Radical feminism has affected society greatly for the worst over the last 40 years. Its chief characteristic of total freedom of choice in all marital-sexual-moral matters is well known.
This hard-core feminism is surrounded by a large network of subsidiary and associated ideas and organizations which have sprung up in its wake, or alongside it, or completely independent of it. While the general trend among them is that of sharing some, but not necessarily all principal points, individual manifestations of feminism have to be judged on their own principles.
The following is a description of one such event organized by Catholic feminists in Toronto.
“Celebrate Women 1991” was the fifth annual day of religious reflection and workshops conceived by Catholic feminists in Toronto. It was held at Bishop Marocco High School on May 25, with an attendance of 300.
The Catholic school had been made available by sympathetic teachers after the group had been denied the use of a church by the Toronto R.C. Archdiocese. The previous four ‘Celebrate Women’ days had all held the religious exercises which accompany the workshops and deliberations in the sanctuary of a Catholic Church. But not this time. “The purpose of this decision” (not to grant the use of a church), said a brief Archdiocesan statement in the spring, “is to indicate that the Church does not in any way sponsor, support or endorse the agenda which has been manifested during the course of these annual gatherings.” (Star, March 5)
PUBLICITY
The Archdiocesan ruling was portrayed by organizers and subsequent letter writers as irrational and unjust.
The organizers claimed not to know why they couldn’t use a church, though subsequently it became clear they had known about difficulties since the previous July. The parish priests of the two sponsoring parishes, Rev. Jim Casper, Sacred Heart Father of Joan of Arc, and Bill Burns, Oblate Father of St. Vincent de Paul, registered their unhappiness with the ruling in the Toronto Star and the Catholic New Times (CNT).
In the Star, letter-writer Dennis McGrath saw the decision as a logical consequence of a “backward and dogmatic church hierarchy” (March 7). Wendell Waters, retired McMaster University psychiatrist of pro-abortion fame, recognized the decision as part of the “anti-human attitudes” of the R.C. Church (March 14). Christine Gebel, secretary of NCWE (Network of Catholic Women for Equality), claimed that many women had left the Church because she is “too hurtful.” Gebel thought it “ironic” that women were “being sent away from church property to meet and pray” (Mar. 14, Star; March 31, CNT).
Patrick Donahue, speaking for the Coalition of Concerned Canadian Catholics (CCCC), declared that the Church had no moral right to deny Catholics legitimate use of church buildings. “This arbitrary, unilateral decision by the archbishop’s office is an affront to all Catholics,” he said. (Star March 11).
Others piped a similar tune.
Joan McLean, 63, of North York’s St. Eugene’s parish declared the time had come to take a stand: this “is not a fringe group and a few oddballs,” she stated (Star March l1).
Michael Higgins of St. Jerome’s College, Waterloo, Ontario, in his monthly column for the Toronto Star’s religion pages, championed “dialogue,” no matter what the circumstances. That meant no intervention by the Church at any time, according to him.
For Higgins the recent Vatican restructuring of the Executive Board of the Confederation of Latin American Religious (160,000 members) and the ruling on Celebrate Women in Toronto were simply part of an ongoing attempt to prevent an “adult” church from replacing a “juvenile” one. (“Suppression and censure only deepen cynicism,” March 23).
Complaints continued throughout April. This led the Archdiocese to issue a second brief statement. The Archdiocese had been forced to prohibit the use of a church, Vice-Chancellor Alan McCormack pointed out, because the annual days were not intended primarily for prayer and study or theological reflection:
“The record showed that each year Celebrate Women was being used for the purposes of propaganda which had little to do with Catholic tradition or thought.”
Asked by the Star to comment, leading Catholic feminist Mary Malone of St. Jerome’s College, Waterloo, called the statement “total lunacy”. (Star, April 14).
A WALK
The day started with a symbolic walk of about 100 hymn-singing women from St. Joan of Arc church to the school. The hymn repeated over and over was Ubi caritas et amor, Deus est (Where God is there is charity and love), a traditional Latin hymn from the 13th century. It was the only and last Catholic feature of the day.
The walk symbolized the connection or, perhaps, the transfer, of ‘being church’ from parish to school. As chairwoman Gayle Duchene put it, “The building is not the Church, the people are the Church. As far as we are concerned, the church is here.”
Inside, the walkers mingled with others already there to register, met acquaintances, and visited the Resource Centre. Publicity for NAC, the pro-abortion Status of Women group, was available in the registration area. Later on, in one of the workshops, an English/Spanish pamphlet was handed out for LEAF, the feminists’ pro-abortion legal action group. In the Resource Centre, moreover, books on feminist ‘liturgy’ and spirituality could be perused, the late Father Anthony de Mello’s works being prominent among them.
This, of course, was not accidental.
A year before his death in 1990, de Mello had told disciples in Barcelona, Spain, that “it doesn’t matter whether one is an atheist, a Muslim or a Catholic….What matters is the essential thing you discover within yourself.”
THEME
‘Celebrate Women’ was about women discovering themselves. Hence its slogan, “Believing, Belonging, Becoming.” Women must first believe in themselves, then strengthen one another and themselves by storytelling and naming other women who have had a positive impact on their lives, then grow and develop on the strength of that. The emphasis is on self, a self of feelings and emotions, not one of reason and rationality, which is seen as having been imposed from outside by a patriarchal society.
AGENDA
The heart of all “Celebrate Women” events lies in their spiritual-religious character, given expression in 1991 in a religious exercise entitled “Gathering,” and its final ceremony called “Closing.”
The “Gathering” was followed immediately by discussion in circles of six (from 11:00 to 12:00), while the “Closing” was preceded by some 14 simultaneous workshops after lunch.
These workshops ranged from “Self esteem—imaging the Child Within,” “Opportunities for Women in Ministry,” “Clowning,” “Sharing our stories” to a viewing of the film The Burning Times, a so-called documentary produced by the feminist Studio D of the National Film Board. The film purports to establish that the Catholic Church hates women, which led her to burn nine million of them as witches at the stake some 400 years ago.
NUNS
A number of the leaders of both workshops and the organization were nuns. Among them were Sisters Rozanne Grimard, Josephine Conlin, Joanne Daley, Carol O’Kane, Connie Caron, Mary Baier, Margot Fish and Toni Bellefontaine. others were former nuns such as Mary Malone, Marge Denis and Rita Petenaude. Mary Malone is associated with Religious Education at St. Jerome’s College and Marge Denis with the program in Ministry, St. Michael’s Faculty of Theology. All appear to have embraced the feminist outlook and are now devoted to spreading the new ideas throughout the country.
Ursuline Sister Margot Fish, for example, has a week-long workshop on “Celebrating Wholeness of Life” scheduled in Hamilton for August. Rita Patenaude and Marge Denis are resource persons for a three-day retreat conference entitled “A listening church” at St. Ann’s, N.S., in October. Mary Malone is much in demand. At the end of June she addresses the heads of high school religion departments in Toronto. In July she leads a four-day retreat in Saskatoon, “Women Christians: Memory and Vision Retreat.”
The favorite venues for these workshops are retreat houses and former girls’ academies or sisters’ novitiates transformed into ‘Spirituality Centres’.
THE ‘GATHERING’
The Gathering was held in the school gym, in the centre of which were some boxes under a green cloth, two candles and a circle of small stones strewn around, with other larger rocks as decoration. The circle is an important feminist symbol.
All sat on chairs in a circle.
The candles were lit at the opening proclamation from the Book of Revelation 2:17: “Let them listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches: to those who prove victorious I will give the hidden manna and a white stone – a stone with a new name written on it, known only to the man (changed to “one”) who receives it.”
(A footnote in the Jerusalem Bible explains that the stone alludes to various ancient usages and symbolizes entry into the kingdom. The ‘new name’ signifies the Christian’s spiritual rebirth).
After the proclamation, a choir, with drums and guitars, greeted the entrance of twelve barefoot dancers in white long-sleeved blouses, flowing skirts and sashes. Accompanied by a clown (St. Connie Caron) and making flowing movements with their arms, the dancers circled the participants in a slow ceremonial walk bearing a ceramic pot with strong-smelling incense, Chinese windbells and other symbols of earth, fire and air, then wound their way inwards circling the stones, then once again went outwards. The choir sang to a kind of native Indian chant accompanied by a drumbeat.
All processed up to get their own stone accompanied by the refrain: “We come today to listen to what the spirit says to us…We come to seek the hidden manna, the nourishment of our souls; we come to know, if it is given to us, the new name with which we shall be called.”
This was followed by the “Chant of Gathering,” repeated over and over again while there was more dancing: “O Great Spirit, earth, sun, sky and sea, you are inside and all around me.”
The participants were told to take the stone in the hand, to use it to mediate and pray, and knead it while doing. One of the participants, Mary Jane, noted to applause that the work of the past year in preparation of this gathering had made the planning committee members a part of “each other’s mind” and that this would remain so. Their lives will never be the same, she said, expressing the hope that at the end of the day everyone would share this experience.
Prayers
Prayers and hymns were directed to the deity called Great Spirit, Source of Life, She, Mother or ‘Shaddai”, a name from the Old Testament in its early stage. (There was no reference to the Trinitarian God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit). \a ‘Rising Invocation’ brought the dancers holding the four elements into a “gathering from the four directions.” This was followed by ‘Nourishment’, an invitation to be fortified by the ‘Word’, that is, by ‘the New Testament reading of ‘The story of The-Woman-With-the -Flow-of-Blood’. That, in turn, led to “The story of Oh-so-Responsible,” a woman who becomes a mystic symbol.
There were two psalms to be recited by all, either at the ‘Gathering’ o9r’Closing’, which were not psalms at all, but newly written poems taken from Womanworld” a feminist Lectionary and Psalter b y Miriam Therese Winter. These spoke of “sharing new life,” sharing the first fruits of believing,” “sharing all the many and marvelous ways the spirit impregnates women with the seeds of new creation and the potential for significant change.”
In the ‘Closing’ session there as also Psalm 22, changed in language and content according to feminist demands. All references to man, theaters, he him mankind, and brothers had been removed. Jacob had been changed to Abraham and Sarah, the singular to the plural, losing in the process the messianic (referring to Christ) character of the psalm.
There was a hymn to “Mother of God” also by Winter (and the Medical Mission Sisters) and a Women’s Creed. Instead of beginning as the Christian Creed does with ”We believer in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ, his only son…,” it op0ens with: “We believe in the goodness and value of women: Our strength and sanity, our willingness to weep….”
It concludes with: We believe that our future depends on us….”
Conclusion
The entire emphasis of the day was on self. Following the ‘Gathering;, the participants sat in small groups of six, again in circles, sharing experiences, of good and bad, each naming names of two women of importance, and building a ‘hearth, by putting down their stones in a circle, thereby building a feeling of ‘belonging’.
In at least one workshop after lunch , the circle was resumed, with holding of hands at the start, standing up, closing eyes, an emptying of the mind, in order to become aware of the strength of Mother Earth, the healer, coming through the feet into the body.
At the end all were asked to thank their stone for the gifts it had given them and encouraged to take it home for future benefits.
Comments
The continued pursuit of the above is a sure recipe for disaster. It tries to celebrate women in a religious setting, but with new symbols and rituals replacing the symbols and sacraments of Christianity. In the end it will produce what critics of feminist theology have warned is bout to happen, namely a new feminist creation-spirituality and religion.
The denial of a Catholic church for this event is certainly central to the issue. It is not just a question of ‘parish facilities’ or ’church building’ but of the use of the church Sanctuary. It is to the use of the sanctuary for strange goings-on that the Archdiocese objected and rightly so, surely.
The Christian Church
In the Catholic tradition, a church is a sacred place. It is a sacred place because of what happens there. That happening is the Eucharist, the commemoration of Christ’s last supper, the unbloody re-enactment of the Sacrifice of the Cross, the Real Presence of the Son of God and the sharing of the Body and Blood of the Lord through its reception at communion time.
The Eucharist makes everything connected with it sacred” the priest, the altar, the tabernacle, the sanctuary, the church. It makes it sacred because the Son of God, who was made flesh 2000 years ago, makes it so. Through Him we are liberated from sin and darkness and introduce to God the Father and the Holy Spirit.
He Church, too honours Creation. But it elevates it above us. In the Eucharist the earthly realities of bread and wine become the Bread of Life and our
Spiritual Drink, as the Offertory prayers express it.
The Feminist Church
Christian feminist do not want to hear about the Trinity, the Father, the Son; they do not want to put up with the priest as an “alter Christus’.
Hostility towards the male, ‘patriarchal’ Church has become a firm point of belief with them.
Consequently, they are not interested, or no longer interested, in celebrating a Eucharist, with its emphasis on Christ and the use of a male priest. They want to celebrate a female God and themselves, and thus they prefer a ‘Gathering’.
Old Testament psalms are replaced by homespun poems called psalms; the Church’s liturgy is set aside for a new ritual of the participants’ own. In short Sacrament is replaced by fellowship.
In their search for self they turn away from what is said to be ‘patriarchal’ in the Church. Instead of God as a Trinity, Three Person’s in One., they grope for the deity as ‘Source’. As this new ‘Source’ cannot be the transcendent God of Christianity—that is, God above the outside of human history—they reach for something within human time and place, creation, the environment, nature, ‘Mother Earth’. The undefined ‘Great Spirit’ or ‘Source’ becomes a goddess.
Ultimately it ought not be too surprising to find that bread and wine were replaced by stones.
As Psalm 81 puts it: But my people did not heed my voice and Israel would not obey, so I left them in their stubbornness of heart to follow their own designs.”
It is to be sincerely wished that women will heed the voice of the Church and abandon this strange and extremely dangerous attempt at finding a substitute religion.
