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The COVID-19 pandemic has brought an unprecedented awareness of vulnerability and has created a new dependence of all on powerful others in medicine, science and government to protect and provide care in the face of serious threats to health.
It has had particularly devastating consequences for many women worldwide. The quarantine and isolation of pandemic has resulted in what the United Nations chief, Antonio Guterres, has described as a "horrifying surge in domestic violence to women."
The public health recommendation of 'sheltering at home' for protection has actually increased risk for many women who have been confined with abusive spouses and partners.
The pandemic has shown an increased risk of infection and of physical, emotional and sexual abuse for those living in poverty, crowded housing conditions, and the homeless.
According to the United Nations, women who work are one half of the world's population; work three-quarters of the working hours; receive one-tenth of the world's salary; own one percent of the world's land; form two-thirds of illiterate adults and, with their dependent children, represent three-quarters of the world's starving.
These long-standing socio-economic factors compound both risk and harm for women in crisis.
Women have emerged as the hidden and underpaid heroines of pandemic.
They provide most of the intimate care of the sickest and most vulnerable in hospitals, hospices, retirement homes and long term care facilities at risk to themselves and their families. Women also provide the faith formation for children in the "domestic Church".
The Church cannot witness credibly to the sinfulness of all forms of violence against women and the vulnerable, until it establishes right relationships between women and men in the Church itself.
The Church and its profoundly sexist institutionalized structures and beliefs have aligned with the rich and powerful in society in the marginalization and oppression of women.
The Gospels are filled with stories of Jesus and his amazing countercultural interactions with women as friends and disciples. These interactions scandalize the apostles.
Theirs was a patriarchal culture where women were neither seen nor heard outside the home and could not study the Torah or enter the Inner Courtyard of the Temple.
Jesus' relationships are different. He reaches out to women on the periphery, such as the untouchable woman with the hemorrhage, and is drawn to those who suffer silently.
Jesus treats women as disciples who are essential to his ministry. Women are central to the life and ministry of the early Church.
Jesus' interactions with women are in sharp contrast to the patriarchal, hierarchical and imperial Church we have known since the 4thCentury.
Based on pagan philosophers, women have been considered inferior and subservient to men.
Despite official teaching "In no way is God in man's image. He is neither man nor woman. God is pure spirit." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #37), women are understood to lack the fullness of the image of God because Jesus was male.
Lumen gentium stated "…with respect for the rights of the person, every type of discrimination, whether based on sex, race, color, social condition, language or religion, is to be overcome and eradicated as contrary to God's intent." (no. 29)
Sexism, the belief that some persons are superior to others based on their sex, is a sin which is manifested in beliefs, attitudes and practices in the Church.
Pope John Paul II acknowledged that both men and women are created in the image of God but maintained the notion of their relationship as complementarity, not equality.
In this spousal understanding, women are pre-ordained to the roles of nurturing and care at home, not for insights and leadership in the public domain. Bluntly, this is the Catholic version of "barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen" or a nun.
Feminism is a term that evokes visceral response.
While feminism is rooted in women's experience of marginalization, feminist theology advocates for allthe vulnerable, whose needs are understood to be above those of the privileged and powerful.
Feminists explore ways to counter systemic and cultural forces that create vulnerability and deny exploitation and abuse and to empower commitment to the common good.
American and European women theologians are now joined by others including "womanist" African-American and "mujerista" Hispanic and Asian reflections.
For many women, and the men, clergy and laity, who support them, Catholic feminist theology is inspiring because it offers hope for right relationships in the Church and in the world. For others, it provokes anger and disgust at "power-grabbing women."
Clerics, embedded in the culture of hierarchy and clericalism, have difficulty recognizing the imbalance of power and its negative consequences for all.
In 2004, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's Letter to Bishops understood the issue this way "Recent years have seen new approaches to women's issues…Faced with the abuse of power, the answer for women is to seek power…"
Even Pope Francis, who understands marginalization and oppression, has expressed worries about "machismoin a skirt." Even the 2019 Pontifical Biblical Commission study is titled "What is Man? An Itinerary of Biblical Anthropology." So much for inclusive language!
The New Work of Women
The experience of 'ordinary women' and Catholic feminist scholars provides crucial insights for the healing in our post pandemic world.
prayerful reflection on our understanding of God as father and stern judge; reclaiming Jesus as "the Christ";
rejection of a hierarchy within the Trinity and exploration of its wondrous mystery of mutual, equal love;
restoration of Jesus' witness of power for others never over others;
re-establishing the priesthood of all the baptized and ministry as the shared work of all;
contribute toward an urgently needed theology of sexuality based on love, mutuality and justice;
and revise our act-oriented morality to reflect the relational understanding of the harms done and restore education to conscience and virtue.
They reflect Jesus' revolutionary response to marginalized and suffering women.
Nuala Kenny is a Sister of Charity in Halifax, Nova Scotia and a pediatrician. An officer of the Order of Canada since 1999, she has published several books, including Healing the Church (Novalis, 2012) and Rediscovering the Art of Dying (2017). She is co-author of Still Unhealed: Treating the Pathology in the Clergy Sexual Abuse Crisis (Novalis and Twenty-Third Publications, 2019).
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