Let's start over: a bishop appraises the pastoral on women.

In this essay I want to look at the failure of the American bishops to address and respond to women's concerns honestly in the various drafts of our pastoral letter, "One in Christ Jesus." The fourth draft of the letter, which was sent to all of the bishops at the end of August, further distances us from the women who have spoken to us during the past decade. It is a giant step backward from some of the promising insights and new directions found in the three earlier drafts. Draft IV introduces a new tone--one of caution, fear, and even blame for the victims of sexism.

As discouraging as this draft may be, I also want to point to signs of hope and new opportunity for women in other events and experiences that have occurred since November 1983, when the decision to write a pastoral letter was first made. Appraising the nine-year history of this effort is a little like walking through a minefield. Still, I believe it is helpful to review what the pastoral letter has achieved, what it has failed to achieve, and the challenges it presents for the future.

It is important to view the pastoral as a continuum rather than as a definitive document. We should remember that, at least initially, the bishops listened to women--some 75,000 of them in 140 diocesan consultations. As a result of listening, the three drafts urged the inclusion of women in liturgical ministries; proposed a serious study of the diaconate; presented new insights for men to consider; gave information concerning women and poverty; examined and condemned the sin of sexism and its oppressive effects; promoted fair remuneration for women working for the church; denounced violence against women; and outlined some problematic issues relating to single, divorced, and lesbian women in the church community. They made a number of proposals, such as formation of women's commissions, promotion of sex education programs, etc. While these proposals were not transformative, they were genuine responses to a variety of problems.

The real strength of the process is that the bishops' committee listened to a diversity of women who are members of the church's body. It consulted the experience of many whose talents and aspirations are unjustly overlooked, especially in the church. It brought this listening process into the public domain and opened a dialogue that cannot be dismissed or ignored. This raised awareness of women's concerns with the church, not only in the United States, but in a number of countries around the world. In the process, some fundamental issues that go beyond women's concerns have been raised, issues such as ecclesiology, the role of Rome, the nature of our being church together.

The Committee

Bishop Joseph Imesch's committee has rendered an important service. The committee made it clear how genuinely important the issues-lumped under the rubric of women's concerns--are, from our perspective as men with special oversight" responsibilities in the church. It showed us how diverse the responses are in different places in the United States. It also reminded us that the current National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) could not respond to certain issues, notably, birth control and women's ordination, in a manner that a substantial number of well-disposed Catholics would find honest and credible. Even so, the work of the committee makes it clear that we are still learning, still trying to sort out the issues, still struggling with a formidable array of new anthropological, theological, ecclesiological, philosophical, and social questions.

On the negative side: While the committee's consultations revealed many new and helpful insights, I believe that its members did not enjoy the necessary freedom of inquiry in their search for the truth about women's equality in the church. My own concern about the viability of a pastoral that excluded the ordination issue was deepened with evidence of a continuing struggle within the committee itself For example, in Draft II's references to ordination it is said that all the bishops affirm and identify with the unbroken tradition; whereas Draft III puts it this way: "We make reference to the Vatican Declaration's reaffirmation of the unbroken tradition." Repeatedly, in all of the drafts, useful insights are put forth with no follow-through because they are not consistent with the "Catholic heritage." This internal dissension culminated in an unprecedented move by two bishops, who disassociated themselves from the third draft by preparing a minority report. They were uncomfortable with the "feminist agenda" and believe women's rights are seen in isolation from children's and husbands' rights. Presumably the perspective of this minority report along with Vatican critiques is what now has been incorporated into the letter and appears in Draft IV.

Perhaps the greatest methodological problem of the process was the failure to set in motion an initiative parallel to the committee's listening process that would have engaged the scholarly community in preparing papers on the central issues of the debate for study by the bishops. In writing the pastorals both on peace and on the economy, the bishops were immensely enriched and their debate focused by the spoken and written contribution of experts in those fields. No such effort was made for the women's pastoral. Neither did the process include sufficient time for debate and discussion among the bishops themselves in public assembly. In nine years, we have had only one significant discussion in plenary session; that was at our June 1992 meeting.

The Roman Intervention

I deeply regret that the U.S. bishops' conference decided in November 1990 not to discuss Draft II because of a Vatican intervention. That critique along with a second one should have been made public. As several bishops have noted, Drafts III and IV bear marks of the strong influence of these Vatican critiques. All of the bishops have a right and a need to receive copies for our own understanding and guidance. I believe we would then directly see the kind of harmful pressure being exerted by Rome on the legitimate process of discernment underway in the Catholic Church in the United States.

I admire and applaud the courage of Bishop Imesch, who refused the Vatican's request to eliminate from Drafts II and III any reference to women in the diaconate. I was very impressed by his honesty and that of Bishop Matthew Clark who shared their convictions and knowledge about the women's issue with participants at the Vatican consultation in Rome in May 1991. I recognize the bishops' duty to be loyal and accountable to the College of Bishops and the Vicar of Christ, and the responsibility of the American bishops to be open to differing points of view from other cultures and countries.

As a result of the many exchanges between Vatican officials and the U.S. bishops' conference over the pastoral drafts, we bishops can draw some conclusions. There is great resistance to formally opening up liturgical ministries like altar servers or acolytes to girls or women, though, in time, there may be a favorable decision on altar girls. There is a strong emphasis on equality between women and men being understood as complementarity, not mutuality. But, the most serious concern raised by Vatican officials was the consultation process used by the Imesch Committee. They asserted that bishops are teachers, not learners; truth cannot emerge through consultation. The full impact of these exchanges with the Vatican can now be seen in Draft IV.

Content

There are four specific issues--anthropology, patriarchy, sexism, and ordination--that I find most unsatisfactory in the text.

Anthropology. Questions of Christian anthropology are fundamental to an understanding of equality of persons in the church and in society. By this I mean a study of the human race encompassing its physical character as it is lived out in a historical and cultural context in the specifically Jewish and Christian traditions. These issues are still under intense discussion among scholars.

These difficulties are fundamental. I say this because what is currently offered as Christian anthropology, even in some cases by people who consider themselves "pro-women," is often not informed by the findings of contemporary archaeology, paleontology, biology, psychology, sociology, and the other human sciences, but by Augustine's interpretation of male/female roles. This understanding of women's inferiority goes back to and in turn is based on the traditional interpretation of Genesis. Is this not an important reason why "official teaching on birth regulation, homosexuality, gender equality, etc., is not received, even by well-disposed, faith-filled Catholics" (Draft III)?

There was a good attempt in Draft III to characterize the mutuality shared by men and women, but there is a failure to follow through consistently with the new insight in recommending changes in the institutional church, which continues to operate out of the old dual-nature model. Men can define their own roles and they also determine women's roles. How can women accept this interpretation when an all-male group (bishops) claims to have all the truth and to be able to determine the roles of women? If men and women have differing perspectives on humanity and truth, then clearly women's reality or truth must be factored into an emerging consciousness and subsequent structural change.

Patriarchy. Patriarchy is the social myth that has been the root metaphor for church and society for the past 5,000 years. The letter lacks an adequate structural analysis, though such analysis is readily available in contemporary scholarship, to demonstrate how pervasive the ideology and system of patriarchy are in the institutional church and how harmful and destructive this system is. I consider this to be the most serious gap in the entire text.

Our church, mirroring society at large, is built on a system dating back as far as the third millennium B.C. It insists that the male head of the household has absolute control and power over his wife, children, kin, and property. Although the Code of Canon Law eliminates some elements of this system, it keeps others. The patriarchal family continues to serve as model and legitimating structure in our church today.

It seems to me that the pastoral is built around the basic assumption, present in our culture as well, "that males should legitimately act as the controlling cultural fathers, while females should appropriately act as dependent minors" (Catherine Spretnak, States of Grace, Harper, 1991). In other words, the bishops set the norms and the rules, and women come seeking ways to enter into the "givens"--givens drawn up and established apart from any input by women.

In his "Meditation on the Dignity of Women" (1988), Pope John Paul II cites this text from Genesis [3:16] when speaking on marriage: "He [man] shall rule over you," and reflects that this is intended to represent patriarchy as a sinful situation, not normative but disruptive. Rule by man over woman, the pope states, is not part of God's plan. In fact, however, dominance pervades our church, a dominance that excludes the presence, insights, and experience of women from the "table" where the formulation of the church's doctrine takes place and the exercise of its power is discerned. It likewise excludes women from presiding at the table where the community of faith is fed. This patriarchy continues to permeate the church and supports a climate that not only robs women of their full personhood, but also encourages men to be domineering, aggressive, and selfish.

In our failure to come to grips with the question of patriarchy, we bishops seem to be buttoning up a coat that has the top button in the wrong button hole. No matter how carefully we button the rest of the coat, it will not fit. We cannot adjust by skipping a button. We can't pretend it fits--no matter how nice the coat.

Sexism. Sexism--"understood as an erroneous conviction that one sex, male or female, is superior to the other in the very order of creation and by the very nature of things"--was called a sin in Draft III. "This error and the sinful attitudes it generates not only radically distorts the order of creation; it also violates the nature of things by disrupting interpersonal relations and affecting adversely the social patterns and modes of communication that influence our day-to-day life in the world." This is significant but there was no treatment of the causes of sexism in our society and church, no discussion as to how sexism permeates the history of the church and its attitude and actions concerning women, no explanation about how sexism and patriarchy support and reinforce one another, no attempt to see how women's present experience of sexism could help shape the fundamental changes needed. The call for conversion in Draft III was presented in terms of personal relationships. It was not extended to conversion of church structures. Draft IV waters down the condemnation of sexism as "sin" and refers to it instead as "a moral and social evil." The statement continues to define sexism in a narrow way whereby women are seen and circumscribed by their sexuality.

Yet, it is imperative that sexism, in all of its institutional manifestations, must be more fully examined and determined efforts made to redress its injustices. Sexism represents a threefold injustice: to women, who are denied their rightful place in the human community; to men, who are stunted in their potential for full growth; and to the community as a whole, whose life is impoverished by the diminishment of both women and men.

Ordination. As soon as we begin to speak about the structures of the church, we come face to face with the issue of ordination, the most painful issue the committee had to address and which is taken up most directly in Draft IV. The present teaching on ordination, said to rest on an unbroken tradition, is considered to be of divine revelation. The bishops are caught in a dilemma. On the one hand, Popes Paul VI and John Paul II have compelled bishops to support and uphold this normative teaching. On the other hand, many bishops, through their pastoral experience of listening to women, have been persuaded to restudy the ordination issue.

In the U.S. bishops' response (May 1977) to the "Call To Action" Conference (Detroit 1975), we affirmed the conclusions of Inter insigniores (The Vatican Declaration on the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood). We also invited theologians to join us in a serious study of various aspects of the teaching. At the conclusion of the NCCB-WOC (Women's Ordination Conference) Dialogue (March 1982), the bishop participants, of whom I was one, urged the Administrative Committee to "review Inter insigniores in light of the insights of Christian anthropology, sacramental theology, and the experience of women ministering in the United States." We further stated: "We respect the conclusions of Inter insigniores, and we invite theologians to a serious study of the issues it addresses. We believe that such a study would illuminate and develop the church's teaching from Scripture and tradition relative to the ordination of women."

The members of the Administrative Committee were not persuaded, saying we were hearing only from women on the fringe. They urged the Committee on Women, Church, and Society to "widen the dialogue" to include other voices and groups. In all 140 diocesan consultations on Drafts I and II of the pastoral letter, participants expressed serious disagreement with the present teaching of the church on the exclusion of women from ordination to the priesthood. I was recently reminded of this fact when I asked a group of first-graders how many sacraments there were. One little girl promptly responded: "Six for women and seven for men."

As presently constituted, church structures do not allow women access to the fullness of sacramental life. They cannot participate fully because they are excluded from its decision-making mechanisms and bodies by the fact that they are excluded from ordination. Significant numbers of people, women and men of good will and recognized wisdom (as well as many respected theologians and scholars), do not find the official position of excluding women from ordination convincing or persuasive.

In the words of Draft II: "They [women] ask how the church can proclaim that women and men are equal and, at the same time, deny ordination to women on the basis of sex." I ask myself the same question. Draft IV, though directly taking up the question of ordination. introduces questionable theological arguments to support the tradition that excludes women from the ministerial priesthood. It seems to absolutize the image of Christ as bridegroom, while ignoring the Christ who challenged the status quo and who called himself "the way, the truth, and the life." It also gratuitously contends that men are called to priesthood for service rather than power, implying that women are interested in priesthood for the power it represents.

For fifteen years I have experienced and felt the profound pain of women over their exclusion from the sacrament of Holy Orders. I am also well aware of the widespread disagreement among members of the church over this issue. Today, I can say that I am personally in favor of the ordination of women into a renewed priestly ministry. I believe this issue to be as important as the issue Paul raised with Peter; namely, the admission of Gentiles into Christianity. Women's calls, as well as men's, should be tested. Justice demands it. The pastoral needs of the church require it. Here, let me call attention to the twofold role of bishops as described by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in his 1977 presidential address to the NCCB. They are to be "members of the collegial body in union with the Holy Father and to be pastors and members of living diverse local churches, whose special aspirations and perceptions we (as a national body) share and reflect." Today, in my opinion, it is right and just, urgent in fact, that the Catholic Church in the United States bring its insights and wisdom, the shared reflection of the community about the role of women, to the church universal. As a regional church in dialogue with the world within which it is embedded and reflecting the consciousness of its own faith community, the Catholic Church in the United States has a critical role to play in shaping the emerging theological consciousness of the full body. It does not profess to speak for all but it cannot turn its back on the lived experience and wisdom of its own local members.

The question is raised: How does a bishop maintain both loyalties--to Rome and to the local church? My response is: if one is loyal to Christ and to the truth as one honestly sees it, one will ultimately be loyal both to Rome and to the local church. If one listens attentively to the faith and experience of the local church, genuine loyalty to Rome requires that one communicate that faith and experience to Rome. Withholding it because Rome does not appear to wish to hear, is disloyalty to Rome and the Petrine ministry. "To speak the truth in love" is the deepest loyalty to anyone or any institution.

There is so much to treasure in Catholic tradition and social teaching that does and can benefit both our church and our society. It is especially urgent that a dialogue be opened between feminism and Catholic social thought with its patriarchal bias. Perhaps a critical first step is the need to legitimate and reaffirm the right of local bishops to engage in such dialogue without fear of being considered disloyal. Bishops need to be supported in their stand. Only then can modern feminist thought, which, after all, comes in various forms, begin to assist the magisterium in its reflections on the central and underlying issue--patriarchy--that supports the evil of sexism in the church and has a pervasive influence in our culture.

Suggestions

It is time for the bishops to try some new things:

1. Instead of endorsing Draft IV as an authoritative pastoral letter at the bishops' November meeting--an unlikely event, since it would require a two-thirds majority vote--issue a ten-page statement outlining agreed-upon truths, spelling out a few of the substantive proposals from the conclusions of Draft III, and identifying major issues in need of further dialogue and discernment.

2. Advocate that this dialogue be continued at every level of church life. Dialogue will help us grow in clarity about the guidance of the Spirit in the face of the serious disagreements which do, in fact, remain among us. We need to keep uppermost in mind that the point of a dialogue is not to persuade or move people from their positions but rather to listen, to learn how others define themselves, and to be open, allowing oneself to be disposed to what others say. To be in dialogue is to expose oneself to the revision of one's previous views.

3. In view of the bishops' evident lack of readiness for a pastoral letter, redirect the process to parish and diocesan levels. Revisit the issue in five years.

4. Encourage the development of support groups for women and men who need to identify workable strategies to contribute to the advancement of issues and to avoid despair.

5. Seize the moment of the November meeting for public dialogue and education. These are very important moments for further development among bishops and for new understanding and dialogue between bishops and women. For unless the bishops can redeem the situation in November, what began as a good-willed, if ill-conceived, effort will end in disappointment and dissatisfaction on all sides. Our credibility is on the line. Women are more angry than ever. Our last state is worse than the first.

6. Power is never given. It has to be claimed. Insist to the Vatican that the ban on altar girls--a symbolic issue--be removed.

7. Press for initiation of dialogue with Rome on liturgical ministries other than ordination for women.

8. Issue a call for an international commission to review the ordination issue. Such a commission should be composed of an equal number of women and men including scholars in Scripture, anthropology, and theology; bishops representing various continents and cultures of the world; and members of the Orthodox and other major Christian communities. This commission would begin an open, scholarly, and thorough investigation of the issue of women's ordination. While the commission's study could uncover new and persuasive arguments that support the church's present teaching on the exclusion of women from the ordained priesthood, I believe it would also discover and support modern scholarly and pastoral developments that call for the opening of ordination for women.

9. Support Bishop Kenneth Untener's call for a restudy of Humanae vitae. In its discussion on the regulation of birth, the pastoral letter does not fully grapple with the important issue of the nonreception of the teaching of the magisterium.

10. Because, in light of all that has transpired, I am now convinced that we as bishops have to consider alternatives, I urge that our process continue along another path than issuing a pastoral letter. This other path would consist of a serious reflection, an "open reflection" as it were, on the part of each bishop himself as to what he has learned as a result of this endeavor to bring into the public forum the issues that women (and men) are raising. Let each bishop reflect on his reactions to the four drafts. How did he respond to them? What were his own efforts to draw together diocesan resources and groups of women to help inform himself and give shape to his responses? What steps has he already taken, perhaps, as a result of this pastoral process? On the basis of such reflections, the Women's Committee of the NCCB could then develop a report for the bishops, outlining new insights and questions.

While this type of process would be in the nature of a personal reflection, it would also eventually be shared with the community at large so that all may benefit from the endeavor. It would add an extremely important component to the pastoral process since each bishop holds a unique position in the church structure and plays a key role in bringing about many of the changes women and men are seeking.

The next phase of the pastoral process could involve a distribution of these personal reflections and inviting responses to them. Any following steps would be determined by the state of the question at that time.

After almost a decade of listening to voices of women (and men), including voices from the scholarly community, can we keep insisting that those views have no meaning, express no truth? Can we keep using arguments from tradition to support our resistance to change, denying historical reality, when history teaches us that many Catholic traditions have changed over the centuries? Do we bishops truly believe that our teaching will be accepted by persons of faith and good will if only we work harder to clarify the teaching?

Conclusion

I want to affirm the influence and enrichment brought to my own learning and to my growth as a person and as a bishop by feminist scholars and many deeply committed and gifted women. I also express profound sorrow for my own failures in communication, language, and relationships with women co-workers and friends.

Let us continue our journey with honesty, respect, and faith in the overwhelming significance of what we are undertaking--the building of a sacred bridge on which together we walk to heal ourselves of conflict. After all, if the religious community cannot show the world a spirit of reconciliation, then where else shall we look for hope and vision?

Despite disappointment, anger, and frustration, can we find any light and hope from church history? I believe the answer is yes. In Vatican II's Declaration on Religious Freedom, the church evidenced its ability to discern new realities and new truths. In Nostra aetate, the council fathers achieved what Cardinal Bea called a "reconsideration of soul." Vatican II, he said, "introduced a real, almost miraculous, conversion in the attitudes of the church toward the Jewish people."

What a new moment it would be for the American bishops to engage our hearts and help renew the church's institutional life in a profound reconsideration of soul in addressing the concerns of women in the church.

BISHOP P. FRANCIS MURPHY is an auxiliary bishop in Baltimore and, from 1978-89, was a member of the NCCB Committee on Women. Some of the material in this essay is based on an address given at the College of Notre Dame, Baltimore, May 9, 1992.