The Francis Miracle: Inside the Transformation of the Pope and the Church by John L. Allen

Author:John L. Allen [Allen, John L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: BIO000000
ISBN: 9781618936066
Publisher: Time
Published: 2015-03-02T23:00:00+00:00

Amid the general euphoria over the inclusive and compassionate new tone set by Pope Francis, some critics of the Catholic Church’s track record on women’s issues are inclined to give this reforming pontiff the benefit of the doubt. “People say, ‘Well, he’s not ordaining women, so therefore this is all irrelevant.’ I don’t think it is irrelevant,” says Catholic feminist Lisa Cahill, a theology professor at Boston College and author of the book Sex, Gender, and Christian Ethics. Cahill argues that Francis is engineering a “holistic culture shift” in the Catholic Church, which among other things is about de-emphasizing the wars of culture over abortion and contraception that have long been a bone of contention between the Church and many women’s groups. Alice Laffey, an associate professor at the College of the Holy Cross and a veteran Catholic feminist, says that although many Catholic women can’t help but see the ban on female priests as discriminatory, Francis’s broader anti-poverty agenda is arguably more critical for many women, especially in the developing world. “Throughout the world, women and their children make up the greatest percentage of human beings living in destitution,” Laffey wrote in July 2013. “Their main concern is not women priests but food, health, education and physical safety. Francis’s genuine concern for the real lives of the poor and suffering warmly embraces women.”

When Francis talks about shining a light on the contributions women already make to Catholicism, it’s an argument that anyone who knows how the Church actually works on a daily basis will understand. “If you walk into any parish office on a given day, if you were to snap your fingers and remove the female presence from there, nothing would [get done],” says Jesuit Fr. Timothy O’Brien, who edits the Jesuit Post. “Most of the places that I’ve worked as a Jesuit, that are ministries of the Church, are run by women.” O’Brien argues that a priest shortage in many parts of the world is making the Church even more dependent on laywomen, meaning that the “greater roles” as described by Pope Francis are to some extent already accomplished.

In the U.S., women make up about 80 percent of ecclesial lay ministers. (The term refers to laypeople working for the Church in either a full-time or part-time capacity, performing roles previously held by priests and nuns, such as catechists, youth ministers, liturgical ministers, music ministers and parish associates.) About a quarter of the diocesan chancellors in America are now women, and women today serve as diocesan spokespeople, general council for dioceses, chief financial officers and in a wide variety of other capacities. Francis’s rhetoric could be read to indicate that he supports this evolution toward women’s leadership, although his skepticism about “functional” roles makes even that notion somewhat ambiguous.

When Francis talks about “more space” for women, it seems to be less about creating new roles and more about assigning greater value to the roles women already play. It’s psychological, theological and moral space he appears to want to enhance, not so much corporate and institutional.

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