St Mary of the Cross now joins the ranks of women deemed worthy of
canonisation because of extraordinary works, virtuous behaviour, service
and leadership but not worthy of serving as priests.
Australians have connected with different aspects of St
Mary's story - her passion for the marginalised and her perseverance
despite adversity. But her story also illustrates how the Catholic
Church hierarchy continues to impede women's deeply held commitments and
aspirations.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, nuns like St Mary
challenged not only the expectations that larger society had for women,
but also the authority of priests and bishops who shared a different
vision for their work.
Since that time, nuns, along with countless other
Catholic laywomen, have led social movements, worked to establish
schools, orphanages and hospitals and have served the sick, the poor and
those on the margins of society.
Often they have done it on impossible
budgets, in dire physical and political conditions, and with little or
no institutional support.
With a shortage of priests in many countries, nuns and
laywomen now perform sacraments such as confession, anoint the sick or
offer communion. In some rural and remote areas, they serve as parish
priests in all but name.
But because they are lay people, and not
clerics, they are vulnerable, as St Mary was, to intrusions from the
authority of bishops.
Only ordained clerics can preside at the Eucharist, hear
confessions, and make decisions about property, politics and theology.
Just this year, the Vatican released a document that deemed both the
ordination of women priests and paedophilia as graviora delicta, or
"grave crimes" against the church.
So why does the Catholic Church take such a stand? It
gives two primary reasons for denying women ordination as priests. First
is that Jesus selected only men as apostles and, second, that during
the sacraments the priest acts in persona Christi - in the person of
Christ - so that person must, like Christ, be a man.
The church argues that woman is, by her nature, different
from man, because of her role in original sin and God's command that
man should rule over her. Of course, the Catholic Church shares this
with other religious traditions.
Growing up in the Southern Baptist denomination in the
United States, I, too, could not have been ordained as a pastor. And
women within Theravada Buddhism are fighting for their right to serve as
bhikkhunis, or monks.
Each of these denominations, along with Islam and
Orthodox Judaism, sings the same song with a slightly different tune -
women can't be at the top because of authority, tradition or nature.
But there are those who struggle against this pattern.
This past week a woman was ordained a Catholic priest in Canada.
The
church did not sanction her ordination, and she will shortly be
excommunicated. Roman Catholic Womenpriests, a movement for women's
ordination that began in 2002, supervised the ordination.
Since that
time nearly 100 women worldwide have been ordained, although none have
been recognised by the church.
These are not women who wish to break off from the
church; they want to reimagine it.
There are yet other Catholic
feminists who understand the very concept of priesthood and the
hierarchical structure of the church as fatally flawed. They do not wish
to see women as priests, but to see the entire Catholic community as
one that is radically democratic and committed to peace-making, justice
and community building.
As St Mary's celebration recedes, there is already talk
of another Josephite, Sister Irene McCormack, becoming Australia's next
saint.
Sister McCormack lived and worked among the poor in a
remote village in Peru. When the male priests left the village because
of threats of violence, Sister McCormack stayed. She and a fellow sister
led communion, celebrated the Eucharist, and performed weddings and
baptisms. She said that her work among the poor freed her to exercise
her ministry, and admitted frustration over the church's denial of
collaborative ministry to women and married clergy.
In 1991, armed members of the Communist Party of Peru,
commonly known as the Shining Path, stormed Sister McCormack's village
and marched her into the town square. She was shot in the back of head -
murdered for her willingness to stay and serve as "unofficial" priest
to the village.
The Second Vatican Council declared in 1964 that
expressing opinions "on matters concerning the good of the church" was
an obligation of the faithful.
Perhaps the legacy of St Mary and others
like her who have spoken out boldly and faithfully will be to inspire
new generations to speak to the structures of hierarchy and patriarchy
that choke the church and countless other religious institutions.
As St Mary wisely advised: "Never see a need without doing something about it".
Dr Laura Beth Bugg is a lecturer in sociology of religion at the University of Sydney.
SIC: SMH/AUS