c. 2008 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) In a way, you’d hope Hillary Clinton would win just so we could all just grow up about women in leadership.
For all the words that are pushed around about the equality and dignity of women, we are still a long way from forgetting about gender when we look at qualifications.
Religions are among the biggest offenders. So, when Pope Benedict XVI decried what he called “a macho mentality” at a mid-winter meeting of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Laity, things seemed to be looking up.
After all, in Rome “macho” means something. When he was speaking “on the dignity of women” to mark the 20th anniversary of John Paul II’s apostolic letter of the same name, Benedict pointed out that Christianity “recognizes and proclaims the equal dignity and responsibility of women with respect to men.”
Up to a point. Met any women bishops lately?
Christianity has Bishop Brigid of Kildare in its historical _ or legendary _ coffers, depending on what you want to believe. They say she was ordained bishop by Bishop Mel in the 5th century, if even by mistake. As the story goes, Mel read the wrong rites and consecrated her a bishop instead of an abbess. No one said it didn’t take.
Beginning in the late 12th century, abbesses of the Cistercian Monastery of Santa Maria near Burgos, Spain, exercised the authority of a bishop for about 500 years. Other territorial monasteries _ in France, Italy and Germany _ were the same. That stab at equality fell away as diocesan bishops asserted authority over abbeys’ territories, especially those lead by women.
Women’s leadership hasn’t completely disappeared from Catholicism. Worldwide, thousands of Catholic religious congregations, orders and monasteries are headed by women _ as many as 400 in the United States alone. But these are all-woman operations; their leaders are not part of official church leadership.
So why not have a woman in charge? Why not have women bishops? After all, the pope said Christianity “recognizes and proclaims the equal dignity and responsibility of women with respect to men.”
The fact is, there is still a lot of traction against recognizing that dignity. It is not just about ordination, except that in many churches _ especially Catholicism _ only the ordained hold true jurisdictional authority and sacramental power.
Other Christian denominations have loosened up a bit. The Episcopal Church elected a woman, Katharine Jefferts Shori, as presiding bishop in 2006. And the Baptist General Convention of Texas elected Joy Fenner president last fall.
Jefferts Shori leads 2.4 million Episcopalians, and Fenner leads the largest state Baptist Convention in the U.S., with 5,700 congregations and 2.3 million members. That’s a lot of people to agree to put a woman in charge.
Which is exactly the point.
Catholicism retains its medieval traction against women’s leadership, but denies its ancient practice of electing bishops. The argument that a woman cannot be ordained a bishop comes hard upon the modern change from consecrating bishops to ordaining them. That shift seems to nail shut the loophole that let Brigid of Kildare become a bishop. But what would happen if Catholics had open elections? Could a Catholic woman be elected _ and consecrated _ as bishop?
It would help a lot, because if Catholicism does not give up its “macho mentality” and better announce “the equal dignity and responsibility of women with respect to men,” it may soon find itself with lots of leaders, but fewer and fewer followers.
(Phyllis Zagano is senior research associate-in-residence at Hofstra University and author of several books in Catholic Studies.)
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