Saturday, October 26, 2013

Women at the Ambo: Preaching from a distance

I'm still pondering Jean Molesky-Poz's "At the Ambo" at America Magazine about women (and the laity in general) preaching,  prompted partlyby having spent several hours preaching from behind an ambo in a chapel last week, albeit outside of the context of a Eucharistic celebration and partly by this woman who is wondering if it OK to blog daily reflections on the scriptures.

Last week (the 15th, on the feast of St. Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church) was also the 37th anniversary of Inter Insigniores in which the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith summed up the theological case for ordaining only men (and thereby restricting preaching from the ambo during Mass to men).  I wondered precisely what that document had to say about women preaching, so I went back and read it.

The CDF makes it clear that they do not see St. Paul's prohibition of women teaching as  culturally inflected, but as "bound up with the divine creation." 
However, the Apostle's forbidding of women to speak in the assemblies (1 Cor 14:34-35; 1 Ti, 2:12) is of a different nature, and exegetes define its meaning in this way: Paul in no way opposes the right, which he elsewhere recognises as possessed by women, to prophesy in the assembly (1 Cor 11:15); the prohibition solely concerns the official function of teaching in the Christian assembly. For Saint Paul this prescription is bound up with the divine plan of creation (1 Cor 11:7; Gen 2:18-24): it would be difficult to see in it the expression of a cultural fact.  Inter Insigniores (10/15/76)
 In the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul says,
A man, on the other hand, should not cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. 1 Cor 11:17
The newly revised NAB notes, with respect to this verse that
"Paul is alluding basically to the text of Gn 1:27, in which mankind as a whole, the male-female couple, is created in God’s image and given the command to multiply and together dominate the lower creation. But Gn 1:24 is interpreted here in the light of the second creation narrative in Gn 2, in which each of the sexes is created separately (first the man and then the woman from man and for him, to be his helpmate, Gn 2:20–23), and under the influence of the story of the fall, as a result of which the husband rules over the woman (Gn 3:16). This interpretation splits the single image of God into two, at different degrees of closeness." 
Ah, so women are created in the image of God, but an image that isn't as close to God as that of men. I will admit that I hadn't quite appreciated that this was the root of the issue.  Men can teach and preach because they directly reflect God's image for us, women reflect God at one remove.  Women thus necessarily preach from a distance, and this (in Paul's view) makes them inherently unable to teach authoritatively.

How does this notion of "different degrees of closeness" in being image and likeness of God play with the notion that this likeness in image rests chiefly in the soul?  Are women's souls different from men's souls?  Less "like" to God? Equal in dignity, but lesser in image?


Image is Georges de la Tour's Magdalen with the Smoking Flame.  Mary Magdalen was called by Augustine, an apostle to the apostles.


8 comments:

  1. Genesis 1 is theologically primary and makes clear that the image of God is equal and full in both men and women. Paul's profoundly flawed "lesser image" exegesis of the text in 1 Cor. cast a long shadow but has been implicitly disavowed in the CCC by omission as well as explicitly contradicted, at length, in Mulieris Dignitatem with JP's strong affirmation that the image of God is equal and full in men and women. (And, powerfully, that it consists more in trinitarian and sexual relationality than Thomistic rationality). Hence, he agrees with feminist theology that feminine images of God are good, scriptural, and traditional--and that marital submission is completely mutual, contradicting the qualified male headship found in Casti Connubii and still espoused, in defiance of magisterial teaching, by some Catholic conservatives....And had to come up with his "not physically like Jesus" explanation for denial of ordination since he was quietly abandoning the main, misogynist reasons of the past. I.I. itself claims that denial of ordination in no way means lesser dignity or equality, but contradicts itself --and more recent and authoritative teaching--here, as you point out. This flawed premise is a strong argument for reexamining its conclusions on ministry opportunities--above all for diaconate, fully scriptural, traditional, and not in defiance of JP's teaching as Phyllis Zagano has shown so profoundly.

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    1. I agree that Mulieris Dignitatem stresses heavily the notion that both men and women are created in God's image. And yes, the shadow of Paul's exegesis is very long!

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  2. In my diocese, women used to preach. It happened for almost 20 years until local church members started petitioning Rome. The bishop was called on the carpet and it stopped. It was a magical time where scripture was interpreted by many with different perspectives. Our pastoral associate, a woman with masters degrees in theology and wonderful perspectives and interpretations no longer preaches - for a while, she was told she could still preach if the presiding priest stood next to her and introduced and closed her sermon; this didn't last long as both found it intolerable. The male deacon who can barely string together a coherent sentence still preaches. It makes me irrationally angry.

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    1. There is a poignant story in Walter Burghardt SJ's book on preaching about a young student in a homiletics course who eschews preparation, saying that the Spirit will give him words. Perhaps, says the professor, he is failing to notice the Spirit is urging him to the library?

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    2. So no, I don't think you are irrational to be angry about poor preaching!

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  3. Thank you for this post and thank you to those who have left comments that add to my understanding of this concern.

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  4. I am so pleased to read your reflection today. I have pondered the same CDF document and came to the conclusion that it was written in defense of the positions of some...
    Frankly, it still makes me sick to my stomach.

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    1. It really helped me clearly grasp the argument that is so consistently made that women are ontologically different from men, and so incapable of taking up certain roles. Not that I agree.

      What fascinates me as well as the ways in which this sits under the conversation, but is rarely acknowledged. I think that the argument has shifted away from women being at a greater distance, but without explicitly noting (or perhaps even noticing) that the point of departure.

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