Women and the Government of the Roman Catholic Church

Old celibate white men had prepared the Second Vatican Council in the Vatican for two years, and from 1962 to the fall of 1964 the Council stayed totally and exclusively male (Tobin, Mary Luke. 1986. “Women in the Church Since Vatican II: From November 1, 1986.” America. The Jesuit Review. November 1. https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/100/women-church-vatican-ii). Over 2,500 male bishops and some one hundred male celibate priest theologians discussed in the commissions and only the bishops spoke in the aula of Saint Peter’s and were allowed to vote on the documents. In November 1963, Cardinal Suenens of Belgium suddenly confronted his fellow bishops with the embarrassing insight that half of the Catholics are not represented when the Council discusses the reality of the Church (ibid.). Pope Paul VI reacted to Suenens’ critique and invited fifteen women as auditors - not as speakers - to the Second Vatican Council in the fall of 1964. Sister Mary Luke Tobin (1908–2006) was one of them.

Independent Catholic News remembered her in August 2006: Ruth Marie Tobin was born in Denver in 1908. When she professed her vows in the Loretto Community in 1927 she took the religious name Sister Mary Luke. She was teacher and principal of elementary and high schools and in 1952 was elected to the community’s general council. “She wrote and spoke widely on women’s rights and peace and social justice issues” protested the Vietnam war, capitalist exploitation of workers, and travelled to Saigon, Paris, to El Salvador and North Ireland for the cause of peace. She was a Roman Catholic feminist who fought for women’s rights in civil society, and she fought within the institutions of the Roman Catholic Church for the inclusion of women in Church government[i].

In 1986, she skeptically asks, if the invitation by the council members assembled in Rome was the breakthrough in challenging an “intransigent and patriarchal tradition” of the Catholic Church (Tobin, Mary Luke. 1986. “Women in the Church Since Vatican II: From November 1, 1986.” America. The Jesuit Review. November 1. https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/100/women-church-vatican-ii)? The bishops did not invite a wide spectrum of women to their deliberations; actually, they had not understood “the injustice in the church’s attitude toward and treatment of women” (ibid.). Some of the fifteen women at least were invited to some commissions’ meetings and were “allowed to speak as freely as we wished, and each of us did speak” (ibid.). Nevertheless, the women auditors could not protest discrimination of women in the documents of the Council. The Australian auditor Rosemary Goldie told a bishop who did not understand or see the problem: “All women ask for is that they be recognized as the full human persons they are and treated accordingly” (ibid.). Tobin rightly asks, “how long it will be until the official church realizes the deprivation and impoverishment it suffers by excluding from its deliberations representatives from half its constituency” (ibid.). Indifference toward women and the ignoring of their potential within the Roman Catholic Church characterizes the situation even in 2024.

Roman Catholic women in the United States and their women’s movement tried to include women’s issues in their agenda but much remains to be done before achieving equal respect and equal dignity, freedom, and rights in the Church, writes Tobin in 1986 (ibid.). She continuous, that progress is steady; women have become increasingly conscious of their discrimination experience in the Church. Full participation in decisions affecting one personally, each person’s responsibility to seek justice in the world and the insistence on self-value and integrity emphasizes the priority of the person over institutions (ibid.). Women are claiming the promotion of their full humanity as integral to the holy message of divine revelation and redemption; women’s liturgies and feminist theology celebrate and realize a concept of “Woman Church” (ibid.).

Tobin asks if the missing feminist elements of Christian life will be included in the whole Church. She speaks positively about the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the United States and the educational program for its members, empowering collegiality and solidarity and she deplores the tragic lack of understanding for this evolution of U.S. women religious on the part of the Vatican (ibid.). Tobin knows, in the 1980s the enthusiasm of many Catholic women who hoped in the 1970s for the ordination of women following the reforms of the Second Vatican Council had waned (ibid.). The steadily sinking number of women religious vocations in the West indicates the disaffection of women with the institutions of the Roman Catholic Church and specifically with religious life. In 1965, at the end of the Second Vatican Council, there were about 180,000 religious sisters in the United States. In 1985, the number has declined to about 115,000 and in 2013, the number of religious sisters fell to 52,000.[ii] The U.S. bishops tried to take positions on critical issues, but in 1985, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious recommended that the U.S. bishops not issue a pastoral letter on women in society and in the church because “of the absence of an operative tradition regarding the equality and basic dignity and worth of women” (Tobin 1986).

The 1985 report of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious claims a “need of reconciliation” between the alienated women and the Church and society (ibid.). I suppose that the women religious editors use the expression reconciliation according to the theological descriptions of the term. Theology has to do with faith-sentences and reconciliation expresses the hope and realization of Christians for overcoming failures and faults, violations of the integrity of persons, and all kinds of wrongdoing. Christian faith and theology qualify many of these personal shortcomings and faults with the expression “sin” because faith in Go’d and in Jesus Christ is at stake. Tobin does not speak of sin but of reconciliation, and it is not clear if she is purely speaking to Christians and non-Christian citizen women, men, and queer or exclusively to Christians. From my point of view women, men and queer are equal in dignity, freedom and rights and are called to claim the end of any discrimination. Women, men, queer first need justice, and the effective realization of their dignity, liberty, and rights. The project of reconciliation makes sense for many non-Christians and makes sense in civil society without a reference to faith; reconciliation with somebody we have fought fiercely about conflicts of interests is an important social skill. Conciliatory words can make up for many disappointments, anger, and inflamed passions.

Tobin and the 1985 report do not use the expression reconciliation in this sense; they make use of the expression reconciliation in the Christian sense to operate individual and social peace. The Christian use of the term reconciliation concerns a process that realizes some important steps. First, there is the recognition of a person that he or she has done something wrong. Then he or she repents what he or she has done and promises that he or she is willed to compensate for the inflicted damage or will make up for the damage and rectify the mistake. At last, the confessing person asks the hurt or damaged person for forgiveness. Then it is up to that person to be ready for reconciliation. For Roman Catholics the process of reconciliation is a sacrament that is an experience and celebration of Go’d’s promise of forgiving the repenting sinner after having confessed his or her sins to a priest.

My problem of the 1985 report’s use of the term reconciliation in this religious sense consists in the fact that the Roman Catholic sacrament of reconciliation is not able to address structural sin, structural injustice, and discrimination. As long as patriarchal structures continue alienating women from the Church there will be no reconciliation between the hierarchy and the women faithful Catholics (ibid.). The Roman Catholic women will not see that the Roman Catholic male celibate hierarchy of priests and bishops will collectively enter a reconciliation process, confess their sins of women discrimination, repent, end discrimination, and ask the women for forgiveness. Hoping for reconciliation is ok but does not change much. If women are not actively demanding the end of their discrimination and claim an effective excuse for their oppression, they will not enhance their dignity and self-esteem. As I have said earlier, the patriarchal structures of the Roman Catholic Church do not only discriminate women, but also lay men and queer (See my Posting “A Roman Catholic woman priest”).

In recent history, we observed the secular use of a process of reconciliation in quite an interesting social experiment of public life aiming at the reconciliation of a nation; the results were positive but there was also much disappointment. South Africa has provided the world with a tool to bring about justice and peace after the end of apartheid. The effort to bring about reconciliation in South Africa by not prosecuting the responsible persons for the Human Rights violations that had occurred during the period of apartheid was “internationally regarded as a success”, writes Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Tutu, Desmond. 2010. “Truth and Reconciliation Commission, South Africa.” Encyclopedia Brittanica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Truth-and-Reconciliation-Commission-South-Africa). He also confirms that amnesties are generally considered inconsistent with international law and had left many victims disillusioned (ibid.). The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, South Africa (TRC), was the “court like body established by the new South African government in 1995 to help heal the country and bring about a reconciliation of its people by uncovering the truth about human rights violations that had occurred during the period of apartheid. Its emphasis was on gathering evidence and uncovering information - from both victims and perpetrators - and not on prosecuting individuals for past crimes” (ibid.). Tutu assesses as a serious limitation of the reconciliation process that not all parties to the conflict accepted the TRC. Another key weakness of the commission was that the link between racialized power and racialized privilege became obscured because the commission did not focus sufficiently on the economic policies of apartheid, “the beneficiaries of apartheid had escaped accountability for their actions” (ibid.). Tutu confirms that the legacy of the commission was also compromised “as the post-Mandela government was slow to implement the TRC’s recommendations, including the reparations program” (ibid.).

I was writing these sentences as a white male priest of the Roman Catholic Church -meanwhile I am married and a suspended priest -, and I acknowledge with the 1985 report of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious the following alienating factors for women: Patriarchy that places the male in the center of the Church and makes the masculine normative. The exclusion of women in liturgical worship, the often-depersonalizing talk on women by clerics, and the incapacity of many clergy and hierarchy to relate properly to women. The exclusion of women from the structures and processes of church polity, where jurisdiction is reserved to the ordained, and power is in the hands of men alone, the official church positions on such matters as contraception, sterilization and abortion, the lack of support for the Equal Rights Amendment, child-care legislation, and earnings-sharing legislation (Tobin 1986). 

The 1985 report of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious lists five conditions that could bring about reconciliation:

“Women must make their own decisions and claim responsibility for their lives. The movement toward acknowledgment of oneself as possessing inherent dignity and worth is a powerful factor in reconciliation” (ibid.).

I agree with this first condition as a condition for realizing dignity. Yet history shows that claiming dignity is a necessary first step for a possible reconciliation but not “a powerful factor in reconciliation”. The “acknowledgement of oneself as possessing inherent dignity and worth” in my eyes constitutes the possibility condition for claiming respect of this inherent dignity and worth. Claiming the equal dignity, freedom and rights as a woman, man or queer does not constitute “a powerful factor in reconciliation” but constitutes a first step in realizing the equal dignity, freedom and rights of women, men and queer. The social realization of one’s dignity by speech-acts already is a very complicated procedure (see my Posting “Ethics and Discourse Theory”). The ambitious claim of reconciliation of victims of discrimination must be assessed investigating the effective realization of reconciliation. Concerning the Roman Catholic Church there is no such reconciliation realized so far.

I strongly agree with the claim of the second condition of the 1985 report that “new relationships with men must be established” (Tobin 1986). I am ready to acknowledge my complicity in the oppression of women as a white male Catholic suspended priest, and I acknowledge my need for liberation and maturation. I strongly disagree with the conjunction that “when men acknowledge their complicity in the oppression of women and their own need for liberation and maturation, the process of their relationship to women is itself liberating” (ibid.). Acknowledging my complicity in the oppression of women as a white male Catholic priest, and my maturation and liberation will not lead by necessity to a liberating relationship to women. Liberating relationships to women need social structures in society and in the Roman Catholic Church that are free of discrimination and injustice. Liberating relationships of women, men and queer in the Roman Catholic Church are not possible because we do not experience the end of oppressing social structures. I might mature and try to liberate myself by protesting the oppressive structure of priesthood, but this does not lead to liberating relationships with women who continue to suffer from the perpetual enhancement of the oppressive social structures by the hierarchy.

The 1985 report is right in claiming that “structural change must address alienating factors” (ibid.), but nobody in the Vatican so far could bring about structural change or was willing to address alienating factors. Therefore, I very much doubt the reconciliatory effect on the anger of women as claimed in point four: “Any structures that allow for the significant involvement of women in decision making at any level contribute to reconciliation because they go beyond the effects to the systemic causes of alienation” (ibid.). Concerning discrimination of women in the Catholic Church, the hierarchy in 2024 is not yet ready to assess the exclusion of women from the structures and processes of church polity as discrimination. My 21 years of professional experience at the Theological Faculty of the University of Innsbruck strongly contradict the claim of the 1985 report that the simple fact of acknowledging that alienation exists “will promote reconciliation” and my experience contradicts the claim that “significant involvement of women in decision making at any level of Church structures contribute to reconciliation” (ibid.).

I agree with point five of the 1985 report: “The church as institution and its officials must be willing to grapple with painful, conflict-generating topics and situations. The church as institution is perceived as studiously avoiding certain subjects because they have been settled in perpetuity” (ibid.).

The Vatican was not happy with the 1985 report of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Roman hierarchy got more and more worried about the sisters’ activities in the United States who were addressing the conflict-generating topics with growing insistence. In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI decided to crackdown on the sisters’ movement of liberation. The Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith suddenly and very publicly confronted the organization with forceful questions and negative assumptions about the foundation of the lives of Catholic sisters and forced with this investigation a six-year crisis on the Conference[iii]. In the fall of 1964, both Sister Mary Luke Tobin and the young Bavarian priest and theologian Joseph Ratzinger and later Pope Benedict XVI were in a discussion together in the Second Vatican Council’s commission on the Church in the modern world. In 1981, Ratzinger had become prefect of the former Inquisition that is the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. At the same time Sister Tobin was working on Church reform. Ratzinger did not discuss any more; he governed with the powers of a prince of the Church under the absolute monarch Pope John Paul II. Tobin’s optimism of 1985 is not comprehensible for me, she believes in “the vast learning process that began at Vatican II and is still being assimilated” (ibid.).

In 1986, Tobin is very optimistic that the World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations with their membership of thirty million laywomen will articulate the oppressing Church structures at the 1987 World Synod of Bishops on the Laity (ibid.). The Synod of Bishops was not very sensitive to the women’s desire to participate fully in the Church life and mission. On the contrary:   In 2006, the year Sister Tobin dies, the Vatican forced the World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations to take the canonical status of a Public International Association of the Faithful within the Dicastery for laity family and life at the Roman Curia under a bishop from the United States as prefect. Once again, the Catholic Church forced her patriarchal structures on an independent movement to ensure absolute control of power and polity in the clerical Church. No wonder that in 2019 membership in the World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations had fallen to eight million.[iv] 

I want to describe the anger and resentment of two women colleagues working with me at the Theological Faculty concerning their discrimination in society and in the Roman Catholic Church. Usually, female staff members in the faculty do not openly protest or even discuss women’s discrimination by the Catholic Church and society. One day, in research meeting a colleague had provided the positive and helpful energy for aggressively expressing emotions without feelings of shame and guilt. In that meeting, the colleague from the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences of Innsbruck University who is also working as a psychotherapist broke a taboo and enthusiastically spoke about the creative powers of sexuality and sexual pleasure.

The meeting took place on a Friday in the last week of April 2013. The monthly meeting of the research group on violence and religion of our faculty usually starts with a thirty-minute input on a specific topic, continues with a discussion of about an hour and ends in informal talk and recreation with coffee and cake. About seven female and twelve male theologians, mostly faculty staff members, attended the meeting that Friday. It was the first time in ten years of working together on violence and religion that the concept gender was on the agenda. Since that day, three inputs were scheduled, the time for the exchange of arguments was barely enough, and discussions therefore continued during the informal part of the meeting.

I was to give the first input and addressed measures for removing barriers to gender equality at the university level. I presented the thesis that the policy of affirmative action for promoting women employment at the University of Innsbruck is ethically justified discrimination of men. I interpreted the fact that barely 20% of Austria’s university teachers are women, as evidence of the discrimination of women in society and academic life and careers. I referred to the discussions of the 1990s, where affirmative action for women was rightly criticized as discriminatory. I concluded that the preferential treatment of women at our university is ethically justified if the discrimination of equally qualified male applicants for university jobs aims at reducing the far greater overall discrimination of women concerning academic career opportunities.

In a second point, I tried to present specific measures that are not discriminatory and nevertheless constitute preferential treatment involving preferences for women understood as the adoption of these specific measures that will not harm the benefits regarding male contenders participating in the competition. I presented the results of the research group of experimental economics at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Innsbruck that was studying possibilities of non-discriminatory measures that would eliminate gender barriers in the labor market (Balafoutas, Loukas, and Matthias Sutter. 2012. “Affirmative Action Policies Promote Women and do not harm efficiency in the Laboratory.” Science 335 (6068): 579–582). Balafoutas and Sutter started from the hypothesis that gender differences in choosing to enter competitions are one source of unequal labor market outcomes concerning wages and promotions (ibid.: 579). They wanted to study the effects of policy interventions to support women in a set of controlled laboratory experiments with students at their faculty. Four kinds of interventions were evaluated: “Quotas, where one of two winners of a competition must be female; two variants of preferential treatment, where a fixed increment is added to women’s performance; and repetition of the competition, where a second competition takes place if no woman is among the winners” (ibid.). The results of the experiment were encouraging: “Compared with no intervention, all interventions encourage women to enter competition more often, and performance is at least equally good, both during and after the competition”, while the interventions in fact did not discriminate the competing males (ibid.). I concluded my statement claiming that encouraging women to compete is an important aspect in the discussion of how to empower women to get jobs.

Reading the faces of my listening colleagues, I immediately could tell that I had failed to communicate my point concerning models of affirmative action that would not discriminate. There was not much opportunity for questions because the next speaker was scheduled. A woman assistant professor of the Theological Faculty gave an introduction into some concepts of feminist theology. She did not receive much attention. It was my fault as I had already expired the audience’s attention span and the male colleagues at the faculty are not interested in feminist theology anyways. Male dominance determines the faculty’s mentality that feminism is not a serious subject for academic discourse.

Attention for the speaker spontaneously returned when hearing the third speaker of that morning. The colleague from the Faculty of Political Science spoke on the empowering creative forces of sexuality and protested the suppression of sexuality and sexual pleasure by the long discriminatory tradition of the Roman Catholic Church concerning the valuation of the human body. He told us how he had turned to Freudian psychoanalysis after the midlife break-up of his marriage and how he learned to enjoy the natural pleasures of sex by overcoming his feelings of shame and guilt that his internalized Catholic superego had imposed on him concerning the experience of sexual pleasure. Suddenly, the audience listened with enthusiasm and with a consenting smile while forgetting about Catholic moral correctness. All were carried away by the colleague’s tender descriptions of the delight and pleasure he takes for example in licking the ear, licking, and caressing the breast, and the mammilla of the lover and getting caressed and licked himself. He went on describing his delight getting the anus and the glans of the penis licked, and the corpus and the prepuce, the scrotum, and the clitoris. He enjoys licking the great lips and the small ones of his lover, caressing with the tongue, the tongue and the body, and the fingers caressing the vagina and the mouth of the uterus bringing pleasure and taking it at the same time. He continued his eulogy of sexual pleasures and when he had ended his passionate plea for finally recognizing the empowering experience of sexual pleasure in Roman Catholic theology, the excitement and positive energy he had created within the group lasted well into the liberated discussions of the informal part of the meeting.

I found myself in a group of four enjoying together a cup of coffee and talking about the meeting. The group consisted of the woman assistant professor who gave the input on feminist theology before, another woman doing her post-doctoral studies and a male doctoral student and me. All three colleagues were married and had children. Right at the beginning of our discussion, I was asked if I really oppose affirmative action. I replied that I just wanted to make the point that affirmative action as practiced at our university is discriminatory but is justified. At this moment, the two women colleagues got very angry at me insisting that affirmative action is not discriminatory. I pointed at the doctorate student in our small group and said that he would suffer discrimination if he would apply together with a woman for a job at the University and the equally qualified woman would get the job because of affirmative action. The two of them are not treated equally and this is discriminatory and not just. The two female colleagues now got terribly angry with me aggressively insisting that affirmative action does not discriminate and that their colleague had enjoyed in his life all the privileges of men in our Austrian society that discriminates women. I tried to argue that he is not responsible for the discrimination and suffering of women in our society. The two women would not agree with my argument, and I provoked more anger. The doctoral student in our group was not only held liable for the sufferings that the patriarchal structures of society had imposed on women for centuries, but he was also made something like the scape goat for revenge for the perceived injustices and wrongs to the two women themselves. I tried to stay calm and not to provoke more aggression.

I asked the doctoral student afterwards how he felt, and he credibly affirmed he did not feel offended at all. It took me some time to understand that I experienced a precious moment of authentic emotions. The two colleagues had made clear their anger that usually destructively gets suppressed. The structures of oppression and injustice that usually silence the articulation of anger and resentment were forgotten for a moment. The colleague speaking on sexual pleasure had lifted the taboo of keeping silent on sexual pleasure. The women colleagues openly showed their anger and resentment. They had forgotten about their feelings of shame and guilt that usually accompany the negative appraisal of one’s own self when the presumption is that by challenging male domination, I am hurting the male. Anger and resentment develop because of perceived injustice and wrong to oneself. For a moment there was speaking in anger. Aggressive emotions are helpful for providing the energy to assert oneself and fend off injuries to one’s psychological and personal integrity (Aichhorn, Wolfgang, and Helmut Kronberger. 2012. “The Nature of Emotions. A Psychological Perspective.” In Yearbook 2011. Emotions from Ben Sira to Paul, edited by Renate Egger-Wenzel and Jeremy Corley, 515–25. 522. Berlin: De Gruyter). “Anger can be seen as the prerequisite for self-confidence”, anger is a driving force for changing a given situation (ibid.). It is sad that already the next day shame and guilt dominated again the consciences of the two women colleagues. There were no more open words of protest discrimination in our conversations. The behavior of the two women toward their male colleagues adapted to the habitual forms of politeness and pseudo-nice small talk. Three years later, the doctoral student had finished his doctorate and applied for a job at the faculty. He was competing with a woman who was working at the University of Vienna, and both were equally qualified for the job. According to the policy of affirmative action of the University of Innsbruck, the woman would have to get the job. It was a big surprise, and I was very much disappointed that the woman assistant professor, who three years ago was ready to discriminate the doctorate student, was now speaking in his favor and against the woman candidate. Apparently, she felt more secure with the male colleague she knew. He is one of her former students. What kind of fear made the woman assistant professor argue against the woman coming from Vienna? I do not know. My suspicion is that group identity of the woman assistant professor and the male aspiring assistant professor, both coming from the Alpine peasant culture, made them fight together against the female urban colleague. Social group identity wins over gender solidarity.

For the last fifteen years, I was member of the equal treatment party for equal job opportunities for women and men at the University of Innsbruck. The University Law of 2002 of the Federal Republic of Austria claims that “the senate of each university shall establish an equal opportunity working party responsible for combating gender discrimination by university governing bodies”.[v] The official gazette of the University of Innsbruck proclaims in every announcement of the vacancy of the job for a professor that the University choses its professors according to its plan for the promotion of women. The official gazette from April 18, 2018, for example, announces the job vacancy for a professor of Catholic dogma and refers to § 35 (4) of the plan for the promotion of women claiming, “preferential treatment of women in the case of equal qualification” (Märk 2018, 312). Job announcements for the Catholic Theological Faculty of the University of Innsbruck refer additionally to the Concordat of June 1933 that is the treaty between the Holy See and the Republic of Austria claiming that Article V, § 1 (4) of the Concordat repeals § 35 (4) of the plan for the promotion of women (ibid.). Since 1945, no government of the Republic of Austria touched the Concordat from 1933 regardless of coming from the right or left. In 2019, the Concordat from 1933 is in force and will stay in force for quite some time. Article V, § 1 (4) of the Concordat affirms that the Theological Faculty of the University of Innsbruck must conserve the character of its teaching staff. There is no agreement among Austrian jurists and experts of Canon Law about the specific meaning of this Article V, § 1 (4) of the Concordat. The term “character of the teaching staff” apparently applies to the Jesuit Order who, in 1933 run the Theological Faculty. The rector of the University of Innsbruck, the Deacon of the Theological Faculty, the bishop of dioceses of Innsbruck and the Jesuit superior of Austria agrees that Article V, § 1 (4) of the Concordat affirms the preferential treatment of a Jesuit candidate for a job at the Theological Faculty. An official declaration on the part of the Republic of Austria and the Holy See about the right interpretation of Article V, § 1 (4) of the Concordat was never agreed. Nobody is really interested in clearing the case and the interested persons and institutions that is the Catholic Church, the Jesuit Order and the University of Innsbruck calmly continue discriminating non-Jesuit candidates, men, and women, for the jobs at the Theological University that is run by the Republic of Austria and the regional government of Tyrol. The fact that there are few Jesuit candidates for the jobs announced at the Theological Faculty de facto limits the discrimination. For fifteen years, I have unsuccessfully tried to change the official understanding of Article V, § 1 (4) of the Concordat. The consensus on the discriminatory interpretation of the Concordat by the interested persons and institutions demonstrates the Vatican’s ability to influence with the help of international treaties the job decisions at a state university of an independent democratic republic and national state in the year 2024. I never experienced public anger by anybody at the University of Innsbruck concerning the discriminating use of Article V, § 1 (4) of the Concordat or the restriction of the constitutional principle of the freedom of research and teaching at Theological Faculties of Universities that are run by the Republic of Austria according to Article V, § 4. This article of the Concordat obliges the Republic of Austria to remove professors from teaching at the Theological Faculty, if Church authorities withdraw their canonical mission for them.[vi] 

When Sister Mary Tobin was working in the fall of 1965 in Rome in the commission for the Church in the modern world, there was another Catholic American woman theologian visiting the Second Vatican Council. Mary Daly (1928–2010), the later radical lesbian feminist, was doing theological graduate studies in Europe and in the fall of 1965, she traveled to Rome to the Second Vatican Council. She was not invited to the Council, so she got herself a press pass and “sat in on proceedings, watching the bishops in their regal white and crimson and the nuns veiled in black who shuffled to receive communion from the princes” (Coblentz, Jessica, and Brianne A. B. Jacobs. 2018. “Mary Daly’s The Church and the Second Sex after Fifty Years of US Catholic Feminist Theology.” Theological Studies 79 (3): 543–565. 545. doi:/10.1177/0040563918784781).

Daly returned to the United States and in 1968 published The Church and the Second Sex, “one of the first monographs in the field of Catholic feminist theology” (ibid.: 543). The impetus for her book was not the Second Vatican Council but Simone de Beauvoir’s book The Second Sex and her vigorous criticism of Catholic ideology and practice (ibid.: 546). Daly wanted to be sensitive to the problem of the women in the Church. She affirmed de Beauvoir’s analysis of ecclesial sexism. There are five problems with sexism across church history: “The church is an instrument of oppression; it deceives women into passivity; Catholic moral doctrine is violent to women; the exclusion of women in the tradition result in feelings of inferiority; and the church obstructs women’s transcendence” (ibid.). For de Beauvoir transcendence is not an experience of Go’d, but the experience to transcend with an active, creative, and productive self to the full self-realization of the self (ibid.: 555). Daly consents insofar as Catholic anthropology understands female transcendence as an imperfect enterprise because the apparently natural male-female duality excludes femaleness from realizing complete selfhood. Women are discriminated, and maleness is the perfect picture of complete selfhood (ibid.: 556).

In 2018, Coblentz and Jacobs assess that Daly’s critiques of sexism in the church have persisted as major concerns in the US Catholic feminist theology for the last fifty years (ibid.: 557–58). Studies deconstructed oppression as enforced passive obedience in exchange for promises of heavenly rewards; they deconstructed the ideology of the women’s vocation as self-less surrender of their individual realization for the fulfillment of the needs of others that is of husbands and children (547–50). Catholic women feminist ethicists reinterpreted moral doctrine itself in ways that promote women’s embodied experience and well-being (ibid.: 552). Catholic feminist theologians encourage women to take leadership roles and exercise their legitimate authority. They empower women to give language to their spirituality of integration of spirit and body; to exchange the destructive feelings of shame, ascriptions of uncleanness and silence, of self-hatred and self-rejection for the assessment of self-worth and self-love, for reclaiming female power and the likeness of women to the divine for their life-giving embodied existences. Catholic feminist theologians advocate for a Church that acknowledges the full humanity, goodness, and bodily integrity of women (ibid.). Feminists across academic disciplines reflecting on individual psychological experience and interfamilial relations, assess the suffering and pain that is inflicted on women. Women’s actual lived experience is suffering. Feminist Catholic theologians are empowered to name the sufferings and pain of women as the real sin in the world (ibid.).

In 2018, Coblentz and Jacobs observe that despite the ill effects of ecclesial patriarchy on growing up girls and women “Catholic feminist theologians have focused on the psychological effect of oppression outside the church rather than tracing these struggles to ecclesial sexism itself” (ibid.: 554). Daly was clear about the fact that psychological suffering of women also results from ecclesial patriarchy, her assessment on ecclesial sexism “was more substantive than its legacy” (ibid.: 558).

Psychologists have explored gendered psychological suffering in the church in recent years responding to the global clergy abuse crisis (ibid.: 554). They showed in their studies that sexual violence and violence “stemmed from the church’s all-male hierarchy and its patriarchal doctrines” (ibid.). Not only in the United States but all over the world studies prove that the sexual and psychological abuse that male clerics and religious have inflicted on young people and children is connected to the gendered hierarchy and theologies of the church (ibid.). Clericalism’s abuse of power continued by refusing to assess the suffering of the victims of the abuse and by the decade long cover up of the crimes of the clerical aggressors by the hierarchy.

Lately, a few Bishops’ Conferences acknowledge the connection between the gendered hierarchy and the sexual and psychological abuse of children and youths. In 2018, the Report on the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests, deacons, and male religious within the canonical jurisdiction of the Bishops’ Conference was published in Germany (Dreßing, Harald, Hans Joachim Salize, Dieter Dölling, Dieter Hermann, Andreas Kruse, Eric Schmitt und Britta Bannenberg, 2018. Sexueller Missbrauch an Minderjährigen durch katholische Priester, Diakone und männliche Ordensangehörige im Bereich der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz. Mannheim. https://www.dbk.de/fileadmin/redaktion/diverse_downloads/.../MHG-Studie-gesamt.pdf).

The independent research group of forensic experts, psychiatrists and medical doctors had investigated in the name of the German Bishops’ Conference and concluded: Sexual abuse is an excess of dominance exercised by clerical power abuse within a hierarchical-authoritarian clerical system. The authoritarian-clerical understanding of the office of the ordained priesthood may rather conceive sexual violence as a menace for the own clerical system than as a continuing danger for the abuse of further children and youths (ibid.: 13). The sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clerics must not be perceived as solely the problem of a few problematic individuals but must be understood as a specific institutional problem of the Catholic Church (ibid.: 16). The German Bishops’ Conference acknowledged the findings of the 2018 report and took responsibility; the bishops claimed accountability of the perpetrators and justice for the victims.[vii] 

The 2017 Final Report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse represents the culmination of a five-year inquiry into institutional responses to child sexual abuse and related matters that had been established by Australian governments (Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. 2017. Final Report. Volume 1. Our inquiry. Commonwealth of Australia. 1. https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/final_report_-_volume_1_our_inquiry.pdf). Six Commissionaires had been appointed to the inquiry. The Commissioners sought to gather information about institutional responses to child sexual abuse through personal accounts (provided in writing or in a private session), public hearings, research, and policy work. Commissioners met monthly throughout the inquiry (ibid.: 23). By 31 July 2017, the Commission’s call center had taken more than 39,700 calls and the Commission also received over 23,900 pieces of correspondence, held private sessions and public hearings, and visited communities across Australia (ibid.: 24). Private sessions were held in ninety-six different locations across Australia and the final report draws from the experiences of 6,875 survivors who were heard in private sessions (ibid.: 26). The Royal Commission held fifty-seven public hearings, hearing from 1,302 witnesses (ibid.: 34). Of the 4,029 survivors who told the Commission during private sessions about child sexual abuse in religious institutions, 2,489 survivors that is 61.8%, told the Commission about abuse in Catholic institutions (Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. 2017. Final Report. Volume 16. Religious Institutions. Book 2. Commonwealth of Australia.75. https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/final_report_-_volume_16_religious_institutions_book_2.pdf). More than three quarters of the survivors were male, and one quarter was female (ibid.: 77). Seven percent of the priests who ministered in the period 1950 to 2010 were alleged perpetrators (ibid.: 84).

The Royal Commission cites Archbishop Denis Hart. In 2017, Hart is Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne and President of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference. “When I am confronted by the statistics of offending and I remember that they are not just statistics, these are all people who have suffered terribly and whose families have suffered terribly, I would have to say that I believe that psychosexual immaturity, lack of proper human formation … they can and I believe do contribute to the occurrence of abuse” (ibid. 284).

The Royal Commission finds a combination of psychosexual and other related factors on the part of the individual perpetrator, and a range of institutional factors, including theological, governance and cultural factors that contributed to the occurrence of abuse; theological, governance and cultural factors also contributed to the inadequate responses of Catholic institutions to that abuse. Institutional factors and specific factors in relation to an individual’s psychosexual immaturity or psychosexual dysfunction combine arising the risk of child sexual abuse (Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. 2017b. Final Report. Volume 16. Religious Institutions. Book 1. Commonwealth of Australia. 42. https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/final_report_-_volume_16_religious_institutions_book_1.pdf). Influencing factors may include confusion of the priest “about sexual identity, childish interests and behavior, lack of peer relationships, and a history of having been sexually abused as a child. Further, some clergy and religious perpetrators appear to have been vulnerable to mental health issues, substance abuse and psychosexual immaturity. We heard that personality factors that may be associated with clergy and religious perpetrators include narcissism, dependency, cognitive rigidity, and fear of intimacy” (ibid.: 43).

Clericalism that is the idealization of the priesthood, and by extension, the idealization of the Catholic Church “is linked to a sense of entitlement, superiority and exclusion, and abuse of power. Clericalism nurtured ideas that the Catholic Church was autonomous and self-sufficient, and promoted the idea that child sexual abuse by clergy and religious was a matter to be dealt with internally and in secret” (ibid.). The understanding that the priest’s ordination operates an ontological change that makes the priest different to ordinary human beings is part of clericalism. Perpetrators exploited on the notion that the priest is a sacred person and the consequent power and trust to abuse children. “It was the culture of clericalism that led bishops and religious superiors to attempt to avoid public scandal to protect the reputation of the Catholic Church and the status of the priesthood. We heard that the culture of clericalism continues in the Catholic Church and is on the rise in some seminaries in Australia and worldwide (ibid.: 44). “The powers of governance held by individual diocesan bishops and provincials are not subject to adequate checks and balances. There is no separation of powers, and the executive, legislative and judicial aspects of governance are combined in the person of the pope and in diocesan bishops. Diocesan bishops have not been sufficiently accountable to any other body for decision-making in their handling of allegations of child sexual abuse or alleged perpetrators. There has been no requirement for their decisions to be made transparent or subject to due process” (ibid.). “The exclusion of lay people and women from leadership positions in the Roman Catholic Church may have contributed to inadequate responses to child sexual abuse … It appears that some candidates for leadership positions have been selected on the basis of their adherence to specific aspects of church doctrine and their commitment to the defense and promotion of the institutional Roman Catholic Church, rather than on their capacity for leadership. This meant that some bishops were ill equipped and unprepared for the challenges of dealing with child sexual abuse and responding to emerging claims” (ibid.).

The Royal Commission recommends that canon law should be amended so that offences related to child sexual abuse are framed as crimes against the child rather than “delicts’ against morals or a breach of the obligation to observe celibacy” (ibid.: 45). It appears to the Royal Commission that during the 1990s and early 2000s, “the Holy See considered that bishops were not free to report allegations of child sexual abuse by clergy to civil authorities. However, the Holy See’s approach to mandatory reporting changed significantly” (ibid.). The Royal Commission acknowledges, “that only a minority of Catholic clergy and religious have sexually abused children. However, based on research we conclude that there is an elevated risk of child sexual abuse where compulsorily celibate male clergy or religious have privileged access to children in certain types of Catholic institutions, including schools, residential institutions, and parishes” (ibid.: 46). Since for many Catholic clergy and religious, celibacy is implicated in emotional isolation, loneliness, depression and mental illness, compulsory celibacy may also have contributed to various forms of psychosexual dysfunction, including psychosexual immaturity, which pose an ongoing risk to the safety of children (ibid.: 47). The Royal Commission recommends that the Australian Catholic Bishops` Conference request that the Holy See consider introducing voluntary celibacy for diocesan clergy (ibid.). It is apparent for the Commission that selection, screening, and initial formation practices were inadequate in the past (ibid.). Concerning the Sacrament of reconciliation (confession) the Royal Commission makes the recommendation introducing a “failure to report offence, and amending laws concerning mandatory reporting to child protection authorities to ensure that people in religious ministry are included as a mandatory reporter group” with no exemption (Ibid.: 48).

It is true, only a minority of Catholic clergy and religious have sexually abused children. In Australia seven percent of the priests who ministered in the period 1950 to 2010 were alleged perpetrators (ibid.: 84). The 2018 report for the German Catholic Bishops` Conference speaks of 4.4% of priests who ministered in the period 1945 to 2014 as alleged perpetrators and produces a comparable percentage to the findings of the dioceses in the United States (Dreßing et. al. 2018, 11). The 2018 German report states with clarity that the 4.4% of alleged perpetrators corresponds to the lowest estimation of the actual sexual abuse of minors and youths (ibid.).

Many of the recommendations of the 2018 report for the German Catholic Bishops` Conference (ibid.: 15–19) correspond to the recommendations of the Royal Commission. The German report insists on contextualizing sexual abuse within the specific structures and dynamics of the Roman Catholic Church (ibid.: 15). The Royal Commission also speaks of many contributing factors to the occurrence of abuse and identifies the same theological, governance and cultural factors that contributed to the occurrence of abuse also as those factors that contributed to the inadequate responses of Catholic institutions to that abuse (Royal Commission 2017, 41). Addressing the recommendations therefore is a necessity for the Roman Catholic Church in view of providing the supportive environment for survivors of child sexual abuse. The Royal Commission affirms that they heard from survivors that since 1997 they may have received greatly needed compassion and support, but they also experienced a power imbalance between themselves, and the Roman Catholic Church representatives involved in the Church’s support for survivors (ibid.: 39). For some, participating in the official processes that the Australian Roman Catholic Church has instituted “was a positive experience which contributed to their healing. However, others told us that their experiences were difficult, frightening, or confusing, and led to further harm and re-traumatization (ibid.: 40).

The studies of child abuse by clerics in the Roman Catholic Church assess that a range of factors contribute to the occurrence of abuse. Studying the ecclesial oppression of women, Catholic feminist theologians in the United States reflect not only the gender dynamics of sexism but identify multiple structures that hinder women’s lives (Coblentz and Jacobs 2018, 558). Just as with the factors contributing to the occurrence of abuse, the structural factors of women’s oppression must get considered as intersecting structures (ibid.: 559). The effects of racism, colonialism, and other oppressions on women’s lives need to be studied in their relation to sexism. Feminist theologians like Diana Hayes exposes the role of racism in the images of idealized white womanhood, “showing that black women have either been neglected as ideal women or recognized only as role models for enslaved or abused women” (ibid.). Cultural racism in the United States disproportionately sexualizes black women’s bodies. The effects of this intersection of racism with sexism must be studied just as the effects of the intersecting structures of sexism and xenophobia, transphobia, classism, ableism (discrimination against people with disabilities), ageism (discrimination against people based on their age), homophobia, sizeism (discrimination of people because of their size and weight), nationalism, among others (ibid.). Recognizing and transforming sexism in the North American Roman Catholic Church requires a confrontation with Catholicism’s legacy as “a white racist institution” (ibid.: 560). If we want a feminist reform of the Roman Catholic Church, we must assess racism. Looking at the Roman Curia that is still dominated by white male Cardinals from Italy, Europe and North America white supremacy must be addressed and dismantled in the Roman Catholic Church as a whole.

The feminist Catholic theologians Coblentz and Jacobs place their theological work under the obligation “to follow the example of Catholic feminist theologians of color, who led the field in their attention to the complexities of intersectional analysis” (ibid.: 564). Catholic feminist theology has “expended incredible intellectual energy on the feminist reinterpretation of Christian belief and practices” to transform lived Catholicism (ibid.: 565). Coblentz and Jacobs dryly diagnose that Pope Benedict XVI’s enthusiasm for the “theology of women” is “either unaware of or uninterested in the arguments of US Catholic feminist theology”. The public critique of Sister Elizabeth Johnson in 2011 by the US bishops and the Roman disciplinary actions of June 2012 against Sister Margaret Farley writing on masturbation, homosexuality, and marriage, reveal the true intentions of the church hierarchy (ibid.). The Roman Catholic Church’s hierarchy of male celibate priests, bishops, and cardinals together with and under the pope suppresses Catholic feminism and does not assess the needs of the Catholic women.

But the discourse of women theologians continues to question women’s oppression and “the establishment and vitality of feminist theological networks and working groups across the globe represent the proliferation of this discourse” (ibid.: 544).

In August 1988, Mercy Amba Oduyoye assembled a group of African women, academics in the field of religion and culture that developed into the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians (Fiedler, Rachel NyaGondwe and Johannes Wynand Hofmeyr. 2011. “The conception of the circle of concerned African women theologians: Is it African or Western?” Acta Theologica 31 (1): 39-57. 40. https://www.ajol.info/index.php/actat/article/view/67281). For the ecumenical Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians, it is important to assess that their reinterpretation of oppressive African cultures that can bring about the liberation of African women is not primarily influenced by Western feminist theologies (Fiedler and Hofmeyr 2011, 39). Colonialism introduced Western gender perceptions and practices leading to women’s marginalization and economic and political disempowerment (Maponda, Anastasie M. 2016. “The impact of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians: French zone on church and African theology issues.” (Verbum et Ecclesia 37 (2): 1–6. 1. https://verbumetecclesia.org.za/index.php/ve/article/view/1597). “Women, who were chiefs, queens and empresses in pre-colonial Africa”, in the postcolonial modern period are not allowed to be presidents and prime ministers, in mosques, churches or shrines they are not allowed to become leaders and cannot become priests and bishops and cardinals (ibid.). Mercy Amba Oduyoye “impulsed the idea that women should make their own theology from their daily life experiences and their subjectivity as women, in order to think on faith and Gospel in a different way” (ibid.). African women theologians struggle for gender justice, for social development, and social welfare, conducting gender sensitization, studies on HIV and AIDS, anti-poverty, and on the Bible (ibid.: 3). The Circle’s members come “from all the three major religions in Africa—Islam, Christianity and traditional religion” (ibid.). The members are concerned condemning cultural and religious practices and attitudes destructive to the life and well-being of women (ibid.: 4).

The vision and mission of the Ecclesia of Women in Asia consists in encouraging and assisting Catholic women “doing theology” in Asia (Lobo-Gajiwala, Astrid. 2011. “Introduction”. In Feminist Theology of LiberationAsian Perspectives. Practicing Peace, edited by Judette A. Gallares and Astrid Lobo-Gajiwala, 4–14. 7. Quezon City, Philippines: Claretian Publications). Ecclesia of Women in Asia engages “in research and reflection from a feminist perspective, towards developing a theology that is 1) inculturated and contextualized in Asian realities; that 2) is built on the spiritual experience and praxis of the socially excluded; 3) is mindful of the mutuality and creation and 4) is conscious of the need for dialogue with other Christian denominations, religions and disciplines” (ibid.: 8). The first gathering of women theologians of Ecclesia of Women in Asia was held in 2002 in Bangkok, Thailand, on the theme: Ecclesia of Women in Asia: Gathering the Voices of the Silenced. The second gathering followed in 2004, at Yogyakarta, Indonesia, taking as its theme a topic, which Asian theologians tend to skirt: Body and Sexuality: Theological-Pastoral Perspectives of Women in Asia. The third gathering occurred in 2007 at Colombo, Sri Lanka, on the theme: Re-imagining Women, Marriage and Family Life in Asia: A 20 st Century Theological Challenge. In 2009, thirty-two women from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, USA, and Germany explored in Hua Hin, Thailand, the theme Practicing Peace: Towards an Asian Feminist Theology of Liberation (ibid.: 4).

The words of Habakkuk (2, 2-3) became the leitmotif of the conference:

Write the vision down,

inscribe it on tablets,

to be easily read.

For the vision is for its appointed time,

It hastens towards its end, and it will not lie;

Although it may take some time, wait for it,

For come it certainly will before too long.

Shalom. Peace be with you. Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti (ibid.: 14).

The papers of all four conferences are published and I present some insights of Judette Gallares’ paper on the Sermon on the Mount (Gallares, Judette A. 2011. “Blessed Are the Peacemakers. An Interpretive Rereading of the Sermon on the Mount from an Asian Feminist Perspective.” In Practicing Peace. Feminist Theology of Liberation Asian Perspectives, edited by Judette A. Gallares and and Astrid Lobo-Gajiwala, 16–41. Quezon City, Philippines: Claretian Publications). Gallares understands the Beatitudes and the whole of the Sermon of the Mount as an invitation “to reflect on the challenge of Jesus’ proclamation of the Reign of God and its implication to us as followers of Jesus in today’s world, particularly in the context of Asia” (ibid.: 16). Religion is not to blame for the violence on women, “religion simply serves as a veneer of a deeper complex reality”, the culture of war and the overpowering and growingly aggressive military mindset spreading around Asia, is “all part of a patriarchal culture which bases itself on the hierarchical superiority of males over females” (ibid.: 17). There is no word on that same patriarchal culture within the Roman Catholic Church. Gallares starts with a reading of Matthew 5,9: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God” (ibid.: 18). She claims that the followers of Jesus are called “to give witness to the world that to be a peacemaker requires the ability to love our enemy” (ibid.). Peace making is an activity, but we are nothing told by Gallares about the policy or social realizations of that activity. What is important for her, is to stay peaceful and not to react with violence (ibid.: 19). Gallares is not naïve, she is conscious of the political program of peace and the Reign of Go’d and insists that Jesus himself has resisted the militaristic tendencies of those who opposed Rome (ibid.: 20). From this follows that as true disciples, we will be persecuted as Jesus had been persecuted. Yet, it does not correspond to Jesus’ rejection of retaliatory violence that women “interpret their being victims of violence as Christian humility” (ibid.: 28). The narrative of Matthew in fact concerns divisions about peace and violence that will arise within families, among friends and neighbors. Women have a greater role in the transforming initiative of forgiving, of connecting us to one another and helping us to understand (ibid.: 35).

The theologians of Ecclesia of Women in Asia are getting criticized by a member of their group. Sharon Bong is an associate professor of Gender studies at Monash University Malaysia - the third largest campus of Australia’s largest university -, and since 2004 she has been involved in Ecclesia of Women in Asia.[viii] She comments positively that the theology of Ecclesia of Women in Asia engenders a transformative and emancipating theology for the lived realities of Asia’s poor, especially women. But this theology nevertheless gets qualified as essentialist and subjugated to traditional knowledge (Bong, Sharon A., 2014. “The Ecclesia of Women in Asia: Liberating Theology.” In Feminist Catholic theological ethics – conversations in the world church, edited by Linda Hogan and Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, 64–71. 66. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312196754_The_Ecclesia_of_Women_in_Asia_Liberating_theology). Bong appreciates that the lived realities of the 150.000 Filipina domestic helpers in Hong Kong that are subjected to gendered violence economically, physically, and sexually are documented by Ecclesia of Women in Asia. Bong consents that the Taiwanese sex-workers are understood based on the few equally terrible options they have for surviving and that the survivors of clergy sexual misconduct are empathically heard (ibid.: 68). She affirms that theology starting from the lived realities of the disenfranchised is sound theology but her critique is hard: The theology of the Ecclesia of Women in Asia is based on “subjugated knowledge” because it is limited to the excesses but does not investigate the oppressing construction itself of the essential dualisms of man-woman, mind-body, violence-passivity, and culture-nature (ibid.: 69).

The old, mostly white celibate cardinals of the Roman Curia who govern under the pope with absolute power over a billion Roman Catholic women, men and queer around the world cannot preach the equal dignity, freedom and rights of all women, men and queer without giving up their absolute powers of domination on the laity in the church. Sustaining an absolute monarchy, they cannot preach the Gospel, they cannot preach the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus Christ without contradicting themselves by their deeds. Oppressing cardinals and bishops cannot credibly preach Matthew 5,9: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” Oppressors cannot claim the peace and justice that Jesus Christ proclaims for all women, men and queer as Matthew 7, 28-29 testifies at the end of the Sermon on the Mount: “Jesus had now finished what he wanted to say, and his teaching made a deep impression on the people because he taught them with authority, unlike their own scribes.” The oppressive hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church cannot realize peace and justice without stopping oppression and realizing peace and justice together with all women, men and queer that is by socially realizing the equal dignity, freedom, and rights of all.

The Vatican would immediately silence women working within Catholic institutions who claim equal dignity, freedom and rights for all women, men and queer in the Church. If Sister Judette Gallares would protest discrimination by the Church hierarchy, she would not be any more allowed to teach at the Institute for Consecrated Life in Asia in the Philippines, to collaborate with Radio Vatican in Rome, and the Claretian Missionaries would not be allowed to publish her works any more.

The women of Ecclesia of Women in Asia, Catholic women in America, Africa and all over the world who would claim, and research and reflect a feminist Roman Catholic Church where women, men and queer enjoy equal dignity, freedom, and rights, where their spiritual experience and praxis is respected, where reigns mindfulness and mutuality, they all would be silenced by the Vatican. If Sharon Bong got a little more explicit on the oppressive patriarchal structures within the Catholic Church, Roman church authorities would press the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers not to publish her articles any more with Orbis Books.

Even Pope Francis demonstrates that de Beauvoir’s analysis of ecclesial sexism is still valid because he deceives women into passivity and sustains the Catholic moral doctrine that is violent to women and takes control of their bodies. In June 2018, Pope Francis said in an address to the Forum of Family Associations in Rome “that the use of abortion to terminate pregnancies likely to produce disabled or chronically ill children was the product of a Nazi mentality” (Lyman, Eric J. 2018. “Pope: Abortion is ‘white glove’ equivalent to Nazi crimes.” USA TODAY. June 16. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/06/16/pope-francis-abortion-equivalent-nazi-eugenics-crimes/707661002/). Again, in October 2018, in his weekly general audience at St Peter’s Square he has compared abortion to “hiring a hitman to resolve a problem” (“Pope Francis compares abortion to hiring a hitman.” 2018. The Guardian. October 10. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/10/pope-francis-compares-abortion-hiring-hitman). This statement was threatening Women’s groups in Italy that have been fighting to ensure safe access to abortion amid a growing campaign from far-right politicians and anti-abortion groups to impose restrictions on the procedure or ban it completely (ibid.). No German-speaking theologian at a Theological Faculty of a State University in Germany or Austria, me included, dared to present publicly the necessary logical assessment of the illogical thinking of the pope. Independent academics and professional journalists had to do the job of the careful reasoning that “shows that comparing abortion with contract murder equates two acts that are far from obviously morally equivalent” (Shahvisi, Arianne. 2018. “Abortion is nothing like hiring a hitman, whatever Pope Francis says.” The Conversation. October 11. https://theconversation.com/abortion-is-nothing-like-hiring-a-hitman-whatever-pope-francis-says-104741). “While a hitman only gets paid if the job is done, health care providers can refuse to perform abortions and still draw their salaries” and “an abortion ends a life which was dependent on another life; a hitman ends the life of an independent human being” (ibid.). I respect the right to life of a fetus, but I also respect the right to bodily autonomy of the women. Regardless of one’s views on abortion, Shahvisi is right assessing the reality that denying women access to abortion does not save fetuses, “it simply kills more women” (ibid.).

The national Austrian group of We are Church International, a global coalition of national church reform groups founded in Rome in 1996, published a harsh protest against the pope’s comparison to a hitman: The comparison of a hitman with the sufferings of the many women who do not see an alternative to abortion is unacceptable. Connecting contract killing with abortion offends the victims of murder and the women who must make a choice in a conflict of pregnancy (“Starke Reaktionen auf Papst-Sager zu Abtreibung. Wir sind Kirche mit scharfer Kritik.” 2018. ORF. October 11. https://religion.orf.at/stories/2940979/).

Accusing health care providers of killing innocent fetuses and at the same time staying silent on the men of his hierarchy who pressured their pregnant rape victims to abort is too easy a business for a responsible pope. We are Church International writes on the scandal of sexual abuse of religious sisters by priests in the Roman Catholic Church: “The behavior of the Vatican and the hierarchy towards women religious has been shocking. They have sanctioned the spiritual and sexual abuse (including rape, prostitution and forced abortions) of women religious in many countries and on every continent for over twenty years and probably much longer. Their response has been silence, cover-up, and in-action” (Holmes, Colm, and Marianne Duddy-Burke. 2019. “Sexual Abuse of Religious Sisters by Priests in the Catholic Church: No more silence, No more cover-ups and No more in-action.” We are Church International. March 9. https://www.we-are-church.org/413/index.php/news/we-are-church-news-and-comment/709-p-release-20190309).

Power abuse is not a privilege of the hierarchy in the Roman Catholic Church. We find power abuse and discrimination in authoritarian states and democracies on a private, public, and state level. Yet, democracies make a difference: Western liberal democracies under the rule of Human Rights law are guarantying the freedom of research and speech. Sujatha Fernandes is a researcher investigating the use and misuse of storytelling on Human Rights. She investigates a case of a strategy of imperial statecraft by the United States government in Afghanistan. She insists that a broadly encompassing feminist vision must interrogate both local and global forms of power” (Fernandes, Sujatha. 2017. “Stories and Statecraft: Afghan Women’s Narratives and the Construction of Western Freedoms.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 42 (3): 643–665. 665). Her investigation shows the complicity of appeals to global liberal feminist sisterhood with imperialism (ibid. 645). It is a strategic perspective, presenting Afghan women as passive and voiceless. Following this description the Afghan Women’s Writing Project (AWWP) that had been set up by the US embassy in Kabul in 2010, presents itself as giving a voice to silent Afghan women (ibid.: 647). The project was financed by the US State Department and followed the strategies of “soft power” that is the use of the emotional accounts of oppressed Afghan women victimized by the Taliban to build support among Western women for the war effort (ibid. 643–44). Fernandes comments that this perspective “ignores the struggle of Afghan women who persisted through years of war and conflict” during the Taliban era (ibid.). During the Taliban era “women risked their lives to teach in secret schools, they distributed printed materials for education”, and the use of the bourka and masculine escorts were active strategies of mobility (ibid. 647). The Taliban regime, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was an Islamic monarchy that persisted from 1996 to December 2001 when it was overthrown by Western military invasion[ix]. (After twenty years of war, the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021). AWWP presented itself as being inclusive of all Afghan women, the project included only supporters of the US-led military intervention and presence in Afghanistan (ibid. 643). The AWWP set up workshops where US-based mentors helped Afghan women write their stories in English to be published on the AWWP website and read mostly by women in the United States and other Western countries (ibid. 644). The AWWP is a new form of late colonial feminism, that used feminist ideas to justify eradicating the cultures of colonized peoples (ibid. 645).

Fernandes asks if the Afghan women in the workshops are free to speak or if they are simply caught between patriarchy and imperialism. The AWWP encourages the Afghan women “to aspire to Western capitalist modes of desire” (ibid.: 654). The AWWP organized events where American girls read the stories of the Afghan girls. The American girls get empowered and feel thankful for being female in America. These events are not about the Afghan girls’ stories, and they are not about empowering the American girls “to challenge the sexual discrimination that confines them within narrow sex roles, subjects them to high rates of rape and sexual violence on campus and within their families, with lower rates of pay and advancement in the workforce than males” (ibid. 661). Fernandes testifies a different kind of event that took place on October 20, 2014, in New York. “There was a pro-Palestinian activist wearing a kaffiyeh, a transgender woman, and a young black man” and Marzia N., an Afghan woman who had published a story in the AWWP, was present (ibid. 661). She made an optimistic statement about the US intervention improving Afghan women’s lives, then she read her poem called “War” about the realities of the experience of war:

“War means poverty, people kill for food. Parents sell their children. Children sell opium. Girls marry old men. Teenagers take responsibilities that are too big. They feel old, begin to be cruel, see things they shouldn’t — do things they shouldn’t … War makes the warlord thirstier and thirstier. He cares only about himself, seeks to drink power, becomes blind, deaf, a liar. With no laws, no rules, you make no goals anymore for your unknown future. You become cheap, worthless” (ibid. 662). This poem speaks to those “who have some understanding of what is actually taking place on the ground”, but most of the audience did not want to “enter a deeper discussion of the issues raised by her poem” (ibid.). Fernandes calls for Western self-scrutiny and for critical feminist perspectives that are conscientious of their position and engage “within orders of patriarchy and gender that limit and regulate women in different ways” (ibid. 665).

I want to document a misuse of storytelling on Human Rights in the religious sphere. Pope Francis, a pope popular with the press and public opinion, uses an imperialist strategy: He gives the silenced women in the Roman Catholic Church all over the world a voice in the Roman power center of the Roman Catholic Church and then asks them to consent with their discrimination and obey the absolutist powers of the pope. Pope Francis got elected pope on March 13, 2013. A year later he had appointed members of his choice to the International Theological Commission - an instrument of the pope to work out the ideology for his policies - and ordered a document on “Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Church” (International Theological Commission. March 2018. “Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Church”. https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/). The document spelled out the ambivalent strategy of Pope Francis and tried to legitimate the misuse of free speech and discrimination of the laity in the Roman Catholic Church. The pope calls this kind of oppression synodality (See my Posting “Synodality and Pope Francis”). The first session of the Synod on Synodality assembled in October 1923 and the story telling began.

Courtney Mares from Catholic news agency writes on the list of delegates for the synod that was released on September 21, 2023 (https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/254747/synod-on-synodality-vatican-publishes-full-list-of-participants). The national bishops’ conferences elected 197 delegates, cardinals, archbishops, and bishops. The Superior Generals of religious orders sent 5 sisters and 5 brothers and fathers. There were 20 heads of Dicasteries of the Roman Curia. Pope Francis chose 120 delegates personally. 12 of the pope’s nominees were Cardinals, 10 were archbishops, 16 were bishops, 7 priests, 4 sisters and one lay man. From the continental assemblies of the synod the Pope selected priests, sisters and lay. From Africa 4 fathers, 4 sisters and 2 lay women. From North America 1 father, 1 sister, 5 lay women and 2 lay men. From Latin America 2 sisters, 1 father, 4 lay women and 3 lay men. From Asia 5 priests, 1 sister, 4 lay women. From Eastern Churches and the Middle East 1 priest, 2 sisters, 4 lay women and 3 lay men. From Europe 2 priests, 2 sisters, 2 lay men and 4 lay women. From Oceania 2 priests, 1 sister, 3 lay men and 4 lay women. As special guests were chosen 4 fathers, 1 sister, 1 lay man and 2 lay women. There were chosen a priest and a sister as spiritual assistants, and a priest as referent for the liturgy. As facilitators and experts were invited 26 priest theologians, 12 sister theologians, 11 male lay theologians and 7 female lay theologians. The General Secretariat of the Synod counted 4 priests, 1 sister, 3 lay men and 5 lay women. The Ordinary Council of the Synod counted 15 cardinals, archbishops and one bishop. There was one cardinal General Relator and two priests Special Secretaries and a cardinal as General Secretary. 364 delegates will be able to vote. The facilitators, experts and spiritual assistants may not vote (ibid.).

All in all, almost 79% of the delegates were male clergy, 7% were women religious, 8% lay women and 6% were lay men.

For the first time laywomen and laymen will participate in a Synod of Bishops at Rome and will be able to vote in the second session of the Synod in October 2024 on the final document of the Synodal process that had been underway since October 2021. The pope then “can decide, if he wishes, to adopt the text as a papal document or to write his own at the conclusion of the synod” (ibid.).

Given the fact that an overwhelming majority of 79% of the voting delegates are members of the Roman Catholic hierarchy that must obey the pope, there is no danger for Pope Francis that claims for participation in the government of the Church, claims for structural reform of Church institutions, claims for a separation of powers and institutions for checks and balances, or claims for female and male married priest will surge in the documents. The synthesis report of the October 2023 session of the Synod of the Bishops tells nice stories about experiences and understanding of Church life and how to create Church communities but refrains from claims for structural reform of the Roman Catholic Church (A Synodal Church in Mission. Synthesis Report. 2023. https://www.synod.va/content/dam/synod/assembly/synthesis/english/2023.10.28-ENG-Synthesis-Report_IMP.pdf).

The women religious and the lay women at the Synod are not openly protesting systematic women discrimination in the Roman Catholic Church. Many are feminists outside the Church but do not question discrimination within the Roman Catholic Church. Their jobs depend on their loyalty with Church hierarchy and teachings and sometimes there is simply no understanding of their discrimination by the Church. They are working in Church-related institutions such as schools, colleges, universities, and foundations, they are superiors or superior generals of their orders, and they are peace and justice activists in Church organizations and organize women’s projects. They tell about war, hunger, persecution, exclusion, and the sufferings of the Christians in their regions and make in Rome the experience of an international Church. But they do not publicly reflect on their systematic discrimination by that Church. They write about development of democracy, forced migration and the ethics of migration, and integral ecology, but not about democratic participation in the government of the Roman Catholic Church. This overall picture is correct, yet too simple, too Eurocentric, too old white male. Therefore, I want to look at some of the public statements of the voting women, who talk at the Roman Synod of Bishops about their Continental synodal assemblies.

There is the voting laywoman and academic Spanish theologian Cristina Inogés Sanz who publicly but carefully connects claims like the remarriage of divorced couples, acceptance of LGBTI people, the diaconate and priesthood for women, and optional celibacy with the Synod’s theme of community (https://www.elperiodico.com/es/sociedad/20230929/cristina-inoges-teologa-sinodo-iglesia-ejercicio-poder-abusos-mujer-92614349). She does not seek changes that will provide all Roman Catholics the opportunity to participate fully in Church life and leadership. Cautiously she claims the end of power abuses of patriarchy in the Roman Catholic Church for the future. In the past, her cautious claims were enough for the Roman hierarchy to exclude her from teaching at Catholic universities. She is not the only woman Catholic theologian who teaches at a Protestant Faculty because she is forbidden to teach at a Catholic University (ibid.).

The voting Canadian laywoman Barb Dowing speaks of the two sides in the North American Continental Synod (https://www.osservatoreromano.va/en/news/2023-09/dcm-009/from-the-continents.html). She “perceived a great division when discussing women’s contributions and reflections during the continental stage” (of the bishops’ synod). “There were some who felt that women’s voices should be listened to more carefully, especially when examining the issue of leadership roles, and that women should be allowed access to the diaconate and priesthood. It was also widely observed that many women, and their issues, were valued equally with minorities, disadvantaged groups, and the poor and destitute” (ibid.). She concludes “While it is true that there are many clergy who know and have experienced collaboration between women and men, it is equally true that there are thousands who are not interested in entertaining the subject. There is still much work to be done” (ibid.). 

Not surprisingly, the most progressive feminist laywoman at the Synod of Bishops in Rome is from the United States of America. “Pope Francis has selected as a voting delegate for the Synod on Synodality Cynthia Bailey Manns, a dissident laywoman who serves at a Catholic church and an ecumenical ‘seminary’ that host blasphemous events, including talks supporting abortion and homosexuality” (https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/4167956/posts). Pope Francis appointed Manns at the request of Archbishop Bernard Anthony Hebda of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, to represent a group that worked with the World Council of Churches, that is a Protestant organization that aspires to unite all Christian churches (ibid.).

The African voting laywoman Norha Kofognotera Nonterah speaks of women issues at the Continental Synod in Addis Ababa that she brought up in the Roman synodal assembly (https://www.osservatoreromano.va/en/news/2023-09/dcm-009/from-the-continents.html). She speaks of “a need for more inclusive systems of governance so that the wisdom, experience, faith, resilience and skills of women are fully utilized for the mission of the Church” (ibid.). She claims, “a conscious, good and authentic listening” of the Church to women on issues “such as gender-based violence, sexual abuse and its legacy in the Church, child protection and quality education and training” (ibid.). Further “women call for a restructuring of decision-making, leadership structures and administrative positions to include lay people in the church” (ibid.).

Sister Maria Nirmalini, superior general of the Apostolic Carmel congregation, is the president of Conference of Religious men and women in India (Thomas Scaria, Mar 12, 2022. CRUX. https://cruxnow.com/cns/2022/03/indian-nuns-face-challenges-says-head-of-conference-of-religious-in-india). The mounting challenges faced by the 103.000 professed sisters in India concern the mysterious deaths of nuns, clergy sexual abuse, patriarchal oppression, and property disputes. Her first plan as new president is to form a “grievance cell” with representations from women religious doctors, psychologists, lawyers, counselors, and spiritual guides to provide “confidential listening” to sisters from any congregation and assure them of our support (ibid.). She says about religious women in India: “We have a significant role in society, but, sadly, we have not realized our strengths or asserted our dignity as God’s chosen women” (ibid.).

Sister Maria Nirmalini is outspoken and at the same time preoccupied not to offend the clergy. She wants to develop a culture of working together with the clergy and bishops with mutual respect, acceptance, and coordination. Concerning lay participation in the Church she claims: “It is high time we recognized the role of laity in the church by promoting lay participation at all levels. We kept them away so far since we were afraid of sharing our power and assets. I am happy that some congregations are promoting lay associates. This is a good move. Vocations to congregations are dwindling. So, the only alternative is to promote lay associates” (ibid.).

We find open critique of Church structures in interviews given by non-voting laywomen experts at the Synod in Rome but not in the Synthesis Report. Susan Pascoe is an Adjunct Professor in the Accounting and Finance Department of the Business School of the University of Western Australia (https://www.osservatoreromano.va/en/news/2023-09/dcm-009/from-the-continents.html). At the Synod, she is amongst the Experts and Facilitators. She says about women and young people as neglected groups in the Church: “The issue of the role of women has resonated strongly in Oceania, with concern about the participation of women in church leadership and management. A minority expressed concern over the exclusion of women from the permanent diaconate and ordained ministry. Women’s experiences vary. For example, while Papua New Guinea/Solomon Islands it was reported that women play ‘a very active role in the life of the Church’; Australia noted that ‘the persistent exclusion of women from aspects of Church life detracts from power’. New Zealand called for greater emphasis on ‘using women’s gifts and experiences in discernment and in providing advice, guidance and challenge in decision-making, beyond the managerial and parish roles that many women occupy’. In Oceania, women have been identified as a priority, along with other neglected groups such as young people. The need to examine Church structures and teachings that constitute an obstacle to synodality, and the full participation of all God’s people is considered fundamental to the full realization of a synodal Church” (ibid.).

The only German speaking laywomen voting at the Synod of Bishops in Rome  was the Swiss Helena Jeppesen-Spuhler, writes Ludwig Ring-Eifel (https://weltkirche.katholisch.de/artikel/47494-ich-plaediere-ganz-klar-fuer-gewaltenteilung-in-der-kirche). Pope Francis appointed no religious- or laywoman from Germany because he is an aggressive public critique of the results of the German synodal process. Jeppesen-Spuhler thinks that her appointment is since the secretariat of the synod in Rome wanted a German-speaking woman who had publicly claimed separation of powers in the Roman Catholic Church government and equality of women (ibid.). I think the pope wanted a woman who does not speak as direct and with strong theological arguments as the German women do, but at the same time he could not bypass the German-speaking Catholic women completely. Jeppesen-Spuhler judges the job of the German synodal process as a very good one, especially because the theological documents are very good and serve the whole world church, that is the Roman Catholic Church on the whole world. She documents that this positive judgement was explicitly shared in her conversations with African bishops. Therefore, Jeppesen-Spuhler is against isolating the German Catholics at the Synod of the Bishops but asks to bring the people together for exchange and preparing to act together. She fears that the synthesis report and the final document of the Synod will not present concrete steps of institutional reform for the Roman Catholic Church (ibid.). She was right. Concrete proposals for Church reform did not come from Rome but came from the voted decisions of the Synodal Way of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany (Der Synodale Weg. Ed. Secretariat of the Synodal Way. Bonn 2023. www.synodalerweg.de/Beschlüsse). Rome declared the German decisions as unauthorized usurpation of papal powers.

On December 21, 2022, one archbishop and four German bishops write to the Vatican to ask if they are allowed to resist the decisions of the Synodal Way concerning the institution of synodal councils in Germany. On January 16, 2023, the State Secretary of the Vatican, the prefect of the dicastery for the doctrine of the faith and the prefect of the dicastery for the bishops write in the name of the pope a letter to the German bishops’ conference (https://www.dbk.de/fileadmin/redaktion/diverse_downloads/presse_2024/2024-02-16_Brief-aus-Rom_sds.pdf). The letter reports that the German Synodal Assembly decided on September 10, 2022, the institution of Synodal Councils. These councils are constituted in analogy to the members of the Synodal Way with bishops, clergy and laywomen and laymen and will council and decide on a diocesan and trans-diocesan level on important matters of the Church (ibid.).

The Synodal Assembly, the voting body of the Synodal Way, counts 64 bishops, 69 members of the Central committee of German Catholics, the well organized and theologically educated institution of German Roman Catholic laywomen and laymen, 10 members representing the male and female religious orders, 27 priests representing the priest councils of the dioceses, 15 Catholics under 30 years of age (at least 10 of them must be women), four deacons, and 26 women and men from other German Roman Catholic professional institutions (https://www.synodalerweg.de/struktur-und-organisation). Not only the Central Committee is well organized, but the whole German Roman Catholic Church enjoys very differentiated and professional institutions, with many laywomen and laymen with academic degrees in theology. From these professional institutions the bishops conference may nominate up to 10 additional persons and the Central committee may nominate 10 additional professionals. The German Roman Catholic Church is a very rich church due to a church tax that is collected by the German Federal Republic from every Catholic. The German Roman Catholic Church employs 650.000 Catholics full time (German Bishops Conference. June 28, 2023. Church statistics. https://www.dbk.de/presse/aktuelles/meldung/kirchenstatistik-2022).

The Synodal Assembly counts 230 persons (https://www.synodalerweg.de/struktur-und-organisation). The bishops, priests, religious and deacons make up 46% of the Synodal Assembly which means that they do not have a majority. The absolute majority is with the laywomen and laymen. The German bishops, religious, and clergy consented in the equal participation of laywomen and laymen at the Synodal Way. We understand, power sharing is possible, the hierarchy is not a monolithic bloc. Nevertheless, the Synodal Way followed the old Catholic tradition that decisions at councils must be taken with a large consensus, that is with a two third’s majority (Der Synodale Weg. 2023. 5). (See my Posting “Characteristics of a Council in the Roman Catholic Church”). This means, the bishops and clergy cannot take decisions without the consent of the laity and the laity not without the consent of the bishops and clergy.

The Vatican understood very quickly that there is a new power structure. The Roman Synod of the Bishops has 80% bishops, religious, and clergy, their power to control the synod’s decisions and texts is overwhelming. The Vatican letter to the German bishops from January 16, 2023, insists that the power dynamic of the German Synodal Way is unacceptable for the Vatican: Since these councils restrict and even replace the powers of the bishops, the pope asks to end this new governmental structure in the German Roman Catholic Church because the German Synodal Way has no authority to institute a synodal council, not at the national, not at the diocesan and not at the parochial level of the Church (https://www.dbk.de/fileadmin/redaktion/diverse_downloads/presse_2024/2024-02-16_Brief-aus-Rom_sds.pdf).

The letter to the German bishops uses a traditional argument to legitimate its rejection and criminalization of synodal councils. For this purpose, the State Secretary of the Vatican, the prefect of the dicastery for the doctrine of the faith and the prefect of the dicastery for the bishops use sentences from a document of the Second Vatican Council. They use sentences from a Council of Church reform to block reform. The letter cites Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (ibid.). Number 21 says, “It is for the diocesan bishop to govern the particular church entrusted to him with legislative, executive, and judicial power according to the norm of law” that is under the supreme power of the pope (Lumen Gentium 21). Lumen Gentium starts with the sentence “Christ is the Light of nations” (Lumen gentium (vatican.va)). Christ did not confer the power to govern his Church as an absolute monarchy to a pope and the bishops. The Church possesses the mission to preach and heal. The authority of the Church is Jesus Christ who directs this mission with the help of the Holy Spirit that every faithful receives at baptism. Luke repeatedly and with insistence defends the Christological foundation of any service in the church (Luke 12, 35-40. 41-48; 17, 7–10) (Bovon, Francois. 2009. Das Evangelium nach Lukas. Lk 19,28–24,53. Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament III/4. 268. Neukirchen-Vluyin: Neukirchener Verlag). Christ stays as the serving servant with the Christians. Christ does not need any Vicar on earth. Throughout his Gospel, Luke (Luke 9, 46–48) confronts us with the persistent problem of the disciples’ false ideas of greatness, rivalry over rank and power. The German faithful are very conscientious that the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church contradicts the serving Christ. All Christians are equal. The Apostle Paul affirms in the Letter to the Galatians: “There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither slave nor freeman, there can be neither male nor female – for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3, 28).

For 30 years Christian and Jewish feminists cite Galatians 3, 28 as liberating statement on the equal dignity and rights of all Christians, women, men and queer. The German Synodal Way cites Galatians 3, 28 in the context of the Biblical testimony on the constitution of the Church, that is ecclesiology. After referring to 1 Corinthians 12, where the Apostle Paul arguments with Christ - the Church is the people of Go’d assembled by Christ (Der Synodal Weg. Ed. Secretariat of the Synodal Way. Bonn 2023. 191. www.synodalerweg.de/Beschlüsse), the Synodal Way turns to Galatians 3, 28 and interprets the verse as the Church’ principle for organizing offices and power structures being faithful to the mission by the risen Lord (ibid. 192). With 1 Corinthians 12 the Synodal Way speaks pneumatologically of the Church as the body of Christ assembled and empowered by the Holy Spirit (ibid. 191). The assessment of the Holy Spirit presented by the Synodal Way, rightly speaks of baptism and unction with the Holy Spirit as sacramental foundation of being Church, where every male and female baptized represents Christ and the Church (ibid. 142). We must not forget the theological tradition of the old Church that speaks of an unction with the Holy Spirit. We must remember this tradition in the time of feminism, free social choices, and decisions to confess faith convictions. Testimony to the Holy Spirit concern the entry of a faithful into the Church, water signifying baptism, and blood signifying the Eucharist. And the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit helps us to confess Jesus Christ as Messiah, as the Anointed. The decisions to believe in Jesus Christ as Messiah is the beginning of the life as a Christian woman, man or queer. Conversion is the belief in Jesus Christ the savior whom I regard with Saint John at the cross and repent (John 3, 14; 19,37) (Ignace De La Potterie, Stanislas Lyonnet.1965. La Vie selon l’Esprit. Condition du Chrétien. 55. Les Édition du CERF: Paris). John 3, 14 and John 19, 37 are two citations of the Scriptures within the Scriptures, faith is listening to the Gospel, listening to Jesus Christ, and believing, and this experience of faith is called “unction with the Holy Spirit”. Messiah means anointed. Christ and the Christians are anointed with the Holy Spirit, Christ because he loves the Father (Matthew 4, 1-10; and Luke 4, 1-14) and Christians because they believe in Christ. We read in Acts “the Holy Spirit fell on all those who were listening to the word” (Acts 10, 44b). “Listening to the word” is the Christian message, the kerygma’s vocabulary for what to believe as we read in Ephesians, “Now you too, in him, have heard the message of the truth and the gospel of your salvation, and having put your trust in it you have been stamped with the seal of the Holy Spirit of the Promise” (Ephesians 1, 13). In The First Letter of John we read, “But you have been anointed by the Holy One” (1 John 2, 20). Apparently, Clement of Alexandria is the first one to use the expression “anointing” in 1 John 2, 20 in connection with the term “faith” (ibid. 145). Anointed by faith, is a new Christian term that evolves at the beginning of the second century CE (ibid.). For believing, for getting anointed by faith we need a free decision and the action of the Holy Spirit (ibid. 57). Baptism comes later. For John faith precedes baptism (1 John 5, 6), accompanies baptism (John 19, 34-35) and is received a whole Christian life long (ibid. 63). Organizing Christian life by Christian women, men and queer always follows their unction with the Holy Spirit. I felt I had to explicate a little bit the sentence of the Synodal Way, that speaks of baptism and unction with the Holy Spirit as sacramental foundation of being Church, because in Western Europe and North America young people take free decisions - especially when their belief-system is concerned -, and they stopped the practice of Christian rituals like baptism and the Eucharist because these rituals alienate them from their lives.

With the claims for separation of powers, for participation of laywomen and laymen in the government of the Church, for respecting and blessing homosexuals and queer couples in the Church, for voluntary celibacy for priests, for women priests, and for prevention of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, the German Synodal Way speaks of Human Rights that are discriminated in the Roman Catholic Church (Der Synodale Weg. 2023. 3-4). The insistence that one cannot privilege some Human Rights and discriminate others, is very important. The last article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is clear: “Article 30 Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein” (https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/2021/03/udhr.pdf). The list of claims of the German Synodal Way represents the rich Churches in Western Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand. The claims of the poor Churches in South America, Africa, India, Asia, and the rest of Oceania are not considered. The Roman Catholic Church is spread around the globe. I am not sure if it is historically correct to say that the Roman Catholic Church was the first globalized enterprise on earth. We heard from some representatives from the continental synods what they are fighting for. Sister Maria Nirmalini from India accuses the mysterious deaths of nuns, clergy sexual abuse, patriarchal oppression, and property disputes and regrets that religious women so far have not asserted their dignity as God’s chosen women (Thomas Scaria, Mar 12, 2022. CRUX. https://cruxnow.com/cns/2022/03/indian-nuns-face-challenges-says-head-of-conference-of-religious-in-india).

The African laywoman Norha Kofognotera Nonterah claims listening to women issues “such as gender-based violence, sexual abuse and its legacy in the Church, child protection and quality education and training” (https://www.osservatoreromano.va/en/news/2023-09/dcm-009/from-the-continents.html). African women theologians struggle for gender justice, for social development, and social welfare, conducting gender sensitization, studies on HIV and AIDS, anti-poverty, and on the Bible (Verbum et Ecclesia 37 (2): 1–6. 3. https://verbumetecclesia.org.za/index.php/ve/article/view/1597). The Circle’s members come “from all the three major religions in Africa—Islam, Christianity and traditional religion” (ibid.). The members are concerned condemning cultural and religious practices and attitudes destructive to the life and well-being of women (ibid. 4). The vision and mission of the Ecclesia of Women in Asia consists in encouraging and assisting Catholic women “doing theology” in Asia (Lobo-Gajiwala, Astrid. 2011. “Introduction”. In Feminist Theology of LiberationAsian Perspectives. Practicing Peace, edited by Judette A. Gallares and Astrid Lobo-Gajiwala, 4–14. 7. Quezon City, Philippines: Claretian Publications). Ecclesia of Women in Asia engages “in research and reflection from a feminist perspective, towards developing a theology that is” enculturated and contextualized in Asian realities; that is built on the spiritual experience and praxis of the socially excluded; that is mindful of the mutuality and creation and that is conscious of the need for dialogue with other Christian denominations, religions, and disciplines” (ibid.: 8).

The pope is wrong, when he accuses the German Synodal Way of endangering the unity of the Roman Catholic Church. The pope destroys this unity by excluding the Synodal Way from the Synod in Rome. The Swiss Catholic laywoman Helena Jeppesen-Spuhler is right asking not to isolate the Germans, but to bring the people together for exchange and preparing to act together. The exchange will help the Germans to overcome eurocentrism and make them disponible to share their riches, and to stop taking profit of the neo-liberal capitalist system at the cost of 80% of the world’s population. The Synodal Way is right, we need a new government structure in the Roman Catholic Church. We will master the problems of our age at the condition that we will institute the rule of Human Rights law on earth, and in the Roman Catholic Church. Only then we will be helpful in realizing the systematic effort to sustain an earth for all. This effort consists of five turnarounds (Earth for All. A Report of the Club of Rome. Written by Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Owen Gaffney, Jayati Gosh, Jorgen Randers, Johan Rockström, Per Espen Stoknes. New Society Publishers):

First, we must end poverty because “As a result of inequalities within countries, social tensions are likely to rise toward the middle of the twenty-first century” (ibid.: 5). Second, we must adequately respond to the climate and ecological emergency, otherwise “the impacts of crossing climate and ecological tipping points are likely to last centuries to millennia” (ibid.). Third, “transforming gender power imbalances” which “requires empowering women and investing in education and health for all” (ibid. 20). Fourth, “to transform agriculture, diets, food access and food waste”, creating a food system that is regenerative and nature positive by “storing vast volumes of carbon in soils, roots and trunks” (ibid.). Fifth, “we must transform energy systems to increase efficiency, accelerate the rollout of wind and solar electricity, halve emissions of greenhouse gases every decade, and provide clean energy to those without (ibid. 20, 21). (See my Posting “Democracy and Planet Earth”).

The German Synodal Way was not very much impressed by the Vatican letter to the German bishops’ conference and continued preparations for the institution of synodal councils. On November 9, 2023, Christa Pongratz-Lippitt writes in her article “Germany resumes plans for permanent Synodal council” in the Tablet: “The Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), which represents the 20 million lay Catholics in the country, announced in a statement on 4 November that it would establish a nationwide permanent body where bishops and laity would share decision-making, as proposed by the German Synodal Path initiative – and explicitly prohibited by the Vatican in January” (https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/17871/germany-resumes-plans-for-permanent-synodal-council). Immediately, four conservative German Catholic laywomen, who had left the Synodal Way in the spring of 2023, protested the establishment of synodal councils in a letter to the pope. There are German Catholic women who do not protest their oppression and discrimination by the Roman Catholic hierarchy but protest their liberation. That is their right. It is not ok, that they deny the women who claim participation in the government and in the offices of the Roman Catholic Church the right to claim their dignity. It is sad to assess that in Western Europe and North America there is a minority of women who prefer to bury their talents in the earth. In the Parable of the talents Jesus teaches about the man who hid the talent that he had gotten from his master in the ground (Matthew 25, 25) “for to everyone who has will be given more, and he will have more than enough; but anyone who has not, will be deprived even of what he has (Matthew 25, 29; Luke 19, 26). Mark and Luke repeat the above verse in the context of the Gospel: The talent the listeners of Jesus are receiving is the Gospel, the Word of Go’d that Jesus is the Christ (Mark 4, 25; Luke 8, 18). The pope responded the four women in a letter that was published in the German newspaper Welt on November 21, 2023, “Pope Francis has expressed deep reservations about the direction of the Catholic Church in Germany, warning that concrete steps currently being taken threaten to undermine unity with the universal Church (Jonathan Liedl. Vatican News Agency. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/256068/breaking-pope-francis-intervenes-with-german-synodal-way). Since then, the German Synodal Way and the Vatican decided to treat the matter confidential and not in public.

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