Dr Navarro-Valls doesn't look like a priest to me. Unless he's a liberal-poofter-bad-music-composing Jesuit. And I don't think he's one of those.
Posted on 07/03/2003 8:14:44 PM PDT by sinkspur
It is an unfortunate fact of life that many women feel alienated from the Catholic church because of the overwhelming hold enjoyed by men on leadership positions. Activists and pundits often propose women priests as the response to this problem. Pope John Paul’s 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, however, declared the inadmissibility of women to holy orders a matter of binding tradition, so many Catholics committed to working inside the system have shifted their energy towards moving women into offices that do not require ordination.
It was in this context that one of the working groups at the 1999 European Synod proposed that a woman be named to head an agency of the Roman Curia.
The proposal did not survive in the 40 propositions presented to Pope John Paul at the close of the synod, and neither was it in the pope’s apostolic letter, Ecclesia in Europa, released on Saturday, June 28. The pope wrote instead: “It is to be hoped, as the synod emphasized, that the full participation of women in the church’s life and mission will be fostered by making better use of their gifts and by entrusting them with ecclesial roles reserved by law to laypersons.”
Does this mean the idea of a woman heading a curial agency is off the table? I asked Belgian Cardinal Jan Schotte, who heads the synod and who presented Ecclesia in Europa at a June 28 Vatican press conference.
Schotte’s initial response was interesting, but inconclusive. He said the pope had addressed the women’s question in documents such as Mulieres Dignitatem and Christfideles Laici. Moreover, Schotte said, the “aggressive feminism” at the 1987 Synod on the Laity has “disappeared.” Today, he said, a “true Catholic feminism” is in the course of defining itself, one that will celebrate the gifts of women rather than insisting that women are equivalent to men or should possess everything that men have.
As the press conference ended, I pressed Schotte to explain if this meant it would be impossible for a woman to run a curial department (the technical word for which is a “dicastery”).
“Right now the dicasteries have jurisdiction, and so they participate in episcopal authority. We’re a hierarchical organization and power comes from ordination. So for now, there cannot be a woman,” Schotte said. “If the job is redefined, you could have a woman, but then it would not be the same dicastery as we think of now when people say there should be a woman.”
Afterwards I consulted a few canon lawyers. They tell me Schotte’s response is defensible, and it no doubt reflects the thinking behind paragraph 43 of Ecclesia in Europa. As stated, however, it needs two clarifications.
First, not every office of the Roman curia has what canonists call “the power of governance,” meaning the power to issue binding documents, judgments, decrees, and dispensations. All nine congregations and three tribunals have this authority, along with two pontifical councils (Laity and Interpretation of Legislative Texts). Many other organs of the curia, such as the Council for Migrants and Refugees or the Vatican Library, do not, and hence there’s no canonical problem with a layperson being in charge. The proof of the point is that a layperson already runs one such curial office: Spanish layman Joaquin Navarro-Valls is the director of the Press Office.
Second, it is true that canon law envisions only two offices with “power of governance” – judge on a canonical tribunal and religious superior – that are open to lay people. But a bishop may delegate this power of governance to lay aides for specific matters. For example, many American bishops have lay chancellors, some of whom are assigned certain powers – for example, to grant marriage permissions and dispensation from disparity of cult (to enable a Catholic to marry an unbaptized person). Some women act as chancellors in the United States. Diocesan financial officers may also be delegated authority to issue instructions to parishes on financial accounting.
Bottom line, according to one canon lawyer: “If the pope wants to appoint a lay person to head a congregation or other dicastery in which he or she would exercise power of governance, he certainly could. He is the supreme legislator, and there is no doctrine of the church that would prevent him from doing this.”
On the theory of learning to crawl before walking, perhaps the logical next step would be the appointment of a woman to head a curial agency that does not exercise power of governance: the Council for Health Care Workers, for example, or the Central Statistics Office. That alone could be powerful symbolism, a way of providing “cash value” to declarations such as that in Ecclesia in Europa.
News to me. I thought he was a priest.
Dr Navarro-Valls doesn't look like a priest to me. Unless he's a liberal-poofter-bad-music-composing Jesuit. And I don't think he's one of those.
Ditto! Men and women are different and therefore have different roles to play. Besides have you seen what some of those lady ministers look like? Not someone I would want running my church. Maybe this is lookism?
No "maybe" about it.
One of the bishops who spoke at the recent conference colored his hair, a la Cal Thomas.
Looked awful.
One of the spokespersons for the USCCB several years ago, a Hispanic woman, was a real looker. An articulate, beautiful representative for Catholicism.
With a creative mind like yours, the Good Lord could reach souls in the back of the church.
Humor is absolutely the essence of a Loving God.
And you, my friend, are a rave!
Ditto here. I'll need a voiceover.
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