Catholic journalism as a chancery bulletin board - Column

National Catholic Reporter, May 28, 1993 by Joan Chittister

Let's mention no names. To do so would hurt a fine reporter and possibly jeopardize his career in a Catholic institution. It isn't the names that matter, after all. It's the attitude the event belies that will make or break the church.

About six weeks ago, a reporter from a Catholic diocesan newspaper, rushing to meet a deadline, pursued me for a telephone interview. I never thought another thing about the conversation until last week, when I opened my mail to find a copy of the edited interview and a letter of apology from the reporter.

Despite the contrary opinion of the staff, the reporter explained with a kind of sad embarrassment, the editor had decided not to publish the interview because a teacher of theology at a small, local seminary found the ideas expressed there "theologically inaccurate."

Well, I figure, that's not surprising. Any ideas about the role of women that are designed to stretch present practices in accordance with deeper traditions of the church about the nature of grace, the purpose of the incarnation and the authenticity of the sacraments would be considered "theologically inaccurate" according to present norms.

That's why people of that persuasion don't want those ideas out. They don't want to risk the discussion they generate. They don't want Catholics to even think such things for fear we might all begin to see differently, for fear the sensus fidelium, the good sense of faithful people, might prevail over the system. They don't want Catholics to think.

So I have decided to publish that report's interview in this column -- not because it's mine, but because this is a currently crucial question in the Catholic community and I think the Catholic community has a right to pursue the spirit of truth wherever that spirit may be, as well as discern where it isn't. Together. With open hearts.

You decide whether these ideas accord with what you know to be the theological vision of the gospels or not. Here is the interview:

How did youcome to your commitment to feminism?

Through scripture. I've never even read any of the secular feminists' books. I know that's shocking. It didn't happen to me that way. It happened through my experience in the church. I was radicalized in the mid-1960s. I saw things done that were shocking to me, and I just knew they weren't right. I also saw things in my own family -- the way women lived, the way they were treated.

As a young sister, I saw the sisters as competent and wonderful, but I also saw that to the outsider they looked like they were part of the system, but to the insider they were not part of the system.

Then I began to hear the scriptures in a different way. My community went into the experience of renewal and I began to trace the history of our own order. Between church history, the history of our own order and scripture, I became very committed to the full liberation of the Christian community.

You believe the church mirrors the male-dominated, patriarchal stucture of the secular world?

Yes, and in some ways it lags behind the institutions of the secular world. The identification of women saints is a positive institutional reflection of the spiritual value of women. The general administration of the sacraments says that women are capable of receiving grace and of being this new person (through baptism).

Then the structures say that though a woman can receive grace she can never be a channel of grace. The structures say that femaleness is the one substance God is powerless to work through. God can draw water from a rock, part the seas and raise the dead, but God cannot use a woman as a (sacramental) channel of grace. That's ridiculous.

You assert in WomanStrength that the fundamental question is whether women are truly human beings. You argue that if that question is answered in the affirmative, all other questions related to equality become givens.

That's exactly what I'm saying. The reason the women's movement has moved so slowly in the church is that we're asking the wrong question. The question is not should women receive equal pay, lead a group, be ordained? The question is basic: Are women really full human beings?

Remember, the church struggled with the same question where Indians and blacks were concerned. You had someone like las Casas arguing in Spain in the 16th century that Indians were real human beings. This is an old question in the church, and now it is being applied to women.

So you're saying theology and the structures of the church reflect confusion about whether women are full human beings?

They're in conflict. They say one thing theologically and another structurally. It's schizophrenic. What theology says is that woman has a soul, is savable, has the moral capacity to make life-giving decisions. You don't administer the sacraments to a dog. Do you follow what I'm saying? You only administer sacraments to creatures who are capable of growing and demonstrating a fully graced life.

Our theology says baptism makes new persons of us all. But they don't really mean it. It makes new persons of half of us and half persons of the rest of us. A man can receive the sacraments and give all the sacraments. A woman cannot receive all of them or give all of them. We have a theology that says men and women are equal beings, but then we have structures that say God created pink and blue souls and the pink ones leak.