. . . I expect a good deal more from [Pope] Francis than the friendly but still largely cosmetic changes he has instituted. Gradualists will disagree with me, but I think it is time for Catholics to grow up and realize that royalty does not become us. The Church is a service organization whose primary stakeholders are people who are poor. Their needs, and not the whims of pampered prelates, are the priority. Nothing less is acceptable. Raise the bar for heaven’s sake.
. . . [O]n things that enthusiasts say are different in the months since the new pope took office: they are not all that different. Take, for example, the washing of two women’s feet at the Holy Thursday celebration. Granted, one of them was Muslim, and granted, the current pope may not be one for grand gestures (in which case they all would have been women in retribution), but is the liturgical act of washing two women out of 12 in 2000 years really the sign of the ‘feministization’ of the Roman Catholic Church? Not by my lights.
Rather than washing feet, I suggest looking Catholic women in the eye and saying, “You are my sister, equal in every way to me,” and then changing structures accordingly. To atone for centuries of discrimination against women will take more than four clean female feet. I despair of those who say, “It is a start,” to which I respond, “Obviously, but how pitifully inadequate.” . . .
– Mary E. Hunt
"Pope Francis and the American Sisters"
Religion Dispatches
April 17, 2013
"Pope Francis and the American Sisters"
Religion Dispatches
April 17, 2013
Image: Michael J. Bayly.
I enjoy this blog much and this quote shows some of the frustration we feel with the church [of which many of us are a part of] YET also shows some shortsightedness. As to this is "not enough" comment...all change needs to be gradual. Yes ...he only washed 2 women's feet. But the question should perhaps be...why didn't Jesus do this? He chose 12 men to be his disciples. I am not suggesting that Jesus chose 12 men to signal an inherent superiority or specialness....but perhaps because we men need more "special" attention to "get" the message. Yet Jesus modeled for them and for all his disciples a new way of living and a new way of relating-one based on real equality.
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