A woman who adhered to the Catholic vision of life
Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., at its Tercentenary Academic
Celebration, under the auspices of the Italian Cultural Society and the
American Italian Bicentennial Commission, heard Cardinal William Baum,
Archbishop of Washington, speak in terms of highest praise of "the
first woman in history to receive a doctorate degree", Elena
Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia.
An occasion such as this one, honouring a woman whose life was
entirely dedicated to scholarship, prayer, and service of the poor, is
an appropriate time to reflect on a question which she herself must have
pondered: the role of women in the Church, and indeed, in society. Elena
Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia answered this question, not with some treatise
on the subject, but with her life. Nevertheless, the Cornaro's
prodigious intelligence and love of scholarship invites us to seek in
Christian scholarship the basis for the living response which she gave
to this question.
It is not my intention in this presentation to undertake a
theological or philosophical analysis of the role of women in the
Church. My goal is more limited, namely, to share with you my thoughts
on the principles which should guide such a study if it is to be
fruitful for the life of women in the Church—fruitful not only for
women, but for the vitality of the Church and our fidelity to God's plan
of salvation.
We know that in recent years the role of women in human society has
become a subject of great interest, concern and even passion. It must be
admitted that such concern did not originate within the Church, that is,
it did not first present itself as a theological problem. The concern
arose when more and more women awakened to the realization that there
was much in our social and legal customs which seemed to ignore or deny
their inherent rights. It is obvious that the struggle to overcome these
injustices (some of which, are claimed to be deeply enshrined in our
legal, social, political, cultural, and economic structures) has not
come to an end. In fact, the period of the "heightening of
consciousness" concerning this matter—as this phase of the effort
has been called—has not passed, since there are still many women and
men who are not aware of the existence of these injustices.
Affirming equality
The Church which, although it has a divine origin, also shares the
life of human society, could not avoid this issue. The reaction of those
entrusted with the teaching of the Church has been to support the
struggle for the elimination of these injustices by affirming the
equality of dignity of both men and women. Such a teaching is part of
the marriage rite of the Catholic Church, where we find the following
petition as part of the nuptial blessing of the bride. "May her
husband put his trust in her and recognize that she is his equal and the
heir with him to the life of grace".
Although the Church does not enjoy any special competence to judge
the complex legal and sociological matters which are part of this
effort, it should not be doubted that the Church supports the
realization in our society of the teaching contained in this prayer.
Heirs to life of grace
The prayer itself, however, teaches us that it is not only a matter
of securing and defending society's recognition of the rights of women,
but also of examining the practices of the Church herself to ensure that
these are faithful to the teaching that woman is an equal heir with man
to the life of grace. Concerning this fundamental equality of dignity in
the supernatural order, we have the clear teaching of St Paul: "All
of you who have been baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with
him. There does not exist among you Jew or Greek, slave or freeman, male
or female. All are one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:27-28).
The Church is certainly attempting to respond to this challenge.
Although it is clear that more remains to be done, it is not possible to
deny that there exists within the Church today a greater recognition of
the need to give witness to this biblical teaching.
Women priests
The question of the admission of women to the sacrament of Holy
Orders was bound to be raised during this process of self-examination by
the Church. You know the answer which the magisterium of the Catholic
Church has given to this question. The teaching that the sacramental
Orders of episcopate and presbyterate cannot be administered to women is
not exclusively a Catholic doctrine. Until recent times, all the
Churches which have a sacramental conception of the priestly ministry
have shared this conviction. Even today, the Catholic and Orthodox
Churches, together with many within the Anglican Communion, continue to
adhere to this belief. This will always be the belief of the Catholic
Church. Yet no one can deny that there are many who do not understand
the reasons for this belief.
Life in Christ
Such difficulty should not really be surprising. First of all, there
is still with us the influence of a kind of clericalism which sees the
priestly ministry as the highest achievement of life in Christ, as well
as the locus of real power and authority (where these are conceived
basically in a political way). Second, the influence of theologies which
do not admit that the priestly ministry is a sacrament (or which, in
fact, do not adhere at all to a sacramental conception of life in
Christ), has led to a certain secularization of the understanding of the
priesthood in the mind of some. According to this view, the priesthood
is conceived as a necessary structure whose task is to ensure order in
the Church, or to promote and facilitate growth in the Christian life.
According to this non-sacramental, desacralized, functional conception
of the priesthood, the biological and psychological differences between
man and woman are only accidental to the mission of the priest.
This is not the Catholic conception of these biological and
psychological differences. According to our vision, these differences
are not accidental to the human person. The world, including the
Christian world, has always been haunted by this dualism between the
visible and invisible, between the material and the immaterial. The
struggle of the Orthodox Christian faith against this dualism is the
struggle for the survival of the Christian faith itself, since our faith
depends on the fundamental mysteries of the Incarnation of God's Son and
on his Resurrection: both mysteries which emphasize the dignity and
purpose of matter and the human body.
Form of separation
Today this dualism takes the form of a separation—not precisely
between body and soul—but between the person and everything else.
The first principle which I propose to you as necessary for a proper
understanding of the role of women in the Church and in human society is
therefore the following: the human body is constitutive of the human
person. It is not accidental, it is not like a dress which one puts on
and discards; it is not like a shell inside which lives, temporarily,
the real self. Rather, the body is the language of the self, the
sacrament of the self. It is necessary to recapture the biblical vision
of the constitution of the human person, and to offer this vision to a
society which has become dualistic. The human individual does not
consist of an abstract soul, an abstract self falling into a body
and inhabiting it; rather the self is the soul of the body. The human
body tells us what the person as spirit is.
The second principle is based on this one. It is this: the role or
purpose of material, earthly realities such as the human body, is to be
the symbol of the divine life, it is to symbolize the divine life. The
word "symbol" comes from the Greek, and it means,
etymologically, "each of two halves (of a reality) which two
strangers, or any two contracting parties, broke between them, each
party keeping one piece, in order to have proof of the identity of the
presenter of the other" (H.G. Riddell and R. Scott, A Greek
English Lexicon, 9th ed. Clarendon Press, Oxford. 1925-40) To
symbolize, therefore, means to bring together, to unite, to make present
to each other. At the same time by overcoming the breach between the two
partners, the symbol respects the integrity of the two sides by showing
them to be initially separate, by showing them not to be identical but
united.
The attempt to express the relation between God and creation has
always been subject to two temptations: to separate radically one from
the other and then to emphasize one or another, or to submerge one into
the other, to identify them. The Catholic conception avoids these
pitfalls by asserting that created realities symbolize divine life. This
concept of symbol allows us to preserve the integrity of both creation
and God and yet to show how they are united, for creation's purpose and
glory is thus declared to be the symbol of God's life. Nowhere is this
capacity for being such a symbol greater than in the human being. The
human being sums up the material and spiritual creation and shows it to
be capable of this relation with God. But in order to be a true symbol
of the divine, it is necessary that the integrity of creation be
preserved, that it be respected, that it be affirmed as important
and constitutive of its very nature as a symbol. This is why we affirm
that biological differences in the human body cannot be dismissed
as accidental, as unimportant. Rather, they have a part to play in that
marvellous plan of God who has wished to communicate his love and his
life to his creation.
Symbol of God's life
The third principle follows from these two: if the true purpose of
creation, if its greatest dignity, consists in being a symbol of the
life of God, then we will never discover this purpose outside of the
Revelation of God's plan. In terms of our discussion, this means that
only an examination of the role of woman in the Church, that is, in the
life of redeemed creation, will make possible a valid understanding of
the role of woman in creation, in human society. This places upon
believers, and especially upon women who adhere to this faith, great
responsibility, namely to come to society's help as it struggles with
this question. Catholic women scholars have an enormous contribution to
make in this regard. May the honour which we render today to Elena
Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia inspire many to respond to this challenge.
For it is in a way unfortunate that the question of the proper role
of women in human society has arisen at a time in which our culture is
least prepared to cope with it. This is because our culture is de-sacralized,
radically secularistic, crippled by an inability to comprehend the human
as a symbol of the divine. Our culture has been wounded by the belief
that God and creation are in competition, that the affirmation of
one injures the other. Accordingly, the sacred is not allowed a place in
public life; it is considered the subject of a private belief which more
and more appears to be an amusing romantic attachment to a more
primitive conception of life.
Perhaps this is the result of an erroneous conception of the mystery
of sin and evil. It is necessary, therefore, to assert as the
fourth principle in our study of the role of women the conviction that
sin has not entirely corrupted creation; it has not destroyed its
symbolic power in such a way that belief in redemption requires us to
deny the goodness and the integrity of creation. In fact, sin consists
precisely in the refusal of the self to be what it was created to be.
Evil does not reside in creation, in matter, in the human body. It
originates in the rebellion of what is highest in the human person,
namely, his or her liberty. As a result of this rebellion of the will,
creation and its power to symbolize the life of God are rejected, both
God and creation are experienced as hostile.
As far as the relation between man and woman is concerned, the
consequences of this rebellion of the will is seen in the hostility
within the couple. Thus, according to the Book of Genesis, she whom Adam
had declared to be "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh at
last" (Gn 2:23) becomes after the sin, "the woman whom you put
here with me" (Gn 3:12) who is blamed for the rebellion. The
couple, which is the fundamental human unit and most powerful symbol of
God's life, is torn apart. On the side of man, his desire to blame and
dominate the woman appears. Perhaps it is possible to say that on the
part of woman one of the consequences of this rebellion of the will is a
temptation to reject her difference from man.
Disdain for motherhood
Should it surprise us that there has appeared in our culture—hostile
as it is to the power of creation as the symbol of the sacred—a denial
of the biological and psychological uniqueness of women? This
destructive development is best evidenced in woman's disdain for her
capacity to be a mother. This is the most dramatic example of this
hostility to creation's nobility and purpose; a hostility which is the
consequence of that rebellion of the will known as sin. It appears that
science and technology will make it more possible to do away with
motherhood altogether in the production of new life. (Notice that we say
production, and not reproduction, for that is what this ultimate
dehumanization will bring about). Fortunately, more and more feminists
are becoming more aware of this great threat to their own uniqueness,
just as many blacks came to reject an equality which consisted in an
assimilation into white culture. Here, in any case, lies another urgent
task for women, especially scholars and activists, like Elena Lucrezia
Cornaro Piscopia, who adhere to the Catholic vision of life.
Our final principle, therefore, must concern our view of redemption,
that is, of the process by which God empowers captive creation to be the
symbol of his life. We believe that God has done this by respecting the
integrity of creation so much that he inserted himself into its midst,
as it were. The Eternal Son of God, God of God, took on a human nature
and inserted himself into the point of utmost alienation from God (by
means of his death). Then, by sharing with us the power of his
resurrection, he reconciled the world to God, the Father, by means of
this power which is the power of the Holy Spirit. In this new order of
life which emanates out of the risen, transformed, glorified humanity of
Jesus Christ, the realities of our world are empowered to become symbols
of the new creation.
The role of women in the Church is the role of women in the new
creation. This, in turn, is the role of women in human society.
Woman's unique role
The Catholic Church holds that the unique role of woman consists in
her power to be the symbol of divinized creation, that is, of creation
receiving from God his life, bearing it within as the life of God but
also as part of our life, and bringing forth the effect of God's love in
a fountain of more and more life. This unique symbolic power of woman
comes from her ability to bear within her body the life of another who
is also flesh of her flesh.
In virginity consecrated to God, woman becomes a symbol of creation's
total openness to being divinized. In motherhood, woman becomes a symbol
of creation's capacity to bear and bring to birth the new creation which
is the fruit of God's love.
While the masculine is the symbol of God's activity on creation,
coming from outside of it, as it were, the feminine is the most powerful
symbol of God's fruitful presence within creation, the symbol of the
fruit of this divine Self-giving. The woman is a symbol of this mystery
not only for herself, but for all of creation, including men. She stands
in the midst of the community of salvation personifying it, fostering
the assimilation of God's self-communication, helping as to make our own—without
ceasing to be ourselves—what comes from God. Woman can be the leader,
the inspirer, the protector of this process of creation's assimilation
of God's gift. Without the contribution which comes from this capacity,
the life of the Church and human society can become impersonal, cold.
Human thought, for example, if it depended entirely on men, would become
abstract, unreal; it would lack what modern philosophers call
"empathy".
An instrument of light
Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia gives us a good example of the
contribution of women to the Church. She realized our need for the
scholarship of women, and became the instrument of light, discernment,
and justice to those who brought their disputes to her. Hers was also a
life of service to the poor, caring especially for their children.
Finally, she chose for herself the coarse habit of a Benedictine Oblate
and cultivated the life of prayerful openness to God's life.
We have said that the uniqueness of the feminine consists in woman's
capacity to be the symbol of divinized creation. This capacity, which is
present in every woman by virtue of biological and psychological
constitution, is (as has been said) especially powerful in consecrated
virgins and mothers. Is it then not clear why, for the Catholic Church,
the most powerful symbol of divinized creation is that woman who is at
once a consecrated virgin and mother—not just of another child of the
new creation—but of the new Adam, of the One who is the primordial
symbol: the Word made flesh, Christ Jesus, in whom and through whom the
new creation lives.
We could not conclude this reflection without honouring her, Mary
most Holy, the Mother of God, the new Eve, the Mother of the Church. We
recall her here before God, imploring that through her intercession, be
will bless us with the scholarship, love and zeal of many women like the
one we honour today.
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