"Lettera aperta a Miriam IV, la successore di Pietro
e di Maria di Magdala"
in Luigi De Paoli and Luigi Sandri, eds., Lágenda del nuovo papa.
Dai cinque
continenti ipotesi sul dopo Wojtyla (Roma: Editori Riuniti, 2002), 115-140.
An Open Letter to Miriam IV, the Successor of Peter and Mary of Magdala
by: Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza
Dear Friend of Divine Wisdom,
When I was invited to write an article on “Feminism and the Papacy in the Third Millennium,” delineating the issues and problem which the newly elected successor of John Paul II would have to face, I was sure that I did not want to send you a lecture but to enter into a conversation with you. However, it took me a long time to find the proper way to address you: Holy Father, Your Holiness, Pontifex Maximus, Pater Patrum, Pope, Servus Servorum Dei, all these titles seemed not quite right. Among these traditional titles Servus Servorum Dei seemed to fit but when I remembered the many Philippina sisters working as unpaid servants of the “servants” of G*d in the hospitals and seminaries of the West, it also sounded hypocritical.
To indicate a different service from that of exploited labor I contemplated to choose the address “minister” - a title given by divine Wisdom to those sent out to proclaim Her good news and to invite all to Her open house and table. (Prov. 9:1-6) But this title referred to the non-ordained in post-Vatican II Roman Catholicism. Moreover, “minister” sounded too Protestant or reminded one too much of a political office such as e.g. Prime Minister. Equally arrogant seemed “Your Holiness!” After all the weighing and pondering of an appropriate address, I finally settled on friend, a name given in Scripture to the children of Divine Wisdom and to the followers of Jesus' vision of a world of justice and peace. I hope you will like it and make it your own: WisdomFriend, Miriam IV
Papa Feminista
Yet, after I had found an address satisfactory to the demands of etiquette and theological rhetoric, I was at a loss as to what I actually could say to you about the issues and problems you face as the first new Pope in the third millennium. Writing to you as a “friend” I became acutely aware of the pitfalls and dangers ahead of you. What could one hope for? Should I congratulate or commiserate with you, since being elected pope promises more a crown of thorns than a bed of roses? The best of the best would not be able to change an encrusted administrative system of mind-control and Euro-centrism such as the Vatican bureaucracy, an institution that has managed to again shut all the doors and windows which were opened only a little bit by Pope John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council.
Dominus – i.e. Lord, Emperor, Slave-master, Father - Jesus [i] and not the carpenter of Nazareth and fisherman from Galilee seems to be at the heart of the Roman Papalism that you have inherited. Remembering the threat of religious violence against theologians who have shown intellectual integrity, especially remembering the measures against those advocating the ordination of wo/men [ii] to the full office of priestly ministry as bishops, one may rightly and helplessly ask: what is a feminist pope to say? What could a good Catholic who is a feminist, do in such a retrograde situation?
When contemplating the most recent Vatican rhetoric and the cruel measures of the last papacy against liberation theologians and the faithful at large, the story of the Emperor who has no clothes comes to mind. The Emperor, so the story goes, paraded around without a shred of clothing. All bystanders pretended not to see. No one had the courage to tell the truth until a child in the assembled crowed cried out: “The emperor has no clothes!” This story has become in my view a fitting parable interpreting the desperate measures of the Vatican bureaucracy to keep the faithful from becoming fully responsible adult citizen of the church.
Those in the Vatican and beyond who are suffering from the fear of Dostojewski's Grand Inquisitor seem to desperately want to enforce legally what they cannot reason theologically. Lacking arguments kyriarchal (i.e. Lord, Slave-master, Father) government always has to resort to force. The means of censure and violence are familiar. Lacking the worldly power of the Lord to torture dissidents and to burn them on the stake, the Grand Inquisitors of today can only resort to the violent measures of silencing and exclusion. Facing the threat of religious violence against those advocating the ordination of wo/men to the full office of priestly ministry as bishops, [iii] many Catholic feminists have asked: why should we care at all about Roman Catholicism and its oppressive structures?
But despite the repression of the Vatican bureaucracy those like you who have been called to priestly ministry continued to act on this call, celebrating the Eucharist, serving the poor, teaching the young, blessing the hopeless, and building up the community. You did this not in order to show the hierarchy up but in order to serve the Catholic people. If you had just wanted to be ordained at any price and to join the clergy, there were plenty of churches that would have welcomed you and all those Catholic feminists who had been called to ordained leadership in a renewed Catholic church,
Seemingly taking the Holy Father Pope John Paul II by his word when he said that he did not have the authority of Scripture and Tradition to ordain wo/men as priests, feminist theologians began to look for a way out of this quagmire and to ask: “what about cardinals?” Let's obey the papal decree, we suggested years ago, and declare a moratorium on demands for ordination as deaconesses or priestesses. Instead let us get ready for the next conclave when feminist cardinals will elect the new successor not only of Peter but also of Mary Magdalene! Maybe it will be one of us feminists! If s/he can't symbolize Christ as his Vicar, we were confident that s/he would very convincingly represent Divine Wisdom in all Her splendor.
Tongue in cheek I wrote that if that were to happen I would love to serve the church as head of the CDF [the acronym for the Latin Congregatio Doctorum Feministarum !] in order to abolish once and for all the technologies of the Inquisition, although I had no desire to become the successor of Cardinal Ratzinger. If Commonweal is correct that Pope John Paul II once called himself a “papa feminista,” I pointed out, the next Pope will be a feminist! So I wrote to you in 1998. However, being of little faith I did not imagine that this could actually happen. Nor did I pray to Holy Wisdom that it should happen.
But, to quote a saying of my grandmother: Der Mensch dachte und Gott lachte! (Roughly translated, “human beings planned and G*d laughed). Unexpectedly, the Women's Ordination Conference International gave up their campaign for deaconesses organized a campaign for the appointment of wo/men as cardinals. The office of cardinal, they argued, was instituted to provide a court for the pope. Hence, cardinals are called the Princes of the church! No ordination is required either by Scripture or Tradition for this important office, since there is no evidence that the institution of cardinalship goes back either to Jesus or to the apostles. True, it has a long malestream tradition but this tradition is of the male hierarchy's making. Equity, however would demand, we argued, that all cardinals should be feminists i.e. subscribing to the radical notion that wo/men are the image and representative of G*d, as long as bishops must remain masculinists i.e. subscribing to the misogynist notion that only men can represent the Divine.
Although the men in the Vatican pointed out that it was church practice since medieval times to require that cardinals must be priests, they could no longer ideologically legitimize their prejudice with reference to Christ and the apostles. The election and appointment of wo/men as cardinals finally got rid of the misogynist virus that has afflicted the Roman Catholic Church for centuries and has lead to its paralysis today. Cardinalship for wo/men opened up the only democratic means available in Roman Catholicism to wo/men who were able to determine the election of the new pope and thereby the future of the church.
And now that the miracle has happened and the first feminist pope has been elected, I am not so sure any longer! Should we have organized to abolish the papacy altogether rather than to become cardinals? True, we have a feminist successor of John Paul II, but how can s/he change an encrusted patriarchal imperial system that is almost two millennia old and of which s/he is a part? Plagued by such grave doubts, I picked up in an airport bookstore a novel entitled The Accidental Pope which Ray Flynn, the former mayor of Boston and U.S. ambassador to the Vatican wrote together with the novelist Robin Moore. [iv] Doris Kerns Goodwin endorses the book as “a suspenseful, provocative, lively tale of Vatican intrigue and U.S. State Department guile.”
The tale is simple and written before John Paul II asked all his cardinals to resign their office and to make way for the appointment of wo/men cardinals. It imagines that the cardinals- all men- who were gathered for the conclave were deadlocked between three candidates, the Camerlengo of the conclave, the Primate of Ireland and an African Cardinal. To get the conclave unstuck the Primate of Ireland tells an edifying tale about a friend who is a fisherman on Cape Cod. In the next round of ballots the cardinals to their great surprise and laughter elect unwittingly this fisherman from Cape Cod as the next pope. Bill Kelley is an ex-priest, widower and father of four almost grown children. After great consternation the cardinals decide to play along with “this joke of G*d” and to pro forma ask Bill Kelly to become the next pope, certain that he would not accept the election. But because of a vision of the blessed Mother Bill Kelly unpredictably accepts the office, becomes Pope Peter II and the Roman church has its “First Family” albeit without a “First Lady.”
Since I looked to the novel for stretching my imagination, I became more and more disappointed and depressed the further I got into it. In this tale traditional theology sustains its hold on the Catholic imagination: The ex-priest fisherman can become the Holy Father because he is not really a genuine “layman” but as the cardinals argue, once a priest-always a priest.” They insist that he become again a cleric in good standing and take care to legitimize this accidental election by ordaining him bishop of Rome and by citing Scripture and tradition. For, Scripture teaches that the first Pope, St. Peter, was a married fisherman whose mother in law was healed by Jesus, and tradition knows of married popes with scandalous family histories. Both the understanding of ordination as induction into the class of clergymen, the traditional notion of family and the church's teaching on celibacy are left intact
Moreover in this novel, the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican is a member of Opus Dei and the new Pope is devoted to the “mystery” of Fatima and its anti-communist message. While Our Lady of Fatima protected Pope John Paul II during a near fatal attack by a communist assassin, Pope Peter II dies from a virus transmitted by a Slavic female doctor who hates Americans and is part of the conspiracy to extend to Africa through the Orthodox Church the new Russian hegemony. The alliance of the Roman Catholic Church with the imperial state, Western anti-communism and its justification through kyriarchal theology is not broken but re-enacted in and through the election of an American Pope.
After having finished the book, I realized that reality had turned out better than fiction. Yet, I asked myself what advise could one give to the newly elected successor of John Paul II, if even the Catholic imagination remains in Babylonian or better Roman captivity and is unable to envision a different leadership for the church in service to the world. Will it be possible for any human being, male or female, married or celibate ordained or lay to lead the church out of its captivity to Roman imperial mindsets and masculinist structures? Should we have even envisioned and desired a feminist Pope? Is a papa feminista not an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms? Will not anybody be co-opted by the institution of the Roman papacy even if like you s/he has been a bona fide feminist Christian? Would it not be better to do away with the papal office altogether? Can anyone, even if sent by G*d, overcome the last centuries of ecclesiastical monarchy that climaxed in the dogma of papal infallibility?
The Vicar of Christ continues to represent Christ in the image and likeness of the Roman emperor, as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. For it is laudable but not enough to confess the past sins of the church, as Pope John Paul II has done, while continuing to practice them in the present: It is not enough to claim the equality of all believers while still praying to a G*d who is Lord of Lords, Almighty, Warrior King. True, today's heretics are no longer burnt at the stake but they are still denied the name of the true church of Christ. True, the hierarchy no longer calls to crusades and holy wars against the infidels but Islam and other religions are still deemed to be inferior to Christianity. True, the most recent popes have rejected anti-Semitism but they continue to spread anti-Judaism as the Word of G*d in and through the proclamation of anti-Jewish Scripture texts. True, the church has repented its racism and colonialist collaboration but it still treats 2/3 rd World churches and their leadership as second-class citizens. True, the church has rejected sexism and misogynism as a sin but it continues to justify its exclusively male leadership in and through a dual nature theology that legitimates the exclusion of wo/men from its sacred power and leadership. Not only does the hierarchy not ordain Roman Catholic wo/men but it also does not recognize the ordination of so many wo/men priests and bishops in other churches.
In the face of such grave ills and institutionalized failures a deep sense of despair and lethargy overcame me. Are not those correct who claim that an egalitarian and just Catholicism is not possible and insist that Roman masculine imperialism is constitutive of Roman Catholicism. If one would be able to take away the church's Roman imperial structures, would it still be Catholicism? Who was I to persuade someone who was created in Rome's imperial image and likeness to abandon Roman imperialism? Even if the person, woman or man, black or white, African or Asian, gay or straight, young or old would share my theological vision of Catholicism s/he would have to abandon it in order to stay in power and to do her/his work effectively.
Yet, I could not get out of my mind the story of Jonah who refused to go and proclaim G*d's call to repentance to the Ninivites. Even though he was swallowed up by a wale and by a miracle escaped it alive, Jonah still does not want to acknowledge G*d's mercy and power for change. Like Jonah I was tempted to flee; like Jonah, I was convinced that I could not say anything to you, the newly elected one, which could bring about the conversion of the Roman church. Like Jonah I doubted the power of Divine Wisdom's saving grace.
A Feminist Catholic Vision
As I questioned and agonized about what to tell you regarding the future well being of G*d's people in and outside of Catholicism, Christianity and other religions, as I argued with G*d and despaired over the affairs of the church that I loved, I had a dream! A messenger of Divine Wisdom appeared in all Her glory and said: “Peace be with you! Fear not ye of little faith, I bring you good tidings. Divine Wisdom loves Her people and sends Her message of abundant grace to Her faithful friends. She invites all without exception: “Eat of my bred and drink of my cup and walk in the ways of wisdom.”
And the messenger of the Living One left me puzzling over the meaning of this communication for you, the newly elected successor of John Paul II. What did this announcement made by Divine Wisdom mean? Was Spirit-Wisdom commissioning you to go on a pilgrimage around the world, walking incognito from place to place, eating and drinking with G*d's people, befriending and asking them what to do? Did it mean that you should open the doors of the Vatican, set the tables and send the Vatican's bishops and cardinals into the streets and byways of the world to invite the poor and the hungry, the maimed and the mentally ill, the old and the young, people of color and white “trash,” men and wo/men rather than the rich and the powerful, the members of Opus Dei or the managers of the Vatican bank and the heads of states? Or was Her call addressed to all the people of G*d calling their elected representatives to come and to dine in the splendor of the Vatican so that you could consult with them on the affairs of the church and the world? Or did it mean that Divine Wisdom wanted you to invite the church's scholars and theologians, missionaries and aid-workers, priests and ministers, doctors and nurses, experts and consultants to the Vatican for an international symposium on the needs and dreams of all the people of the world who are G*d's people?
What did this message mean? I thought and thought, asked and asked but could not come up with one correct answer. Exhausted I fell asleep again. Now I was back in time when I was a student in Würzburg and I heard all the church bells of the city ringing to announce the election of the newly elected Pope John XXIII. And his shrewd face of loving-kindness appeared before my inner eye. “Aggiornamento! Open the windows and doors and transform the church into the open house of Divine Wisdom, into a cosmic cosmopolitan temple without any walls and fortifications so that the Spirit of G*d can blow threw it with new live-giving power!”
When I woke up, the insistent call of John XXIII and all the saints remained fresh on my mind. This message seemed to be clear: Go and tell Miriam IV: Continue the work that I have began, John seemed to say. Lead the church out of its bondage and captivity to imperial powers and oppressive traditions. In G*d's eyes nothing is impossible! Take heart, Divine Wisdom will grant you the freedom to articulate a new vision of Catholic identity with integrity and courage. This will be possible if you, “Friend of Divine Wisdom,” will situate your work not in hierarchically controlled institutions but among the people of G*d. In order to do so you must insists on intellectual freedom and integrity. Like Mary Magdalene faced down Peter, so you must withstand the Roman exclusivist rhetoric of absolutism and censure. To articulate a truly Catholic theological vision of church leadership in a feminist voice, a vision that can make a difference, however, will not be possible without struggle.
By feminism I mean a world-wide profoundly democratic social movement and theoretical vision that is driven by the radical notion that wo/men are people, i.e., fully entitled and responsible citizens in society and religion. [v] Feminism struggles not against men but against kyriarchal structures of domination that affect both women and men. [vi] For this reason, a critical feminist theology of liberation is best understood as a political theology that is committed to a radical democratic theology of ekklesia understood as the assembly of fully entitled and responsible citizens living in the force field of the Divine Spirit- Wisdom.
Catholicity is not simply a denominational name [vii] but it is best envisioned as a radical democratic project of feminist praxis and vision. [viii] This feminist sense of catholicity still comes to the fore in the dictionary definition of the term. The Shorter Oxford Dictionary characterizes catholicity as the quality of having sympathies with or being all-embracing, broad-mindedness and tolerance. As you well know, the term catholicity is derived from the Greek word katholikos (kath holou), [ix] which is the equivalent of global ( kath holon tes ges ) or ecumenical ( oikumene ). According to Robert Schreiter catholicity means “ wholeness”, [x] in Peter Schineller's view it is brought about by inculturation, [xi] and for Siegfried Wiedenhofer its is “wholeness and fullness in and through communication.” [xii] In addition to wholeness and inculturation, I would underscore the meaning of “catholic” as global and ecumenical, as social-religious complexity and multi-vocal reality, as “all-embracing,” “broadminded,” or “universal,” However, one must not conceptualize such universality in hegemonic kyriarchal rather than in radical democratic feminist terms.
As you might recall, feminist and post-colonial critics [xiii] have pointed out that the claim to “universality” has tended to be articulated as a claim of dominance. Universality (or catholicity) is a kyriarchal term. This Western kyriarchal rhetoric of universality” has engendered ideological mystifications such as the following:
1. Kyriocentric theory and theology has claimed to be universal and catholic although it has expressed the experience and theorized the worldview of a very few elite educated (clergy) men. It speaks of humanity or democracy in universal terms although it has limited it to a specific group of people
2. Kyriocentric theory and theology has claimed to be universal, although it has made its own culturally limited experiences and Euro-centric horizons paradigmatic for all of humanity. Its claim to universal knowledge mystifies its particular or regional perspective and social location and thereby serves the interests of domination.
3. Kyriocentric discourses of universality and catholicity actively exclude the “others” that is all wo/men and subjugated or marginalized men, from intellectual theories, history and communal practices. This exclusion of the “others” of elite educated propertied men is not just accidental but was formulated in the interest of domination and exploitation.
4. These Kyriocentric claims to universality have functioned to legitimate Western imperial expansionism and colonization and to justify dehumanization, exploitation, cultural annihilation and religious demonization. Hence, the discourses of Christian mission must be scrutinized as to their participation in Western political imperialism, cultural absolutism, and religious colonialism.
As you so well know, radical democratic feminist discourses, in turn, have sought to correct this kyriarchal understanding of catholicity and to redefine it in feminist terms as follows:
1. Feminist Catholicity means both theoretical and practical openness to all peoples, cultures and religions as equals. This requires opposition to religious sectarianism and individualistic identity formations that define the self over and against the other who is understood in negative terms. Positively it engenders the development of a radical egalitarian spirituality that is ecumenical, interfaith, and cosmopolitan.
2. Feminist Catholicity requires openness to truth and values wherever they are encountered. It seeks to revalorize the cultural and religious heritage of the “others” who have been excluded and exploited Hence, a spirituality that is able to appreciate the “other” is called for.
3. Feminist Catholicity entails the ability to bridge divisions, generations and historical chasms. It strives to break down the divisions that separate nations and religions from each other and to articulate religious visions that foster a world-ethos that seeks for the well being of every one without exception.
4. Feminist Catholicity insists that unity is not uniformity but solidarity in diversity. In order to articulate catholicity as pluri-form diversity spiritual discourses must shift their focus from christological discourses [xiv] that have legitimated Western imperialism to pneumatological discourses that celebrate the multifaceted gifts of Divine Spirit-Wisdom, who creates and sustains global relations of justice and well-being and inspires the realization of a truly cosmopolitan world-church.
In short, if, as the newly elected Pope Miriam IV, you will proclaim as your very own program such a critical feminist understanding of universality and catholicity you will foster social-religious plurality and global connectedness linking radically different local churches and variegated cultures. For that reason you must gather around you feminist theological advisors from all walks of life who will help you to articulate such a radical democratic Catholic spirituality.
Such a spirituality of liberation envisions Catholicism as an all-embracing inclusive world-reality in which all people are truly equal but not the same; an ecclesial culture where differences are respected and people are truly free, where social-religious responsibility rather than individualistic self-absorption prevails; a society and world-church which is truly just and in which status and power inequalities, --especially the vast gulf between well-to-do and impoverished people-- are recognized for what they are.
This radical democratic spiritual vision of catholicity has its roots in the vision of Israel's prophets and of the early Christian movement's calling for a society and church in which G*d's justice and peace is already partially realized today but will become full reality only in the future. This kind of catholicity is deeply embedded in Scripture and tradition, and has inspired the vision of the church articulated at the Second Vatican Council. Today it is invigorated by attention to the radical democratic spiritual visions of other cultures and religions.
However, as you also are well aware, throughout history another discourse on catholicity/ universality seems to have been operative in Roman Catholic theological debates and Western political philosophy, a discourse that is sustained by the exclusion and vilification of the “other.” This discourse of domination and “othering” is an inheritance of the Roman Empire and of Western philosophy but it is also found in other cultural and religious totalitarian regimes, neo-colonial practices and authoritarian structures.
You may remember that the political feminist theorist of culture Page duBois [xv] has pointed out a long time ago, that in Greco-Roman society and tradition two different understandings of truth and universality prevail. The logic of imperial domination produces a discourse of truth that is singular, universal, unitary, abstract doctrinal and accessible only to a very few. It has engendered torture and violence in both Greco-Roman antiquity and in contemporary society. It has shaped exclusivist identity that projects all evil and negativity onto the others who are not like us. It also has shaped the theological discourse of orthodoxy-heresy that has served imperial interests.
The struggle for the catholicity of the church is thus the struggle for freedom of thought, intellectual independence and personal integrity, for eleutheria and parrhesia, for the free and uncensored speech of citizens of which St. Paul speaks. As you so well know, the experience of becoming a friend of Divine Wisdom is an experience of struggle: the struggle to live according to one's consciousness, to find ones own theological voice, the struggle for spiritual integrity and truthfulness, the struggle to articulate a different vision of self and church, the struggle with a kyriarchal tradition and doctrinal discourse that in principle has excluded wo/men as theological authorities by using the language of silencing, control and violence.
Because of your own experiences of struggle and faithfulness to your feminist calling you are able to bring into ecclesiastical discourses the religious experiences and questions of wo/men and other marginalized peoples. For the vision of a different catholic church is only realizable if and when all of G*d's people without exception have the opportunity to participate in articulating such a different spirituality and a different catholic identity. Your most recent bold official recognition of wo/men as full ecclesial citizens with all rights and duties demands a new articulation and self-understanding of theology and church. It requires an articulation of Catholic identity not as sameness but as rich diversity and variegated giftedness in the power of Divine Spirit-Wisdom
Such a spiritual vision and giftedness is already practiced around the world today. An e-mail message from India reflecting on a symposium I had just attended: aptly expresses it:
These days…
We heard voices on behalf of the oppressed
Living in garbage heaps and city slums
Little children, rag pickers in search of food
Who lack education, denied of Child's Rights!
Women toiling in the homes, in the mills
Nurturing life, their work uncounted! Unrecognized!
Women battered! Women selling their bodies!
Patriarchal sites, denying woman's Dignity and Rights.
Mechanized boats! Foreign trawlers,
Plundering resources of earth and sea!
Aqua Culture destroying soil and lives,
Peoples' Movements, Fisherfolks' Rights.
Migrant workers, migration of peoples
In search of work in mega cities… ever more cities!
Abandoning their villages, exploited by TNCs
Peoples' struggles for life! Hear their cry for Life!
Oppressed of the land, deprived of land
Dalits of the countryside, Tribals of the hill country
Here the pain of exclusion age old
There the exploitation ever on the rise!
We groaned, we pondered, we questioned
Our response as church to these survival rights!
We sought openings to move out in compassion
To transcend death-dealing forces with hope for life!
A call to rebirth our earth and bring forth a new dawn! [xvi]
Reading this message the round face of Dr. Martin Luther King appeared before my inner eye and I heard his famous “My eyes have seen the promised land.” To give up on the dream of Jesus, the messenger of Divine Wisdom, a dream for the restoration of G*d's world of justice and love, I realized, would not just mean to abandon the newly elected Pope to the powers of domination and evil but also to betray the church glimpsed in the words of my sisters and brothers in India and other parts of the world.
Then I heard a voice like the murmur of many waters and the blowing of many winds: Go and tell my beloved, my chosen one:
I have brought you up from the land of Egypt
And redeemed you from the house of slavery;
And I sent before you Moses Aaron and Miriam (Micah 6:4)
I will save you and you shall be a blessing.
Do not be afraid but let your hands be strong…
These are the things that you shall do:
Speak the truth to one another,
Render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace. (Zech 8, 13.16).
Suddenly, I found myself transported to one of the feminist liturgies, which are celebrated around the world. In this sacred feminist space the wo/men formed a circle around you, the newly elected messenger of Divine Wisdom, dancing and chanting: Behold, the follower of Christ, the messenger of Divine Wisdom! S/he has chosen the name of Miriam, IV because s/he is the successor of the Three Miriams of Holy Scripture: S/he will walk in the footsteps of Miriam, the sister of Moses, who has led her people out of slavery. S/he will listen to the experience of Miriam, the mother of Jesus, who as a young wo/man chooses to birth and nurture a child out of wedlock. S/he will follow Miriam of Magdala, who as the first witness to Jesus‘ execution and resurrection was sent to proclaim the good news as apostle to the apostles. S/he is the first one to lay claim to the cathedra of Miriam who as the Magdalene has been maligned throughout the centuries as the “great sinner and whore”.
And then Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron, of Jesus and John, of Peter and Paul, of Mohammed and Buddha, of Shiva and Pelé, appeared regally clothed in the magnificent black beauty of Bahia, calling us to struggle:
…They cover the path with the bodies of our children;
They rule over us,
Embitter our lives.
Awake, awake
Yehoyah's children!
Declare a day of feasting.
Yehoyah calls us to serve Her in the wilderness
Yehoyah summons us to freedom.
Set a table for the needy.
Offer our … bread to the homeless.
She will bear us on eagle wings
To a place where freedom swells up like a mighty river,
Where joy rises like a swiftly flowing stream.
Brothers and sisters, the day of freedom is upon us. [xvii]
Then I heard a great outcry and lament from the four corners of the earth: Comfort, o comfort my people! Lead them out of bondage, hunger, and despair so that they can enjoy our wonderful earth with its beautiful mountains, streams, lands and seas. Go and tell the newly elected leader of Catholicism: Like Miriam, the sister of Moses, you are to lead the peoples of the earth out of capitalist bondage, which has engendered unspeakable poverty, and despair around the world. Remember and do not forget the world's poverty and despair!
Go and denounce this great atrocity and abomination: 80 countries have per capita income lower than a decade ago. In 1960 the income gap between the fifth of the world's people living in the richest countries and the fifth in the poorest countries was 30 to 1, in 1998 it was 74 to 1. From 1995 to 1999 the world's 200 wealthiest people doubled their net worth to $ 1, 000 billion, whereas 3 billion people presently live on $ 2 or less a day. 2 billion people suffer from malnutrition, including 55 million in industrial countries. Neo-liberalism is evoking a future where a handful o the worlds most well to do families may pocket more than 50% of the worlds $ 90 trillion in securitized assets (stocks, bonds, etc). As of 1996 the biologically productive area needed to produce the natural resources we consume and to absorb the carbon dioxide we emit was 30% larger than the area available. Relentlessly raising global temperatures are bound to create catastrophic conditions worldwide and the poor of the world will be the hardest hit. [xviii]
And then I heard a commanding voice crying out in lament: “Rescue, rescue my people from those who exploit and dehumanize them, from those who ravage the earth and kill the spirit. And I saw Miriam, the mother of Jesus, the mater dolorosa, weeping and saying: Like my son G*d's children are crucified again and again, day in and day out by the new Empire called global capitalism. This “new world order” spanning the globe, lives by the principle: Maximize financial returns and profits as much as possible and everything will turn out fine. The predictable results of the neo-liberal economic model made in the U.S.A are socially unjust, politically destabilizing, culturally destructive and ecologically unsustainable.
Economic globalization [xix] has been created with the specific goal of giving primacy to corporate profits and values installing and codifying such market values globally. It was designed to amalgamate and merge all economic activities around the world within a single model of global monoculture. In many respects wo/men are suffering not only from the globalization of market capitalism but also from their sexual exploitation instigated by it.
The economic-ecological impact of globalization and its attendant exploitation and misery has engendered resurgence of the Religious Right and of global cultural and religious fundamentalisms claiming the power of naming the true nature and essence of religion. [xx] Right wing, well financed think tanks are supported by reactionary political and financial institutions that seek to defend kyriarchal capitalism. [xxi] Such interconnection between religious antidemocratic arguments and the debate with regard to wo/men's place and role is not accidental or of merely intra-theological significance, for right-wing movements around the globe have insisted in the past decades on the figuration of emancipated wo/men either as signifiers of Western decadence and of modern atheistic secularism, or they have presented masculine power as the expression of divine power. [xxii]
And I heard another voice of thunder: Save my people from those who commit sexual abuse and bodily victimization, from those who heap heavy moral burden on my people, burdens which they do not want to carry themselves. The Roman rhetoric of absolute truth- claims of your predecessors and its condemnation of sexual self-determination, artificial birth-control and the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS must be seen in this context of global exploitation and the people's struggles against it. Hence, your predecessors in the papacy have not been able to seize the possibilities for a more radical worldwide democratization, which also is made possible by the forces of capitalist internationalization. They have not been able to make visible the interconnectedness of all being and the possibility of communication and solidaric organization across national boarders in the interest of human rights and justice for all.
Hence, I Miriam, the apostle to the apostles, joins both the sister of Moses and Miriam, the Mother of Jesus in commanding you: Go and teach the priests and doctors of the church this basic truth: theological discourses and religious communities either spiritually sustain the exploitation of global capitalism and the dehumanization of G*d's people or they engage the possibilities for greater freedom, justice, peace, and solidarity engendered by the technological forces of globalization.
World-religions either support the forces of economic and cultural global dehumanization or abandoning their exclusivist tendencies they are able to envision and work together for shaping a spiritual ethos of global dimensions; either they preach radical democratic spiritual values and visions that celebrate diversity, multiplicity, tolerance, equality, justice and well-being for all or they foster fundamentalism, exclusivism and a totalitarian global monoculture.
Hence, I Miriam, the apostle to the apostles, calls you: Go and preach the words of St. Mathew to your brothers, the bishops, cardinals and priests who heap burden after burden upon my people and say to them: “You tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but you yourselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them…Woe to you, for you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, woe to you for you lock people out of G*d's sacred realm of well-being” because you are obsessed with sexual sins, “but you have neglected the weightier matters of G*d's law: justice and mercy, and faith. It is these you ought to practice.”
But do not preach this message of censure to the people! Rather, gather together the people of G*d from all the ends of the earth, from all the different religions, races, classes and genders, for the great day of the Holy One, Blessed be S/he, has dawned. She has called you to guide the nations in peace and justice, to care for the earth and its inhabitants with equity and tender love, to celebrate sexuality as the creative power of life and to proclaim and institutionalize the loving kindness of the Holy One, Blessed be She, as the anti-globalist praxis commanded to every one.
Keeper of the Rainbow Covenant
We the Three Miriams send you to create a Spirit-Wisdom center of cosmic dimension for the healing of the earth and its creatures. For Divine Wisdom's inviting table, with the bread of sustenance and the wine of celebration, is set in a cosmic temple with seven pillars that allow the spirit of fresh air to blow through it. Go and preach the gospel of salvation saying: Each and everyone is made in Holy Wisdom's image of dancing justice and hence precious in Her eyes. And fear not! You will not be overcome by the powers that are, by intellectual co-optation and spiritual corruption, as long as you pray with all the friends of Divine Wisdom:
My spirit is one with you, Great Spirit
You strengthen me day and night
To share my very best with my sisters and brothers.
You whom my people see in all of creation
And in all the peoples of the world
Show your love for us.
Help me to know like the soaring eagle the heights of knowledge.
From the four Directions,
Fill me with the virtues of Fortitude, Generosity, Respect, and Courage
So that I will keep my people walk in the path of Understanding and Peace. [xxiii]
Henceforth, you, the new representative of World-Catholicism, will no longer be called Vicar of Christ but “Keeper of the Rainbow Covenant.” Divine Wisdom empowers you to call into being a “rainbow coalition” of all the outcast and wretched of the earth, of all those who struggle for justice and desire happiness for each and everyone. And a multi-colored rainbow shall be the sign of the Covenant that Divine Wisdom has made with the world and all its inhabitants.
In this radical open space of Divine Wisdom-Spirit you together with all the justice-loving religious leaders of the world shall be able to envision and foster the well-being of Divine Wisdom's “Rainbow Alliance” as a multi-voiced, multicultural, multi-gendered, and multi-religious radical democratic Spirit practice and movement for the well-being of all. And you, Miriam IV, friend and prophet of Divine Wisdom, are called to proclaim and sustain this covenant, treasuring, articulating and using all the powers of spiritual wisdom, holy courage, and religious community accumulated in all, the religions of the world throughout the ages.
And then Miriam, the sister of Moses, Miriam, the mother of Jesus, and Miriam, the apostle to the apostles, were clasping hands with you Miriam, Keeper of the Rainbow Covenant, who is now leading the dance of G*d's saving grace. And all the wo/men went out after you with tambourines, dancing and singing.
May G*d be gracious to us and bless us and make Her face to shine upon us,
That your way may be known upon earth, your saving power among the nations.
Let the peoples praise you, o Holy One, let all the peoples praise you.
Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity
And with justice and love guide the nations upon earth.
Let the peoples praise you, O G*d, let all the peoples praise you.
The earth has yielded its increase; G*d our G*d has blessed us
May the Holy One, Blessed be She, continue to bless us.
Let all the ends of the earth revere Her! [xxiv]
[i] For a critical discussion of the by now notorious Vatican document “Dominus Jesus” see Michael J. Rainer, ed., “Dominus Jesus” Anstössige Wahrheit oder anstössige Kirche? Dumente, Hintergründe, Standpunkte und Folgen (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2001)
[ii] For the problematic meaning of the term woman/women see Denise Riley, "Am I That Name" Feminism and the Category of Women in History Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988; Judith Butler, Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity New York: Routledge, 1990. My way of writing wo/men seeks to underscore not only the ambiguous character of the term "wo/man or wo/men" but also to retain the expression "wo/men" as a political category. Since this designation is often read as referring to white women only, my unorthodox writing of the term seeks to draw to the attention of readers that those kyriarchal structures which determine wo/men's lives and status also impact that of men of subordinated races, classes, countries and religions, albeit in different ways. The expression wo/men must therefore be understood as inclusive rather than as an exclusive universalized gender term.
[iii] For a record of this development see my books Discipleship of Equals. A Feminist Ekklesialogy of Liberation (New York: Crossroad, 1992) and The Nonordination of Wo/men and the Politics of Power (Concilium: New York: Orbis Books, 1999) which I edited together with Herman Haering.
[iv] Ray Flynn and Robin Moore, The Accidental Pope. A Novel (New York: St. Martin's Press), 2000.
[v] For the development of this feminist theory see my books In Memory of Her. ( New York: Crossroad, 1983) ; Bread Not Stone; (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984) But She Said (Boston: Beacon, 1992) ; Sharing Her Word: (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998) WisdomWays (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2001 ; Rhetoric and Ethic (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999).
[vi] The misunderstanding of feminism as hatred of men is widespread not only in the US but also in other countries. See for instance Maitrey Chatterjee, “The Feminist Movement in West Bengal From the 1980s to the 1990s,” in Mandakranta Bose, ed., Faces of the Feminine in Ancient, Medieval, and Modern India (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 322-334: “The term ‘feminist' creates a block in West Bengal. The image of a feminist is not one that many women would like to have. Feminism has been variously associated with aggressiveness, sexual permissiveness, immodesty, lack of womanly virtues and antimotherhood and antifamily attitudes. In fact, it is a cocky counter to the ‘ideal woman,' who is selfless, obedient and home loving.”(322).
[vii] For a Anglican Reflection on Catholicism see Jeffrey John, ed., Living the Mystery. Affirming Catholicism and the Future of Anglicanism (London: Darton, Longman, Todd, 1994)
[viii] See also, Rebecca S. Chopp, “A Feminist Perspective: Christianity, Democracy and Feminist Theology,” in John Witte, Jr. ed., Christianity and Democracy in Global Context (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993) 111-130.
[ix] Avery Dulles, The Catholicity of the Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985).
[x] Robert J. Schreiter, The New Catholicity: Theology Between the Global and the Local (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1997), 219. However, he does not explicitly address the feminist critique of this concept.
[xi] Peter Schineller, “ Ïnculturation as a Pilgrimage to Catholicity,” Concilium 204 (1989), 98 - 106
[xii]Siegfried Wiedenhofer, Das katholische Kirchenverständnis (Graz, 1992) 279.
[xiii] See Nancy Fraser, Justice Interruptus. Critical reflections on the “Postsocialist” Condition (New York: Routledge, 1997; Leila Gandhi, Postcolonial Theory. A Critical Introduction (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998); Uma Narayan, Dislocating Cultures. Identities, Traditions, and Third World Feminisms (New York: Routledge, 1997) ; R.S. Sugirtharajah, Asian Biblical Hermeneutics and Postcolonialism. Contesting the Interpretations (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1998)
[xiv] See my books Jesus Miriam's Child and Sophia's Prophet ( New York: Continuum, 1994) and Jesus and the Politics of Interpretation (New York: Continuum, 2000)
[xv] Page du Bois, Torture and Truth (New York : Routledge, 1990).
[xvi] Conclusions of the Ishvani Kendra Silver Jubilee Colloquium “The Church in Mission: Universal Mandate and Local Concerns” (Pune, 24-27 October, 2001)
[xvii] Lynn Gottlieb, S he Who Dwells Within. A Feminist Vision of a Renewed Judaism (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1995) 112.
[xviii] According to the United Nations Human Development Program Report of 1999. See Jeff Gates, “Modern Fashion or Global Fascism,” Tikkun 17/1 (January/February 2002), pp 30-32.
[xix] See Jan Nederveen Pieterse, ed., Christianity and Hegemony ,, 11-31; see also Paul E. Sigmund, “Christian Democracy, Liberation Theology, the Catholic Right and Democracy in Latin America,” in John Witte, Jr., ed., Christianity and Democracy in Global Context , 187-207
[xx] See the variegated contributions in Hans Küng and Jürgen Moltmann, eds., Fundamentalism as an Ecumenical Challenge (Concilium; London: SCM Press, 1992).
[xxi] For an excellent critical analysis of the involvement of religion in this global struggle see especially the work of the late Penny Lernoux, Cry of the People (New York: Penguin, 1982); idem, In Banks We Trust ( New York: Penguin, 1986), and her last book before her untimely death People of God. The Struggle for World Catholicism (New York: Penguin, 1989); Robert B. Reich, The Work of Nations (New York: Vintage Books, 1992); Joan Smith, "The Creation of the World We Know: The World-Economy and the Re-creation of Gendered Identities," in Valentine M. Moghadam, ed., Identity Politics & Women. Cultural Reassertions and Feminisms in International Perspective (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994 27-41);
[xxii] See especially the declaration of the Division for the Advancement of Women on "International Standards of Equality and Religious Freedom: Implications for the Status of Women, " in Valentine M. Moghadam, ed., Identity Politics & Women, 425-438; Rebecca E. Klatch, "Women of the New Right in the United States: Family, Feminism, and Politics” M. Moghadam, ed., Identity Politics & Women. , 367 – 388; Most of the contributions in Valentine M. Moghadam, ed., Identity Politics & Women are on women and Islam in different parts of the world. However, see Sucheta Mazumdar, "Moving Away from a Secular Vision? Women, Nation, and the Cultural Construction of Hindu India," in Valentine M. Moghadam, ed., Identity Politics & Wo/men, 243-273, and Radha Kumar, “Identity Politics and the Contemporary Indian Feminist Movement,” ibid., 274 – 292.
[xxiii] Lakota Prayer
[xxiv] Ps.67 with feminist adaptation
(Copyright by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. Use
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