The feminist pope: but who does the dishes?

But who does the dishes?

Io sono il Papa feminista, "I am the feminist pope," said John Paul II with a twinkle in his eye. When everyone in the audience room laughed, he repeated the statement. After this merry addendum to his prepared remarks, the pope began his slow progress back to his study, smiling his greetings, patting and being patted; he stopped to have his ring kissed, his picture taken, and tenderly blessed a retarded child.

Although I hung back out of shyness, the rest of our group of participants in a Vatican-sponsored conference on women's health surged to get as close as possible to this stooped, frail figure in his dazzling white cassock. He looked and sounded so weak that I began to doubt whether he would make it through our audience, much less last long enough to take part in his projected millennium celebrations. No, said other observers, however much pain he appears to be in, he's too strong-willed to die; whatever his disease (Parkinson's?), it is stabilized enough for him to keep going.

I saw the pope twice during our week's visit inside Vatican City and came away with questions. What is the Petrine ministry all about? Why does John Paul consider himself a feminist? While the pope appears to be a prisoner of the Vatican routine, he is at least a prisoner of love. A big part of the pope's job (incredibly boring and tedious?) is patiently and graciously receiving endless expressions of affection - cheers, clapping - and in the large public audiences, tributes of band music, chants, flowers, banner waving, singing, and effusive long-winded greetings in many languages. Insight: The pope is not so much like a severe Holy Father, or even a guru Grandfather, but more like a beaming baby receiving lots of joyful adoration at a family reunion. No matter how serious the remarks he reads from the papers he's handed by aides, it's Christmas-carnival time.

Another glimpse of high festival appeared on the Sunday at the end of our conference, the feast of Saint Peter's Chair. Wandering into the glorious nave of Saint Peter's, lo, what to my wondering eyes should appear but the blossoming of the stark severe statue of Saint Peter, he of the bronze foot worn shiny from kisses. But today the dark statue was bedecked with a towering mitre, newly clothed in an embroidered robe, diamond necklaces, and finger rings of precious jewels. A dazzling grown-up Infant of Prague, by gum.

While taking all this in, I became aware of a large group of cardinals and attendants approaching with incense and with candles held high; they were wending their way from a Mass at the high altar to process down the steps into the crypt of Saint Peter's tomb. There they paused for a moment and then marched up again to Bernini's magnificent altar of Saint Peter's Chair, which but once a year is fully emblazoned with hundreds of candles. Up, up and away went the flickering lights, reaching toward the stained glass dove of the Holy Spirit, brooding over the scene "with ah! bright wings."

So this is what being a Roman Catholic is all about, thought I. Excessive, extravagant, gorgeous - the whole sacramental shebang. Why should I keep worrying my little Puritan head about the reactions of ascetic followers of Jesus Christ to all of this luxury? When one contemplates the full implications of the outrageousness of God's gifts of creation and redemption, these ritual responses seem fitting. Why blame Michelangelo, or Bernini and baroque company for their enthusiasms? Relax. Saint Peter's is still operating as a place of constant devotion; in one afternoon I, stumbling upon a beautiful Benediction service in a side chapel, turned another corner and took advantage of an English-language confessional, and, upon emerging, found I was just in time for the regular five o'clock Mass at the main altar, tactfully cordoned off from the swarms of tourists who do not choose to pray. All roads lead to Rome. And back.

Back, for me as an American feminist, had little to do with the wealth or ritual but with the pervasiveness of an entrenched male clericalism. In our guesthouse of Saint Martha inside the Vatican walls, cheerful nuns cooked, served, and cleaned the rooms while high-ranking male clerics attended important meetings and consistories. I even saw Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger emerging from an international theological commission session. Were they reinstating dissident theologians, like Tissa Balasuriya, or going after new cases of dissent? In such a rarefied, deferential atmosphere, it's surely harder to take account of church reformers' demands for due process and fair representation for the rights of the faithful vis-a-vis authority.

In the midst of this masculine hierarchical bastion, what should we make of the pope's claim to be a feminist? Well, someone in the Vatican had initiated and approved the idea of having a conference dedicated to women's health, and went to the expense of having American women and men come to Rome. Everyone at the conference was presented with a copy of John Paul II's "Letter to Women." Reading this document again convinces me that the pope has a sincere and deeply felt concern for women. The pope apologizes to women for past wrongs done them within the church; he refers to the way Jesus transcended his culture and "treated women with openness, respect, acceptance, and tenderness." This letter, like other of the pope's writings, vigorously champions women's equal dignity, and best of all, voices admiration for those women who courageously engaged in "fighting for their basic social, economic, and political rights...when this was considered extremely inappropriate, the sign of a lack of femininity, a manifestation of exhibitionism, and even a sin!" Yes, yes.

Other good words can be found in this document to warm feminist hearts. But then, alas, we come to the great stumbling block from my point of view. The pope over and over asserts the importance of the difference and complementarity of men and women's natures. He emphasizes "the genius of women" (whatever that means), which ensures that in "the sacramental economy, that is, the economy of signs," women cannot be ordained. There exists, he says, a symbolic complementarity of men and women which gives the church a "Marian principle" and an "Apostolic-Petrine principle." Christ "entrusted only to men the task of being an 'icon' of his countenance as 'shepherd' and 'bridegroom' of the church through the exercise of the ministerial priesthood."

So there we have it, the icon argument again. Another crucial struggle shapes up over the meaning of symbols, icons, and signs. I don't have space here to dive into these deep waters of division. Another time. At this point I am just going to spread the good news. While in Rome, accompanied by many witnesses, I heard the pope say that he is "Papa feminista." Pass it on.