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from Christifideles Laici,
The vocation and the Mission of the Lay Faithful in
the Church and the World
Post-Synodal Apostalic Exhortation of His
Holiness John Paul II, 1988, #49-52
Women and Men
49. The Synod Fathers gave special attention to the status and role of
women, with two purposes in mind: to themselves acknowledge and to invite all
others to once again acknowledge the indispensable contribution of women to the
building up of the Church and the development of society. They wished as well
to work on a more specific analysis of women's participation in the life and
mission of the Church.
Making reference to Pope John XXIII, who saw women’s greater
consciousness of their proper dignity and their entrance into public life as
signs of our times,(176) the Synod Fathers, when confronted with the various
forms of discrimination and marginalization to which women are subjected simply
because they are women, time and time again strongly affirmed the urgency to
defend and to promote the personal dignity of women, and consequently her
equality with man.
If anyone has this task of advancing the dignity of women in the Church
and society, it is women themselves who must recognize their responsibility as
leading characters. There is still much effort to be done in many parts of the
world and in various surroundings to destroy that unjust and deleterious
mentality which considers the human being as a thing, as an object to buy and
sell, as an instrument for selfish interests or for pleasure only. Women
themselves, for the most part, are the prime victims of such a mentality. Only
through openly acknowledging the personal dignity of women is the first step
taken to promote the full participation of women in Church life as well as in
social and public life. A more extensive and decisive response must be given to
the demands made in the Exhortation Familiaris Consortio concerning the
many discriminations of which women are the victims: “Vigorous and
incisive pastoral action must be taken by all to overcome completely these
forms of discrimination so that the image of God that shines in all human
beings without exception may be fully respected.”(177) Along the same
lines, the Synod Fathers stated: “As an expression of her mission, the
Church must stand firmly against all forms of discrimination and abuse of
women.”(178) And again: “The dignity of women, gravely wounded in
public esteem, must be restored through effective respect for the rights of the
human person and by putting the teaching of the Church into
practice.”(179)
In particular when speaking of active and responsible participation in
the life and mission of the Church, emphasis should be placed on what has
already been stated and clearly urged by the Second Vatican Council:
“Since in our days women are taking an increasingly active share in the
whole life of society, it is very important that they participate more widely
also in the various fields of the Church’s apostolate.”(180)
The awareness that women with their own gifts and tasks have their own
specific vocation, has increased and been deepened in the years following the
Council and has found its fundamental inspiration in the Gospel and the
Church’s history. In fact, for the believer, the Gospel - namely, the word
and example of Jesus Christ - remains the necessary and decisive point of
reference. In no other moment in history is this fact more fruitful and
innovative.
Though not called to the apostolate of the Twelve, and thereby to the
ministerial priesthood, many women nevertheless accompanied Jesus in his
ministry and assisted the group of Apostles (cf. Lk 8:2-3); were present at the
foot of the Cross (cf. Lk 23:49); assisted at the burial of Christ (cf. Lk
23:55); received and transmitted the message of resurrection on Easter morn
(cf. Lk 24:1-10); and prayed with the Apostles in the Cenacle awaiting
Pentecost (cf. Acts 1:14).
From the evidence of the Gospel, the Church at its origin detached
herself from the culture of the time and called women to tasks connected with
spreading the Gospel. In his letters the Apostle Paul even cites by name a
great number of women for their various functions in service of the primitive
Christian community (cf. Rom 16:1-15; Phil 4:2-3; Col 4:15 and 1 Cor 11:5; 1
Tim 5:16). “If the witness of the Apostles founds the Church,” stated
Paul VI, “the witness of women contributes greatly towards nourishing the
faith of Christian communities.”(181)
Both in her earliest days and in her successive development, the Church,
albeit in different ways and with diverse emphases, has always known women who
have exercised an oftentimes decisive role in the Church herself and
accomplished tasks of considerable value on her behalf. History is marked by
grand works, quite often lowly and hidden, but not for this reason any less
decisive to the growth and the holiness of the Church. It is necessary that
this history continue, indeed that it be expanded and intensified in the face
of the growing and widespread awareness of the personal dignity of woman and
her vocation, particularly in light of the urgency of a
“re-evangelization” and a major effort towards humanizing social
relations.
Gathering together the pronouncements of the Second Vatican Council
which reflect the Gospel’s message and the Church’s history, the
Synod Fathers formulated, among others, this precise
“recommendation”: “It is necessary that the Church recognize all
the gifts of men and women for her life and mission, and put them into
practice.”(182) And again, “This Synod proclaims that the Church
seeks the recognition and use of all the gifts, experiences and talents of men
and women to make her mission effective (cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith, Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation, 72).”(183)
Anthropological & Theological Foundations
50. The condition that will assure the rightful presence of woman in the
Church and in society is a more penetrating and accurate consideration of the
anthropological foundation for masculinity and femininity with the intent of
clarifying woman’s personal identity in relation to man, that is, a
diversity yet mutual complementarity, not only as it concerns roles to be held
and functions to be performed, but also, and more deeply, as it concerns her
make-up and meaning as a person. The Synod Fathers have deeply felt this
requirement, maintaining that “the anthropological and theological
foundations for resolving questions about the true significance and dignity of
each sex require deeper study.”(184)
Through committing herself to a reflection on the anthropological and
theological basis of femininity, the Church enters the historic process of the
various movements for the promotion of woman, and in going to the very basic
aspect of woman as a personal being, provides her most precious contribution.
But even before this the Church intends, in such a way, to obey God who created
the individual “in his image,” “male and female he created
them” (Gen 1-27) and who intended that they would accept the call of God
to come to know, reverence and live his plan. It is a plan that “from the
beginning” has been indelibly imprinted in the very being of the human
person - men and women - and therefore in the make-up, meaning and deepest
workings of the individual. This most wise and loving plan must be explored to
discover all its richness of content - a richness that “from the
beginning” came to be progressively manifested and realized in the whole
history of salvation, and was brought to completion in “the fullness of
time,” when “God sent his Son, born of a woman” (Gal 4:4). That
“fullness” continues in history: God’s plan for woman is read
and is to be read within the context of the faith of the Church, and also in
the lives lived by so many Christian women today. Without forgetting the help
that can come from different human sciences and cultures, researchers, because
of an informed discernment, will be able to help gather and clarify the values
and requirements that belong to the enduring essential aspects of women and
those bound to evolve in history. The Second Vatican Council reminds us:
“The Church maintains that beneath all changes there are many realities
which do not change; these find their ultimate foundation in Christ who is the
same yesterday, and today, and forever (cf. Heb 13 8).”(185) The Apostolic
Letter on the Dignity and Vocation of Woman gives much attention to the
anthropological and theological foundation of woman’s dignity as a person.
The document seeks to again treat and develop the catechetical reflections of
the Wednesday General Audiences devoted over a long period of time to the
“theology of the body,” while at the same time fulfilling a promise
made in the Encyclical Redemptoris Mater(186) and serving as a response
to the request of the Synod Fathers.
May the reading of the Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem in particular, as a
biblical-theological meditation, be an incentive for everyone - women and men -
and especially for those who devote their lives to the human sciences and
theological disciplines, to pursue on the basis of the personal dignity of man
and woman and their mutual relationship, a critical study to better and more
deeply understand the values and specific gifts of femininity and masculinity -
not only in the surroundings of social living but also and above all in living
as Christians and as members of the Church.
This mediation on the anthropological and theological foundations of
women ought to enlighten and guide the Christian response to the most
frequently asked questions, oftentimes so crucial, on the “place”
that women can have and ought to have in the Church and in society.
It is quite clear from the words and attitude of Christ, which are
normative for the Church, that no discrimination exists on the level of an
individual’s relation to Christ, in which “there is neither male nor
female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28) and on the level
of participation in the Church’s life of grace and holiness, as
Joel’s prophecy fulfilled at Pentecost wonderfully attests: “I will
pour out my spirit on all flesh: your sons and daughters shall prophecy”
(Joel 3:1; cf. Acts 2:17ff.). As the Apostolic Letter on the Dignity and
Vocation of Woman reads: “Both women and men...are equally capable of
receiving the outpouring of divine truth and love in the Holy Spirit. Both
receive his salvific and sanctifying ‘visits.’”(187)
Mission in the Church and in the World.
51. In speaking about participation in the apostolic mission of the
Church, there is no doubt that in virtue of Baptism and Confirmation, a woman -
as well as a man - is made a sharer in the threefold mission of Jesus Christ,
Priest, Prophet and King, and is thereby charged and given the ability to
fulfill the fundamental apostolate of the Church: evangelization. However, a
woman is called to put to work in this apostolate the “gifts” which
are properly hers: first of all, the gift that is her very dignity as a person
exercised in word and testimony of life, gifts therefore connected with her
vocation as a woman.
In her participation in the life and mission of the Church, a woman
cannot receive the Sacrament of Orders, and therefore cannot fulfill the proper
function of the ministerial priesthood. This is a practice that the Church has
always found in the expressed will of Christ, totally free and sovereign, who
called only men to be his apostles;(188) a practice that can be understood from
the rapport between Christ, the Spouse, and his Bride, the Church.(189) Here we
are in the area of function, not of dignity and holiness. In fact, it must be
maintained: “Although the Church possesses a hierarchical structure,
nevertheless this structure is totally ordered to the holiness of Christ’s
members.”(190)
However, as Paul VI has already said, “We cannot change what our
Lord did, nor his call to women; but we can recognize and promote the role of
women in the mission of evangelization and in the life of the Christian
community.”(191)
Above all, the acknowledgment in theory of the active and responsible
presence of woman in the Church must be realized in practice. With this in mind
this Exhortation addressed to the lay faithful with its deliberate and repeated
use of the terms “women and men,” must be read. Furthermore the
revised Code of Canon Law contains many provisions on the participation of
women in the life and mission of the Church: they are provisions that must be
more commonly known and, according to the diverse sensibilities of culture and
opportuneness in a pastoral situation, be realized with greater timeliness and
determination.
An example comes to mind in the participation of women on diocesan and
parochial Pastoral Councils as well as Diocesan Synods and particular councils.
In this regard the Synod Fathers have written: “Without discrimination
women should be participants in the life of the Church and also in consultation
and the process of coming to decisions.”(192) And again: “Women, who
already hold places of great importance in transmitting the faith and offering
every kind of service in the life of the Church, ought to be associated in the
preparation of pastoral and missionary documents and ought to be recognized as
cooperators in the mission of the church in the family, in professional life
and in the civil community.”(193)
In the more specific area of evangelization and catechesis, the
particular work that women have in the transmission of the faith, not only in
the family but also in the various educational environments, is to be more
strongly fostered. In broader terms, this should be applied in all that regards
embracing the Word of God, its understanding and its communication as well as
its study, research and theological teaching.
While she is to fulfill her duty to evangelize, woman is to feel more
acutely her need to be evangelized. Thus, with her vision illumined by faith
(cf. Eph 1:18), woman is to be able to distinguish what truly responds to her
dignity as a person and to her vocation from all that, under the pretext of
this “dignity” and in the name of “freedom” and
“progress,” militates against true values. On the contrary, these
false values become responsible for the moral degradation of the person, the
environment and society. This same “discernment,” made possible and
demanded from Christian women’s participation in the prophetic mission of
Christ and his Church, recurs with continued urgency throughout history. This
“discernment,” often mentioned by the Apostle Paul, is not only a
matter of evaluating reality and events in the light of faith, hut also
involves a real decision and obligation to employ it, not only in Church life
but also in human society.
It can be said that the problems of today’s world already cited in
the second part of the Council’s Constitution Gaudium et Spes, which remain unresolved and not at
all affected by the passage of time, must witness the presence and commitment
of women with their irreplaceable and customary contributions.
In particular, two great tasks entrusted to women merit the attention of
everyone.
First of all, the task of bringing full dignity to the conjugal life and
to motherhood. Today new possibilities are opened to women for a deeper
understanding and a richer realization of human and Christian values implied in
the conjugal life and the experience of motherhood. Man himself - husband and
father - can be helped to overcome forms of absenteeism and of periodic
presence as well as a partial fulfillment of parental responsibilities - indeed
he can be involved in new and significant relations of interpersonal
communion-precisely as a result of the intelligent, loving and decisive
intervention of woman.
Secondly, women have the task of assuring the moral dimension of
culture, the dimension - namely of a culture worthy of the person - of an
individual yet social life. The Second Vatican Council seems to connect the
moral dimension of culture with the participation of the lay faithful in the
kingly mission of Christ: “Let the lay faithful by their combined efforts
remedy the institutions and conditions of the world when the latter are an
inducement to sin, that all such things may be conformed to the norms of
justice, and may favor the practice of virtue rather than hindering it. By so
doing, they will infuse culture and human works with a moral value.”(194)
As women increasingly participate more fully and responsibly in the
activities of institutions which are associated with safeguarding the basic
duty to human values in various communities, the words of the Council just
quoted point to an important field in the apostolate of women: in all aspects
of the life of such communities, from the socio-economic to the socio-political
dimension, the personal dignity of woman and her specific vocation ought to be
respected and promoted. Likewise this should be the case in living situations
not only affecting the individual but also communities, not only in forms left
to personal freedom and responsibility, but even in those guaranteed by just
civil laws.
“It is not good for man to be alone: let us make him a helper fit
for him” (Gen 2:18). God entrusted the human being to woman. Certainly,
every human being is entrusted to each and every other human being, but in a
special way the human being is entrusted to woman, precisely because the woman
in virtue of her special experience of motherhood is seen to have a specific
sensitivity towards the human person and all that constitutes the
individual’s true welfare, beginning with the fundamental value of life.
How great are the possibilities and responsibilities of woman in this area at a
time when the development of science and technology is not always inspired and
measured by true wisdom, with the inevitable risk of “dehumanizing”
human life, above all when it would demand a more intense love and a more
generous acceptance.
The participation of Women in the life of the Church and society in the
sharing of her gifts is likewise the path necessary for her personal
fulfillment - on which so many justly insist today - and the basic contribution
of woman to the enrichment of Church communion and the dynamism in the
apostolate of the People of God.
From this perspective the presence also of men, together with women,
ought to be considered.
The Presence and Collaboration of Men Together with Women
52. Many
voices were raised in the Synod Hall expressing the fear that excessive
insistence given to the status and role of women would lead to an unacceptable
omission, that in point, regarding men. In reality, various sectors in the
Church must lament the absence or the scarcity of the presence of men, some of
whom abdicate their proper Church responsibilities, allowing them to be
fulfilled only by women. Such instances are participation in the liturgical
prayer of the Church, education and, in particular, catechesis of their own
sons and daughters and other children; presence at religious and cultural
meetings; and collaboration in charitable and missionary initiatives.
Therefore, the coordinated presence of both men and women is to be
pastorally urged so that the participation of the lay faithful in the salvific
mission of the Church might be rendered more rich, complete and harmonious.
The fundamental reason that requires and explains the presence and the
collaboration of both men and women is not only, as it was just emphasized, the
major source of meaning and efficacy in the pastoral action of the Church, nor
even less is it the simple sociological fact of sharing a life together as
human beings which is natural for man and woman. It is, rather, the original
plan of the Creator who from the “beginning” willed the human being
to be a “unity of the two,” and willed man and woman to be the prime
community of persons, source of every other community, and at the same time to
be a “sign” of that interpersonal communion of love which constitutes
the mystical, intimate life of God, One in Three.
Precisely for this reason, the most common and widespread way, and at
the same time, fundamental way to assure this coordinated and harmonious
presence of men and women in the life and mission of the Church, is the
fulfillment of the tasks and responsibilities of the couple and the Christian
family in which the variety of diverse forms of life and love is seen and
communicated: conjugal, paternal and maternal, filial and familial. We read in
the Exhortation Familiaris Consortio: “Since the Christian family
is a community in which the relationships are renewed by Christ through faith
and the sacraments, the family’s sharing in the Church’s mission
should follow a community pattern: the spouses together as a couple, the
parents and children as a family, must live their service to the Church and to
the world.... The Christian family also builds up the Kingdom of God in history
through the everyday realities that concern and distinguish its state of life:
it is thus in the love between husband and wife and between members of the
family - a love lived out in all its extraordinary richness of values and
demands: totality, oneness, fidelity and fruitfulness - that the Christian
family’s participation in the prophetic, priestly and kingly mission of
Jesus Christ and of his Church finds expression and realization.”(195)
From this perspective, the Synod Fathers have recalled the meaning that
the Sacrament of Matrimony ought to assume in the Church and society in order
to illuminate and inspire all the relations between men and women. In this
regard they have emphasized an “urgent need for every Christian to live
and proclaim the message of hope contained in the relation between man and
woman. The Sacrament of Matrimony, which consecrates this relation in its
conjugal form and reveals it as a sign of the relation of Christ with his
Church, contains a teaching of great importance for the Church’s life - a
teaching that ought to reach today’s world through the Church; all those
relations between man and woman must be imbued by this spirit. The Church
should even more fully rely on the riches found here.”(196) These same
Fathers have rightly emphasized that “the esteem for virginity and
reverence for motherhood must be respectively restored,”(197) and still
again they have called for the development of diverse and complementary
vocations in the living context of Church communion and in the service of its
continued growth.
Notes
176. Cf. John XXIII, Encyclical Letter Pacem in Terris: AAS 55
(1963), 267-268.
177. John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris
Consortio, 24: AAS 74 (1982), 109-110.
178. Propositio 46.
179. Propositio 47.
180. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree on the
Apostolate of Lay People Apostolicam Actuositatem, 9.
181. Paul VI, Discourse to the Committee for the International Year of
the Woman (18 April 1975): AAS 67 (1975), 266.
182. Propositio 46.
183. Propositio 47.
184. Ibid.
185. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral
Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 10.
186. TheEncyclical Letter Redemptoris Mater,
after having recalled that the “Marian dimension of the Christian Life
takes on a particular importance in relation to women and their status”,
states, “In fact, femininity has a unique relationship with the Mother of
the Redeemer, a subject which can be studied in greater depth elsewhere. Here I
simply wish to note that the example of Mary of Nazareth sheds light on
womanhood as such by the very fact that God, in the sublime event of the
Incarnation of his Son, entrusted himself to the ministry, the free and active
ministry of a woman. It can thus be said that women, by looking to Mary, find
in her the secret of living their feminity with dignity and of achieving their
own true advancement. In the light of Mary, the Church sees in women the
reflection of a beauty which mirrors the loftiest sentiments of which the human
heart is capable: the totality of the gift of self in love; the strength that
is capable of bearing the greatest sorrows; limitless fidelity and tireless
devotion to work; the ability to combine penetrating intuition with words,
support and encouragement" (John Paul II Encyclical Letter Redemptoris
Mater, 46: AAS 79 [1987], 424-425.
187. John Paul II Apostolic Letter Mulieris
Dignitatem, 16.
188. Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,
Declaration On the Question of Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood
Inter Insigniores (15 October 1976): AAS 69 (1977), 98-116.
189. Cf. John Paul II. Apostolic Letter Mulieris
Dignitatem, 26.
190. Ibid., 27; “The Church is a differentiated
body, in which each individual has a role; the tasks are distinct, and must not
be confused; they do not favor the superiority of one over the other, nor do
they provide an excuse for jealousy; the only better gift, which can and must
be desired is love (cf. 1 Cor 12-13), The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven are
not the ministers but the saints” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, Declaration on the Question of Admission of Women to the Ministerial
Priesthood lnter Insigniores [l5 October 1976], 6: AAS 69 [1977], 115).
.191. Paul VI, Discourse to the Committee for the
International Women's Year (18 April 1975): AAS 67 (1975), 266.
192. Propositio 47.
193. Ibid.
194. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic
Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 36.
195. John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris
Consortio 50: AAS 74 (1982), 141-142.
196. Propositio 46,
197. Propositio 47.
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