Church ‘failing in its mission’ by not reflecting female perspective

The Bishop of Derry has warned that the Church is “failing in its mission” by not reflecting the female perspective in its structures, while Baroness Nuala O’Loan has called for an amendment of Canon Law to allow women to participate in decision-making.

At a Mass to mark the quincentenary of St Teresa of Avila’s birth, Bishop Donal McKeown said “The Church has a huge job to do in learning to celebrate the male and female experience of the divine”.

Quoting Pope Francis’ words “that we have not yet come up with a profound theology of womanhood in the Church”, the bishop said “a Church without structures that reflect that diversity is failing in its mission”.

He said St Teresa, through her renewal movement with St John of the Cross, “showed how the distinctive male and female perspectives are complementary and enrich one another rather than being mutually exclusive”.

Ordination

Echoing the need for more female perspectives, Baroness Nuala O’Loan has called on the Church to separate decision-making from the issue of ordination to give women a more authoritive voice.

Writing in The Irish Catholic this week Mrs O’Loan said there can be “little doubt that the voice of women, their experience, is not utilised as it could and should be in the interests of the Church. Women can feel marginalised and excluded by this.”

She said separating power from the issue of who can be ordained could “give women a proper place in decision-making”.

“This would mean the amendment of Canon Law, and probably the removal of Canon 129, which allows lay people only to cooperate, not to participate in decision-making. This could be done. The priesthood could continue to be reserved to men, yet women could have a full role in decision-making,” she said.