Women in the Church an evolving role

Recently at my parish, we had the pleasure of hosting two nuns who spoke at all Masses for the annual mission appeal. Sister Jacqueline Sanchez-Small, OSB, and Sister Valerie Luckey, OSB, came to us from Mount Saint Benedict Monastery, Erie, Pa., to share information about the Alliance for International Monasticism (AIM USA). AIM USA is an organization of 140 U.S. and Canadian monasteries with more than 400 Benedictine and Cistercian communities in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and Eastern Europe. These Benedictine and Cistercian women and men form centers of prayer, education, health and agriculture in some of the poorest regions of the world.

Having these young nuns speak at Mass, and witnessing the parishioners’ warm reception to their presence and message, turned my thoughts to the evolving role of women in the Church. Over the years, attending many ecumenical gatherings and workshops, I often hear the charitable critique from many of our Christian brothers and sisters about the lack of gender equality in decision-making and in the ranks of authority.

I recall a humorous moment from March 1992, while attending a workshop on Christian unity, sitting at the lunch table with members of the National Council of Churches USA, as at that time, I was the Catholic representative. Sitting among the others at the table were two women bishops, one from the United Methodist Church and the other, an Episcopalian. The keynote speaker was handed a message, which he shared with the assembly, saying, “Pope John Paul II has just approved the recommendation of the Congregation for Divine Worship, affirming that both men and women can now act as altar servers, by temporary designation.” Silence was followed by a bit of laughter at my table!

We have come a long way from the role of women in the Church since 1992! Pope Francis has made one of his primary papal endeavors the advancement of the role of women in the Church. In July, Pope Francis expanded the role of women in the leadership of the Church, appointing three women as full members of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops. This is the first time that women have been given this role. The three women named are:

• Sister Raffaella Petrini, FSE. She is the highest-ranking woman at the Vatican after being appointed last year by the Pope as Secretary General of the Vatican City State;

• Sister Yvonne Reungoat, FMA, former Superior General of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (women’s branch of the Salesians). She had already been appointed by Pope Francis as one of the first of seven women of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life;

• Maria Lia Zervino, a laywoman. She has served as president of the World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations, and is a consecrated virgin.

Earlier this year, Pope Francis met with his cardinal advisers to discuss how to expand the role of women in the institutional Church. A couple of years ago, he appointed a commission to study the history of women deacons. This commission concluded that women certainly have served in this ministry in the early centuries of Church history. Saint Phoebe was called a deacon in Romans 16:1-2; two of the early Councils of the Church, Nicea 325 A.D. and Chalcedon 451 A.D., mention the ordination of women to the diaconate. The Council of Chalcedon said, “No woman under 40 years of age is to be ordained a deacon.” And Pope Benedict VIII wrote in the year 1017 A.D., before the great Schism of 1054 A.D., “We concede and confirm to your successors in perpetuity every episcopal ordination not only of presbyters but also of deacons or deaconesses.”

At the meeting with the cardinal advisers, Pope Francis said, “Mary is our Mother. She is the Mother of our people. She is the Mother of us all. She is the Mother of the Church, but also the image of the Church. And she is the Mother of our souls. There is a Holy Father who says that what can be said of Mary, can also be said in its own way of the Church and in its own way of our souls. Because the Church is feminine and our soul has this ability to receive grace from God, and in a certain sense, the Fathers saw the Church as a woman. We cannot think of the Church without this Marian principle. When we research the role of women in the Church, we can follow the path of functionality because women have functions to perform in the Church. But this is only half the journey.”

Father Joseph D. Wallace is diocesan director of Ecumenical and Inter-religious Affairs and pastor of Christ the Redeemer Parish, Atco.