Critic of Heiligenkreuz attacked Pope Francis on female ordination. Called for creative disobedience

From February 2020

Since the publication of the papal exhortation "Querida Amazonia," two women in my small circle of acquaintances alone have left the Catholic Church. Three more have announced their intention to do so in the near future.

"Where will my little one live out her Christian faith?" asks a young colleague, sending me photos of her three-week-old daughter. And an older lady, who says she just learned to write emails specifically for this purpose, asks me: "Professor, where can I protest what the men of the Catholic Church say about us women?"

Since "Querida Amazonia," women are no longer "tender," contrary to their doctrinal definition. Disappointment and tears, hurt and frustration are evident in the letters the editors of the book "Women Make Church" are currently receiving from all German‐speaking countries. The senders are not women who are indifferent to Christianity and find church contributions too high.

Creative, disobedient, and self‐responsible action in the local church is required—with the courage of desperation.

No, it is the hard core of the Catholic Church: the volunteer who has been organizing family services for years; the religious education teacher who conducts student services throughout the deanery on behalf of elderly or foreign priests; The increasingly rare species of ambitious female theology students who ask what exactly the Pope means by "feminine style" and how the reference to the ever-virgin Mother of God as a role model for women's decision-making and leadership roles in the Church should be understood.

Women's and Men's Voices

Mixed among the women are men's voices: parish assistants, priests, professors at universities and schools. They report depression, inner emigration, and the ever-increasing self-doubt: "Do I still belong here?" City deans, vicars general, and bishops publicly ask how they should explain the papal rejection of the ordination of women deacons to their long-time colleagues and how long the living spirit of the Gospel, celebrated every Sunday in the Eucharist, can continue to be stifled by self-imposed rigid norms.

Reading and hearing these statements is apt to stir both deep resignation and holy anger. How long will Catholic Christianity remain socially present in Austria and Europe if it does not finally address the women's issue and thus also gender relations within the Catholic Church?

The vision of the good life, which the Pope quite convincingly invokes in "Querida Amazonia," cannot be realized without gender equality. This applies both within and outside the Catholic Church.

Why on earth is clinging to the 19th-century image of women apparently more important to the Pope and many bishops than proclaiming the message of the Kingdom of God? Why does a two-thousand-year-old institution rob itself of its own energy by stubbornly denying the normative power of facts and failing to encourage women in what they have long been doing in the service of the Gospel?

The vision of the good life, which the Pope quite convincingly invokes in "Querida Amazonia," cannot be realized without gender equality. This applies both within and outside the Catholic Church. In key ethical discourses, the Church is increasingly losing credibility as a global advocate of human dignity: The Catholic Church has not signed the major women's rights conventions protecting women from violence for fear of alleged gender ideology.

In the pressing issues of the protection of life and sexual ethics, the Church has often walled itself in so tightly, often bypassing the post-synodal exhortation "Amoris Laetitia," which at least in some areas offers some hope, that in the ethical discussion it ranks at most below "religious dissent."

Not only in Europe, but also in Africa and Latin America, where domestic violence against women and the taboo surrounding sexuality and abortion, often resulting in death for women, are sadly part of everyday life, educated women in particular are leaving the Catholic Church. They rightly recognize a clergy that is personally affected, with its appeals for humble obedience and patient perseverance in marriage, as part of the problem.

A Question of Power and Justice

Social justice and the protection of life in the comprehensive sense are simply impossible without gender justice. Given the human suffering hidden behind such cumbersome, abstract concepts, one might well ask where the message of the man who famously dared to allow himself to be touched by the pain of the poor, without any moralizing about their immoral lifestyle, without reference to the Catechism and the difference between the sexes inherent in being itself, is actually.

In contrast to academically pursued theology at universities, the official Church refuses to engage in a self-critical examination of these issues. Now life is catching up with it. The Catholic model of polarity, with its metaphysically cemented concepts of femininity and, conversely, masculinity, is evidently no longer shared by many Catholic women (and men).

This is evident from a glance at numerous public statements by Catholic women's organizations on "Querida Amazonia." They assess the image of women presented here as an external attribution of celibate men and criticize it as a politically motivated instrument for maintaining male clerical power at all costs.

Of course, every social institution, including the Catholic Church, is also concerned with power structures. This fact must not be obscured with spiritual phrases, but must be discussed openly and fairly at a sound theological and philosophical level. For example, it could be discussed that power, quite positively – paraphrasing Hannah Arendt – is the power to shape things between equals, "power to" and not "power over." Power and authority are relational concepts. Real, non-officially enforced power and authority are possessed only by those who are trusted by others to exercise it.

Christianity on One's Own

This is precisely where the problem lies: An ever-increasing number of women no longer grant this authority to the official representatives of the Catholic Church and are increasingly seeking ways to practice their Christianity outside the Catholic Church or to offer corresponding opportunities themselves. The number of self-appointed Christian ritual facilitators will increase dramatically in the coming years.

Who could seriously prevent young Catholic women from taking the step toward independence as deacons or priests? The oft-invoked division, which must be avoided out of respect for representatives of conservative values, has long since occurred. The only question that remains is how long the leaders of the local churches will continue to ignore this reality. Where is the Austrian counterpart to the Synodal Path in Germany? With the principle of Synodality, the local churches would have scope that could be utilized if there were a genuine desire for change and the normative force of facts were finally acknowledged.

The solutions obviously won't come from Rome, nor from prayer alone. Creatively disobedient and self-responsible action in the local church is required, appealing to one's own conscience and with the courage of desperation. One can only hope that it isn't already too late.

The author, Professor of Moral Theology and Spiritual Theology at the University of Salzburg, is co-editor of “Women Make Church.”  (Cathcon: a variation on We are Church - rather Christ makes the Church)

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