Question 4.72

4.72 The place of women in the Church is a very important subject. How are their roles to be understood?

It is necessary to respect women, which is not the case in some countries. The dignity and the rights of women can be put seriously at risk by dangerous practices. In Africa, girls ought to be able to pursue their studies as far as boys. Similarly, it is necessary to fight vigorously against forced marriages. When I travel to the four corners of the world, I realize that the real problem is not an illusory equality, but respect for the dignity and the very freedom of women. The images of women that the Western media present are too often degrading and humiliating. A woman’s body is treated as merchandise for the depraved pleasure of certain men. Through organized prostitution, women become objects with commercial value. Yet the West falsely claims to champion and defend women’s rights. …

There are small groups of women who demand ordination to the priesthood and the episcopate. Along this line, aberrations have been perpetrated in some Protestant communities. People accuse the Catholic Church of insufficiently respecting the place of women. If I may make a remark, it seems to me that the relevance of this question is very restricted geographically. . . Unfortunately, I have the sense that the West is still trying to influence other cultures. In many regions of the world, I do not think that ideological egalitarianism in relations between men and women is the model being sought.

The extravagance of the feminist ideology goes so far as to try to eradicate some words from the vocabulary: father and mother, husband and wife. God created us as complementary and different. If I look in the Gospels at how Jesus treated women, I see that he had great respect for them. The Church’s only model must be this gentle, respectful way that Christ had of associating women with his mission. In this regard, it is a shame that some are trying to blame the pope, the cardinals, or the bishops by suggesting that their positions are reactionary.

The idea of a woman cardinal is as ridiculous as the idea of a priest who wanted to become a nun! The Church’s point of reference remains Christ, who behaved justly toward women and men, giving to each person his or her appropriate role. Jesus was followed by some women from Galilee who were happy to be at his service. At the foot of the Cross, he had Mary Magdalen and some other sorely wounded women who watched the terrible scene of the crucifixion. According to the Gospels, Mary Magdalen was the first person to see the risen Jesus on Easter morning. She asked for nothing else but to serve the Lord in her specific role as a woman, in the purity that she had regained and consecrated.

In the world there are societies that are matriarchal or patriarchal. In them everyone plays his role, in terms of his nature. Following God’s plan, the woman is mother and the man is father. Women ought to fight so that their bodies, which are sacred, will not be utilized and commercialized, because they are God’s temple and the sanctuary of new life. In the Church, women can have a very important role, starting with the most prestigious ideal, aspiring to sanctity.

How can we not mention the endless host of daughters of God, starting with the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, the Theotokos, the Mother of God, and then Saint Monica, mother of Saint Augustine, Jeanne de Chantal, Teresa of Avila, Thérèse of Lisieux, Maria Goretti, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Blessed Clementine Anwarite, virgin and martyr, or Josephine Bakhita. For a long time the Church has known how to exalt and appreciate the specific genius of women. Saint John Paul II spoke about them as sentinels of the invisible; he was quite right. The Church must not allow herself to be impressed by that ideological feminism that can be seemingly generous in its intentions yet false in its deeper aims. Above all, we must not consider these problems in terms of function. God asks us to place ourselves at the service of the Church. It is not a question of making a career for oneself. Careerism already affects too much of the clergy; therefore we must not spread that virus to women!

The idea of reserved positions may be a political objective, but it does not seem to be a criterion of the Holy Spirit. I understand what a big trap it would be to entrust a dicastery of the Roman government to a woman just because she is a woman. The first criterion must not be a person’s sex, but fidelity to the will of Jesus as it has always been understood by the Church’s tradition. Then, if a woman theologian is in close union with the Magisterium and she wishes to place herself at the service of Christ, like the Virgin Mary or Mary Magdalen, there is no problem with her offering her full collaboration to the mission of a given dicastery, provided that it is in keeping with her competence.

In Africa there are many catechists, both men and women; the Christian communities praise them and are grateful for their great work of evangelization. Women carry out this mission with their own sensitivity and maternal sensibility, just like the specific presence that is reserved to them in our families. It would never occur to any man with common sense to try to accomplish this maternal task or to acquire a woman’s prodigious power of transmitting life. … Likewise, how can we imagine that the Church lived for centuries according to erroneous anthropological paradigms? I see in these feminist demands great arrogance and a rigid form of status-seeking. In the Gospel, Mary holds one of the highest positions. There is our true model.