On Thursday in
Rome, Catholics gathered for three days to determine how women are doing in the church. Specifically, the international congress was to examine the progress made in promoting the dignity and vocation of women over the past two decades, according to the Catholic News Agency.
On Aug, 15, 1988, Pope John Paul II issued an apostolic letter titled Mulieris dignitatem with the intent of making full use of womens gifts and faculties. The new congress was due to attract more than 260 people from 49 countries, including delegations from 40 bishops conferences, representatives from 28 movements and new communities, 16 Catholic womens associations and others.
One Catholic reform movement, the International Movement We Are Church (www.we-are-church.org) issued a stern call to the Congress to get really serious about womens place in the worlds largest Christian body. They called for three initiatives: 1) granting women to speak for themselves with their charismas; 2) focusing the reality of life of women in the various continents; 3) placing new accents for gender justice in the Roman Catholic Church.
We Are Church, asking for the blessing and wisdom of Gods Holy Spirit on the proceedings, calls for equal access of women to all church functions, the equal mentioning of women and men in church publications, a female image of God and female liturgy. In their statement, with joint Rome and Munich, Germany, origins, the movement said, Women are still oppressed and abused in the Roman Catholic Church.
If it could set the agenda, We Are Church would focus on five areas: 1) Reflections about the changes in the question of womens rights since 1988; 2) Mary and the position of women in the Bible; 3) Meaning of man and woman being images of God; 4) Responsibility of women in church and society; and 5) Social situation of women in diverse cultures and countries.
They said a factual dialogue is overdue in the areas of gender justice and feminist theology. Said Angelica Fromm, a spokesman for We Are Church, the Roman Catholic Church keeps on addressing appeals to politics and society, but inside her own structures, the church refuses establishing gender justice and instead disguises the real degradation of women by idealizing womens image. This behavior is not credible.
She said the mere talking of womans dignity is no longer sufficient while treating women in the same church as (if) they were incapable of ordination and refusing them equal rights of participating in church development and using antiquated argumentation.
That contrasts sharply to how the Catholic News Agency frames this congress purpose: Conference planners also hope to use the congress to initiate a reflection on the new cultural paradigms and difficulties faced by Catholic women in living according to their identity and in collaborating in fruitful reciprocity with men in building up the Church and society.
The agency said the conference strives to remind women of the beauty of the vocation to holiness and to encourage them to respond to it with increasing awareness an to place all the richness of the feminine genius at the service of the apostolate, family, workplace and culture
The “Good-Ole-Boys Club” will only seek to convince women to be happy with their subservient roles; will not honor women’s call to priesthood. After rewriting history to exclude the significant role of female deacons, priests, bishops, it is not likely the present management will admit the error of its ways–despite the actions of Jesus to elevate the role of Women.
suzanne stokes
Thanks for the nice read, keep up the interesting posts..
Christian Picture Frames
Thanks for creating this blog. I thought it was a very interesting read. It is so interesting reading other peoples personal take on a subject.