Vatican religious prefect: Gender inequality exists in church

Gender inequality exists in the Catholic church because men and women forget they cannot be "fully human" without one another, a key Vatican cardinal said in May.

"Man without woman is not fully human," Cardinal João Braz de Aviz said. "And woman without man is not fully human either. Each without the other is a piece of humanity, incomplete."

"Throughout history, we have had many difficulties in this area," Braz de Aviz said. "History became a primarily masculine enterprise. For many reasons -- political, anthropological -- this mode also dominated religion."

Braz de Aviz, the prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Religious, made his comments in May in Rome during a talk at the triennial meeting of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG), a membership group for approximately 2,000 leaders of Catholic sisters around the world.

While the cardinal's remarks to the sisters, first reported by NCR, garnered wide attention at the time, the full text of Braz de Aviz's talk was never made public.

The church, Braz de Aviz said in the third part, is at a moment "when we need to re-vision many things."

"Obedience and authority need to be re-visioned," Braz de Aviz said. "An authority that commands kills. An authority that serves generates life. An obedience that merely copies what the other says infantilizes, makes us less human."

Among other points addressed by the cardinal in the third part:

• How congregations of sisters who are of diocesan rite, who are not international but under the control of a local bishop, can deal with tensions with their bishops.
• His congregation is meant to be supportive, not investigatory: "The congregation does not want to come across as an organization of surveillance only, to catch you in some error or fault. This is not our mission."
• Catholic priests and sisters must be able to show weakness: "We need normal persons that sin, that are weak, that can seek forgiveness, that have a heart that is alive."
• Theologians who explore Catholic feminism should continue their work: "If it is a biblical and theological reflection, it should be of great value. We need to proceed ahead. Have no fear. We need to converse even more about this."
• Sisters' communities should care for their elderly members: "They are precious women. They are true treasures that remain alive and connected when there is true community."

Braz de Aviz has been at the congregation, officially known as the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, since 2011. He oversees the work of an estimated 1.5 million sisters, brothers and priests around the world in religious orders.

The cardinal took questions May 5 during a meeting with some 800 UISG members, each leaders of sisters' communities around the world, who had gathered in Rome from May 3-7 to focus on the theme of servant leadership.

Speaking in the afternoon after celebrating Mass with the sisters earlier in the day, Braz de Aviz frequently paused during his answers to laugh and to accept several sustained bouts of applause.