Summit envisions church reform

The Church in the 21st Century spearheaded a discussion titled "Envisioning the Church Women Want," which was chaired by Patricia DeLeeuw, associate academic vice president and Jennifer Tilghman-Havens, director of the Women's Resource Center. The event sought to address women's roles, or lack thereof in the evolving Catholic Church.

People from all over the country were notified of the event through church bulletins and other forms of publicity. The response was very positive, according to DeLeeuw and Tilghman-Havens.

"We had an overwhelming response to the event," said Tilghman-Havens. "We actually had to turn away about 60 to70 people from registration. I think we have over 600 people here."

"It says a great deal about how much need there is, hunger out there for women to get together to talk about women's role in the Church," said DeLeeuw. "Many women are unhappy with the silence they feel that is imposed on them in the church so as we thought about all the other questions the Church in the 21st Century is raising, the role of women is an important set of questions."

Sister Elizabeth Johnson, a professor of theology at Fordham University, delivered a keynote address in Trinity Chapel titled "Coming in from the Cold: Women in the Past, Present, and Future Church."

"We have traded in our glasses for contacts," said Johnson. "Now we see where the problems are and our eyes hurt. BC is providing us with an eye clinic of sorts."

She touched on three points, which were what gave women the right to envision a new Church, the ambiguity of women's role in the Church based in Catholic tradition, and what steps women should take to reclaim their place in the Catholic Church. Johnson described the Church as a patriarchal institution where elite men had the power over people, namely women.

Johnson also delineated that women had a right to envision a new Church, one where they had a role, because women had been baptized, consecrating them equally in the eyes of God, women can live the Christian life of a disciple, and women have suffered for God.

"Women have been silenced in the public square of the institutional Church," said Johnson. "By suffering through these wrongs, we can learn what needs to go right."

Johnson also touched on the ambiguity of the Christian heritage and how the subordination of women can be found in sacred text like the Bible and church laws. She noted how scholars point to how Eve, the first woman made by God, was made after Adam and was the first to sin. She also argued that it was very possible that women were present at seemingly male-dominated events like the Last Supper and the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

"There is a bias against the dignity of women's humanity," said Johnson.

She also addressed the role of women in relation to the recent sex abuse scandals in the Church and how the patriarchal Church was challenged by those incidents.

"The sex abuse scandals in the Church created a lack of accountability for the use of funds of the Church to cover up the scandals," said Johnson. "It undermined the trust in the hierarchy and showed a Vatican that was clueless of the seriousness of what was happening." Johnson concluded by urging women to take an active role in the Catholic Church and to keep pushing for an increased role in their institutional religion.

Workshops followed Johnson's address, such as "Women Leaders Creating Church," "When Bishops Listened to Women," and "Is the Church Women Want the Church Men Want, Too?" Also, a keynote address titled "Wanted: A Just Church, Not Just a Church" was given by Miriam Therese Winter, director of the Women's Leadership Institute and the Center for Faith and Practice at Hartford Seminary.

DeLeeuw reflected on what she would have liked people, especially students to come away with after the conference.

"We've had some tough times in the Archdiocese for women in the past few days, so it's been really refreshing for the people in the audience to have our speakers address those issues," said DeLeeuw. "I'd like [students] to come away with the sense that there is a place for them in the Roman Catholic Church. That there is hope that the Church will change."

Other keynote speakers included Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, a professor from Drew University and Miriam Therese Winter from the Hartford Seminary.

Aside from this forum, BC also played host to the annual conference by the Association of Catholic Institutes for the Study of Education (ACISE), making it the first time that it had been held outside of Europe.

Approximately 50 deans and presidents of schools of education from countries including France, Scotland, Lebanon, Argentina, India, England, Italy, Spain, and Mexico were in attendance.

Conference attendants discussed internationalization, the changing cultures of Catholic education, accountability and responsibility, leadership, the curriculum, values and citizenship, and religious education.