www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall More women leaders needed at the Vatican, says Cherie Blair

Shlomo Lkhoolkhoon,

After reading the following, I must say that I agree with Cherie Blair, which I also find suprising. I very much agree that more women are needed in leadership positions of the Church that do not call for ordained ministers.

For the record I am very much opposed to women being priests, but I think that like all of us, have great gifts to offer the Church.

Fush BaShlomo Lkhoolkhoon,
Yuhannon

More women leaders needed at the Vatican, says Cherie Blair

By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

ROME (CNS) -- The Catholic Church would benefit from having more women in senior-level positions at the Vatican, Cherie Blair said during a conference on the church's role in defending women's rights.

"Just as diversity between and within the sexes enriches human life and strengthens our civil society, so, too, I believe would it strengthen the church if we could see more women in leadership roles within it," she said.

Blair -- a lawyer who specializes in human rights and the wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair -- spoke Dec. 12 at a conference organized by Rome's Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, also known as the Angelicum.

Titled "Women and Human Rights," the one-day conference was held to mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Blair's participation in the church-sponsored conference had been criticized by some Web sites and prompted calls for the pontifical university to rescind her invitation to speak.

Sites critical of Blair, who is a Catholic, said she was a pro-abortion public figure who did not live out church teachings.

The Angelicum refused to cancel Blair's engagement despite receiving hundreds of complaints.

During a question and answer segment after giving her talk, Blair said she has been a practicing Catholic her whole life, adding "it would be rather strange if I didn't adhere to the teachings of the church."

In her speech she quoted Article 3 of the church's Charter of the Rights of the Family, which outlines a married couple's right to decide on the number of their children and spacing of their births while excluding the use of contraception, sterilization and abortion.

But she said she is "on record as having had difficulties with accepting the current teaching on responsible parenthood," presumably referring to the use of artificial contraception.

She spoke of "the wonderful surprise of becoming a mother again for the fourth time at the age of 45" and the keen sense of loss she felt when she miscarried a fifth child two years later.

The church "rightly makes a clear distinction between controlling fertility and terminating a life once conception has occurred," Blair said.

"There is a real danger in this debate if we align abortion and contraception as the same," she said.

The church "needs to engage in this issue properly," Blair said, because "the church has a strong moral message which deserves to be heard" and continues to evolve.

After Blair's talk, Dominican Father Bruce Williams, a professor of moral theology at the Angelicum, publicly offered an apology to Blair and said that after hearing her speech it was "crystal clear" the accusations against her were "rash and outright calumnious."

During her speech on the importance of basing human rights on natural law, Blair often cited Pope John Paul II's teachings on the essential richness of women and the importance of bringing women's special gifts to society.

Men and women are not the same, she said, but they have equal worth and should have equal opportunities.

"In fact, it's the very different qualities that women bring to the challenges in the world that makes it so vital we tackle discrimination between the genders" so that the great goals of peace and harmony in the world can be achieved, she said.

Blair said after there had been a large increase in the number of women holding seats in the British Parliament, greater attention and more government action were aimed at problems in education, child care and sexual violence against women.

Having more women in higher levels of the church would likewise result in "different priorities gaining the platform and that would be better for everyone," she said.

Also, Blair said, no one should underestimate the value of role models and high-profile public figures in inspiring and instilling confidence in young girls and women.

"With a little bit of imagination," the Vatican could try to fill half its curial posts with women and make "a huge change in the public face of the church," she said.


Blair's call was echoed by another conference speaker, Norwegian professor Janne Haaland Matlary, who is a member of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and a consultant to the Pontifical Council for the Family and who has served on several Vatican delegations at international conferences.

"The enormous female talent of the church," she said, should be used much more.

Many key positions within the Vatican do not require priestly ordination and could be filled by qualified women, she said.

Matlary also praised the kind and respectful treatment she said she has received throughout her years working with the church and the Vatican.

Catholic clergy "have a natural appreciation of motherhood," she said, which made it easier for her to put her family's needs first when working with the Vatican.

The church also appreciates intelligence, so whenever she discusses issues with clergy, she said, "I've always felt they are interested in what's in here -- in my brain."

While Matlary said she believed an increase in the number of women being appointed to Vatican posts will be a gradual, "evolutionary thing, it should also be pushed a bit."

Shlomo Brother Yuhannon,

What is preventing the Pope from lifting the requirement that Cardinals be Bishops - and appointing holy, orthodox, Catholic women (Mother Angelica) to the Cardinalate?

That would give women much more standing in the Church without ordination.. (plus, it would shut up the secular feminists who know nothing of the Church and Her teachings).

Michael I did not know that there were restrictions that required one to be a Bishop to be a Cardinal. Perhaps this is so in practice but its hardly a requirement.
One can be a lay Cardinal, priest Cardinal etc.
Stephanos I

But a female Cardinal?

The minimum requirement for promotion to the Cardinalate is that person be in the order of priesthood.

Section 1 of Canon 351 of the Latin Code of Canons clearly states:


The only exception to this rule has been the elevation of elderly priest-theologians (like the late Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J.) dispensed by the Pope from episcopal ordination.

Since women cannot be ordained priests, they are ineligble to become Cardinals.

Theoretically, a layman can be elected Pope but he cannot be made Cardinal! However, if one reads the provisions of Universi Dominici Gregis, the special law governing the election of the next Pope, it points back to the requirement that to be a papabile one must be at least a priest, who is required to be eligible for immediate episcopal ordination to assume the title of Bishop of Rome and, therefore, Supreme Pontiff, aka the Pope.

Amado

Father Stephanos:

Christ is in our midst!! HE is and always will be!!

It seems to me that Pope John Paul II stopped the practice of making laymen cardinals. If it wasn't him, it must have been Pope Paul VI. It has been a change since the Vatican Council from what I'm told.

In Christ,

BOB

Lay Cardinals seem to have departed the scene much earlier.

"Teodolfo Mertel, a lawyer and layman was named cardinal by Pope Pius IX in 1858. He was not a lay cardinal for long, as he received ordination to the diaconate the same year. When he died in 1899 he was the last non-priest cardinal.[2] (Giacomo Antonelli, who died in 1876 as Pius IX's Cardinal Secretary of State, remained a deacon when named cardinal in 1847.)

In 1968 Pope Paul VI seriously considered appointing the French Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain a lay cardinal."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lay_cardinal

Pope John XIII made all the Cardinals Bishops who were not already bishops in his time. A priest who had been in Rome during the council told me that Patriarch Maximos the IV was the cause of that. The priest said that in between sessions of the ocuncil the Patriarch had returned to Rome as something was bothering him about the ranks of the Cardinals and their role in the church. HB seemed to think the church at that level should be run by bishops and he had spotted that some of the Cardinals were not bishops. The story goes on that after HB saw the Pope, that within the week all Cardinals who were not bishops were ordained bishops.

My point is that there is nothing inherent in the Cardinalate that requires that a Cardinal be ordained. The Pope could today, if he willed so, remove that requirement and award the title to any layperson - man or woman. This title is not part of the Doctrine of the Faith, but an solely for the purpose of Church administration and order.

I don't get it ...

Why should women become Cardinals to have any official leadership position in the church ...
actually, why do they need an official position to become leaders?

If you ask me, those who work for the cause out of the cause itself- will shine and no one can stop or "promote" them.

Shlomo Eli,


I agree totally. Further, I would like to see more laity (both men and women). I am devoted to the Church, but I feel that I can best serve it as a layman. If asked I would gladly serve either my Patriarch or the Pope in what ever way they wish for me to do so.

We have many lay positions - such as lector, cantor, subdeacon, reader. etc. Most are open to both men and women and we should start using them again.

Fush BaShlomo,
Yuhannon

I think Mrs. Blair misses one important point of Vatican administration--indeed any Church administration.

The members of the Vatican Curia are all clergy, whether they be cardinals, archbishops, bishops, or priests. Each of these offices requires a man to be ordained and we have already affirmed in a strong way in 1994 that the Church cannot ordain women.

One of the most important points in understanding the relation of clergy to the Vatican administration centers on obedience: obedience to one's superiors. When the work of the administration requires that everyone keep his mouth shut, the obedience flowing out of ordiantion comes into play. Much as many priests of my acquaintance are bound to silence under obedience when they are informed that they will be transferred in two or three months time--so that they can make their arrangements with the mails, banks, etc.--so as not to disturb the normal running of the parishes they serve, so it is with matters under study at the Vatican, though at a higher level. Sometimes matters need to be kept under wraps. This is not to say that laymen cannot be trusted. It is to say that the similarity to licensed professional practice in the lay world is inherent here. Part of professional licensure is to have a social hold on practitioners--to hold them to standards of practice and ethics. The threat of loss of license is a powerful reminder that one is not entirely free to "do one's own thing." The threat of defrocking works the same way. But what would one have for laity in such high palces?

The Church administration is not a democracy or a social club where people ought to be able to float in and float out with no more hold on the members than their own sense of what ought to be or be done. In fact, this very idea that there ought to be people who can "blow the whistle" from inside is very often the underlying reason behind the case for more women in high places in the Church, whether it be in the Vatican or a diocesan administration. It's the "Power Model" of looking at the Church--something promoted by secular feminism in society and, sadly, leeched into the Church in the West.

BOB

Frankly I'm surprised if ' Mrs Blair 'actually used that name.

Here she is normally known by her professional name of Cherie Booth.

All her engagements , except when she was accompanying her husband in his official capacity as first MP and then PM , are in that name.

Did she actually say women to be made Cardinals or have readers here assumed that this is what she meant? There are women who are highly placed, such a as the lady mentioned from Norway, who advise on a range of topics.

She didn't suggest that women be made cardinals. And there is no reason a person, man or woman can't have a leadership role in the Catholic Church as a layperson.

The reason I suggested it was that this would silence the secular feminists who claim that women have no say in the "leadership"[i.e. who elects the next Pope] of the Church.