We are no longer hunting the Sabre-tooth Tiger...
(or Dancing with Jurassic Males!)

The problem faced by lay organizations of Catholic Christians is how to translate objectives, practices and traditions, that were once 'tried and true' and functioned well in previous generations, into something valid and authentic in a so-called 'postmodern', culture.

Redressing gender discrimination...

First of all, we need to recognize that women are half of the Church, and they have yet to receive true recognition. This issue is much greater than 'should we have women priests?'

It must be central to Catholic discussions.

The church structures are dominated by male celibates, but why should lay organizations follow suit?

Many barriers still need to come down.

I attended recently a gathering of male Catholic laity. Predictably, the wives 'went on tour'. The keynote speaker was a male. There was one female speaker, promoting World Youth Day, and she was enthusiastically received. I am not accusing the organizers of male chauvinism, but we need to recognize the reality that men like listening to men. It's going to be hard to break the pattern.

Women have been Christian empresses to convert European nations, abbesses who gave their lives, philanthropists, saints, champions of social justice like Caroline Chisholm.

Read Frederic Ozanam's history and wonder!

Paintings of women adorn our ancient ecclesial walls with considerable honour.

I asked Ian Elmer how we can discover their ancient titles and resurrect them.

Ian replied:

"I am not sure if there was a specific, ancient title and position for women leaders in the early Church. There is, as you rightly point out, plenty of evidence that women did play a significant role as leaders and also presidents at the Eucharistic table."

"As we noted in an early thread on the subject, there were certainly women present at the Last Supper, including I suspect Jesus' mother and some of the female members of Jesus' family. Other women as well, especially Mary Magdalene, were also present. Jesus certainly included women in his retinue and they clearly played a role similar to the Twelve Apostles. With respect to Mary Magdalene, I have noted several times, that Magdala can mean "high tower". So just as Simon was nicknamed "Cephas" (Rock) because he was the seen as the foundations stone of the church (Matt 16:18), Mary may have been nicknamed "Magadalene" (Luke 8:2) because she came to be seen as a "tower of strength" within the early Jesus movement.

	St Prisca [Image Source: Catholica Caucus ]

"Paul presents us with our best evidence. Romans mentions Phoebe a "deacon" from Cenchreae (Rom 16:1) and also Prisca (your Priscilla) who, along with her husband, Aquila, are notable co-workers with Paul (Rom 16:3; cf. 1 Cor 16:19; 2 Tim 4:19; Acts 18:2, 18, 26) – and we can only wonder why the wife is always named first. We should not overlook Junia (Rom 16:7) who is both a relative of Paul and, amazingly, Paul calls her an "apostle". There are also Mary and the mother of Rufus, both prominent members of the Roman church (Rom 16:6, 13). We should not overlook Chloe, who was a "leader" of a church community in Corinth (1 Cor 1:11). Even the earliest Jerusalem church met in the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark (Acts 12:12).

"The evidence is overwhelming. Women played a significant role in the early Jesus movement, including fulfilling leadership roles. But did they possess any particular titles - we don't know. Phoebe alone has the more official title of Deacon. A couple of years back the then Cardinal Ratzinger raised the issue of female deacons. This could be a good first step. Certainly it has the benefit of at least recreating one office that was open to women, which all parties cannot deny.

"I have spoken elsewhere about my suspicion that the renewal of the permanent deaconate will no doubt have a profound effect on the shape ministry in the future Australian church. I think the same could be said if we were to raise women to the office of deacon, along with the married men we are already calling to this office. It must be remembered that this was how the Anglican communion first introduced women to the ordained ministry. Perhaps the lobby should shift its focus from women priests to women deacons. One step at a time! "

Recently the blessing of a lay woman (not a nun) as a 'consecrated virgin' was hailed as a model of faith. I have to ask whether this is applied to males. The woman could not have been consecrated if she had ever had a sexual experience. I shuddered because there was a connotation of old thinking that sex is bad, and women are either tempters or seedbeds.I think of those who were treated as scarlet women while men escaped scot free or with a brief rebuke and forgiveness because they had succumbed to female temptresses.

The virgin, aged 42, told the press: 'Dating wasn't working. I wasn't connecting,' she said. 'Not that I never wanted to be married or never wanted children.'

I hate to rain on the parade, but was she offering the Lord a gift that men had rejected? By this I do not mock her obvious holiness or the honour bestowed on her.

In lay organizations we need to start addressing some hard questions.

Is this, in Australia, the age of affluence or of the dysfunctional family? Where does power lie? Is this the Church of the Land of the Fair Go? When we talk of 'advancement of Australia' does that include women and children – families? Or are they being sacrificed on the Altar of the Economy? We have ten years to save a dying planet. Will our children be playing video games when we enter the beginning of the final, fatal stage? Will we leave them the legacy of Homo Putrescens – Polluted Man?

The lay organizations find themselves like the ancient Roman 'god' Janus. They look both back and to the future.

I have seen an ancient statue of him, with two heads, one looks to the future and another to the past as the New Year begins. Janus should be scratching his head(s); January is a difficult month. Lay organizations are at a similar turning point. They are facing a crisis, but this may prove to be a positive thing. In Greek the word means a division, the separation of wheat and chaff, sheep and goats.

Looking backwards is an experience that may be filled with happy memory, but also nostalgia, which means the pain of remembrance, for things perceived as lost. The sensation of loss, however, overlooks the reality that we, as individuals and as a Church, are the sum of our lived experiences, our heritage. Nothing goes to waste. That old teacher, that wise priest or relative still lives in our mind, our subconscious, our character. Were they correct all the time? We must decide.

What would our ancestors, our mentors, say to families that have become merely 'people living at the same address' eating takeaways and playing video games or other distractions?

A problem for 'nostalgics' is that they may recreate in their dreaming a past that never existed, a utopian world, of white picket fences and lawn tennis, of solidarity and perfect families, of noble clerics and devout congregations. Reverend Father, like Dad, was never a bully, and how we recall with reverence his stern countenance! So, we can be inaccurate, with the best of intentions, to our individual and collective past. The past is another country…

What is clear, however, is that in 'old' Australia most Catholic families were, more or less, on an equal economic footing. The teacher, the labourer, the bank clerk, the shop assistant, the salesman, even the bank manager did not have great disparity in annual earnings. A few people, doctors, solicitors and the like, were at the top, but even they were not that much ahead of other Australians.

	Television was yet to come... [Image Source: www.hardroad.org]

After World War II, most Australian homes had only one electric power point, because there was nothing, apart from a radio or other device, to plug into it. Groceries were ordered from a store retailing in bulk, and delivered, like the bread and milk, to the home. The supermarket, the new car, the refrigerator, washing machine, the water heater were yet to come, like women working and contributing to the payment for new goodies. It was the time of the boiling clothes in the copper, and the woodchip bath heater on Sunday night after prayer.

Gaining the Intermediate Certificate and an apprenticeship or other paid training was enough to ensure the eventual and early ability to marry and raise a family. In 1949 it was still possible to yell at the boss and walk out into another immediate job.

Universities were generally regarded as the province of the rich or the gifted. Trade unions were not successfully demonized and provided an element of security and solidarity. More women began going to work, but because they wanted to, not because it was a necessity.

Importation of trained labour from overseas, many of them Catholics from non-Irish traditions, changed work conditions, and consumerism added new force for a capitalism eager to serve a hungry market.

'Old Australia' Catholicism where one went to Mass, joined the union, voted Labor, joined a catholic solidarity, and married the girl one met at tennis or a parish dance, was changing. Previously priests, to whom home visitation was an essential, were by comparison better educated than those they served. The word of bishops struck a chord in every home.

The Church resisted the entry of politics into its realm, but it was unafraid, like Archbishop Daniel Mannix, to thunder against politicians.

The Labor 'split', however, brought to the church in Australia intellectual civil war, which was only stopped by the intervention of Rome. We are still paying the price of that conflict. The dreams of settling Catholic families on the land, or of cooperative ventures, was never realized. The Catholic Worker movement was no longer in the front row. Father fought son, and brother fought brother. Yet this was the 'golden age' some would revere.

I was not a Catholic at that time, but I recall my distress at seeing ordinary families which to me had been role models of piety and morality, torn apart by dissension.

'Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold,' as Yeats wrote. The good all lack conviction; the worst are full of passionate intensity.

We turn to our own time...

Many people have taken a theology degree and can argue with their priest or their bishop. The Internet enables them to exchange information in an instant. The Pope's latest speech is the topic of immediate debate. Politicians who were Catholic have become 'Catholic politicians' eager to demonstrate their orthodoxy. Knee-jerk reactions on matters such as abortion, birth control, homosexuality are food and drink to them.

Not only has discrimination vanished, but Catholics have become an unheard of force in the Liberal and National parties – something that would have astonished their grandparents. The Irish wharf laborer's grandson is now a 'silk' at the bar.

	Signs of the Times [Image Source: www.urbandigs.com]

Grandma once took in washing to make ends meet, but granddaughter is on her way to Brussels. The old family house might now be worth a lot, but how can children save up for a deposit?. The new Catholic generation, however, find that buying a house requires an enormous mortgage requiring husband and wife working at a minimum of two, perhaps three, jobs with one point three children in child care. Preaching Humanae Vitae to them sometimes falls on deaf ears, as much as 'vote Labor, join the union'.

In this postmodern period, where one opinion's as good as another, it is understandable that some crave return to 'good old-fashioned values'. To them I would say we need to improve old values that were good, and discard others.

Otherwise we are like a tribe that once successfully sharpened a stick to kill the sabre-tooth tiger and now tries to use it against an armoured personnel carrier.

Rising interest rates for young mortgage slaves, deregulated labour market, ruthless use of casual labour, exploitation of consumerism, false patriotism and racial discrimination and religious bigotry, employment practices that hinder family life and having babies – these are our new 'tigers'.

The last thing we need is for politics to enter into the Church and divide the people of God. All lay organizations need to be on guard against this menace to diversity and unity. Mutual respect is an essential quality, along with camaraderie — a sense of 'belonging'.

Leaders need to be unafraid to speak up about social evils that derive from an unfair structure that creates grossly inequitable wealth distribution on one hand and mindless credit card consumerism on the other.

What needs to be recovered is a sense of the 'common good' and resistance to selfish individualism nourished by materialism. Good advice is needed, however, because if the buy-buy-buy mania ceases we are confronted by stagflation and an economic depression.

The value of human labour needs to be restored. Long hours, unpaid overtime, lack of human rights in the workplace, insufficient maternity leave, excessive rentals, unfair workplace agreements – they need to be on the social agenda of Catholic lay organizations as they are enemies of family life, indeed of the Catholic faith practice.

Some random thoughts...

Abortion? Make it undesirable, unnecessary.

Birth control? Make it easier to raise a family.

Drug and alcohol addiction? Stop the stresses that make our cities and businesses zoos.

Teenage irresponsibility? Give them jobs that provide payment while in training.

Skills? Make our universities free and stop education being an export commodity.

Refugees? Stop detaining them.

Terrorism? Oppose military terror as an international political solution.

Ill-health? Prescribe a paid holiday.

Homelessness? Set people free from the banks by forming cooperatives to build more houses.

Poverty? Create fair wealth distribution.

Worship? Make lay people feel that they belong, have a voice. Recover a sense of the sacred and mystery.

Women? Let them assume greater leadership roles.

Children? Create a better environment for them in their critical first three years and improve infant and primary school education..

Sooner or later lay organizations will come to the conclusion that the structure around them needs to be changed towards a Fairer Australia. We are a product of our environment, inside and outside the Church. We need to work together. This will require interaction between organizations. Is this happening?

If you are active in a lay organization, or a leader, I'd like to hear your viewpoint. Easy for me to point a problem — what are the answers? What do lay women have to say, what are the views of young people? Catholica should find out.

Cliff

Email this article to a friend	Post your feedback in our forum

Cliff Baxter can be contacted at:
Cliff Baxter <cliffbaxter@catholica.com.au>

©2006 Clifford Baxter

[Cliff's Take Archive]