I ended my column last month with an item of good news for a change. The bad news was that, as usual, my column was too long and the good news was announced on the next page of the paper. Unfortunately, the direction to continue reading on the on following page was taken by the gremlins somewhere between the layout and printing process. The good news was that a group called Women for Life, Faith and Family (a counterpart to the U.S. group called Women for Faith and Family) has been formed in British Columbia.

           

Women for Life, Faith and Family is a group for Catholic women who believe in the teachings of the Church, who stand with the Holy Father in all matters dealing with human reproduction, marriage family life and the roles for men and women in the Church and in society.

           

The group’s purpose is four-fold.

 

  1. To assist orthodox Catholic women in their effort to provide witness to their faith, both to their families and to the world.
  2. To aid women in their efforts to continually deepen their understanding of the catholic faith.
  3. To aid faithful Catholic women in their desire for fellowship with others who share their faith and commitment.
  4. To serve as a channel through which questions from Catholic women seeking guidance or information can be directed.

 

The organization’s first challenge is to reach the thousands of Canadian women who will support their goals and sign their affirmation which is printed elsewhere in this issue of The Interim. It’s an enormous challenge, since the group wants to be able to present the list of supporters to the Canadian Catholic Bishops before they meet in Rome in November of this year. A copy of the list will be sent to the Holy Father through the Papal Nuncio.

 

Views ignored

 

Perhaps some of you reading this will wonder why such a petition is necessary. Discussions of the role of women in the Church have been going on for some time. We have seen and read of the many Catholic women who repudiate Church teachings on contraception, divorce and abortion and who criticize the Pope as “reactionary”. These women who make the headlines and are invited to express their views on the television because the dissenting opinion always gets publicity. It is quite frustrating, however to find that the views of the majority in this case the women who support the Church and the Pope are ignored time and time again.

           

Last October, the Canadian Bishops were presented with twelve recommendations arrived at by the Bishops’ own Ad Hoc Committee of Women in the Church. Some of these recommendations implied that the majority of Catholic women were dissatisfied with their roles in the Church and implied that women were treated as less than equal in the eyes of the Church.

 

Loyalty to the church

 

Let me quote from the letter sent by Women for Life, Faith and the Family:

“We believe that every woman who is a member of the Catholic Church should have an opportunity to express her loyalty to her Church and should be given the chance to channel that message to the Bishops of Canada… Many of the twelve recommendations which were presented to the Canadian Bishops by the Ad Hoc Committee of Women in the Church in October 1984 were not representative of the thousands of us who had no opportunity for input into that document. We hope to provide a channel to the Bishops for those women who were overlooked.”

           

Speaking personally here, and I should make it quite clear that I am not a spokesman for Women for Life, Faith and the Family, merely an enthusiastic supporter, I was upset by the Committee’s recommendation which requested that women be given a greater role in the training of new priests.

 

Sign the affirmation

 

I thought at the time, and still think so today, that the implication here is that women have nothing to do with the training of new priests. Every mother whose son has found his vocation as a priest has had a hand in the training of that priest. To suggest that this role is not one of the greatest importance is not only an affront to these many women, it is also yet another instance of the way in which motherhood as a whole is devalued today.

           

I do not believe for one minute that when the Bishops and the Pope meet in Rome in November they will revolutionize Church teaching on family matters and the different roles that men and women play in the Church. The fact that they will not do this will make for loud and critical comment in some quarters. Women for Life, Faith and the Family is giving Catholic women the opportunity to say they support Church teaching, to show the Bishops that, for every dissenting voice, there are hundreds of supporting voices.

           

I hope every Catholic woman reader of The Interim will take time to read the Affirmation and to sign it. The group’s organizers ask that the Affirmation to be as widely circulated as possible. Take it to your pastor and ask him to put it in his bulletin. Most important of all, pray that the group finds the supporters, that the work will get done in time and that donations will cover the costs of such a huge endeavour.