Maria 2.0 - Grassroots Germany: Catholic Women's Movement A Voice for Change
/Maria 2.0 is a grassroots German initiative by women committed to change in the Catholic Church. Representing ‘crystallized fury over a male-only priesthood and bishops' foot-dragging on sex scandals,’ [1] Maria 2.0’s work is creative and powerful. The movement has gained commanding attention of the Church in Germany and European Catholic media. This summary aims to provide background about their work since we’ll be following their initiatives regarding Church reforms for women.
One of Maria 2.0’s symbolic pictures is the Virgin Mary with her mouth taped shut …. signifying her silencing and that of women throughout Church history.
In May 2019, Maria 2.0 gained international prominence when it called for a German-wide Church strike for women. Women were encouraged to engage in a one week boycott of official services and their volunteer efforts in churches. Since then, momentum hasn’t stopped. Maria 2.0 has been organising other demonstrations for equal rights for women in the Church. One was the human chain around Cologne Cathedral in September.’ [2]
Maria 2.0 was born in a reading circle in Münster, Germany’s Holy Cross Parish. As the reading circle studied Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium, the spirit of the movement emerged. Women realised their solidarity in shared frustration around:
their exclusion from sacramental ministry on account only of their being women;
Church policy on mandatory celibacy ;
and the hierarchical fumbling of the sex abuse crisis.
The initiative is named for Jesus’s mother, the Virgin Mary who in German is known as Maria. Throughout Church history, Mary is held up as the Churchman’s ideal for women — silent, submissive, and obedient. This narrow version of a role model is unhelpful to women and is not true to the person of Mary. ‘2.0’ signifies the need for a Church reboot so that positive change can happen. Leader Barbara Stratmann points out: ‘2.0 stands for a new beginning. Reset everything to zero. We are no longer like that.’ [3]
Out of Shared Concern, A Movement is Born
As the movement solidified, members flagged their concerns and plans for action in an open letter to Pope Francis. A translation of it reads:
Open Letter to pope Francis [4]
Holy Father,
We women believe that Jesus of Nazareth announced his liberating message of love to us all — men AND women. We are mourning:
all known and unknown abuse cases of all kind in the Roman Catholic Church;
the absence of plausible apologies and aid to those who have suffered from violence;
those who no longer believe in the church and its message.
We stand before the shattered remains of our affection and trust in our church with great disappointment, bewilderment and anger. We therefore call upon the Catholic Church, in accordance with many before us:
to deny office to those that have harmed others or have tolerated or covered up such wrongdoings;
to surrender all offenders to secular courts and to cooperate in all prosecutions without restrictions;
to allow women access to all church functions;
to abolish mandatory celibacy;
to align church sexual morals realistically with the reality of life.
The men of our church like to sing their praise to women. Paradoxically, men are the sole determiners of our participation in our church. As of now, only one woman is tolerated among them: Mary. On her pedestal. She stands there. Reduced to silence.
We want to take Mary off her pedestal and into our midst, as a sister facing our direction. We will act! We will post this letter to all church gates and call all women to action with MARY 2.0 From Saturday, the 11th until Saturday the 18th of May [2019] we will not enter the church and [we will] deny our service to the church. We want to make known how empty the churches will be without us and how much important work will be unfinished without us.
We will remain outside!
We will celebrate worship together on the church squares, in front of the church gates.
We will dance, sing, pray and find new words and expressions.
We will welcome all to participate, also men.
We will bring white sheets and cover the church squares in the colour of innocence, the colour of grief and compassion. We will use these sheets to paint, write, combine, stain and create with all ideas welcome as a collective. We will surround the church in the colours of new beginnings!
Yours sincerely,
The women and men signing this letter.
Gospel logic means justice and mercy as the DNA of the Gospel. We want a Church that doesn’t exclude anyone, but invites everyone who sincerely asks about God. For me personally this is the best thing when women come to me… and say that they have not been in the church for 20 years and have found a home again through Maria 2.0. This is evangelisation in the best sense…The important thing for me is that we always keep in mind that God is greater and that the questions that we have can only point to that. We point to Christ. We are not Christ, we can only point to him and what he exemplified for us. For me that is the Gospel and for me that is the logic of why I am committed.
Maria Mesrian, Maria 2.0 Member 5
Church Boycotts
When I grow up, I will become Pope.
At a Church boycott, the image of the Virgin Mary has her mouth taped shut signalling her silencing by the Church hierarchy because she is a woman.
Founders of the movement invited all German Catholic women to participate in a boycott during the annual May devotions to the Blessed Virgin Mary (in 2019, May 11-18). As promised in their letter to Francis, women held services outside their churches and refrained from all church-related voluntary work. Church squares were covered with white sheets symbolizing charity, sorrow, and a new beginning . The white sheets also served as a canvas for expressing complaints and demands in creative and emphatic ways.
At least 50 locations participated in the boycott and included women and men. A vigil held on the Münsteraner Domplatz gathered 700-800 people.
Participation Outside Germany: Austria, Switzerland, and USA
Women in Austria have joined the movement. Women involved in the church in Switzerland organized their own boycott and also participated in the national women's strike. In Washington, D.C. , women joined forces by hosting an outdoor Mass — Mass On Mass —near the Vatican Embassy. The liturgy was led by two Roman Catholic womenpriests while cold rain fell.
Response to the Boycotts
From German Catholic Women’s Associations
Support came from large established German lay associations including:
Katholische Frauengemeinschaft Deutschlands (Kfd) — a large established association of German Catholic women;
Katholischer Deutscher Frauenbund (KDFB). - a large established association of German Catholic women. In support of Maria 2.0, KDFB President Maria Flachsbarth said abuse cases and cover-ups by priests were sinking the Church into deep crisis and credibility loss. She pointed out that striking women wanted to show how much the church and its evangelical gospel means to them. Flachsbarth is also a federal parliamentarian and member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrat (CDU) party. [6]
Central Council of German Catholics (ZdK) — Thomas Sternberg, President of the Central Council of German Catholics (ZdK) observed at its lay convention earlier in 2019, that ‘Without the women nothing happens.’ Sternberg predicts that emerging from German Synodal process and the protests of Maria 2.0 will emerge for the Church as a whole an ordained women’s diaconate and married men in priesthood. ‘Never before have I experienced a situation in which indignation extended so far into the core of our churches,’ he said. [7]
From Leading Churchmen in Germany
Catholic priests voiced their support;
Jörg Hagemann, the Dean of Münster took part in a Liturgy of the Word in front of the church where he later celebrated Eucharist;
Franz-Jozef Bode, the Bishop of Osnabrück and head of the German Women’s Commission of the Deutschen Bischofskonferenz, welcomed the initiative, stating that while it is problematic that women left the Eucharistic communion and held their own ceremonies in parishes, one had to recognize that the profound injury to many active women in the church is behind this impatience: they don't feel the approval in the church as their commitment deserves. In endorsing Maria 2.0, Bode said he regretted the boycott but that ‘one must be very perceptive of the impatience of many women in the Catholic Church. Behind it is a very deep wound — that they in the church do not feel accepted in relation to their efforts.’ [8]
The Archbishop of Freiburg, Stepan Burger expressed sympathy women's denial of access to the ordained diaconate and priesthood;
Matthias Kopp, spokesperson for the German Conference of Catholic Bishops recognised the need for change and discussion but said that boycotts and strikes were not an acceptable approach in the work for change;
Archbishop Georg Gänswein, personal secretary to the former Pope Benedict XVI (both Gänswein and the former Pope are now based in Rome but come from Germany) criticized the movement for risking the creation of a new church by tinkering around with the Church’s DNA.
Other responses
The Conservative Forum of German Catholics called for KDFB members who were "committed to the teaching of the Catholic Church" to depart the organization;
The Catholic Johanna Stöhr from the diocese of Augsburg responded by founding a counter-initiative Mary 1.0 in order to show, as she said, that there are also women who are faithful to the teachings of the church.’ Her slogan is, Mary doesn't need an update.;
Peter Winnemöller said that self invented services did not satisfy the Sunday obligation and that the boycott did not meet the requirements of a dispensation, therefore making the participants guilty of a mortal sin.
Unsurprised by some of the negative reactions coming from women like Johanna Stöhr, Münster's Holy Cross parish priest Stefan Jürgens observed, ‘That's what I have experienced in the 25 years I've been in the ministry: the fiercest opponents of priesthood for women are among women! They are just accustomed because of their upbringing that they are the ones serving; that they're rather subordinate themselves. But the young women can't stand it anymore.’ [9]
— contribution by Therese Koturbash, WOW Communications Team
Therese Koturbash, BA, LLB, GDCL served as Canadian Delegate to Women’s Ordination Worldwide from 2008 to 2013. For all five of those years, she was elected member of WOW's four person International Leadership Circle. She has also been the National Coordinator of Canada's Catholic Network for Women's Equality. Today, Therese serves on WOW’s Communications Team and is a volunteer with WOW member group, Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research. Her paid work is as a family attorney.
Notes
German Catholic women begin boycott over lack of reforms, dw.com, 2019-05-11.
Mada Jurado, German Church women’s rights movement still striving for “equality and renewal”: member, Novena News, January 21, 2020.
"Die Zeit der schweigenden Frauchen ist vorbei". Deutschlandfunk (in German). 2019-05-10.
"Open Letter to pope Francis" (PDF). Maria 2.0.
op cit, Mada Jurado.
op cit, German Catholic women
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