at any point in the Mass (para. 65-66).    

Though women are canonically prohibited from preaching at Mass and from being invested with the sacramental authority that can only come with priesthood, the question does remain: how can the Church best include and utilize its increasingly well-educated and empowered female population?  The sense among Catholic women that they have more gifts to offer the Church than they are being permitted to share is an important issue for Church leaders to address, and we should not expect solutions to present themselves quickly.  Yet in spite of claims that the Church’s hierarchy is intent on silencing women, the prefect for the CDF, Cardinal Muller (the same person who criticized the LCWR’s decision to honor Sr.Johnson), has just announced that he will increase the number of women represented on the international theological commission that advises the Vatican.  Currently, two women serve on the 30-person commission; the CDF wants to see that number increased to “five or six.”  This is, admittedly, a small step towards greater inclusion of women in the theological life of the Church, but one that we should welcome as the Church strives to achieve its divine mission in a fallen, contentious world.