Women from all continents report on their suppression in the Catholic community.
These reports were written in June 2024. The full reports are published in John Wijngaards’ forthcoming book Why Christ rejects all Church prejudice against women (Acadian House 2024).
In Colombia clericalism prevails. Although women provide valuable services in parishes, ranging from cleaning church interiors and clergy homes to running apostolic groups and teaching the catechism, their ministry is not really recognised. The concept of ordaining women is almost totally dormant, and when it raises its head is firmly pressed down.
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The bishops of the Czech Republic play a game of deception and repression. To benefit from State benefits for ‘clerics’, the hierarchy declared that also ‘pastoral assistants, lectors and catechists’ were clerics.
Thus also some women providing those services have been created ‘pseudo-clerics’.
But any idea of ordaining women is suppressed. And any ‘pseudo-clerical woman’ has to totally submit to Church views, thereby allowing ‘her spine to be broken’.
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Women in East Africa face an indigenous patriarchy that is deeply ingrained. They are second-class citizens. Bishops and priests accept this and impose their own ecclesiastical power.
The ideal of women being ordained priests is a far-off dream. African Catholic women focus on achieving at least some progress on their voices being heard and to be included at least in some decision making in the Church. So far with no real success. Male clericalism throttles all opposition.
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Matters are not much better in India. Ecclesiastical patriarchy is an unshakable fortress in the Syro-Malabar Catholic community in Kerala.
Women need to cover their heads in church, may not enter the inner sanctum around the altar and sit in pews segregated from the men.
Women cannot break loose from the ‘submissive ecclesiastical mould’, even if they acquire leadership in the secular world.
The ordination of women is a non-issue, unthinkable in a man-dominated spiritual realm.
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The atrocious predicament of women in Mexico defies belief. Macho aggression inflicts hardship, beatings even death. Eleven women get killed every single day in sexual violence, their maimed bodies found on dung heaps. And the Church has done little to fight this evil.
Women serve as catechists, ministers of the Eucharist, evangelizers, parish administrators, managers of asylums and LGBTQ+ communities and much more. However, all these activities are always under the ‘patriarchal machocratic’ authority exercised by the clergy. The women are exploited. They do not receive any financial remuneration for their services. And priests take the credit.
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Any social equality of women hardly exists in Nigeria. The Church does not promote emancipation, rather it imposes its own clerical power on women. Women are appreciated for their traditional mothering and nurturing roles, especially in looking after bishops, priests and seminarians and raising funds during harvest and bazars. Some women serve as catechists. But the notion of ordaining women is utterly rejected. Women religious often suffer at the hand of a local priest they depend on. He may turn up hours late to say mass in the convent chapel, without excuse. He may stop saying mass for them during school holidays. They are totally at his mercy.
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Women ‘are muted’ in the Philippines. ‘In worship, the leader is male and is revered. What we see is male, what we hear is the male voice.’ Women are actively involved in stereotype tasks: beautification of the church, washing the altar linen, fund-raising, soliciting and sorting stuff for relief distribution, giving catechism classes and more – all on a voluntary basis without real recognition.
An official ‘no!’ to women’s ordination. Women are marginalized, oppressed and exploited by the Church.
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In the United States of America conservatism dominates the Catholic Church. There are some strong groups advocating full women’s emancipation. Some local parish priests give women more scope to share in the ministries. But on the whole, conservative bishops and priests prevent women and non-binary folks from achieving their true callings. In addition, they provide support for advocates of misogynistic, racist, homophobic, and sexist values.
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As stated before, the full documented reports are published in John Wijngaards’ forthcomng book Why Christ rejects all Church prejudice against women (Acadian House 2024).