Jag har tidigare oftast undvikit denna vinkling av frågan. Har inte riktigt tyckt att det passar in - för det handlar ju först och främst, och djupast sett, om en kallelse. Men har ofta tänkt tanken att det diskriminerande ligger i att kvinnor inte ens får pröva sin kallelse - inte i något slags "rättighet" att vigas.
Så läste jag en artikel av John Wijngaards som förtydligade situationen, och även kom med intressanta uppgifter om hur en ordenssyster blev bemött när hon tog upp frågan med förre påven.
Visst handlar det om diskriminering! Där skulden dessutom läggs på Gud!
***
"Whatever excuses or legal loopholes traditionalists may resort to, in the world of tomorrow an exclusively male priesthood will appear a discriminatory anachronism.
This has been pointed out to Rome repeatedly. The most celebrated case was Sister Theresa Kane's intervention to John Paul II in October 1979. As president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, she addressed the Holy Father during his visit to Washington. She said:
‘As women, we have heard the powerful messages of our Church professing dignity and reverence for all persons. As women, we have pondered upon these words. Our contemplation leads us to state that the Church in its struggle to be faithful to its call for reverence and dignity for all persons must respond by providing the possibility of women as persons being included in all ministries of our Church’.Origins 18 October 1979, p. 285.
The Pope refused to enter into dialogue. Even in subsequent years various attempts by Sister Kane to obtain an interview with the Holy Father failed. The Vatican version of the incident was that she had overstepped her limits.
But the enormous publicity given to the event by the world media and the wide support she received, show that she had expressed something many Catholic women feel: 'the Church treats us unjustly.'
When I wrote Did Christ Rule out Women Priests? in 1976, I reflected on the question of equal rights. I decided not to bring them into the discussion. I wanted to meet Rome on its own theological ground. I also felt uneasy about associating ordination and rights. I felt and still feel that a person should be called to the ministry - called that is by the community, the Church. No one can claim the 'right' to be ordained. But I have now come to
see that 'rights' do come in from another angle.
It is one thing to hold that no individual has the right to be ordained, quite another to refuse ordination because he or she belongs to a particular group, class or nation. Should we not speak of discrimination if all Chinese, all Mexicans, all New Zealanders were excluded from the priestly ministry simply because they belong to those nations? Excluding women because they are women is a similar act of discrimination.
/.../
Pretending there is no discrimination ‘because it was Christ's will’, does no more than shift the blame on Christ. He is then presented as one of the worst discriminators in the history of the world - one of the worst as it
victimises so many people and as it deprives them of such deep spiritual values."
Läs hela artikeln här.
Read more...
Inlägg
