The Alliance of Dissent
Chapter Nine
Feminism and Beyond. Late Developments.
The story of the rise of the Catholic Feminist movement in this country has
already been covered in The Enemy Within. For those who have not read
this book I will give an outline of the developments in the 1980’s in this
country and try and give some late information which has come in since the
original book was published.
We have already seen briefly that (Oliver and Ianthe) Pratt were involved in
the Feminist movement in this country quite early on. In England the first
significant development was a ‘Women’s Liberation Movement Conference’
held in 1970. The international network started in 1974 with the formation
of ISIS. ISIS describes itself as “A resource and documentation centre in
the international feminist women’s liberation movement.” (described as
such in 1977 by the IFN). The headquarters are in Rome and very
significantly at the same address as the notorious IDOC organisation. The
work of ISIS is basically to co-ordinate the world wide activities of other
feminist organisations through the medium of the IFN (The International
Feminist Network) set up in 1976. The IFN publishes bulletins which give
the key contact names and organisations in various countries. Their l984
resource book lists two addresses in England, those of the Pratt’s and
Winkley’s. (Austin Winkley was a former IDOC member and member of the
first Laity Commission but now the main thrust is from his wife Lala).
Amongst the activities of ISIS is the promotion of the International
Contraception and Abortion campaign.
One of the leading figures in the Women’s liberation movement in this
country was the (non-Catholic) Una Kroll. She ran an organisation called
the Christian Parity Group and since 1978 she co-ordinated the struggle for
the ordination of women to the priesthood in the Church of England through
the ‘Movement for the ordination of Women’. Her work came to a
successful fruition with the synod vote in 1992. But she also wrote (in the
book Agenda for Prophets p.26) 1 that “we participated in setting up the
Christian Women’s Information and Resource Centre”. This centre was
based on the Dominican House of studies at Oxford, Blackfriars. It was
closely linked with the South London Centre run by the Pratts and was an
information centre.
Una Kroll also wrote in the book “We are also linked in the struggle for the
human rights of homosexuals, bisexuals and transsexuals”. When
COSPEC was launched a trustee of CWIRES, Jo Garcia gave the name of
two organisations providing information, her own CWIRES and also The
Christian Feminist Newsletter run by Lala Winkley. Her programme was
forthright.
“We are angry, we won’t go away, we want self-determination...about
sexuality and family life, economics, power, authority...we will be
handmaids no longer...”.
We have already looked at COSPEC. In 1981 its contact centres were
announced and included Lumen Books based at Oliver Pratt’s Dulwich
address. This organisation exists to this day to import and sell books on
feminism, by feminists, about feminists and more recently New Age
Theology and the works of Matthew Fox.
By 1981 the Pratt empire of organisations was nearly complete. For the
record this was the state of play.
The Pastoral Development Group
The Catholic Renewal Movement
The Newman Association Family and Theology Committees
The Dulwich or South London Resource Centre
Lumen Religious Books (COSPEC centre)
St. Joan’s International Alliance
ONE for Christian Renewal
All these were controlled by or closely connected with Court Lane, Dulwich.
Later on two further organisations were added.
The Catholic Women’s Network
The Association for Inclusive Language
Also for the record here are the starting dates of other organisations closely
connected with the Feminist movement in one way or another.
Lumen Books 1972
Christian Parity Group (Kroll) l972
ISIS 1974
IFN 1976
Homosexual and Gay Christian Movement 1976
Movement for the Ordination of Married Men
(which also backed women’s ordination) 1977
Roman Catholic Feminists 1977
CWIRES 1978 (Oxford)
Movement for the Ordination of Women (1978)
Feminist Theology Project 1979
Catholic Lesbian Sisterhood 1979
Catholic Women’s Network 1984
Today (1993) the Catholic Women’s Network has the centre stage in
Catholic Circles. It has promoted the more extreme Catholic Lesbian
Sisterhood. For instance in 1990 it organised a lecture jointly with the CLS
at which the American Mary Hunt spoke. She described herself as ‘A
Lesbian, Feminist Theologian’.
We need to examine how the CWN started up and look at some of its
activities. It is today the most important movement in this country
connected with the spread of Catholic Feminism.
The Catholic Women’s Network was set up in 1984 by members of the
older organisation, the St. Joan’s International Alliance. The inaugural
meeting was held at St. Mary’s Teacher Training College and the key
speaker was Rosemary Radford Reuther. The new body had a much wider
appeal than the old St. Joan’s Alliance. The latter was almost moribund
and in 1990 only listed 44 active members. In spite of this it managed in
1984 to be listed as an official Catholic organisation in the National Catholic
Directory. The organisations listed here were then stated to be ‘With
Ecclesiastical Authorization’. The wording was changed in the 1988
directory (onwards) to ‘With Ecclesiastical Approval’. The Pastoral
Development Group had entered the Directory in 1983 and remains there
to this day. The CWN entered the ranks in 1990. Earlier than that however
it had made its mark on the all important body ‘The National Board of
Catholic Women’. This is an umbrella organisation set up by the Bishops
Conference to group together the main Catholic women’s organisations in
this country and to act as a reference point when seeking the views of
Catholic women.
The CWN started off by appointing its own ‘Core Group’. (This is the
feminist equivalent of an executive committee). Early members of the Core
Group included Jenny Bond who was personal assistant to Mgr. Vincent
Nichols, general secretary to the Bishop’s Conference, (now Archbishop
Nichols). Another member was Sister Elizabeth Lord of Heythrop College.
Both resigned from the Core Group for “pressure of work” reasons.
However they remained closely linked with the CWN.
In 1986 Sister Elizabeth Lord provided a major input into a document
entitled Listen Bishop. She proposed ‘Basic Christian Communities’ which
would allow for new forms of ‘Liturgy’, also ‘Consciousness Raising’ and
‘Understanding of Fear and Power’. This report was compiled by the CWN
and the report concludes by naming those chiefly responsible for its
compilation.
“Special thanks are due to Lala Winkley for orchestrating the process
Listen Bishop, to Alexina Murphy for her hours of organising and to Jenny
Bond for her expertise in knowing how to express the wishes of the CWN in
the final document”.
The report of this document was presented by Ms Vikki Cosstick, then
Adult Religious Education for the Diocese of Southwark.
In 1987 Jenny Bond with three other members approached the Bishop’s
Conference to see if the bishops would agree to a ‘Woman’s Committee’
being attached to the Conference officially. This led to the admission of
both the SJIA and the CWN to the existing ‘National Board of Catholic
Women’. They were formally admitted in 1988 although at that time the
CWN had not even finalised its constitution. Indeed the constitution was
still not ready in November 1989 although member organisations of the
NBCW are required to have a proper constitution. Certain key members of
the CWN are also to be found in the inner circle of the Pastoral
Development Group (1989 list). Ianthe Pratt, Anne Leeming (membership
secretary CWN) and Sister Myra Poole SND, former head teacher of Notre
Dame School, Southwark and a keen supporter of “Women Church”. The
1993 Catholic Directory lists Anne Leeming as the Hon. Secretary of the
National Board of Catholic Women.
Behind the feminist network lies a co-ordinating body known as the
Women’s Ad Hoc Group. The first meeting was held on 23rd January l987
and was reported in The Tablet. Twenty five ladies were present including
Kathie Walsh, Ianthe Pratt, Alexina Murphy, Vikki Cosstick, Jenny Bond
and Sister Lavinia Byrne. The last named person although not a member
of CWN, is a frequent speaker at feminist events. It must be said that she
is a very good speaker too. She lectures at Heythrop and has recently
joined the Council of Churches Together to run their ‘Men and Women in
the Church’ Committee.
It was this first meeting in 1987 which arranged for the appeal to the
Hierarchy for a ‘Women’s Committee’ to be set up. (The appeal was made
by Vikki, Jenny, Lavinia and Kathie). Another decision formulated at this
meeting was that they should start up ‘The Association for Inclusive
Language in the Liturgy’. It was agreed that this should be run by Ianthe
Pratt alongside the other organisations operating from Dulwich.
The Ad Hoc Group meets twice a year. In l989 they set up the ‘Association
of Pastoral Workers’ at the instigation of Vikki Cosstick. This organisation
exists to protect the “rights” of the growing number of lay people employed
as pastoral workers by different dioceses.
The Association for Inclusive Language produced an ‘Education Pack’ and
this was launched at a conference held at Notre Dame School, Southwark
(where Sister Myra Poole had been head mistress). The guest speaker
was the well known Irish theologian Enda McDonagh, who fifteen years
earlier had written the postscript to the PDG’s booklet Choices in Sex.
Their 1990 Newsletter claims that the administrative work of AIL is handled
by Lumen Religious Books (another Pratt organisation).
A spokesman (spokeswoman more correctly) for AIL said 2 “What we must
all recognise is that the coming generation of women is more confident and
better educated than women ever have been. Like it or not, they are the
post-liberation generation who have grown up with a positive self-image
and a strong female identity. The maleness of the Church in its power
structure and its priesthood already poses an obstacle to faith”.
The question has to be faced, “Does the Catholic feminist network of
organisations present a challenge to the authority of the Bishops in the
Catholic Church?” On two fronts the answer would appear to be a very
definite YES.
First of all the question of Eucharistic Worship. Home made liturgies have
long been a feature of the feminist movement but matters become more
serious when these liturgies replace the Mass in some way, or even
become intertwined with a Mass.
At the launch of the Association for Inclusive Liturgy, an ‘Experiential
Liturgy was used’. In 1988 also, the Catholic Renewal Movement attended
a Catholic People’s Week over the Easter period. The report given by SJIA
member Dora Turbin stated there was “no opposition to scrapping of the
official Easter liturgy”. The week was said to be “Exclusively concerned
with liturgy” and that each day the liturgies were “composed by members”.
Next year Catholic Peoples Weeks (CPW) organised their own Holy Week.
A report in the Tablet described how: 3
“Peter and Veronica (Seddon) had tried during the week, by using silences
and symbols to pull the groups away from relying on their verbal skills.
This bears fruit in liturgies involving mime, dance and actions which
conclude the Mass with the entire group bound, giggling hysterically, in a
skein of woollen threads and then in a round of enthusiastic hymn singing
which ends in spontaneous dancing and jiving to the music of the group’s
guitarist. True there is a sense of deliberate outrageousness to this glorious
alleluia but even that feels liberating to this group of people. Lala
(Winkley), a drama teacher, who on Thursday paired us off in a session of
school gym style, which highlighted our physical dependence on one
another, now coaches us in an exercise in choral speaking...”.
The following year (1990) the CWN organised their own Holy Week at
Harbourne Hall. The CWN newsletter report for June 1990 contains the
following descriptions of this event.
“A role play on the woman anointing Jesus’ feet. Our group had no Jesus.
‘I’m coming’, called Alexina (Murphy) from the other side of the room.
Anointing each other with scented oil... Weaving a web of different coloured
ribbons...the web is spread out on the floor when we gather for Holy
Thursday liturgy. We all join hands to bless the bread and wine before it is
shared. A roly poly session led by Lala Winkley. Women in bear hugs
rolling over and over again with much wild shrieking and giggling, women
on their hands and knees side by side, with another woman lying on their
gently swaying backs...Friday, the liturgy starts first thing in the morning in
the garden. If we see the earth as a symbol of God’s body, then God is
damaged through our destruction of the earth...we all have a Gospel to
proclaim, we share wine and tiny chocolate Easter eggs...we celebrate
death and new life...the empowerment that comes from devising our own
liturgies”.
One can only presume that these home made ‘liturgies’ replaced the official
services of the Church for the ladies who attended the course! The
emphasis on creating ‘Eucharistic liturgies’ is typical of radical feminists
who reject an ‘all male’ priesthood and who see liturgy as a means of
‘empowerment’. At the CWN retreat in that same year (1990) the report
read.
“...Next we reconstructed our own Eucharistic liturgy paying close attention
to the language and other issues we had discussed. This was completed
by the end of the afternoon, and we used this liturgy to celebrate the
Eucharist that evening.” 4
In the sphere of morals, the CWN has shown itself more than willing to
promote Catholic lesbians. Although the Catholic Lesbian Sisterhood is a
separate organisation, the CWN have encouraged its growth. The CWN
and the CLS have publicised each other’s events, organised joint
conferences and the CWN bulletin has published articles by women
claiming to be lesbian. For instance Jackie Piercey in an article described
herself as the co-ordinator of the Catholic Lesbian Sisterhood and said she
had come to see herself as “something of a professional Christian feminist
or as even more a speciality, as a professional Catholic lesbian.”. The
article was based on a talk she gave to the CWN 5 More recently in 1990
the CWN organised a lecture at St. James Piccadilly with the CLS. This
was addressed by an American Mary Hunt, whom the CWN newsletter
described as “A lesbian, feminist, theologian.”. In 1989 the CWN
newsletter announced that Sister Lavinia Byrne, no less, was to address
the CLS on ‘Developing Spirituality’. The CWN gave some prominence to
a talk given by Mary Hunt on “Women Church”.6
“The institutional church is increasingly distant from the true spiritual needs
of people, so that people who remain dependent on the institutional church
are often starved of the nurture that sustains spiritual life.”.
The organisation ‘Women Church’ referred to above originates in America
and was introduced into this country by radical feminists Sister Myra Poole
and Alexina Murphy. They set out to hold their own services for women
alone. They are in fact the most extreme of all the radical feminist
organisations and are virtually creating a new religion of their own making.
Cornelia Ferreira, an authority on radical feminism in American writes: 7
“Calling themselves ‘Women Church’, spiritual feminists re-wrote the Bible,
invented feminist theology and adopted the rites of paganism and witchcraft
for their liturgies.”.
Quoting from Rosemary Reuther, Ferreira continues:
“Now if you have a new theology, a new spirituality and your own Bible,
then you have a new religion...this is affirmed by Reuther who talks about
the ‘emerging feminist religion’ in her book Women Church.”
The mention of witchcraft leads conveniently on for us to note the links of
the feminists with Fr. Matthew Fox and his creation spirituality centre in
California. Lumen Religious Books lists several titles of works by Fr Fox
who has now been expelled from the Dominican order in their current
booklist. Fox employs a professional witch named Starhawk who
introduces those who take her course to the practice of ‘Wicca’ (an
upmarket word for old fashioned witchcraft). Creation spirituality appeals
particularly to feminists with its constant recall of ‘MOTHER Earth’. In
reality it is extremely dangerous. Fox denies any reality to original sin and
replaces the whole doctrine with his own speciality ‘Original Goodness’.
However, the purpose of this book is not to deal with Fr Fox’s views but
simply in this instance to indicate that they are followed up by Catholic
feminists.
The most extreme expression of Catholic feminism is the ‘Women Church’
movement. Its origins lie in the United States with the foundation of ‘Mary’s
Pence’. This is a fund by which those who prefer to support the needs of
women may contribute the money they would otherwise have put in
collection plates in churches. The funds raised are then used to support
the ‘Women Church’ movement. The new group was founded by
Rosemary Reuther and a few companions in 1986 and arrived in London in
1990. The bulletin of the CWN announced that “Starting on the 23rd
September 1990 and then on 28th October and 25th November, the fourth
Sunday of the month there will be a Women’s Church worship at 6.00pm at
Nightingale Lane, Clapham. All women, men and children are welcome.”.
The scheme was set up by Alexina Murphy and Sr Myra Poole of the CWN.
The address in Nightingale Lane was the convent where Sister Myra lived.
As at present constituted, Women Church is a separate organisation
designed as a haven for extreme feminists or those who feel themselves
alienated by their sex. Reuther believes that it will grow and grow and at
the same time a masculine radical church will grow alongside and
eventually they will fuse in a new world church which will replace the
outdated outmoded antiquarian hierarchical Catholic Church.
The reader will have noted many references to Rosemary Radford Reuther,
the American feminist. Her influence over here is considerable. Between
1984 and 1989 she came over here four times to speak to various
meetings.
In 1984 she was the main speaker at the launch of the Catholic Women’s
Network.
In 1986 she was the main speaker at Westminster Cathedral Hall on “Is
there a place for feminists in a Christian Church?”. In l988 she was the
chief speaker at the Catholic Renewal Movement Conference on the topic
“Crises and Challenges in the Church today”. In 1989 she spoke on
‘Women Church’ to a joint conference at Heythrop College on ‘Women in
Ministry’ designed apparently for ‘women within the structures’. This
Heythrop College event was attended by around 100 women and started
with the ‘Apple Blessing’. In Reuther’s speech she pointed out the “need to
reappropriate ministry from a clergy which had disempowered them by
making the Eucharist the central symbol of clerical power, the thing they
alone could do.”.
She remains to this day the most potent force in the so-called Catholic
Feminist movement in English speaking countries.
Another way in which the Catholic Feminist movement is spread is by way
of courses and lectures organised by Birkbeck College working in
conjunction with Heythrop. Birkbeck took over all the University of
London’s extra mural courses in 1988. Two of the extra-mural departments
there are heavily influenced by the Women’s Liberation Movement, i.e.
Women’s Studies and the Religious Studies departments. The 1990 to
1991 course booklet showed the Women’s Studies department running
seven courses with a lesbian bias including ‘Creative Writing for Lesbians’
and ‘Lesbian Issues’. Another course of some interest was entitled
‘Women’s Spirituality - Images of Women and the Goddess’ run by Angela
Solstice. The information provided stated that those attending would look
at “the symbolism of the goddess and the culture and skills of ancient and
more recent goddess orientated societies in different lands.”.
In 1989 to 1990 the extra-mural Christian religious studies courses were
run by two important members of the SJIA Diane Brewster and Kathie
Walsh (then the SJIA’s representative on the National Board of Catholic
Women). The three most blatantly feminist courses were held at Heythrop.
Seven of the ten courses were run by Walsh and Brewster individually or
jointly.
The importance of these extra-mural courses is that they provide a way by
which a BD degree in theology can be obtained by way of evening classes.
Once a person has obtained a diploma via these courses they are exempt
from the preliminary examination in Divinity (except for New Testament
Greek). They may proceed direct to the BD finals after passing the
examination in the preliminary stage.
Heythrop has also run several conferences for feminists and hosted
Rosemary Reuther in 1989 as seen above.
Chapter Ten
The Parallel Magisterium and the Feminist Movement
The Parallel Magisterium is a general name commonly given to certain
theologians in all countries who oppose the teaching authority of the
Church on certain matters and set themselves up as authoritative teachers
in place of the magisterium. This is a worldwide movement and its main
journal is the well known Concilium. IDOC had been responsible for the
launch of Concilium at the beginning. Quite early on, the future Cardinal
Ratzinger and Hans Urs von Balthasar dropped out when they saw the
direction articles were taking. They founded a counter magazine
Communio and the two journals exist to this day.
In this country the Parallel Magisterium started off with Slant and the
English committee of IDOC soon to be followed by the formation of the
Pastoral Development Group and all the other organisations that have
been looked at in this volume. The main unifying factor was their
opposition (continued to this day) to the Papal statement on birth control
‘Humanae Vitae’. Later the groups took to attacking other items of Church
teaching and more recently promoting feminist theology. One important
organisation not so far examined here is the ‘Catholic Theological
Association of Great Britain’. Membership is supposed to be limited to
those with degrees in theology, yet Oliver Pratt was certainly a member.
Membership is by invitation only and surprisingly it is NOT an official
Catholic organisation (not listed in the Catholic Directory). This is possibly
because there already exists a ‘Theology Committee of the Bishop’s
Conference’ and it might cause confusion if both were ‘official’. The
Association has some 200 members and many of them are quite sound but
it has been heavily infiltrated by members of the Parallel Magisterium.
There were 40 founder members in 1984 and these included the following
names (which may be familiar to readers already).
Nicholas Lash: (ex Fr) ex IDOC committee and the Editorial Board of
Concilium.
Ursula King: Advisory Committee for Feminist Theology on Concilium.
Brian Wicker: Well known writer, associated with Slant.
Dom Edmund Flood OSB: Editor of Living Parish Pamphlets, responsible
for production of tape on Communism by James Klugman.
Fr Herbert McCabe OP: Well known Dominican. Supported Class Warfare
in the book
Agenda for Prophets.
Margaret Hebblethwaite: Well known writer on feminist issues.
Michael Winter (ex Fr): Now working for Pax Christi. Author of several
books.
The other members of the original group are listed in Appendix L. In l985
the Bishops’ Conference started to publish the names of the members of its
various committees. One of these is the Theology Committee. There were
only five members in l985 but four of them were founder members of the
Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain, including Nicholas Lash.
Since then the membership of this committee has changed (as has the
membership of all the committees) but many of the members of the
Theological Association still serve on various committees of the
Conference. Indeed there is nothing surprising in this as after all one would
expect learned theologians to be well represented on important
committees. The problem of course is that being a learned theologian is no
guarantee of Catholic orthodoxy particularly in these days! The influence of
the feminists was already evident in the hierarchy by l984 following the
admission of the SJIA as a ‘National’ Catholic body. In their submission to
Rome for the extraordinary Synod of 1985 the Bishops wrote: 8
“There has been a failure to come to terms with the role of women in the
Church” and “There must be a concerted effort by the whole Church to be
open to the changing role of women which has many implications for the
life of the Church.”.
Since that declaration the feminist movement inside the Church in this
country has gone from strength to strength as we have shown.
Returning now to the general approach of the Parallel Magisterium, it can
be said that the declaration on artificial birth control (Humanae Vitae) in
l968 marked the quasi official start of the movement. That year a group of
dissident theologians based largely around Tubingen issued a declaration
of intent. This declaration was further clarified in l990 but just before that
declaration came a public clash with Rome. Many members of Concilium
plus around 150 leading European theologians signed a statement that
said that the Holy Father had “an intense fixation” on the issue of
contraception.
This led to a rebuke from L’Osservatore Romano that they were
contradicting the Church publicly and “leading the moral consciences of
couples into error.”.
This stung the theologians to form a ‘European Society of Catholic
Theology’ based at Tubingen claiming that theological scholarship requires
“Freedom of speech and freedom for constructive criticism.”.
The Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain was invited to appoint
one of its members to serve on the committee of the European association
and they chose their then president Nicholas Lash (already a leading
member of the Parallel Magisterium through his link with Concilium and his
earlier membership of IDOC).
The Vatican responded in June 1990 with its ‘Instruction on the
Ecclesiastical Vocation of the Theologian’. Theologians were told that if
they wish to disagree with the Magisterium they should go through normal
ecclesiastical and academic channels and not issue defiant declarations to
the Press.
In this country the secretary to the CTA (GB) brushed this aside saying “he
did not think the document had major implications for the theologians in this
country.”. In fact the British Association now enjoys the benefits of
corporate membership of the European Association.
In 1990 the Tubingen group produced their clarification of the 1968
document (referred to above). They wrote:
“We firmly uphold and affirm A teaching office of the Pope and Bishop, an
office which is under the word of God and which is there in the service of
the church and its proclamation. At the same time we know that this
pastoral office cannot and MUST NOT supersede, hamper and impede the
teaching task of the theologians as scholars...For that reason we expect
from the pastoral teaching office of the Pope and the Bishops that it will
trust as a matter of course our ‘sensus ecclesiae’, and that it will support
without any prejudice whatsoever our work as theologians for the welfare
and well being of the mankind in the Church and in the world.”.
Now this statement is about the most presumptious statement yet from the
‘alliance of dissent’ (Parallel Magisterium). Instead of THE Magisterium it
speaks only of A teaching office... As if there could be several! It then goes
on to the modernist position that the Church should not hamper progress in
theology and ends by saying effectively that the theologians are always
right (sensus Ecclesiae) and must be followed for the good of the Church!!!
In spite of all the statements emanating from Rome over the years since
l968, the dissenting theologians and their followers still have a strong hold
over our Bishops, a goodly presence on their committees, and virtual
control in matters pertaining to catechetics and seminary training.
As a result of the increased feminist activity since l984 radical women were
able to persuade the Hierarchy to set up a consultation process on the role
of women. The work was entrusted to the National Board of Catholic
Women at the very time when this organisation was being effectively taken
over by feminists. Initially a series of discussion papers were sent out and
then the results were collated and published as a document entitled ‘Do not
be Afraid’. Both before and after the publication of the document a series
of meetings were arranged in the different dioceses.
The author has had access to a very detailed report of the Southwark
Women’s Consultation Meeting of 13th June l991 and has had less detailed
reports of other meetings. Here we concentrate on the Southwark meeting.
The meeting was arranged by the radical Sister Myra Poole SND (in l993
leading the group pledged to work for the ordination of women to the
priesthood in the Catholic Church, and Alexina Murphy the equally radical
CWN committee person). It was held at Notre Dame School, Southwark
(Sr Myra was formerly head at this school).
The books on sale at the back were provided by the Christian Women
Resource Centre (Lumen Religious Books).
The panel consisted of:
Mary O’Shaughnessy, the president of NBCW.
Sr Myra Poole, SJIA, CWN, Women Church
Alexina Murphy, SJIA, CWN, Women Church
Sr Lavinia Byrne, (guest speaker)
Valerie Randall, Diocesan Laity Commission
Fiona Wynne, friend of Sr Lavinia, CWN core committee
Alexina introduced the meeting by saying that they had picked out all the
women’s groups from the Southwark Directory who were “to be consulted
and to move forward.”. They had arranged courses on the Old Testament
at the Southwark Christian Education Centre. (The course was on ‘Women
in Hebrew Scripture’ and each evening had its own liturgy). After a brief
introduction from Miss O’Shaughnessy, Sr Lavinia spoke. She said how
deeply moved she had been to read in the NBCW report about the woman
expecting twins and how it had made her realise how wonderful her own
body was. How the foundress of her order (Mary Ward) used to gaze into a
mirror and consider how wonderful she was. She described how her own
(French) grandmother had lived in Normandy at the same time as St
Theresa of Lisieux. She had asked her father if she could join a local
women’s suffrage group but that the grandfather had said NO very firmly.
She then related how St Theresa had said before she died that “if she were
a man she would be ordained” and implied that this meant that the Little
Flower was in favour of women’s ordination. (This is nonsense. What St
Therese was in fact saying was that the Priesthood was the greatest gift of
God to mankind).
Sr Lavinia then went on to deal with the ‘biology’ of women and to state that
recent research had shown that women were not passive and that Christian
Feminism must develop a new anthropology. This was important for all the
Churches. Women were now asking for ‘visibility’. They wished to be altar
servers...they too were icons of the Risen Christ. She then developed a
rather obscure point about particles which passed through a body that
touched only part of a person and then passed through others! As a result
“we were all part of each other”!! Finally she commended the English
Hierarchy on at last listening to the voice of women but demanded that they
(women) should have the right to involve women in the construction of the
ethical and sexual teaching they put forward.
The meeting then broke up into discussion groups which would report back
to the whole meeting. They were told to consider what practical steps
could be taken and what the priorities were and what it was hoped to
achieve over five years.
These groups produced a wide variety of ideas. All wanted more
recognition in the Church and a better relationship and understanding from
priests. They wished to be involved in the training of priests and they
should share much more in the role of running the Church.
Several groups put forward more radical proposals. Women altar servers
to start with, then women deacons with a view to women priests later. One
group wished to abolish seminaries and train priests within the community
(although this is officially opposed by Rome). Women should be able to
preach in Church (as should all the laity).
Sr Lavinia then gave her own conclusions. She pointed out the need for
adult education, women to do theology degrees, that priests felt de-skilled
today, that there was a demand to redefine the relation of the roles of men
and women, and that she had spoken to 10 Anglican Bishops on the topic.
In summary, the whole meeting had a very radical tone. The themes used
were exclusively those promoted in ‘Do not be Afraid’. In this document
there is a great deal on the need to develop the talents of women who are
(allegedly) just waiting to come forward and take part in the “decision
making processes of the Church”.
The question at the end of the day must be however, ‘To what extent does
a meeting like this really represent the views of women in the Catholic
Church in our country’? Those present were generally radical in outlook.
Do they represent more than 5% of the women who attend Church each
week? That must be very doubtful...so why do these women have so much
say?
Chapter Eleven
Latest Developments
In this chapter details will be given of late information which has been
provided and which brings up to date some of the topics discussed earlier.
First of all there is a little more information about Rosemary Radford
Reuther. This was published in the Newsletter of the Confraternity of
Catholic Clergy (USA) bulletin for January 1993. As early as 1964 she was
challenging Catholic teaching on contraception. In 1968 she proposed that
Catholic Revolutionaries should break away and form an autonomous
reformed Church of small communities with elected leaders linked by a
National Council to express the most advanced insights of contemporary
Catholicism. Before long she decided not to leave the Church but to stay in
to help the Church “towards a new future”. The new future would be the
establishment of ‘Women-Church’ groups and ‘covens’ to celebrate their
own rituals. She urges the formation of feminist spiritual communities for
liturgy for mutual support and spiritual growth. The group may combine
several traditions such as Christian, Jewish, Wiccan and Shamantic but if it
grows too large it should be subdivided into smaller circles. The right size
she tells us for a proper coven is thirteen!
Today she is a professor of applied theology at Garrett Evangelical
Seminary in Evanston, Illinois and a featured columnist in the ultra liberal
National Catholic Reporter. In a 1975 essay she admitted she rejected the
doctrine of the personal immortality of the soul and her other beliefs
include:
The Sacraments are merely symbols.
The Church should be de-clericalised.
Jesus Christ is not the second person of the Blessed Trinity
Nor is He the Messiah.
All masculinity regarding God must be rejected.
The name of God should be replaced with God/ess in all texts.
The Bible should be re-interpreted in the light of feminist sensitivities.
As the writer of the original article puts it she should be called ‘Julia the
Apostate’.
Next we can consider the reaction of the feminists in this country to the
news of the ordination of women in the Anglican Church. When the synod
vote was announced a group of CWN/SJIA ladies were there to applaud
the decision. Since then they have formed their own special organisation
to work for the ordination of women to the Catholic priesthood. This group
led mainly by Sister Myra Poole has been given publicity in the Catholic
and secular media. It has already organised three ‘vigils’ outside
Westminster Cathedral and these have been attended by some Catholic
priests in favour of women’s ordination. They have let it be known they are
NOT in favour of receiving converts from the Church of England on this
issue because it is ‘only a matter of time’ before the Catholic Church
ordains women.
In March 1993 Ianthe Pratt gave an interview to Lucy Lethbridge of the
Catholic Herald. She is reported as saying she was certain there would be
women priests. “I don’t believe you should deny someone something on
the grounds of biology”. She hopes for a mix of men and women, married
and celibates. In her interview she stressed the importance of language
(she was the founder of AIL) “The very body of language needs to be reevaluated. Words that indicate community do not have to be ‘man’ or
‘men’. They can be replaced by ‘humankind’. There are questions to be
asked about terms like ‘King, Lord, Judge and Fortress’ that stress the
control of the Godhead rather than the qualities of nurture and compassion.
AIL retranslates Psalm 8 vv 1 and 2 “Oh Lord, our Lord, How majestic is thy
name in all the earth” with “How great is your name our God through all the
earth.”.
Another feminist coup has been the appointment of Dr Mary Grey to be
senior professor of theology at Southampton University where she has the
potential power to validate theology degrees of students at St John’s
Seminary, Wonersh. Mary Grey studied at Louvain and Oxford where she
obtained a doctorate in Christian Feminist Theology. She lectured in
theology at St Mary’s, Stawberry Hill, and until her appointment to
Southampton was professor of Feminism and Christianity at the Catholic
University of Nijmegen. She was one of the founder members of the CWN.
Recently a centre for ‘Feminist Studies’ in Theology has opened in the
University of Manchester. The Tablet informed readers that the new centre
has inherited the archives of the old CWIRES at Oxford which has now
closed. (This organisation is referred to earlier in this work). The inaugural
lecture for the new centre was given by Dr Mary Grey who is reported as
saying that feminist theology bridges the gap between academic study and
ordinary human experience.
Earlier Dr Grey had given a talk to the National Retreat Movement 9 On
‘Women where are you? The search for women’s contribution to
spirituality’. In her talk she dealt with the task of feminist theology “Why
does Christianity exclude other resources? Why does it exclude pagan
mythology from its resources and act itself as an antithesis to paganism. In
what ways can we humbly, modestly work with these resources?” and “The
goddess movement coming from the United States is important because it
comes from the experience of women...”. “This can be considered from
two aspects. The movement of witches recalling the memory of witches in
the past. It is a search for the lost goddess from before the rise of
patriarchy dating from the 12th century BC.”. Her recommended reading
included the work by Reuther Women-Church, Mary the Feminist Face of
the Church and a work by Carol P Christ entitled Why Women Need the
Goddess.
One can only hope she does not visit Wonersh to lecture the students on
this type of hype.
On a different front, the Catholic Renewal Movement has just voted to
rename itself ‘Catholics for a Changing Church’. This is to avoid confusion
with the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. After the Anglican Synod,
members of the CRM gave unanimous support to a motion supporting the
Church of England’s move. The latest ‘Chair’ is John Challenor, former
Oratorian priest and one who opposed Humanae Vitae in 1968.
The charismatics continue much as before. A recent disciple is Bronwen
Astor. Writing in the Catholic Herald (22/l/1993) she describes a Mass held
at Arundel Catholic Cathedral by Fr Jozo from Medjugorje, “I will never
forget the look of utter astonishment on a young priest’s face as the women
in front whom he had barely touched keeled over ‘slain in the spirit’. Soon
people were falling quietly about everywhere.”.
Bronwen also featured as a keynote speaker at a conference organised by
the Bridge Trust through its ‘Christians awakening to the New Age Network’
at Regents College, London on 27/3/1993. Bronwen spoke on ‘The inner
journey - the path of psychotherapy’. Those attending the conference were
able to enjoy a choice of two experiential workshops (from 6 on offer).
These included:
‘Creation centred spirituality - connecting with earth energies’.
‘The Lord of the Dance - Stillness and Movement. Tuning in to the
Christ within’.
One of the joint chairmen was Fr Diarmuid O’Murchu, formerly of
NACCCAN.
A very recent development has been the setting up of a new organisation
for full time lay pastoral workers in regard to working practices and the
need to develop ‘common spirituality’. This is open to both men and
women but all the key names given in their first bulletin as core group or
contacts are women, among them Nikki Arthy, Jenny Bond and Vikki
Cosstick of CWN. Ostensibly operating rather as a trade union to protect
its members the evidence of the first issue (Oct. 1992) suggests the usual
modernist or feminist line:
“How can we as a group co-operate with the Holy Spirit to make the
rigid
Structure of today’s Church pliable to enable people to exercise their
own
authority based on religious experience, to build up the Kingdom?”.
On page 8 there is a long review of a book by an American Capuchin
Michael Crosby entitled The Dysfunctional Church. It is heavily critical of
the Vatican’s silence and secrecy. Finally there is a poem by Chuck
Lathrop entitled In Search of a Round Table in which he wishes to see
Churches redesigned in the round. He contrasts the narrow, long, crossshaped Church with a vision of a Round Church where the (former)
ministers (Priests) must themselves be “loved into roundness”.
“For God has called a People not ‘them and us’. Them and us are
unable to
gather round, for at a round table there are no sides and ALL are
invited to
wholeness and to food.”.
Moving on again, an interesting event took place at Chicago on 10/10/1992
when the diocesan annual ‘Jesus Day’ was held and given over entirely to
dissident theologians. Keynote speeches were given by Fr Richard
McBrien and Fr Andrew Greeley. But what was most surprising was that
the organisers called up both Dr Jack Dominian AND Dom Edmund Flood
OSB to attend. The theme of the meeting was ‘ Future Church - New
Image of Parish and Ministry’.
The organisation ‘Quest’ for Catholic homosexuals and lesbians is still
listed in the Catholic Directory for 1993 in spite of strong representations
made to the authorities. Our objection is based on the fact that their
prospectus invites members to consider ways of equating the teaching of
the Church with their own condition. The organisation envisages local
group meetings and will even provide sympathetic priests for house
Masses if desired. This is simply not in accord with Catholic teaching. At
their last AGM in July 1992, a row broke out over the words used by their
guest speaker Fr Michael O’Dowd, head of Moral Theology at Ushaw. He
was alleged to have called on the Church to invite homosexuals to form
stable partnerships and to extend full sacramental and social support to
such people. Fr O’Dowd said his words had been taken out of context and
misquoted. This is what he said as taken from a tape transcript 10
“If an individual is incapable because of his or her irreversible
homosexuality of entering into the covenant relationship of marriage, and
they do not believe they are called to celibacy, then they should be invited
by the Christian community to appropriate in their relationships those
qualities of fidelity and exclusiveness which characterise the manwoman relationship of marriage. The Church can understand this and
ought to respect such a decision made before God.”.
Finally some recent evidence from the KGB archives is very informative
when it comes to considering the possible infiltration of agents into the
Churches. Jane Ellis of Keston College had an article published in the
Tablet on 15/2/1993. She speaks of Fr Gleb Yakunin (a former prisoner of
conscience) and his work on the KGB archives. He uncovered the names
of those orthodox bishops who were in fact KGB agents and the
disclosures confirm the activity of the KGB in the World Council of
Churches and the Christian Peace Conference.
“A 1987 entry reads. Agent Potemkin took part in a session of the Central
Committee of the WCC. He obtained facts about the organisation’s
headquarters and forthcoming staff changes in the leadership of its
subdivisions.”.
Another extract for that year notes that a meeting of the CPC was attended
by 12 agents of State Security in the cause of adopting measures, attempts
at making provocative attacks on the Churches in the socialist countries
were neutralised, unprofitable (to the KGB) changes of staff were thwarted,
and politically advantageous concluding documents were obtained.
Another extract tells us that agent ‘Konstantin’ took part in a Lambeth
conference and provided information on ‘leaders of the subversive clerical
organisation Keston College’.
Just as this book goes to press, the Holy Father has issued his encyclical
letter Veritatis Splendor on the basic principles of moral theology and the
duties of moral theologians NOT to dissent from the teachings of the
magisterium on moral matters. This document could mark a crisis for
dissenting theologians.
Finally a new organisation has just appeared entitled ‘The People of God
Trust’ with the object of “The furtherance of the Christian Religion in the
Spirit of Vatican II and especially but not exclusively the encouragement
and support of lay initiatives”. The patrons include Prof Adrian Hastings,
Prof Hans Kung and Prof David Lodge. Together with ‘Catholics for a
Changing Church’ they put on a seminar in October 1993 at which the
speakers included feminist theologian Mary Grey and Bishop John Spong,
Episcopal Bishop of Newark, New Jersey. The latter makes our Bishop
Jenkins of Durham look like a die hard traditionalist!
‘Agenda for Prophets’ edited by Rex Amber and David Haslam, (available from
NACCCAN, Westhill College, Selly Oak, Birmingham. This is a series of essays which in
general promote an extreme left-wing viewpoint. A veritable handbook of the ChristianMarxist dialogue, Rev David Haslam (not a Catholic) is a member of the Bishop’s
Conference Committee for Community Relations (1993)
2 AIL Education Pack 1988 available from 36 Court Lane, Dulwich, SE.
3 Tablet Paul Vallelly 25th March 1989 in article ‘Holy Week Diary’.
4 CWN Newsletters June 1990.
5 Catholic Lesbian Sisterhood Newsletter l985. The CLS was set up in 1979.
6 CWN Report, June 1990. Report by Alexina Murphy. (In the Newsletter).
7 Cornelia Ferreira.
‘The Emerging Feminist Religion’ article in Homiletic and Pastoral
Review LXXXIX, May 1989. Reprinted in Christian Order, August 1989 on page
436.
See also Ferreira Feminism v Mankind 1990 ISBN 1 87127 07 5.
8 The wording of the submission is to be found in BRIEFINGS issue Nov-Dec 1985.
A special supplement. Among the ‘National Bodies’ that submitted material to the
Conference ahead of this report were no fewer than FOUR organisations controlled
by Pratt. The CRM, the PDG, the SJIA and the Newman Association Family
Committee.
9 Given in Signum, 28/3/1991
10 Catholic Pictorial, 19/7/1992
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