Reflection on Women in the Church on International Women’s Day 2025
Marking International Women’s Day on 8th March 2025 is a good moment to reflect again on the history of women within the Church and to imagine a different future.
I recently came across the story of St. Mary of Egypt, who ran away from her home to Alexandria at the age of 12, spending the next 17 years reportedly living off prostitution, begging and flax spinning. She travelled to Jerusalem from where a profound spiritual experience led her into the Jordanian desert with three loaves of bread, to live as a hermit for 47 years. She died in 522 AD becoming one of the few Desert Mothers known to us by name. She reportedly told her story to a monk from Palestine whom she met in the desert during the season of Lent. Kept alive by oral tradition, the story was eventually documented by a Patriarch of Jerusalem in the 7th Century as the Vita of St Mary. This is a good example of how the history we have of women from antiquity to the medieval age comes to us largely through the mouths, pens and perspectives of men. It is important to acknowledge the limitations of this and the implications we have been living with.
The short English translation of the Vita of St Mary makes for hair raising reading. In the Roman Empire at that time, a girl passed from the authority of her father to that of her husband at the age of twelve. How might that fact have informed Marys ‘choices’? Through the social sciences, our understanding of human development, of social and cultural conditioning and of trauma, especially in childhood, have evolved. What we now know compels a reinterpretation of her story, one that restores her dignity as a human being and as a woman. One that also reflects critically on the confinement that likely drove her from home, into prostitution, finally leading into the desert.
Women: A History of Confinement
The history of women in the Christian tradition has been a history born out of confinement in one way or another. Whether by the walls of home or cloister, or the invisible walls imposed by systems of ethics or education, there has been a history of confinement and containment. It has militated against the full flourishing of the potential and contribution of women. It did not begin with the institutional Church, but it has certainly been deepened and perpetuated by it. Too many of us as women have also blindly appropriated it. A systemic imbalance has been created and sustained, that manifests in both blatant and subtle ways. It diminishes us all. For example, how many of us have noticed that most of the readings about women in scripture happen during weekdays, rather than at weekends? It is sobering and eye opening to reflect on the life choices and legacy of any of the key female figures within our faith tradition from a perspective of this confinement.
Catherine of Siena, one of only four female Doctors of the Church is a good example. She was born as the twenty sixth child of her mother and father. Her mother was only forty years of age when she gave birth to her twenty sixth child. Personally, I would have run in the opposite direction from such a confined vision for my future as a woman. Until quite recently, women were not permitted to study theology formally. Treasured figures like Julian of Norwich and Teresa of Avila got their hands on texts, they read and conversed about these texts but, they could not preach and learn as men were permitted to. They shared ‘insights’ rather than wrote theology, drawing on their lived experience of God which was deeper than the institutional Church often allowed. They remained extremely guarded in their writings, always under a particular risk of sanction in a period when up to 80% of those killed during the witch hunts in Europe were reportedly women.
‘Language Matters’
The story of St. Mary reminds me of a couple of wonderful days last summer spent in a Benedictine Abbey. The guesthouse was filled with women. There was only one man among us. On the 3rd of June we celebrated the feast of St Kevin. At the start of the Mass, the priest presiding commented on how the monastic movement in Ireland had taken its inspiration from the Desert Fathers. There was no mention of the Desert Mothers despite a guest house full of women. I don’t believe it was an intentional omission. It simply did not occur to him. The examples are frankly endless. At a recent ordination, where the majority of the congregation was female, a long Liturgy of Saints was read out. It included just a handful of women and only two of the female Doctors of the Church. Again, at a Mass celebrating the Feast of St Blaise and St Brigid, the lovely celebrant talked about St Blaise as martyr, leader and bishop of the Church, and about St Brigid as healer and protector. Brigid was indeed a healer and protector, she was also a visionary and strategic leader, the founder and Abbess of a dual monastic settlement for men and women in Kildare, and most likely also a Bishop. What accounts for the failure to be suitably conscious and to give women their full due?
Our liturgies need work to be respectful of the presence and experience of women. Other things too need work. In the nativity scene on the Christmas cards I wrote this year Mary and Joseph stood serenely over the manger. The depiction was highly idealized. Mary had just given birth to her first child and would still have been bleeding. She had spent the previous days perched on the bony back of a donkey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, heavily pregnant. She was in a barn and exhausted. I am sure Joseph was a bit the worse for wear too!
‘It is a representation’ you say, what does it matter if it is a bit idealized? It matters because it risks putting Mary out of reach of the experience of many women. In an episode of Gogglebox Ireland a group of women shared that they found it difficult to relate to Mary, precisely because of her idealized image. This matters. Instead of finding encouragement and resonance in the depth of her human experiences lived in faith, these women found her alienating. How do we show sensitivity and respond to the mismatch between what is idealized and what is real in service to faith?
Gender blindness and unconscious bias is deeply rooted within our patriarchal Church. How could it be otherwise? As women and men of faith, ordained and lay, we have a responsibility to sensitise ourselves to it and call it out, consistently and firmly. At grassroots level, it is beyond dispute that women propel the Church. Right around the world women assume the burden of responsibility in faith sharing with the next generation. Women assume many of the roles that keep parishes functioning day to day. Women occupy most of the space in the pews. Despite this, women have little or no space in places where real decisions are made. We sit, week in and week out at Sunday Mass absorbing all the language, imagery, and trappings of a patriarchal Church, listening to interpretations of the readings informed by male experience and learning. This is insufficient to meet any holistic reading of the sign of the times in the 21st century.
Jesus encouraged Martha to cease from all her activity and join Mary to listen and learn together as disciples. Jesus chose first to appear to Mary of Magdala after the resurrection. This is deeply significant as under Roman law the witness of women was not valued. For every one man, two women had to witness an event for that witness to be accepted. Jesus related to women in a seismically different way even within the confines of his time. We women need to ask ourselves at what point our altruistic doing actually dishonours Jesus, the Christ of our faith and his vision for women as disciples?
Imagining a Different Future - Together
Imagine an institutional Church that takes much more seriously the female experience and contributions to the development of theological reflection on sexuality, on childbirth and motherhood, fatherhood and everything that pertains to our existence? Imagine a scenario where many more of the key ‘go to’ theological and spiritual works in bookcases in parochial houses, religious communities, and places of formation around the country are authored by women?
The Spirit has spoken powerfully through the institution of the Church over the ages - despite its wings being badly clipped. That Spirit will always find ways to manifest despite the barriers we set in her way. What we have inherited in terms of patriarchal bias we have all inherited as women and men. Can we move together now to a new place, moving beyond fear, ego and every other thing that is not rooted in love. There is a vision for our Church in the world that has been trying to emerge for 60 years now, since the second Vatican Council. It can be realised through all people of faith – equally. Jesus trusted and empowered women in discipleship and ministry accepting the limitations of his time. In this Jubilee year of Hope, for the times we live in, no lamp can be left under a bushel. We must enable all to shine. This means each of us, in our own patch and place questioning the ways we might be helping to perpetuate a deeply limiting and unsustainable patriarchal culture within our Church. It is inconsistent with the vision of the Christ of our faith for our world. The time is now.
Women are a problem for the Catholic Church, an institution with ingrained misogyny - Soline Humbert
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