NEWS FEATURE: `Most Fascinating’ of Bible’s Women Making Comeback as Role Model

c. 2003 Religion News Service ANNAPOLIS, Md. _ Mary Magdalene is everywhere this summer. She’s featured as the wife of Jesus in Dan Brown’s bestselling theological thriller, “The Da Vinci Code.” Her legacy endures in “The Magdalene Sisters,” a movie about Ireland’s church-sponsored Magdalene laundries for unwed mothers set for release next month. And this […]

c. 2003 Religion News Service

ANNAPOLIS, Md. _ Mary Magdalene is everywhere this summer. She’s featured as the wife of Jesus in Dan Brown’s bestselling theological thriller, “The Da Vinci Code.” Her legacy endures in “The Magdalene Sisters,” a movie about Ireland’s church-sponsored Magdalene laundries for unwed mothers set for release next month. And this July, hundreds of Catholic parishes, convents, churches and schools around the country are celebrating her Feast Day as part of an urgent appeal for women’s leadership in the church.

Mary of Magdala has been portrayed as a saint, a prostitute, an apostle and the bride of Christ. But to Brenda Johnson of Annapolis, she is primarily a leader, and proof that women held prominent positions in the early church.


“Anyone looking for a first century role model of spirituality, devotion and leadership can find no one more notable than Mary Magdalene,” Johnson told 25 people gathered at St. Andrew by the Bay in Annapolis to celebrate Magdalene’s July 22 Feast Day. “ She is the most outstanding and fascinating woman in early Christian literature.”

The annual Magdalene celebrations, which began in 1996 as part of the Women in Church Leadership project initiated by FutureChurch, a Cincinnati-based Catholic Church reform group advocating women’s ordination, were originally formulated in response to the Vatican’s decision not to ordain women. Now, the Magdalene celebrations have spread even internationally as women seeking an expanded role in the church look to Magdalene as a role model.

Organizers say they hope to increase awareness about Magdalene’s vital position in the early church as well as provide a liturgical role for women, who lead prayers and give sermons on Magdalene’s Feast Day.

“Mary Magdalene becomes sort of the prototype for women’s leadership in the church,” said Sister Christine Schenk, the director of FutureChurch. “Eighty-two percent of all paid lay ministers are women, but most Catholics don’t know about women serving in the ministry because they only see men at the altar.”

Jo Ann Valaske, the presider over the prayer service at St. Andrew, hopes to change that. In a break from tradition, the women at St. Andrew blessed themselves at the baptismal fount before blessing the person behind them by placing a hand on her shoulder and saying, “You are called by God to proclaim the Good News.” The gesture is normally performed by a male priest during Sunday Mass.

“We’re trying to say, `Here we are, acting as leaders in the church,”’ Valaske said.

Ellen Radday, who celebrated Magdalene’s Feast Day on Juy 20 with Communitas, a small eucharistic Catholic community in Arlington, Va., said she hopes the celebrations will dispel some of the popular myths about Magdalene.


“For so long, she was misrepresented as a prostitute, when there’s no scriptural evidence of that,” she said. “She was a disciple and the first witness to the Resurrection.”

Others say they hope honoring Magdalene will bring comfort to women who feel they have been neglected by the church.

“Mary Magdalene is like the patron saint for overlooked women in the church,” said Linda Pieczynski of Call to Action, a Chicago-based church reform group that has partnered with FutureChurch in its efforts to secure a larger role for women. “At a time when women don’t have a role in the church, especially during a church in crisis, it’s important to remember we have role models that were chosen by Jesus,” she said.

But even those who champion Magdalene admit her reputation has been murky in the past. She has commonly been portrayed as a prostitute and sinner, when in fact, her defenders say, she was the trustee to the message of the Resurrection.

Magdalene is mentioned in all four Gospels as the woman who first leads Jesus’ disciples to his tomb. In the Gospel of John, she is the first witness to Jesus’ resurrection, earning her the title, “the Apostle to the Apostles.”

In the extra-canonical Gospels of Mary, Philip and Thomas, Magdalene appears on several occasions as Jesus’ most learned disciple. In the Gospel of Mary, a 2nd century text, Levi chastises Peter for complaining about Jesus’ close relationship with Mary Magdalene, saying, “Surely the Savior knows her well, that is why he loves her more than us.”


So how did Mary Magdalene go from being Jesus’ favorite disciple to a repentant sexual sinner?

Scholars offer several possible explanations. One is a misreading of the Gospel of Luke, which describes how “seven demons” were cast from her, a passage some have taken as proof of her sin. Another is an attempt by fourth-and fifth-century Christian leaders to link her with “ a sinful woman who loved too much,” who is also mentioned in Luke.

The Magdalene myth likely emerged from the conflation of texts about different women, said Professor Dennis Smith of Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, Okla., author of an essay on New Testament women in “The Story Teller’s Companion to the Bible.” The image of Magdalene as a reformed sinner appealed to the early Christian imagination, so it stuck, Smith said.

Karen King, a professor of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School, said Magdalene’s descent into disrepute was preceded by a debate about women’s leadership in the early church. The Gospel of Mary, in which Magdalene urges the other apostles not to be distraught over Jesus’ departure, is dated around 125 A.D., roughly the same time as Paul’s letter to Timothy demanding the silencing of women, King said.

“We can see who won out in the debate, because Timothy made it into the canon and the Gospel of Mary didn’t,” she said.

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

Most damning to Magdalene’s reputation, perhaps, was Pope Gregory’s pronouncement in 591 that Mary of Magdalene, Mary of Bethany and the unnamed woman who is called a sinner in Luke were one and the same.


Although the Catholic Church restored Mary Magdalene’s reputation in 1969, when it announced the three women were separate individuals, the scope of her sinner status through popular myth continues to confuse many Christians, who still regard Magdalene as a prostitute. Few know of Mary Magdalene’s closeness to Jesus, Schenk said.

“Most Christians think that Jesus and 12 men went around Galilee doing good, when in fact Jesus’ closest disciples were both women and men,” she said.

By making contemporary scholarship about women’s prominence in the early church available, Schenk and others hope to shatter some of those myths and clear the way for future female leaders in the church.

“These celebrations are striking a deep chord in women who need to see themselves in Scripture,” Schenk said. “Now we have a real way to retrieve ourselves in the scriptural model.”

DEA END ALTER

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