18 March 2021, The Tablet

Topic of the week: What future for Catholic women?

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It was refreshing to be part of your wonderful International Women’s Day webinar on 8 March on the topic “Do women have a future in the Catholic Church?” Expertly chaired by Liz Dodd, and with 297 Zoom participants, it made clear that many of your readership are very concerned with the future of women.

As we begin to come out of the pandemic, it is evident that many women have paid a high price in caring, loss of income and loss of health. Yet there is still a deafening silence in the Catholic Church about equality, as evidenced by the one token woman, Sr Nathalie Becquart, who will be able to vote at the next synod.

Joanna Moorhead commented wisely on the webinar that we have the span of a generation to achieve equality in the Church. Our daughters may be hanging on, but in a generation, women will have walked away, losing the many gifts of the Catholic faith, but refusing to put up with the glaring inequalities.

As Mary McAleese commented on a Zoom webinar organised by Voices of Faith: “God grant us the courage to take a crowbar to the guardian angel of passivity!” Time to pick up our crowbars, sisters and brothers, in the name of equality in our Church, or the future of women in the Catholic Church really is in doubt.

Katharine Salmon
Sheffield

Thirty years ago, when I believed that all that was needed for people to act justly was enlightenment, we ran events in our parish to think and talk about the issue of inclusive language in the liturgy. Now older and wiser, I have prayed for patience as I wait for enlightenment in the patriarchy of the Church.

I think Liz Dodd (Column, 6 March) is overly generous to suggest that the problem of the ESV’s exclusion of women didn’t cross the bishops’ minds.

The bishop in my diocese has received and responded to at least one letter on the subject, since he is the chair of the spirituality committee which is part of the department for Christian life and worship. He assured me that the issue would be discussed at the bishops’ conference in 2017.

The introduction of this exclusive-language translation to the lectionary therefore leads me to conclude that stronger measures than debate are required. The outcome of my Lenten reflections is this: at a time when churches have greatly reduced income due to the pandemic, I am giving up contributing to the upkeep of the church. I have resolved to no longer contribute financially to my own oppression. I see it as part of turning market forces into a force for good, as Pope Francis urges. 

(Dr) Fionnuala Frances
Sheffield

Why do we need a new Bible translation, especially at this difficult time and when many parishes are struggling financially? Wouldn’t the bishops be better employed dealing with more pastoral matters?

Pope Francis would despair after all his encouragement to work with synodality. We are the Church, as Liz Dodd rightly says. Will they never understand this?

Clare Owens
Yateley, Hampshire

Streamed absolution
As the anniversary of the Covid shutdown arrives we mark a whole year when many people have been unable or unwilling to physically assist at Mass or celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation, Confession. May I make a plea, on behalf of the vast majority of Catholics who have been unable to celebrate this Sacrament, for faculties to be granted for general absolution?

Having recently retired as a parish priest I know how difficult many priests find it to hear Confessions. Initially I thought the pandemic would last a matter of weeks and that we would “catch up” on Confessions near or after
Easter 2020!

Apparently celebrating the Sacrament over the phone is not allowed. I have brought up the possibility of streaming general absolution. That was deemed not possible since it would require the physical presence of the penitents
and Covid restrictions prevented that happening due to the very limited number of “places” available in any church under the requirements of distancing, and also this was not a war situation.

Fighting this dreadful virus is a war situation. Surely the time has come this Lent 2021 for this great healing Sacrament given us by the Lord as a gift to his Church, to be celebrated through the means of streaming.

(Canon) Robert Plourde
London N20

Learning the faith
I agree with Melanie McDonagh (Notebook, 13 March). Brought up in a devout evangelical home, and knowing Scripture (the Authorised Version, of course) well, I was received into the Church in 1977. My instruction, before the days of RCIA, was individual, concentrating much on Vatican II and teaching on the Church and the Sacraments. 

I was thrilled, in 1980, to become deputy head in a Catholic upper school. I was given year 9 and year 10 Religious Education classes, using Irish textbooks. I remember little of them, but Jonathan Seagull figured, as did questions such as, “Would you like to write a prayer?” They wouldn’t! In fact, amidst local unemployment, pupils suggested that their time would be better spent on subjects that might help them to get a job. In the light of the slight course content, I could sympathise.

Since 2005 I have spent much time in Uganda. Students I met, both at minor seminaries and schools run by Sisters, are still almost all practising. They were prepared for the Sacraments by catechists using what we would call the Penny Catechism.

My parish priest, like Melanie’s, is Indian; his homilies display extensive knowledge of both Old and New Testament Scripture. As people have started to return to Mass recently, I have noticed elderly parishioners, and very many young adults from backgrounds where they too were taught using the Catechism. I do not support extensive rote learning, but I do wonder if there is a group of Catholics who are still streaming Masses because they never learned the wonderful truths about the Eucharist. I cannot understand how one can watch online if it is possible to receive Our Lord himself. 

Is there a need for some strategy to ensure that all know the fullness of our wonderful faith?

(Prof.) Jean M. Johnson 
Ipswich, Suffolk

European solidarity
I am deeply grateful to Giles Mercer (Letters, 13 March) for his excellent exposition of the disastrous effects of Brexit. I especially liked his words “The advantages of EU membership were never only economic, but to do with solidarity at many levels.” In his famous “Declaration” of 9 May 1950, Robert Schuman, a man of strong Christian faith with a deep love of humanity, expressed his vision of a closely United Europe as an instrument of justice and peace on earth.

I have been a committed European since my schooldays in Windsor in the 1960s and I have lived in Belgium, France, Holland and Italy, as well as England, Wales, Scotland and, for the longest unbroken period of my life (30 years), Northern Ireland. I would dearly like an Irish passport in order to maintain my European identity, but because I wasn’t born on the island of Ireland I am not entitled to one. In my view Brexit is the greatest disaster to hit the UK since the Second World War.

Paul Symonds
Newtownabbey, Co. Antrim

Historic abuse
I was very encouraged by Tom Heneghan’s report on the independent investigation into sexual abuse in the French Catholic Church (Church in the World, 13 March).

Understanding the extent of abuse is the first step in gaining the confidence of victims and survivors. Unfortunately the Church in England and Wales has not shown the same enthusiasm as in France. I presented a paper to the then National Catholic Safeguarding Commission in December 2017 which attempted to estimate the number of perpetrators who used the Church as cover, utilising established levels in Ireland, Australia and the US. The paper was considered in the confidential section of the meeting but did not garner any further support from other members of the commission.

Victims and survivors will have more faith in the system if the Church can show that it has fully addressed previous abuse.

Stephen Spear
Derby

Lost siblings
Unsurprisingly, being in my mid eighties, I have recently lost a sister, the fifth sibling to predecease me. Happily, I still have one sister, a late arrival in our family.

When families pass the presbytery gate it is rare to see one with three children. A young woman on television who had lost her sister to Covid lamented: “Who am I going to talk to now?” Recently concern has been expressed that approaching half of women under 30 do not have a child. Also, it was reported that three and a quarter million children in the UK do not have a sibling.

These reflections have come to mind following the death of a priest colleague who had expressed so-called “loyal dissent” to Humanae Vitae. This encyclical explained and reaffirmed the Church’s teaching on sexual morality. It reminds us of the Catholic view of children as a rich blessing and is a teaching that binds us in conscience.

Dear Pa and Ma, pray for us.

(Fr) Kevin St Aubyn
Whitstable, Kent

Christians in Iraq
While I rejoiced in the Pope’s visit to my old country, Iraq, I wonder if it will make any difference to the lot of the persecuted Christians there.

Yes, Francis met Sistani, who declared that Christians should have the same rights as everyone else, but will the Christian community now be left alone to live and worship in peace? Will the Shia militias in the Nineveh plains stop threatening them? Will their stolen houses and properties be given back to them? And will they feel respected enough so as not to look abroad where they can live more honourably?

We can only pray and live in hope.
(DR) JOSEPH SEFERTA
SUTTON COLDFIELD, WEST MIDLANDS

Prince of self-pity
I think Prince Harry should follow the example of his grandmother the Queen – less self-pity, less self-help, more self-discipline. He and his family live in a $14m mansion with seven – or was it nine? – bathrooms. What more could you possibly want in life? Forgive me, but having been raised in an Irish family of 10 in Northern Ireland, I’m sorry, I just don’t get it.

(Fr) Paul O’Connell
Douglas, Georgia, USA

Your editorial on the current troubles of the monarchy (“A future in doubt”, 13 March) speaks of this country’s “long slow drift towards republicanism”. Perhaps by coincidence, Patrick Marnham’s article the previous week headlined “France’s gang of four” – four political leaders in the French Republic all on trial for criminal offences – offers a warning to those seeking the end of the monarchy. Better the devil you know?

Margaret Smart
Brighton