Ripples of Hope (3)
Easter is a time of hope. Pope Benedict XVI, speaking during a visit to the Ardeatine Caves Memorial in Rome, lamented the widespread abandonment of religion in Western Countries in a Holy Thursday Homily. His lamentation should rather have been for the loss of women’s leadership in the church and the scandal of their subordination in the rise of Christianity.
Karen Jo Torjesen in her book, When Women Were Priests, brilliantly lays bare the historic roots of the church’s prejudice against women. Commenting on the book, Elizabeth Johnson (author of the book: She Who Is) said: “Torjesen is nothing short of brilliant in tracing the connection between the church’s move from the private to the public spheres and the corresponding move to suppress women’s leadership. The cumulative effect of the book’s argument is to make more rationally urgent than ever the removal of this scandal.”
Torjensen goes on to state: ”Understanding why and how women, once leaders in the Jesus movement and in the early church, were marginalized and scapegoated as Christianity became the state religion is crucial if women are to reclaim their rightful, equal place in the church today. Jesus’ message and practice were radically egalitarian in their day and constituted a social revolution that likely provoked his crucifixion. It is high time the church, which claims to embody his good news to the world, stop betraying its own essential heritage of absolute equality.” And in so proclaiming, Torjesen sent forth a ripple of hope.
The pope’s lamentations serve only to make more widespread the abandonment of Catholicism — were he, on the other hand, to address women as equals and restore women to equal partnership in Christian life, he could rejoice in a newfound and widespread acceptance of Christian ideals. What an Easter message of hope that would be!
Ripples Of Hope (2)
Another “ripple of hope” was sent forth by Pope John XXIII when he announced in 1964 that there would be a worldwide council of the Church.
“The Council opened a huge door and extended a warm hand for the first time in many years. For Jews, the separation had been long and extremely painful, 2000 years without meaningful dialogue and understanding. For the Eastern Orthodox, they had been separated since 1054 or longer. For Christian Churches that emerged after the Reformation, it had been more than four hundred years of hatred and animosity. For Catholics exiled by their own church, it had been generations upon generations, of broken families and broken hearts.” The Council, by Bill Huebsch.
Pope John XXIII in a gentle, pastoral opening message uttered words of hope to the world. “Ecumenical councils lead to a more clear announcement of the truth, to guidance in every day life … Divine Providence is leading us to a new order of human relations … we meet the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of our teachings rather than by condemning others … this council will prepare and consolidate the path toward that unity of humankind which is required as a necessary foundation in order that the earthly city may be brought to resemble the heavenly one where truth reigns, charity is the law, and eternity is the timetable.”
Curiously, no mention of women was made in the Pope’s opening message. However, he had approved Cardinal Suenes’ recommendation that the number of lay people present at the Council be increased and that the number include women. And later in the session, eight women religious and seven lay unmarried women were named as auditors at the Council. The first women in history to serve in a conciliar assembly.
In so doing, Pope John, and his successor Pope Paul VI, nudged the Church a little closer to the modern world and sent forth “a ripple of hope” that women would again serve as leaders of the Church!
Ripples of Hope
I have been asked many times since the publication of The Priestess and the Pope what motivated me to write the book. Truth be told, it was numerous ripples of hope coming from many different sources demonstrating women’s leadership in the early church and the scandal of their subordination in the rise of Christianity.
Over the next few weeks, I will reveal these ripples of hope to both shed light on the issue and help raise the veil of deceit that has concealed for almost two thousand years the powerful roles played by women in the early Christian communities.
One such “ripple of hope” was the discovery in December of 1945 near the town of Nag Hammadi in Egypt of an earthenware jar containing thirteen papyrus books bound in leather. Excited by the discovery, distinguished scholars and historians hurried to decipher the manuscripts. Professor Guiles Quispel was startled then incredulous to read, “These are the secret words which the living Jesus spoke and which the twin Judas and Thomas wrote down.”
Contemporary scholar, Elaine Pagels, in the introduction to the book The Gnostic Gospels, provides insight as to the history of these documents:
Why were these texts buried and why have they remained virtually unknown for nearly 2000 years? Their suppression as banned documents and their burial on the cliff of Nag Hammadi; it turns out, were both part of a struggle critical for the formation of early Christianity. The Nag Hammadi texts, and others like them, which circulated at the beginning of the Christian era, were denounced as heresy by orthodox Christians in the middle of the second century. We have long known that many early followers of Christ were condemned by other Christians as heretics, but nearly all we knew about them came from what their opponents wrote attacking them…This campaign against heresy involved an involuntary admission of its persuasive power; yet the bishops prevailed. By the time of Emperor Constantine’s conversion, when Christianity became an officially approved religion in the Fourth Century, Christian bishops, previously victimized by the police, now commanded them. Possession of books denounced as heretical was made a criminal offense. Copies of such books were burned and destroyed. But in Upper Egypt, someone, possibly a monk from a nearby monastery of St. Pachomius, took the banned books and hid them from destruction – in the jar where they remained buried for almost 1600 years.
Muhammad Ali, the person who found the jar, later admitted that some of the texts were lost – burned up or thrown away. Nevertheless, what remains is astonishing: some 52 texts from the early centuries of the Christian era – including a collection of early Christian gospels, previously unknown. Besides the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Philip, the find included the Gospel of Truth and the Gospel of Egyptians. Another group of texts consists of writings attributed to Jesus’ followers, such as the Secret Book of James, the Apocalypse of Paul, the Letter of Peter to Philip, and the Apocalypse of Peter.
About the dating of the manuscripts themselves there is little debate. Examination of the datable papyrus used to thicken the leather bindings, and the Coptic script, place them A.D. 350-400. Though scholars disagree about the dating of the original text. Recently, Professor Helmut Koester of Harvard University has suggested that the collection of sayings in the Gospel of Thomas, although compiled C. 140, may include some traditions even older than the gospels of the New Testament, possibly as early as the second half of the First Century (50-100) – as early, or earlier, than Mark, Matthew, Luke and John.
The find at Nag Hammadi, indicates that the early church was different than what evolved after Constantine made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire. The early church held a simpler and purer form of Christianity. In the apostles time all members of the Christian community shared their money and property; all believed the same teaching and worshipped together; all revered the authority of the apostles. It was only after that golden age that conflict, and then heresy emerged.
Yet by A.D. 200, the situation had changed dramatically. Christianity had become an institution headed by a three-rank hierarchy of bishops, priests, and deacons who understood themselves to be the guardians of the only true faith. The majority of Churches among which the Church of Rome took a leading role, rejected all other viewpoints as heresy. The efforts of the majority to destroy every trace of heretical blasphemy proved so successful that, until the discoveries of Nag Hammadi, nearly all of our information concerning alternative forms of early Christianity came from the orthodox view of the Catholic church.
The Gnostic text tells us that the early Christian movement was itself far more diverse than orthodox sources chose to indicate. We now begin to see that what we call Christianity and what we identify as Christian tradition, actually represents only a small selection of specific sources, chosen from dozens of others. Who made that selection and for what reasons? Why were these other writings excluded and banned as heresy? What made them dangerous? Now, for the first time, we have the opportunity to find out about the earliest Christian heresy; for the first time, the heretics can speak for themselves.
“The discovery will revolutionize the traditional understanding of the origins of Christianity, which is the fear of the orthodox thinkers. The orthodox thinking is that the priests are needed to guide the flock. The Coptic gospels place greater responsibility in the individual. When Jesus says, ‘If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.’ The orthodox thinking speaks of God only in masculine terms. The Coptic gospels speak of the feminine element in the divine, celebrating God as Father and Mother. The orthodox thinkers minimize the role of Mary Magdalene. The Coptic gospels elevate the role of Mary Magdalene, ‘the companion of the savior is Mary Magdalene. But Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on her mouth. The rest of the disciples were offended. They said to him, ‘Why do you love her more than all of us?’ The Savior answered and said to them, ‘Why do I not love you as I love her?’”
By investigating the texts from Nag Hammadi, together with sources known for well over a thousand years from orthodox traditions, we can see how politics and religion coincide in the development of Christianity. In the process, we can gain a startlingly new perspective on the origins of Christianity.
So from the small village of Nag Hammadi, an Egyptian peasant unearthed sacred books of one of the earliest Christian sects illuminating the world of a broader version of Christianity – and sending forth a ripple of hope…
Graviora Delicta
I am convinced that a vast majority of people, when asked whether sexually abusing children or ordaining women as priests is more grave, would respond that sexually abusing children is more grave. Yet the Catholic Church’s hierarchy would classify both as “graviora delicta” or grave offenses.
I am also convinced that a vast majority of people, when asked whether there is a link between the two would respond that there is no link between the two. Yet the Catholic Church hierarchy would readily link the two in its document of grave offenses.
I am further convinced that a vast majority of the people, when asked which of the two is most shocking to them, would respond that the sexual abuse of children is most shocking. Yet the Catholic Church hierarchy would categorize both as shocking.
And, I am firmly convinced that a vast majority of people, when asked whether it is more important for the church to protect its rules about gender or protect the children under its care, would say that protecting the children under its care is more important. A small minority, the Catholic Church’s hierarchy, would say they are equally important.
So it’s easy to see how out of touch the Catholic Church’s hierarchy is with its Catholic community. Recently, the Church issued its long-awaited new rules on clergy sex abuse. Yet it shocked much of the world by including in its list of grave offenses not just the sexual abuse of children and the possession of child pornography but also the attempted ordination of woman priests.
In a New York Times Article by Maureen Dowd entitled “As Rome Fiddles, We Burn,” the columnist states:
Letting women be priests – which should be seen as a way to help cleanse the church and move it beyond its infantilized and defensive state – is now on the list of awful sins right next to pedophilia, heresy, apostasy, and schism … Stupefyingly, the new Vatican document links raping children with ordaining women as priests …
Dowd also quotes Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, the chairman of the Committee on Doctrine of the United States C0nference of Catholic Bishops, who asserts, “The Catholic Church, through its long and constant teaching, holds that ordination has been from the beginning, reserved to men, as fact which cannot be changed despite changing times.”
Yet this is a myth that has been debunked by the Italian scholar Georgio Atranto in his lecture, (which is also dealt with in my recent novel The Priestess and the Pope). In the introduction to Georgio Atranto’s translation from Italian of “Notes from the Female Priesthood in Antiquity,” it is said:
The vexed question of admission of women to the priesthood has been brought sharply to public attention by the continuing efforts in Great Britain and the United States to restore full participation in the Catholic and Anglican priesthood to woman. Those in favor of the ordination of women point to the disparagement and hatred of women throughout the history of the church.
I think the vast majority of people believe it’s time for the Church’s hierarchy to remove the ordination of women from its list of grave sins; to take a closer look at its history; to consider the true intent of its Founder; to cast aside its sexual bias; and to return women to the priesthood.
A Time for Renewal
The world stage is not an easy place for the Vatican these days. The sex abuse scandal has become a quagmire, to put it charitably; women continue to protest their exclusion from the priesthood; Catholics are leaving the Church in droves; and parishes that were active just a generation ago have permanently closed their church doors.
Earlier in June, Pope Benedict XVI asked for absolution from abuse victims in front of thousands of Roman Catholic priests attending Mass in St. Peter’s Square. ”We too insistently beg forgiveness from God and from the persons involved, while promising to do everything possible to ensure that such abuse will never occur again,” Benedict said.
Pope Benedict Begs Forgiveness – CBS News
While all of this is happening the ecclesiastical declarations emanating from the Vatican (the tiny independent state which is home to the Catholic Church’s central administrative offices) is that it does not exercise “day-to-day” control over U.S. bishops, ostensibly to distance itself from a pending lawsuit filed in Louisville, Kentucky.
The Kentucky suit argues in part that U.S. bishops should be considered employees or officials of the Holy See, thus, placing the Vatican within the jurisdiction of the Kentucky Court and ultimately liable for damages. The Vatican has countered with court filings from officials in the Louisville diocese that seek to demonstrate independence from Rome.
Could this be a new way of understanding the mission of the Church? Is the Vatican going to remove itself from the day-to day operations of bishops or will it do so only in situations involving lawsuits? I would venture to say that the latter is the case, for what if a bishop dismissed the doctrine of celibacy or ordained women as priests in his diocese? There is no doubt that the Vatican would quickly intercede and excommunicate the bishop.
As recently as the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the papacy is viewed in increasingly communal and collegial terms. The pope exercises supreme authority over the Church, but the bishops also share in that authority. To be sure, the supreme authority vested in the college of bishops cannot be exercised without the consent of the pope. In the “Dogmatic Constitution of the Church,” it states that even though the bishops are no longer perceived as simply the pope’s vicars or delegates the pope still has “full, supreme, and universal power over the Church.”
The basic structure of the Church of Rome remained pyramidal with power flowing downward from the pope, its “infallible head”. In effect, Vatican II took pains to safeguard the pope’s absolute authority and merely gave the bishops a consulting position, leaving the pope free to use them or not in his governing of the Church.
Following Vatican II, a strong body of opinion emerged critical of the pope for not acting in cooperation with the bishops in exercising his authority over issues such as birth control, divorce, celibacy, and the ordination of women.
Cardinal Suenens, archbishop of Malines in Belgium, said it best when calling for an end to the medieval papacy: “The pope should no longer act as though he were outside the Church or above the Church.”
In conclusion, the Vatican can either exercise its authority over the bishops and accept the consequences that follow or relinquish its authority over the bishops and absolve itself of the consequences that follow; but it can nor pick and chose arbitrarily. It is time for the Vatican to face the sexual abuse scandal head on, accept responsibility for the Church’s action, compensate its victims, and tap into a new sense of renewal that will again make Catholicism relevant to these changing times.
This global group of Catholic women have been pushing for the Vatican to consider ordaining women as priests. Members of the group marched this past Tuesday on St. Peter’s Square in Rome on the eve of a rally set to mark the end of the Catholic Church’s yearlong celebration of the priest.
Representatives of the Women’s Ordination Conference protest Tuesday in front of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, with, from left, Therese Koturbash of Dauphin, Manitoba, Mary Ann Schoettly of Newton, N.J., and Erin Saiz Hanna of Washington, D.C.
According to an AP Article on the rally, The Women’s Ordination Conference said the Vatican shouldn’t be celebrating the priesthood while “turning a blind eye when men in its ranks destroy the lives of children and families.”
“While the hierarchy spends their time covering up scandals and throwing major celebrations for themselves, Catholic women are working for justice and making a positive difference in the world,” said Erin Saiz Hanna, executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference.
Ms. Hanna could not be more correct. It is time that the Pope takes a hard look at ordaining women as priests. Perhaps the Church hierarchy should reflect on the fact, as uncovered in my novel The Priestess and the Pope, that women were once priests and served the Church in leadership roles.
Do As I Say Not As I Do
Two recently published articles further emphasize the gender dichotomy within the Church and its “do as I say and not as I do” attitude.
In the first article entitled The Pope Calls for Ethics, Pope Benedict XVI states “that the crisis and the difficulties that international relations, states, society, and the economy are currently going through are largely due to a lack of trust and adequate aspiration toward solidarity.” Under an accompanying photo, where the Pope is seen blessing a crowd of 150,000 people in St. Peter’s Square, who were there ostensibly to support the Pope’s handling of the clerical sexual abuse scandal, Benedict is quoted as being comforted by such a “beautiful and spontaneous” show of faith and solidarity; and again “denounced” what he called the “sin” that has infected the Church and needs to be purified.
Can there be any doubt why there is a lack of trust and solidarity for the Catholic Church when sex offenders are only now being defrocked and denounced and only after widespread and persistent reporting of the sex scandal?
Now compare this punishment to that reported by Nicholas Kristof in a New York Times article entitled “Sister Margaret’s Choice”. Sister Margaret, a senior administrator at St Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix and a member of the Ethics Committee, authorized the termination of an 11-week pregnancy in a case where there was a high probability of death to the mother. After consultation with the patient, her family, her physician, and the Ethics Committee, Sister Margaret authorized the abortion. As an aside, Sister Margaret had spent “decades of service to the Church and humanity”. Many refer to her as a “saintly nun.” The Bishop of the Diocese of Phoenix swiftly excommunicated Sister Margaret even though she authorized the procedure to save the mother’s life. Excommunication is the most severe punishment of the Church, in that, it officially excludes someone from participation in the sacraments and services of the Catholic Church.
http://www.newsy.com/videos/nun-excommunicated-over-abortion
I suggest that it is not mere coincidence that Sister Margaret’s punishment for arguably a very humanitarian act is more severe that levied against the priests for their clearly criminal acts. It is rather a continuation of the Church’s prejudicial conduct towards women that has existed for nearly 2000 years. My soon to be published historical novel, The Priestess and the Pope, hopefully will help lift this veil of deceit and return the religion to the true teachings of its Founder!
The present crisis is an opportunity for the Vatican to review its policies in regard to celibacy and the leadership role of women in the Church!
