Vatican needs women: insider
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The Catholic Church could have avoided much of the scandal that currently surrounds it if women had been in positions of power, says a feminist insider in the Church.
Journalist and historian Lucetta Scaraffia is the founder of a new women’s supplement for the Vatican’s official newspaper and a campaigner for women’s rights in the male-dominated institution.
The scandals that have engulfed the Vatican would not have happened if women had been in charge, she argues.
In the wake of a series of clerical sex abuse affairs that have swept through the Church, she has pushed for women to teach in seminaries to give future priests the social and cultural skills to help them handle celibacy.
“The paedophilia scandal was almost exclusively male,” she told AFP, at her book-lined apartment in the Parioli quarter of Rome.
“If there had been women in positions of power they would not have allowed those things to happen.
“Women have long been reputed as sexually dangerous. But it’s clear that the danger lay with men and children,” she said.
Scaraffia says the new insert she edits in the 150-year-old Vatican newspaper, the Osservatore Romano, has ruffled feathers, despite having the support of Pope Benedict XVI.
“There are those who say ’I have not read it’,” said the 64-year-old journalist.
“They don’t want to say it’s not good. they prefer to say ’it doesn’t interest me.’ The indifference is terrible.” But, she added: “It was the pope who decided to have women work at the Osservatore Romano.” The Osservatore Romano newspaper, founded in 1861, only opened its doors to female journalists in 2008.
But despite the pope’s backing for what has been described by the Osservatore Romano as a move “to give voice to the value that women bring to the Church,” Scaraffia said she was fighting a lonely battle.
“There is misogyny in the Church,” she said.
“It’s a closed world, caught up with issues of power. Many in the clergy are afraid that if women come onto the scene there will be less room for them.” Her comments come as the Vatican watchdog struggles to bring radical nuns in the United States back into line. [More]
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37 Comments
Did anyone take the time to read “Philippine Nun” ,”red tagged”? (all of the Posting). I would be interested in your thoughts…
To what are you referring, Marilyn? I don’t know where the piece is to which you are referring.
Catholic News- July 9th – Feature Story. just scroll down this page.
Marilyn — I did now read that article (I didn’t continue to the source article). It looks to me like this nun is doing great and courageous work. The people who want her to return to her convent appear to be not her superiors (if it was, then I think she should return), but rather people and companies opposed to her activist work. Benedict XVI two or three years ago, in his New Year’s Day message to the world, spoke of the importance of protecting the environment. I have been in favor of environmental protection for years — we literally are poisoning ourselves and our children with toxins; e.g., the emission of mercury into the environment from coal burning, the mercury then winding up in fish and being consumed by humans, including pregnant women.
Thank you, Jim for your comment – yes we are both on the same page. Blessings to you and yours.
Thank you Marilyn — and the same for you and yours.
Women have show great leadership ablilities in every profession from politics to medicine and should be in leadership roles in the church.
While the Church may not see itself as able to ordain women, women are currently serving as chancelors od a dicocese. Surely they can in roles like the man made office of Cardinal. Canon law now requieres a cardinal to be a bishop but that wasn’t always the case and many don’t see why women can’t do that.
True, women can’t be bishop of Rome but surely they could elect him.
So Tony, here’s the question to you: why did God create two sexes if their capabilities in every area are equal? Please don’t give me an off-target post in response to this question. I’m interested in an on-target response to this question.
You will have to ask God but it would seem, upon observation, and reflection that the most significant difference is that women bear children. Interesting to not that men and women are cocreators of children.
Yes, Tony — and since women bear the children, nurse them, and have been the educators of children since time immemorial, and who are the educators of children even in the most primitive cultures today, do you suppose God made men and women different in other ways in order to allow them to perform the tasks God has assigned to them? It makes no sense to make one sex the bearer of children, but then to make them the same as men. If that were the case, God could have made reproduction asexual, needing only one gender that fertilizes itself and bears the children. Since you’re married, Tony, you can’t tell me your wife thinks like you or approaches life like you do.
When I married my wife rhe two of us became one,
Yes, one, but distinct. You are not your wife, and she is not you. You two are better together becuase your strengths are complementary — there is greater strength in diversity than in sameness. You are the captain of your ship (your family), and your wife is perched at the bow of the boat looking for icebergs to guide you in your steering. She has better vision than you, so she is better equipped to look for icebergs; and you are stronger and less anxious, so you are more capable at turning the wheel and making decisions that require fearlessness.
The two of us make all decisions together, pray together, recreate together, share everything we have and are together, thanks be to God we are one in Christ, and
We feel closest to each other when we receive Holy Communion. We are one in the Spirit and one in the Lord.
Yes, you are one in the Spirit and one in the Lord — but you are distinct people, with differing (and complementary) strengths. When there is a conflict about a matter when making decisions, you have the final say (I’m sure you don’t roll a dice to make the decision) because you are the authority of the family. If you’ve never been to Adoration together, may I suggest that for you two? It is the most intimate experience — to be followed by physical intimacy later.
Thank you we regularly go to Adoration together on the First Friday of Every month. You sere correct our intimacy is enhanced by the Eucharist and Eucharist is enhancd by our intimacy.
Well, Tony, since you are a regular Eucharistic adorer, I will try to remember that in responding to your posts. I like people who go to Adoration. I hope to share Heaven with them someday. I don’t want to have to apologize to you in Heaven — “Yes, Tony, I’m Jim, the guy who posted all of those responses to your posts on CathNewsUSA.” That is interesting what you say — I never considered the converse — that the graces from the Eucharist might be enhanced by the status of the marital relationship.
The Eucharist ID’s the Sorce and summit of our lives individually and as a couple!
Tony — if all married couples would go to Adoration together, there would be a negligible divorce rate.
Oh yeah the intimacy one can achieve is un fathomable in the Presence of the Eucharistic Lord. Just to sit there in the Presence of Jesus, for whom e were created and my wife is a great grace.
Jim, I actually missed your contovertial musings last week. You certainly are consistent in your line of thinking!
Thanks, Eileen — I had to take last week off to take care of my woman. Why don’t you look deep into your feminine soul and instruct these men about what women really want? Men, trying to be good and valiant men, are giving women what the anti-women lesbian feminists have said they want, but no woman is truly happy when she is with a man like that. If you as a woman are able to get it touch with your feminine soul, these men are more likely to believe you than they are to believe me.
Addendum: if you want to know what women actually want — before they were confused by the lesbian anti-women feminists and their garbage, go to this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPSLdKGcO9g. It is just over two minutes, and if you’re older, you may remember the song.
Also, Eileen, that’s strange — I’ve never been called controversial before!
Jim – From the Photos I’ve seen, I actually think she’s quite good looking.
Regardless, Greg, you would not want to be married to her — you would constantly have your masculinity assailed, subtely rejected. I am sorry if you want to be lead around by the nose by a woman.
addendum: and the converse also is true — women do not want to lead men, but rather they want to be protected and lead by them. A woman who leads a man is an unhappy woman.
Have you read any of the great writing of Blessed Popo John Paul II? I am thinking of Thology of the Body aN his other works pertaining to the dignity of women?
I have not read them directly (or if I have, it has been sparingly, encapsulated in the work of other authors), but I am familiar with at least some of what he wrote. He talked about the feminine genius, and I don’t in any way dispute that women are much better than men at certain things. However, either you claim women are equal or better than men in everything, or you logically must concede that men are better at some things than women. If you concede the latter, the next question is, at what are men better than women?
I don’t think we should look at men or women better than the other but rather that the compliment one another in life.
Agreed, Tony — but Scaraffia is asserting that women are superior to men. If that doesn’t bother you, you are grossly out of touch with your masculine soul.
Or, alternatively, you just didn’t read the article very carefully.
We have 15 minutes left during this 3:00 hour to say the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, to request the mercy of God through the death of His Son on the Cross for our sins and those of the whole world.
I am number three: God is number one, my spouse is number two, and I am number three.
And notice, if this article accurately renders Scaraffia’s position, she actually is asserting female superiority. Now THAT is sexism. I never assert male superiority, simply that men have their respective strengths and women have their respective strengths, and together we are better than either is alone. But not Scaraffia — she wants to control the men. God help us.
More garbage from a woman who is off the mark — a woman not content with the vocation given to her by God, to let men lead, while women have their input — through the men — in guiding the ship. Scaraffia, I suspect, either is unmarried or divorced or married to an incredibly passive man who is unhappy but doesn’t know why — no man who is self-aware ever would want to be married to such an unattractive, turn-off woman.
Wow. “No man who is self-aware ever would want to be married to such an unattractive turn-off woman.” Wow. Jim, you have crossed the line and own Lucetta an apology. Disagree with her if you must, but such personal disrespect is not a Christian disposition. It’s certainly not how Jesus treated women.
Not true, Steve. At Luke 17:3, among other places, Jesus instructed us to rebuke our brother (or sister) if he sins. This female chauvenism is destroying families all over the world. Jesus is in favor of families. At Ezekiel 33:7-9, we learn that if we do not speak up when others are grossly sinning as is this woman, God will condemn them to Hell, but He will hold us accountable for the sinner’s death. I will be silent no more. If you have children, I hope you are raising them to assume the roles God has assigned to men and women. Families do not work otherwise — and we can see the destruction of the family in western society since women began to usurp the headship of men.