Sucker. Punched.

David Gibson, Politics Daily:

New rules the Vatican is expected to issue soon on penalties for priests who sexually abuse children will also put the ordaining of women in the same category of the most serious crimes under church law.

Church sources told Catholic News Service that the new "norms," as the policies are called, will include the "attempted ordination of women" among the list of most serious crimes, or what are known as "delicta graviora."

NYT Magazine: Women's Rights and Human Rights

The Times Magazine had a complete issue on the question of women's rights this past weekend, anchored by the work of Nicholas Kristof, and reflecting themes he has followed in his column for some time: sex trafficking, micro-finance for the developing world, and maternal mortality. Today's Reading links to the audio slideshow overview.

I'll be mining this issue for blog entries this week. Let's start small and personal: money -- "stewardship" as we say in the Christian biz. "The Power of the Purse" talks about patterns of giving in women's philanthropy, written by Lisa Belkin whose focus is, as usual, the fabulous among us (note obligatory photo featuring handbags).

Women in the Church: Impasse? Or "fully alive?"

I'm getting a paper ready for presentation at the CTSA, the annual meeting of the Catholic Theological Society of America, this year in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  Updated the passport, but where the heck did I put it?  (And, note to self:  save passport photo for my future mortician, so the make-up is done the right way, instead of mistakenly trying to make me look too ... you know... life-like.)

The theme of the conference this year is "Impasse...and beyond."  Taking the theme to heart, I'll be talking about women's ordination -- well, actually, about women's "non-ordination."  More on that later (yes, I'm still working on it).

The theme itself has taken hold in my imagination.  Reading the Times this morning, I ran across an interesting piece of reporting by Laurie Goodstein, on two women whose business energy is keeping a group of monks afloat.  Please read it yourself, complete with the women's sense that they have several adult male children, and the monk's observations that they are just "not set up to sit around and answer phones," preferring to pray (they're "professionals," I term I don't recall from the Rule of Benedict) and dabble in arts and crafts.  

Check out the visuals: the busy woman chained to the keyboard for $30, 000 a year compared to the monk standing serenely in a field, looking like he takes pretty good care of himself.

The women are there freely, of course and, to the reporter, express satisfaction with their lives. Furthermore, the Church story is not usually like this -- in the more likely "co-worker" scenario of a busy male pastor and mostly-female parish staff, the effort and headaches are divided more evenly.    

But reading this should be a little warning to women who intend to work in the Church.

Impasse.  

But it gets more serious...  

In the light of the out-pouring of pro-life discussion in the wake of the murder of Dr. Tiller, I had to read this story on the toll of illegal abortion in Tanzania.   Any defense of the position that abortion is always wrong will be incomplete -- and immoral -- if it ignores that frail woman clutching the rail of the hospital headboard, and all her sisters, with limited access to contraceptives, little education, and no power.  

Impasse.    

My touchstone for questions about "how to be human" is always Irenaeus' claim that 'the glory of God is the human person fully alive.' That's the message that gives rise to "Today's Reading," which is a series of photographs of dancers in action, a glorious celebration of being fully, vibrantly, hummingly, human.  

But the moments of impasse remain, and seem insurmountable.  Back to writing about the non-ordination of women....

Three More in Boston

Two in St. Louis last November. Now three more in Boston. Are we witnessing the birth pangs of the ordination of women in the Roman Catholic Church?

Yes, say the women involved. Their ordinations are completely legit, they say, because of their direct connection to a group of women who were ordained priests in 2002 by real-but-renegade Catholic bishops on a boat on the Danube. Later, some of these “womenpriests” (their own title) were elevated to the office of bishop, thus creating their movement’s own bishops to continue the ordinations of other women, all of whom claim to be Roman Catholic clergy, as all were duly ordained by bishops who stand “in apostolic succession.”

So far so good? Not so fast. Against this, the Roman Catholic Church reminds all who will listen that a) we do not ordain women, period, and b) even if some bishop goes through the motions, it doesn’t actually work because “female” just isn’t an ordainable sort of thing (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Kinda hard to explain, but the point is that nothing happened, nothing to see here, folks, might as well keep moving.

What to think?

Like many Catholics, in principle I’m in favor of ordaining women and not particularly persuaded by the arguments currently put forward against it. So when I hear about these ordinations, my inner feminist wants to stand in solidarity with the sheer audacity of these women, as they step forward in faith to take on the heartbreak of excommunication from the church they only wish to serve.

Yet the communal Catholic in me gets a little nervous about the whole Lone Ranger approach, in which the priest in question hangs up her shingle and ends up ministering in the basement of a Unitarian church to the other women in her book group. Set aside the “Roman,” where’s the “Catholic” in a ministry that’s done by the self-appointed and directed toward the self-selected? In other words, in what concrete way are they in communion with us: you know, the motley crew at my local parish, headed by the priest we didn’t choose – and who, by the way, didn’t get to pick us, either.

To what greater community are they accountable, whose authority do they accept? I know, for example, that these women have an understanding of ministry that deeply values inclusive, servant-oriented community life. Is there any other case, other than their own ordinations, in which these theologically progressive women would argue for such a dis-embodied, quasi-magical understanding of sacramental action? Why build your case for being “Roman Catholic” on a single ordination event by some guy who won’t even sit with you in the lunchroom? Where’s the community there? (And how do I call these anonymous bishops to complain that you don’t genuflect enough and your homilies are too long?)

What will be the bottom line? The playbook – get ordained underground, somehow, and hope the Church comes around – was written by Episcopalian women in 1974. It worked for them, for a while, but now the story is unraveling, held together only by exiling significant parts of the world-wide Anglican Communion while Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, speaks with all the grace and clarity he can find to the muddling middle.

Bottom line? Ix-nay, at least as far as Rome is concerned.

Still, these ordinations are happening and they will probably continue. Practically, what will this mean? Like many new movements, most won’t get beyond the first stage, scrappy groups whose members wax and wane and fulminate, and finally move on. Yet others, through some combination of charism and coincidence, may flourish; there are many Catholics who would embrace female leadership and who want both the liturgy they know and the experience of a smaller and more intentional Christian community.

In other words, I'm not persuaded, but that's hardly the verdict on this movement. Indeed, while these womenpriests hope for recognition from Rome, those who gather around these priests may be seeking something much more immediate: this community, in this place, is speaking in a welcoming and sustaining and transformative way. And perhaps that’s enough. Hey, why don’t you come with us this Sunday, bring Sharon and the kids, we’ll have lunch after.

Are these women Roman Catholic priests? Not really but, in an age of do-it-yourself religion, their communities might not really care. And this should catch our attention.

* * * * * * *

Welcome to the blog. There are many good Catholic blogs out there, so I’ll have to get a list going at some point here. My fundamental blogging point of reference is probably Joel Achenbach at the Washington Post, who’s pretty good at it. “Pretty good” is what you aspire to in blogdom, any better than that and you violate the genre.

On a liturgical note … happy Feast of the Transfiguration! This is also the birthday of Catherine Mowry LaCugna (August 6, 1952 - May 3, 1997), on earth my Doktormutter at Notre Dame, now in the communion of saints.

Pray for us, Catherine.

I plan to post at least once a week in August, and more frequently after Labor Day. Thanks for reading.