Australian bishops find Catholic women feel
pain, alienation
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
NCR Staff
A bishops study on women and the Catholic church in
Australia reveals a strong sense of pain and alienation resulting from
the churchs stance on women, according to a summary presented at an
Aug. 18 news conference in Canberra, the nations capital.
Many Australian Catholic women have left or are considering
leaving the church, the study concluded.
Catholics across Australia, both men and women, told the bishops
they often experienced church structures as male-dominated, hierarchical
and authoritarian leading to a fixation on rules and
regulations. Asked to identify barriers to fuller participation by women
in the church, respondents listed: An exclusively celibate clergy; the
churchs teaching in relation to sexuality, marriage and the family; the
ban on artificial birth control; and the status of divorced and remarried
Catholics.
On the hot-button issue of female priests, the study says
Australian Catholics want continued conversation. There was much
agreement, even among those with different views on the question, that there
should be open discussion of the issue of womens ordination, the
summary said.
The new study was the result of three years of surveys,
consultations and hearings. Published in book form by HarperCollins in
Australia, the full text of the report runs to more than 500 pages and is
titled Woman and Man: One in Christ Jesus. The book presents the
raw data from the study. The bishops will consider recommendations
for action in future sessions.
The bishop who oversaw the process said the Australians wanted to
avoid the pitfalls of the U.S. bishops in their attempt during the 1980s to
produce a pastoral letter on women.
Cardinal Edward Clancy of Sydney cautioned against
unrealistic expectations of immediate change and warned that
Australia could not act unilaterally in opposition to Rome. In the
news conference, Clancy said he opposed discussion of womens ordination,
at one point likening it to discussion of whether there are three or four
persons in the Trinity.
Clancy also said, however, that he disagreed with refusing
Communion to Catholics who support female priests. The remark was widely seen
as a public rebuke of a conservative Australian bishop, Geoffrey Mayne, who
turned womens ordination activist Ann Nugent away from the Communion rail
in September 1998.
The study revealed that while a feeling of alienation cuts across
boundaries of age, region and ethnicity, there is a substantial core of regular
churchgoers in Australia satisfied with things as they are. The study thus
pointed to a polarization of views.
There were those wishing to maintain the current
participation of women in the church or even return to the position of the
pre-Vatican II church, and those seeking an expanded role for women,one
presenter said.
Even among the subset of regular churchgoers, however, only 42
percent said they accepted church teaching on women priests without
difficulty. Twenty-five percent said they could not accept it at all.
The effort to develop a U.S. pastoral on women began in 1983 and
drew on consultations with 75,000 women throughout the mid-1980s. In its early
stages, the draft pastoral won high marks for honesty in presenting the
sentiments of Catholic women. Doctrinal criticism from the Vatican and
conservative bishops, however, led to four other drafts and culminated in a
November 1992 vote in which the pastoral failed to get the two-thirds support
it needed to pass the first time the bishops conference voted down
a proposed pastoral letter.
Heck yeah, we were aware of what happened in America,
said Bishop Kevin Manning of Parramatta, who convened the coordinating group
for the study. We didnt want to make the mistake the American
bishops made, which was prolonging the process. Manning said the bishops
opted to publish the equivalent of a first draft, the raw data of their study,
as a demonstration of goodwill.
Manning said he is prepared to offer an apology to Catholic women
in Australia if that is perceived as a helpful step. I would apologize
for misunderstanding at times what women have been saying, Manning said.
He spoke to NCR in a telephone interview.
The Australian report may have worldwide implications, according
to American advocates of womens ordination. To me the most
important thing is that the bishops decided to publish the information with a
secular publisher, without comment, said Loretto Sr. Maureen Fiedler of
the activist group Catholics Speak Out in Washington.
Fiedler said the results themselves were unsurprising.
Unless youre deaf, dumb and blind, you know people feel this way,
but its still courageous for the Australian bishops to let it fly. Maybe
it will get the attention of someone in the Vatican.
The Aug. 18 news conference called to present the study underlined
the divisions in the Australian church. Nuns in full religious habits and
members of a right-wing activist group called the Magdalene Foundation occupied
one end of the spectrum, while a table full of womens ordination
supporters formed the other. Both contingents punctuated speakers remarks
with catcalls and applause. When Clancy said he disagreed with discussing
ordination for women, conservatives burst into cheers while a voice from across
the room cried, This is a democracy, not the Vatican!
Clancy said, After at least 30 years of discussion, which in
the end started to go round and round without any new arguments and causing a
good deal of division and animosity, Pope John Paul II decided to give an
authoritative pronouncement [in the 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio
Sacerdotalis].
Consequently I do not approve of open
discussion.
Clancy said the popes 1994 statement bordered on
infallibility and he had no doubt personally that this question will not
be resolved in any other way in the future.
Asked by Nugent about her experience of being denied Communion,
Clancy replied, I do not support that exclusion. He added that he
had no power to force other bishops to follow his lead.
Other findings include:
- Women were described as the backbone of the
church, especially in rural areas.
- A survey of Catholic institutions that provide theological
courses found that women comprise almost 74 percent of persons undertaking
undergraduate studies in theology and almost 64 percent of students taking
postgraduate theological courses.
- Among regular churchgoers, women outnumber men by a ratio of
approximately three to two.
The executive summary and other supporting documents for the
Australian study can be found at www.catholic.org.au. Readers
interested in purchasing a copy of Woman and Man: One in Christ Jesus
may contact HarperCollins in Australia at
harcorel@harpercollins.com.au
National Catholic Reporter, August 27,
1999
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