Pope Francis Drops the Ball for Women in his Apostolic Exhortation on the Amazon -February 13, 2020
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February 13, 2020
For Immediate Release.
Press Contacts:
Kate McElwee (USA/Italy): +39 393 692 2100; kmcelwee@womensordination.org
Miriam Duignan (UK/Ireland): +44 7970 926910; miriam.duignan@wijngaardsinstitute.com
Alicja Baranowska(Belgium & Poland): +32 488 67 60 20 alicja.baranowska@wp.pl
Therese Koturbash (Canada): +1 204 648 5720; t.m.koturbash@gmail.com
Reading the post-synodal document, WOW concludes that it is on the back of a crucified Christ imaged in the faces of women that Pope Francis proposes to continue running the Roman Catholic man show. Turning his back on a significant opportunity to make a breakthrough for women, Francis has opted to perpetuate the shameful elitist man club that, as he so brazenly points out in the document, is held up by the second class status of women who do most of the work with none of the recognition.
Despite his concern for the environment and global climate catastrophe, Francis utterly fails to connect the marginalisation of the environment (a 'she') with the marginalisation of the feminine in the world and in particular, the 'she' who is marginalised in our own Church. Astonishingly, Francis holds up defense of the all-male priesthood on the untenable foundation of spousal imagery that says priest stands in for groom and the Church as bride. In application, this practice dramatically underlines how men can fill all the roles through a gender fluid pansexuality granted for male priests. While the male priest stands in for groom, he also and stands in for bride. Women in this broken view are but passive recipients in the source and summit of our faith. Women are categorically unnecessary for the function of the Church except for the production of children and to prop up the man show. This theory betrays a blind belief in a concept called complementarity used by the Vatican to claim that women and men are destined for different roles but which in reality just means men can do everything and women can only do what the men want them to and that serves them.
His rejection of women in ministerial service is nothing less than a betrayal of the entire faith community that waits desperately in need of culturally competent priests. God calls women to priesthood and to the diaconate. When an informed examination is made of the Vatican's efforts to justify excluding women from sacred ministry, it is clear that:
there is no reason in scripture, theology, or the tradition of the Church to support a male only priesthood. This is evidenced in the huge body of studies available on the academic website womenpriests.org;
for century after century, the hierarchy has fed prejudice against women to the faithful as though it were truth. This prejudice underpins the Vatican's official rationale for excluding women from priesthood and the diaconate. Through his Post Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Amazon region Pope Francis insists on perpetuating it.
Pope Francis, it is long past time for your boys' club to recognise that women are not ‘other’ but are fully human. The continued exclusion of the woman from priesthood is flagrant injustice that harms the Church and signals to the world that it is ok to continue treating women as less than. In this scenario there can be little sympathy for a leadership who fumbles with the inevitable emptying of pews and deconsecration of growing numbers of Catholic churches.
As things stand now, the Church remains a man's Church where women are permitted to worship, to deliver goods and services and to be stamped with something less than the icons of Christ that we fully, wholly, truly and completely are.
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Press contacts:
Kate McElwee (USA/Italy): +39 393 692 2100; kmcelwee@womensordination.org
Miriam Duignan (UK/Ireland): +44 7970 926910; miriam.duignan@wijngaardsinstitute.com
Alicja Baranowska(Belgium & Poland): +32 488 67 60 20 alicja.baranowska@wp.pl
Therese Koturbash (Canada): +1 204 648 5720; t.m.koturbash@gmail.com
Founded in 1996, Women's Ordination Worldwide(WOW) is an international network of groups whose current mission is to see Catholic women admitted to all ordained ministries in the Church. WOW is founded on the gospel principle of equality and therefore opposes any discrimination. 'There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no long male and female for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).
