`Coloring outside the patriarchal lines'

National Catholic Reporter, May 12, 2000 by Patrick Marrin

Women theologians claim, without apology, a feminist vision

Fifteen women, widely recognized as among the country's most distinguished theologians, recently produced a manifesto of "hope and courage" inviting other women to imagine a future different from the one possible under current Catholic church leadership, declaring, "The way things are now is not the design of God."

The manifesto was produced during a three-day retreat April 28-30 at St. Mary's College in South Bend, Ind., for 15 of the women theologians who have, over the past 16 years, been part of the Madeleva Lecture series, an annual event honoring Holy Cross Sr. Madeleva Wolff. Wolff was an internationally known poet and president of St. Mary's from 1934-1961. The series, under the direction of Keith J. Egan, was founded in 1985 to continue the nun's pioneering efforts in women's education and to provide a forum for women's concerns in the church. Wolff started the first graduate theology program for women in the United States in 1943, and is credited with initiating what now, 60 years later, can be seen as the advances of women in theological scholarship and intellectual leadership in the American church.

Asked to compose a "Charter for Women of Faith in the New Millennium," they produced instead "The Madeleva Manifesto: A Message of Hope and Courage," inviting women to imagine different church structures and reject those that have excluded women from full participation and ownership.

This year's 16th annual Madeleva lecturer was Immaculate Heart of Mary Sr. Sandra Schneiders, professor of New Testament studies and spirituality at the Jesuit School of Theology and the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley, Calif. She characterized Madeleva, who died in 1964, as someone "who was coloring outside the patriarchal lines long before we realized that those lines did not, in fact, provide the whole picture."

Former Madeleva lecturers now hold chairs at many of the top theological schools in the country and are past or current presidents of the major national theological societies and associations.

This year's event, three years in the planning and timed to coincide with the Jubilee Year, was the context for Schneiders' talk, "With Oil in Their Lamps: Faith, Feminism and the Future." The talk was presented April 28 to an audience that included some 400 students, alumni and faculty from St. Mary's College and the University of Notre Dame. It expounded the feminist theme that helped shape the manifesto, which was presented to the public the next evening during a panel discussion with the other participants.

In her address, Schneiders reviewed the history of the women's movement and the rise of feminist consciousness in the 20th century. She defined feminism as "a comprehensive ideology, rooted in women's experience of sexually based oppression, which engages in a critique of patriarchy as an essentially dysfunctional system, embraces an alternative vision for humanity and the earth and actively seeks to bring this vision to realization."

The complexity of the women's movement, its global character and broad goals, and the fact that feminism means many different things to different people has often obscured and obstructed the efforts of feminists in the church, she said. "Gospel feminism," in contrast, has deepened and expanded the concept to include basic human liberation, "right relations" in every respect, and is inseparable from the gospel of Jesus, whose life and example is now the primary source for the women's movement within the church, Schneiders said.

"We need to claim, consciously and publicly, without apology or equivocation, our conviction that the feminist vision is not simply one utopian dream among others, the private cause of some disgruntled women, but a crucial factor in the shaping of the future because it is quintessentially a gospel vision of full humanity for all persons and right relations among all creatures," she said.

The cost of patriarchy has been high in the Catholic church, she said. Citing the experience of fellow Madeleva lecturers, Schneiders told her audience: "Today, women like Joan Chittister, Denise Carmody and Mary Collins, who are trying to open the institutional church and its ministry to the vocations and gifts of women, are pushing a Sisyphean boulder of nearly 1,800 year's weight up the greased hill of a fiercely defended male power structure."

As difficult as women's journey has been, especially for those who are committed to change from within, Schneiders said she finds hope in the long-term advances women have made in education, especially because of the work of women religious. If this can be extended into future generations, and if young people can be drawn into mentoring relationships with committed women, both religious and lay, this gospel-centered, feminist consciousness will have its effect over time.

Schneiders described Jesus as a model of the "lived tension" appropriate to feminists living in today's church. Jesus was faithful to his religious tradition, to synagogue and to the ritual practices of his day. But he did not hesitate to transform them in the light of his mystic encounter with God and his vision of the reign of God. He was often led to exceed the letter of the law for the sake of the spirit of the law, to set aside ritual observance for spiritual reality, Schneiders said. The tension was especially apparent when Jesus responded with compassion to outcasts and the oppressed. Jesus' life of service and his sacrificial death were played out in this mediated tension.