“Default Man” Standards by Sheila Peiffer

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres with Pope Francis

Christopher White  reports in the Brooklyn Tablet of March 11, 2020 that “United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres will receive the annual top prize from the Path to Peace Foundation – the major charitable organization established to support the work of the Holy See Mission to the U.N.”

This article briefly describes the qualifications of Guterres and how he and Pope Francis gave a joint presentation to the General Assembly last December. But the idea of the Holy See giving Guterres an award took me by surprise because I had just read the speech that Guterres gave recently at the New School in New York.  This talk, entitled “Women and Power,” was a stirring call for gender equality: “Today, as Secretary-General of the United Nations, I see one overwhelming injustice across the globe; an abuse that is crying out for attention. That is gender inequality and discrimination against women and girls.”

Guterres goes on to detail many examples of inequality and its deleterious effects on the world in various ways. “A hidden layer of inequality is built into the institutions and structures that govern all our lives – but are based on the needs of just half the population. The writer Caroline Criado Perez calls this “default man” thinking: the unquestioned assumption that men are standard, and women the exception.”  The Roman Catholic Church must be the largest, most entrenched “default man” institution in the world – where, literally, everything is designed for, decided by and measured by men.  Were the Apostolic Nuncio and the Path to Peace Foundation aware of this irony when they chose Guterres for this award?

“We cannot and we must not look the other way in the face of injustice, inequality, the scandal of hunger in the world, of poverty, of children who die because they lack water, food and necessary healthcare,” Pope Francis said in his joint video message with the Secretary General last December. Yet, the injustice and inequality that exists within the Church – which has enormous influence outside the Church – is being ignored.  Addressing hunger, poverty, and lack of healthcare are important issues that will take the collaboration of many forces in society to fix.  But the Pope could address the “injustice, inequality” within the Church if he so chose, if only he would not look the other way.

The award is being presented to Guterres in May. What will he say in his acceptance speech?  

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Sheila Peifer is the President of the National Board of Directors of the USA’s Women’s Ordination Conference (WOC). WOC is a member group of WOW. Shiela is a cradle Catholic who has been married for more than 40 years to a Methodist man who in mid-life became a Methodist minister.

She writes about her work for women’s ordination: We have four children and early in their childhood, the local Catholic Church that I was attending found itself without a Director of Religious Education.  Through a series of (I now see) Holy Spirit inspired events, I began to run the program and went on to earn a Masters in Theology and enjoyed a long career in various pastoral positions.

Sheila Peiffer, President of National Board of Directors of Women’s Ordination Conference

As my awareness of Church issues increased, so too did my desire to work for change in its hierarchical structures and misogynistic attitudes and teachings.  By the time the clerical abuse scandal burst into the consciousness of the American church through the articles in the Boston Globe in 2002, I had already been on the fringes of several Catholic reform groups.  Reading of this latest travesty, I decided to start a Voice of the Faithful group on Long Island, where we lived.  The organization met with tremendous response, due to the gravity of the issue and the vehemence of the local Bishop’s opposition to me and Voice of the Faithful.

I have continued to stay active in reform, having served in many capacities in Voice of the Faithful, the American Catholic Council and, now, Women’s Ordination Conference, where I currently am President of the Board.  My continuing journey of discernment about Catholicism has led me to believe that the Church will never be able to claim authentic leadership until it recognizes full equality for women in all ministries.  As an organization with tremendous influence in every country in the world, the Church is complicit in the oppression of women as long as it does not address the root causes of exclusion within the Church and work to bring about a priestly ministry that includes women and is feminist, anti-racist, and accountable.