Strongly secularized Quebec, like its media, is unaware of a major phenomenon experienced by the Catholic Church: the feminist revolution is brewing within it. Indeed, women throughout the world are publicly claiming the right to access ordained ministries, and therefore to preside over the Eucharist. Concerned above all with clericalism, Pope Francis unwittingly triggered this movement by convening a “synod on synodality” in 2023. It is not certain that feminist demands will succeed. Because in the Vatican, cardinals watch over the grain.
The word “revolution” is not a puff. Indeed, if women can now say mass, it will be a profound structural change within the Catholic Church. Indeed, for 2000 years, power, both in governance and in its liturgy, has belonged exclusively to men.
A parenthesis is necessary regarding the word “synod”. It designates a practice as old as the Church. It originally consisted of bringing together bishops from a region to discuss important, often controversial, questions relating to morals, worship or doctrine. The word synod also applies since Vatican II (1962-1965) to the meetings of bishops convened in Rome outside the councils. The neologism synodality refers to the rules affecting common deliberation in the Church, as in political and civil societies, to the rules of democratic life.
That said, demands for gender equality in the Church are not new. The Quebec Women and Ministry movement, which is an important focal point, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Several theologians have devoted studies and reflections to these questions, and their work has percolated down to the base.
This time, the preparation of the synod on synodality has “liberated the word” within the local Christian communities. Witness the reports of assemblies held everywhere at the invitation of Pope Francis.
Thus, we read cautiously in that of the Archdiocese of Montreal: “A good number of contributions indicate that the evolution of the Church should take place through the recognized involvement of its members and in particular that of women. The inclusion of women at all levels of responsibility in the Church would have the effect of freeing us from a patriarchal and misogynistic vision of the Church. »
The summary report for Quebec is more explicit: in diocesan reports, the proposal often comes up to “question access to ordained ministries (access to women, access to married men, etc.) and to promote equality between men and women in the Church in the roles and responsibilities that are officially assigned ministries. The question of ministries constantly comes up as a spur. »
Finally, the Canadian report is very clear: [T]All regional reports acknowledge having received requests for access for women to ordained church ministries. »
We read the same demands in Belgium, France and Switzerland. The report for the latter also offers a theological argument: “Women rightly expect full recognition of their dignity and their rights, equal to those of men. This expectation corresponds to the widely shared understanding of baptism. Conversely, the exclusion of women from ordination and, therefore, from participation in decision-making is, for many, incompatible with the Gospel and the action of Jesus. »
In Germany, we are ahead of Rome. The bishops convened their synod in 2019. It resulted in the same positions on women’s access to ministries. The episcopate has moreover endorsed the demands of the participants.
This earned them last week the public remonstrances of Cardinals Marc Ouellet, prefect of the dicastery of bishops, and Luis Ladaria, that of the “doctrine of the faith”. Marc Ouellet even mentioned the possibility of a schism. He recalled the official and definitive position of Pope John Paul II in 1994 for whom the debate on the ordination of women was closed: both tradition and theological doctrine were categorically opposed to it.
The debate nevertheless continued, this time within the Christian communities. They are based very largely on the recognition of the fundamental right to gender equality. Christian men and women, who are also citizens, never cease to measure its progress on the political, social and economic level. It could not be otherwise in the Church, whose popes, since John XXIII (Pacem in Terris), continue to call for respect for human rights while at the same time denying the equality of women within it!
The debate will certainly continue next week in Quebec at the symposium Women and governance: same issues in the Church and in the State? What position will Pierre Murray, Secretary General of the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Quebec, who will be a panelist, and the theologian Gilles Routhier from the Faculty of Theology at Laval University hold?