Yesterday for SoCS I wrote about whether my chorus would “gird” or “put” on the armour of light. This morning at church the theme was light overcoming darkness, progressing to the concept of Jubilee and the upcoming Jubilee of mercy which Pope Francis announced on Friday.
The deacon who preached spoke about how this Jubilee calls us to welcome everyone without exception – and to not wait for the official start of the Jubilee on December 8, 2015 to do so.
My mind turned to how Jesus welcomed in the most profound way those who were marginalized in his society and faith – those who were ill or disabled, those without financial resources, foreigners, women, all those who were looked down on by the powers that be of his day.
As a woman who is a feminist and has chosen to stay within the church, knowing that it fails so often to fully reflect the radical gospel call of Jesus, this jubilee call is both an opportunity and a potential source of disappointment. While Francis has spoken often of a poor church for the poor and has championed causes of peace and social justice, he does not understand the profound ways in which the Catholic church has marginalized women and failed to challenge temporal powers that oppress them. Many other clergy in the church are openly dismissive of women’s gifts to the church and the world, unless those gifts are motherhood, domestic pursuits, or vowed religious life, preferably contained by convent walls.
Will this be the year when the church finally realizes that the call of jubilee to set the captive free applies to women both in its midst and in the world? Will the men of the church finally recognize that women are made in the divine image as much as they are?
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“Well, you know God created man first,” a smirking Republican SC State Senator Tom Corbin replied. “Then he took the rib out of man to make woman. And you know, a rib is a lesser cut of meat.” (Feb 2015)
With leaders like Corbin in places of power and authority we have a long way to go to reverse such shameless misogyny.
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Yes. And women in the US have progressed much more in society than women in dozens of other countries, so there is a lot of change that needs to occur.
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Woohoo! That cheer was in my head as I finished reading your post. Good questions. It seems like we are making progress, in the US at least, painstakingly s l o w progress. It is not easy to be a feminist and remain in the church, but maybe that’s how things can change, from within. Thank you for doing your part, and more!
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Thanks, JoAnne. The most difficult thing about choosing to baptize my daughters in the Catholic Church was knowing that I would be subjecting them to systemic inequality. I decided that I was a better example to them as a feminist progressive Catholic struggling for change than as a half-hearted member of another church. Still, injustice directed toward them is even more painful than injustice directed toward me.
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