Rebecca Alpert Jim Biechler Marcus Braybrooke Ellen T. Charry Leobard D'Souza David Efroymson Gabriele Feyler Stefan Feyler Eugene Fisher Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer Krystina Gorniak-Kocikowska Yitz Greenberg Wan-Li Ho Sanaullah Kirmani Reinhard Kirste Hans Küng Lihua Liu Jack Malinowski Patricia Martinez Sergio Mazza Alan Mittleman Ronald Modras Paul Mojzes Malcolm Nazareth Angelika Quade Ida Raming Virginia Kaib Ratigan John Sahadat Simone Schaupp Ingrid Shafer Shu-hsien Liu Thomas Thompson Catherine Berry Stidsen

Ronald Modras Pioneers of Christian Feminism Many are the hours I have enjoyed Len's and Arlene's hospitality in Philadelphia or engaged with Len in meetings of ARCC (the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church). But it is our first extended encounter that I remember most clearly and with a smile. It was a summer in the early 1970s. The Benedictine monks at Holy Cross Abbey in CaZon City, Colorado, had invited the three of us, among others, to speak at a workshop on the pastoral implications of Vatican II. Situated in the diocese of Colorado Springs, under the visionary leadership of Bishop Charles Buzwell, the monastery had become a center for theological renewal and ecumenical outreach for the entire state. I had just completed my work at the University of Tübingen under the mentoring of Hans Küng. So it was humbling to have Bishop Buzwell, who participated in the entire workshop, listen and take notes from a young whipper-snapper theologian the likes of me. I can't recall much from the presentations at that workshop, not even my own. But I do remember a conversation I had one morning with Len and Arlene during one of the coffee-breaks. In the course of our bantering, I had several times used the word man when referring to both genders of our human species. As I paid no notice to the pained winces on Len's and Arlene's faces, they finally couldn't take it anymore and pleaded, could I please try to be more sensitive and inclusive in my language and stop using man all the time. "Oh, alright," I said impatiently, brushing aside what I considered over-sensitivity to a trivial matter. "How about mankind." Len and Arlene looked at each other and shook their heads with pity. I was hopeless. Fortunately, they, and others like them, did not give up on me. Language, I came to realize, is never trivial. It allows us to discern what we previously overlooked, shaping and sometimes skewing our perceptions and attitudes. In the case of my own Roman Catholic tradition, it betrays a patriarchal culture so pervasive and attitudes so deep that often they are go undetected and unacknowledged. But those attitudes of male superiority no longer go undetected. And despite the Vatican's best efforts, the question of equality and leadership of women, including that of women's ordination, refuses to go away as a contentious issue. Along with Len's and Arlene's leadership in ecumenical and inter-faith dialogue, their joint-pioneering efforts in the Christian feminist movement deserve equal recognition and celebration in this volume. As early as 1967, Arlene was speaking out on women's ordination. Leonard's 1971 article, "Jesus was a Feminist," has become a classic. Similarly pioneering was Arlene's 1972 book, Woman in a Man's Church and in 1974 her creative exploration of inclusive-language worship experiences, Sistercelebrations. Since those early years scores of theologians and thousands of activists have joined them in the Christian feminist movement. The literature continues to grow as does the percentage of active, mainstream Catholic faithful who are open to the idea of women being ordained priests. Who would have thought in the immediate aftermath of Vatican II, at which women's issues received barely a nod, that twenty years later the role of women in the church would become perhaps the most singularly neuralgic issue in the church. Some readers may see that claim as an exaggeration. But one need only look at other issues raised by the II Vatican Council -- participation of the laity in the liturgy, their empowerment in shared ministry and decision-making. Who are the quintessential laity in the church, i.e. who are the members allegedly excluded by nature and birth from ordination and the clerical state? The other side of the same coin is the question of leadership and authority in the Roman Catholic church. The restriction of that authority to bachelors only has created not only a gaping divide between priests and laity but often enough a clerical culture in which humble service is not so evident as insistence on privilege and ambition for higher office. (It is a centuries-old observation that ambition is the lust of clerics.) The introduction of women into the decision-making circles of the church would destroy that clerical caste and its culture. (And, as frequently pointed out in the last few years, it would have also averted the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the church, since women would have known enough to put the welfare of children above the reputation of the institutional church.) In the wake of Vatican II, Pope John Paul II has made restoration and defense of the clerical state and its culture one of the chief focal points of his papacy. Assisted by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he has not only disallowed discussion of women's role and leadership in the church. He has attempted to tie the hands of any future pope who might consider otherwise by declaring his "males only" thinking virtually infallible. The fact that the Vatican has taken such draconian measures against it only indicates how powerful and persuasive the Christian feminist movement is and how much the Vatican fears it. And recent efforts directed against inclusive English translations of the liturgy indicate that hierarchs in the Vatican also realize that language is not trivial. If as I contend here, a central focus of Pope John Paul's papacy been to restore the priesthood as a separate, hierarchically ordered, and privileged caste, a brotherhood of celibate males, then no greater threat to that caste system can be imagined than the idea of women participating in church decision-making and leadership, including leadership at the altar. Arlene, Leonard and now mainstream biblical scholarship have convinced us that "Jesus was a feminist," and not even the Vatican can control language. Christian feminism is here to stay in the Roman Catholic church despite all the best efforts of churchmen in high places. For that we all can be grateful. Thank you, Len and Arlene. Ronald Modras, Saint Louis University

  Webpage Editor: Ingrid H. Shafer, Ph.D.
e-mail address: ihs@ionet.net
Text and graphics copyright © 2004 Ingrid H. Shafer