WHo is God for a black Catholic woman?

If we are all members of the Body of Chris, every voice should he heard within our midst. Womanist theology developed in response to the exclusion of women's voices and stories from common wisdom within the church.

"It was because the black woman was absent from both feminist theology and black theology that some black women began to say we have our own story to tell," says Diana Hayes. The exploring of those stories became the womanist movement.

Though early on she thought she'd given up on established religion, Hayes spent years working as a lawyer and seeking God in the great outdoors. But something kept calling. When she listened, she discovered the call was not only to become Catholic, but to serve the church as a theologian. She is now an associate professor of theology at Geogetown University and is the first African American woman to earn the pontifical doctor of sacred theology degree.

Her books include And Still We Rise (Paulist Press, 1996), Hagar's Daughters: Womanist Ways of Being in the World (Paulist Press, 1995), and Trouble Don't Last Always: Soul Prayers (Liturgical Press, 1995).

What is a womanist?

The term womanist came from Alice Walker's book In Search of My Mothers' Gardens (HarBrace, 1984). Her publishers required her to define womanist when she used it to describe one of the women in the book. So she developed a two-part definition that begins by stating that a womanist is a black feminist, or a feminist of color.

The phrase "You're acting womanish" rings a bell with my own experience of growing up in the black community because it was something that older black women would always say to young black girls--she's too bold, too grown, she's womanish.

What womanist theologians have done is in a sense dropped the first part of the definition- that a womanist is a black feminist or a feminist of color- and said that we are not going to be defined by simply adding "black" or "African American" to a term that already has a full definition of its own.

And it's in keeping with the traditions of the black community that the womanist movement would start as a religious movement and move into the secular world; whereas the feminist movement started as a secular movement and then became theological. Today there are many women who are not theologians who are beginning to call themselves womanists.

So then what do we mean by womanist theology?

It was because the black woman was absent from both feminist theology and black theology that some black women began to

say we have our own story to tell. We have our own perspective on who Jesus is for us and who God is for us. That is the origin of womanist theology.

How did you get involved with womanist theology?

When I was a theology student at Catholic University studying theology, I was involved in a group that had discussions about feminist theology. And they always seemed so angry about things like inclusive language. But I thought what's the big deal? Later after I started participating in Mass, I found the language alienating, but I always felt that something was missing in these women's groups.

At the same time in reading James Cone, Gayraud Wilmore, J. Deotis Roberts, and other black theologians, I realized that their language was incredibly sexist back then. I remember thinking, wait a minute, black women were in the civil rights movement, and black women were in the Black Power movement. If it weren't for black women, we would not have been able to succeed and to survive slavery.

Then I started reading works by such black female theologians as Jackie Grant, Dolores Williams, and Katie Cannon, and I heard my history. I heard my experience as a black woman, which I did not find in feminist theology or in the black theology movement. I remember suddenly realizing, I'm not a feminist; I'm a womanist.

Sexism certainly exists in the black church, but it was racism that was much more the challenge confronting and limiting me in what I was trying to do.

Is womanist theology exclusive?

No, because being a womanist is about building up the entire community, which was also part of Alice Walker's definition. The emphasis is not just on race or class or gender. It's on all of those and the multiplicative effect that they have on each other. It's gender, race, and class that lead to oppression. And in historical terms, especially in this country, it has been the black woman who has been at the bottom of that heap of oppression.

There was also anger and alienation in the feminist movement between white women and white men, a struggle against each other. Womanists are saying, no, we need to work with our men. We need to walk together to bring about change, because how can you lift up just one part of a community? So we see womanist theology as much more inclusive of all people.

What's the value in having numerous theologies?

The positive aspect of different theologies is that it gives different people the opportunity to speak of God and their faith in their own particular language. So in many ways it's absolutely necessary. I cannot teach you about what it means to be black in this country unless I find out myself. And in this country, a lot of black history has been distorted and deliberately lost. Therefore African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and all of those who are engaged in these different liberating theologies are empowering themselves by going back and retrieving their own histories.

Now the danger is that you can get so focused on that little world that you forget the larger world. For example, Cone and the other black liberation theologians did not really begin to talk about class issues until they started meeting with Latin American liberation theologians, whose main emphasis is on class struggles. It is essential while you're engaged in retrieving your own history to engage in dialogues with others. If you're white or Hispanic, you need to hear who African Americans say God is for them and what it means to say "God is black" or "Jesus is black."

A lot of the analysis that happens in womanist theology seems to be identifying oppression. What strategies are womanists using to stop oppression?

It's happening at the grassroots level where ordinary people are saying this is my understanding of church and my understanding of my faith, which to me is the very heart of what theology is about, because theology is God-talk. Ordinary people are theologians, though some theologians hate to hear that.

The theologian plays the role of being the one who serves as the mediator to bring the fruits of the God-talk of the ordinary people to those on the pastoral spiral--namely, priests and religious in the local church and then the hierarchy.

What kind of God-talk is taking place in the communities, and how does it get translated to the bishops?

In 1981 when we announced that we were going to have the First Black Catholic Archdiocesan Revival, all hell broke loose. This was my first encounter with receiving hate mail because many people thought that we were being racist by using the term black Catholic. They said, "We're all

Catholics, why are you saying black?" Our response was: "Well, you talk about Italian Catholics and German Catholics, why can't we say black Catholics?"

With the reemergence of the revival movement, people began to realize just how old black Catholic history was. It dated back to the 16th century with the Spanish and the French Catholics. Many people don't realize that the majority of black Catholics are cradle Catholics and have been Catholic in this country for 200 to 300 years.

So a growing number of black Catholics began to say, if this is true, why are we constantly asking for things from the church? This is our church.Thus, at Catholic University in 1987, we ended up having this incredible black Catholic congress where we developed a pastoral plan for black Americans in which we informed the bishops that we wanted more black bishops, we wanted more black priests, and we wanted more black religious, and we wanted better schools.

Not only did all the black bishops participate, but white bishops, pastors, and religious were invited, though there was some debate about how full their participation could be, because this was supposed to be our congress--and I think rightly so.

Out of that first Congress emerged the African American secretariat in the Bishops' Conference, which is the official representative for black Catholics.

The National Black Catholic Congress office was also formed at that time. Every January and June they have what's called a Pastoring in the African American Community Program. This is a pastoral training program for persons of any race or ethnicity who work in African American Catholic communities, which teaches participants about black history, black culture, black music, black liturgical styles, and what it means to us to be black and Catholic.

Do you see a lot of young African American men going into priesthood?

No. Historically African American men weren't welcomed into the priesthood. Then when they did come into the priesthood, the type of training seminaries provided--and sadly still does to this day--often forced them to relinquish their blackness. The same thing happens to Hispanics and to Native Americans.

Black seminarians who want to have courses in black church history or at least have them as part of a church history course are often told that it isn't important. There are almost 3 million black Catholics in the United States, there should be at least one course on black Catholic history. But you run into the problem of who will teach it.

I don't have a problem with white instructors teaching it as long as they're open and honest about what they're teaching. We've always had to learn and teach European and American history, so why can't Euro-Americans teach our history?

What is the womanist perspective on the fact that Bible was written by men?

It's a human-made document in many ways, but it also has the spirit of God in it because these human beings were inspired by God. But it was historical men who chose what was going to be the canon of the Bible, so a lot of documents that were written by or about women were left out. But we have to realize that the Bible is a product of its times, which even the Vatican recognizes.

The Bible contains many major statements about women, and I always make that point when I'm talking about women's role in the church. The first people to see the risen Lord were women. And in a sense they were the first ones commissioned to preach because Jesus said go back and tell the others that I have risen. They were not ordained by Jesus to be priests, but then neither were Paul, Peter, Matthew, or the other apostles and disciples.

In her book In Memory of Her (Crossroad, 1984), Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza reminds us of the woman who anointed Jesus with very expensive oils. John says that Judas reprimanded her saying that her money could have been used to help the poor.

Jesus says don't bother her, she's doing the right thing. And in years to come what she has done will be told around the world in memory of her. Well, you could say that was a precursor almost to the exact words he used in the Last Supper, "Do this in memory of me." But we know that nobody ever talks about that poor woman who was probably Mary Magdalene.

Similarly blacks have not been seen to be a people of the Bible, but if you really look at the Bible, you'll discover that the first convert to Christianity was an Ethiopian.

And you'll see references to Cush, Nubia, and Ethiopia. You'll see that black-skinned people were significant to the biblical story--we are part of the New Testament and the Old Testament, as well.

Can you tell us about your conversion to Catholicism?

I have always been a person of faith. I was raised in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, one of the traditional black churches. But when I was about 15 years old, I remember telling my mother that I felt that they were all hypocrites in the church, and that I didn't want to be a part of it. Thank God for Mom because she was able to persuade my father, who said, "She's going to church if we have to drag her."

I didn't know it, but I was looking for God in another form and that was the outdoors. For the next 15 years during college and law school, I spent my weekends in the woods, backpacking, skiing, hiking, and kayaking because for me that's where God was. After I went to Albany, New York to work for the state as a lawyer for the poor, I quite literally got an urging to look into the Catholic Church. It was a very strange feeling because I didn't know any Catholics. It felt as if a physical presence was saying, "Hey, you. Listen. I'm talking to you." And I said, "Get away! Get off my shoulder."

In the meantime, I was getting sick of practicing law. I just felt again that there was a lot of hypocrisy going on. To make a long story short, I started my instruction in the fall of 1979. This was when I was first introduced to National Catholic Reporter, U.S. CATHOLIC, America, as well as the many theological works that my mentor, Father Nellis Tremblay, had in his library; and I just devoured them. For the first time in my life I found myself intellectually and spiritually challenged. I found myself coming alive.

I was confirmed on Dec. 23, 1979, and on Christmas Day of that year I sat down and couldn't get up again. I had developed a disintegrating condition in my knees. The doctors told me that there was a 50/50 chance I might walk again if I had surgery, and I remember being absolutely furious. I had this wonderful fight with God laying flat on my back. I said, "Okay, God, I did what you said. I became a Catholic. Now what do you want?"

So I decided to have a retreat where I woke up in the mornings, read the Bible and some prayer books, and just tried to think, because Father Tremblay kept telling me all I had to do was listen.

That's when I received what I feel was the call to become a theologian. I suddenly realized it wasn't just becoming a Catholic that God wanted me to do; that was merely the first step.

So I quit my job and started school at Catholic University in the summer of 1980. Everyone thought I'd gone stark-raving mad. They said, "My God, it was bad enough you became a Catholic, but now you're going to become a theologian! What is wrong with you?" I said, "I don't know. I hope it's not catching." I kept thinking I had conversion fever.

What did you find appealing about the Catholic Church?

The Catholic Church was where I found God again. I couldn't find God in the woods anymore because I couldn't hike or backpack. I'd lost everything that I ever loved and going into the Catholic Church I realized that I hadn't lost it. I regained it, but just in a different form.

For me the church is two things: it's an institution, truly man-made (emphasis on man), hierarchical and patriarchal, which has severe problems. But it has severe problems because it's human and it reflects the humanity of the people that make it up. Then there is the church as the Body of Christ. And it was the Body of Christ that brought me into the Catholic Church, even though I kicked and screamed all the way.

Now that does not mean that there haven't been days when I have really doubted my sanity for being a Catholic and a theologian and wondered why I put up with the nonsense that the church does love to hand us. But there's always the understanding that this is truly where God is. And I don't mean that God is not in other churches because I definitely do not believe that my parents are condemned to hell because they're still Methodist. God to me is everywhere, including in all of the religions.

If you had a magic wand, what would you change about the church?

The fact that the church is afraid to take risks. We talk social justice, but we don't live social justice. There are those who are really trying to help the poor, but there are still too many who see their only responsibility as going to Mass, going to Confession, and doing the sacraments, and there's no connection between what they do in church and what they do outside. We have to see God in all things.

The church has been shut out of the public square in many ways, except for those on the extreme right. But those who are moderate or on the left are afraid to speak up and say, "As a person of faith, I believe that what you're doing is wrong." It's been done with a few issues, like welfare, but too often we focus on a single issue--it's abortion or it's women's ordination. We have to have a holistic approach.

If we really are a faith-filled people, then we should live our faith. And that's hard. Not everybody would be willing to do what I did, not that what I did was so great, but people think I'm crazy. They say you gave up a law practice where you were making good money to be a poor student for eight years and then teach theology where, again, you don't make very much money?

I say yes, but I could not do otherwise. It came to a point in my life where I could say no to what God was asking me to do, and I still probably would have had a decent life, but something very critical would have been lost. So I had to say yes, and I've never regretted that.