Unknown Speaker  00:01
time together to be not only a learning process, from our experience, but also whatever you have to give is very important because I think we're all in this resistance together. And I think that's an important thing. So I think both of us would like you do, feel free to add your experience, cheer us on. Disagree, if you want whatever, gently and non violently, of course. We'll see what we have to do together.

Unknown Speaker  00:33
So we try to be kind of brief. But given the topic that we've got just tried to express some ideas and where we've been, and so forth. When I introduced myself, I did spend about 15 years in Philippines, right at the time of rising nationalism, rising resistance, martial law, militancy, and so forth. It is an education that I'm extremely grateful for. And I guess that's maybe what my credentials happened to be to speak before you today. But the topic is Mary Knowles in liberation and resistance in Central America and the Philippines. Okay. And I think that maybe Mary Knoll that word, has suddenly in the past few years, created this image. It's almost a mystique that is not completely true. It's, you know, over exaggerated, all of us that are human beings and women very proudly, women, as distinguished from the Maryknoll, fathers and brothers. I think we have done a great deal, I think we've come a lot further. And it's because maybe we've suffered more because we're women. But this image is something because around around the world around the United States, especially all kinds of reaction has occurred, people questioning us, we've deviated suddenly, to their knowledge, vary greatly from the old image of the nun. And what has happened, why this metamorphosis, which people just had this old stereotype in their mind of Nun, little person who ran around in a habit and did little things for people, and suddenly all here we are being called communists, and gunrunners, and all other kinds of things. And how do we explain this? Not what we're called, but how do we explain what has happened, a metamorphosis, a new beginning, a new awakening? I think that, as a community of women of faith, I think we have come to discover that faith is perhaps a different reality in some respects from religion. I think that the theology that we were taught in the past, a study of God, God, the ultimate authority over all of the human race, the father image, right, that authority was preached very much. And that theology also preached that the essential element was the relationship of an individual, to that God like that father, like authoritarian figure. The only time that that theology ever touched human life, really, the real human life in which we all live, was to preserve that authority of God as it appeared on Earth. Obedience to your parents, obedience to your employer's obedience to your government. Obedience was the big thing. And it was a perfectly logical deduction, given the premise that they had. It also emphasized charity be good DNA. And that, that that was the framework in which we, I guess, all operated, I guess all of us believed it was part of our culture, not only a theology. But I think for those of us who have gone to the third world, in many of these places. We did try to live this theology being good to people. But I think when you live with the people there in that abject poverty, although we were never poor, always had enough to eat. My kids aren't hungry couple of days, we were never poor, not the way they are. And you began to see the hunger and hear the cries. When you begin to see the unnecessary death and sickness when you begin to bury people and mourn with people. When you cry with them when you laugh with them. When you see the the waste of life, the violence that is done to human life to babies with skin diseases, it's just it's mind blowing. And you see this absolutely dejected for A form of living. And yet you look at those people, and you see their tremendous wisdom. The beauty of these human beings is something that you, you can't believe they're simple people, but they are beautiful and deep people.

Unknown Speaker  05:20
And you look at what they could have been. And you see what this poverty has reduced them to the poverty is not just a lack of food, what it is, is the powerlessness, the lack of alternatives in their life, the forced role that they are forced to follow the powerlessness as compared with the wisdom and beauty of these people. That that, that is the terrible, terrible dilemma that you find yourself in. And for us, you have to begin to question How then, if they've been given these gifts by God, the gifts of person? How are they in this thing? Because we come from a country here in the United States? Where have all this brightness? Well, naturally, you go ahead. Why can't they go ahead? And you look at it, and then you began to question ourselves, Well, what am I doing here? So you feed the hungry, and tomorrow, they're hungry. So somebody gets sick, and you patch it up. But that sorrows going to be infected again, tomorrow. This woman is pregnant with her 17th child, and she's going to have an 18. What what do you do? I mean, you are constantly in this pit. And you're trying to be kind, but you say to yourself, what, what is this, this this what God meant? Is this the God that I believe in. And so for many of us, I think we began to reexamine who God was, and read the scriptures a bit more, and other passages began to come out as the great story of the Exodus, God leading people out of oppression, right, the whole life of Jesus himself. He was not just a little shepherd who ran around a suffering servant as it would be. He was a person who really very, very strongly criticized the religious rule at that time, which was a political rule at that time. We began to read and to believe, what does it mean to stand with these poor, who have no alternatives. And as we began to do this, we found that a new thrust came out to our mission, because of what we believed it was a concern for the individual. But it was also a concern for the groups, the communities of people, the classes, if you were, we began to believe that what mission really was in line with what God wanted was for us to empower the powerless, or to help them empower themselves, which is really what this is all about. And so basically, what we did was to begin to start basic Christian communities, not catechism classes, right at all at all. They're meaningless. But we began to say, All right, if this is what we believe, who who is God to you in relationship to the past, the history where you've been, where your parents have been, your ancestors have been. And when you're taking talking to people of the soil very often, they own that soil, that soil is part of their life, how it has been handed down, or what how long they have been there, the suffering that they've gone through and the present. It's not just you who's hungry? How come Everybody's hungry around here? And to begin to examine it and say, Okay, what does our faith tell us to do about this? What would Jesus have done about this, do you think, and then to examine the future, because this is a theology of, of empowerment, a theology of change. That is what a theology of liberation is helping people to look at the problem, the cause of the problem, and to believe that they can do something about it, not individually, but collectively. And so what we've begun to do, we began to do was to develop and help people begin to believe in themselves, that they had the power to change the different things in their life that really did oppress them politically, economically, of course, economically is the first one, politically, and even socially, and with women, there is a long way to go in many of these places. I believe that this is the real meaning of salvation. Previously, it used to be just be good, and you will be saved ultimately by God. You I believe that salvation is something that all of us must work for, to, to free ourselves from all the things that bind us.

Unknown Speaker  10:09
And in the third world countries, though these basic Christian communities, especially those where colonialism had been very, very rampant, the Philippines and South America and so forth, you'll find it in other countries too. But it takes slightly different forms. The people begin to recognize first, the domestic forms of oppression right within their own country, my landlord won't do this or I can't get this. The Hacienda era won't do this. And it begins very locally, and it begins to grow. And finally, they realize that there is domestic domination and subjugation. But then they also come to realize the foreign domination of people from other countries. The imperialistic word is not very popular in many circles, but the imperialistic domination, foreign people stealing, literally, from the people who own the land, who own the nation. And these are the two forms of oppression that jump to their mind. It is only later that women begin to read women jump right into this. But the whole position of women in these countries is very different. Their first emergence is in recognizing perhaps more quickly than men even what it is that oppresses them. And so this is how a new theology a new look at God, a different look at God came about a different belief began a theology of liberation, based on freeing the oppressed from all the things that kept them down, but all also freeing the oppressor. From his own sinfulness, her own sinfulness that has been that is preventing their salvation. The theology of change is anti status quo. And because of that, because you are helping people to believe that they can change things together. To believe in change is to be socially subversive, number one, but as soon as people begin to hear about it, you then become politically subversive. And your brand, with whatever the word happens to be, that is a scare word. In the present day, it happens to be communist, okay? Be that as it may. And as these Christian communities have grown in Central America, very especially and in the Philippines, also, the two places that I can speak up with some expertise, not that much. But some, we find out that government authorities begin Number one, to Harris, the community with all kinds of things rains in the night, jumping in disturbing things, breaking into schools breaking into houses to harrassment. And the second thing is that very often that banned in certain areas where you have local police authority or something, they'll ban the meeting of any kind of community. And in other places, in the Philippines, it's called Hamlet and what they'll do is break up the community, take people by force some people from here and move them up to this mountain up here and take other people there. They've tried everything that they possibly could to frighten to scare the people who are coming into their own becoming the human beings that they can be. For the religious personnel over there, there are many actions to keep them quiet, also threatened very frequently, and this includes foreign religious people, such as Americans serving these places, and also people from that country itself, who are very, very much people of faith to put it mildly. threatened, framed, there are any number of instances we could give you of people coming into a house and planting a gun, and all of a sudden, this person is a gun runner, this person is a rebel right? files being taken letters being put in so patently, obviously false, it's kind of pathetic. But I there's this is still a mystery to me how these people can think that others are going to believe them. It is just It's wild. But what it does show is the arrogance of these people. They really don't believe that people are capable of thought. They really don't believe it. And it scares them to death when they begin to get together and get a glimmer of an idea. So we come into the whole idea of liberation. Okay, that's fine. What about resistance?

Unknown Speaker  15:07
Well, it's one thing to have a meeting, and everybody's very happy if you teach people to pray and to receive Communion and so forth. That's all very nice, right? Oh, when you get threatening like this, okay? And even when people begin to study their past, that's okay. Don't get too worried about that one, right? The present, they get a little nervous when you begin to think about the future. But the present and the future are the most exciting to be with these people with because when they believe that they can change it, and they begin to talk about how, how do we change it. And there's a lot of problems with that there's a lot of division. Because a lot of people think this way is the same thing here in this country. If any of us are in the movement, we know that this group thinks this way this group thinks this way. The other day, there's all kinds of things and while the same thing happens, there were humans. But when it comes to that point where you're ready to say, yes, we want this kind of change. We want food for our stomachs, we want our children to learn and so forth. And the question is, how and how rapidly you have some that believe that reform is the way you believe then by most part, most people believe that reform is not possible. But resistance is an aggressive resistance is going to take a long time, in most places, resistance is the way that people are going, that they are resisting the authorities that are unjustly forcing them to do things, because they haven't yet got enough strength all together. It is resistance where some people perhaps choose to take arms. But according to how long and how quickly, they can build a power, whatever kind of power. At some point, it might become a revolution, as it did in Nicaragua. It was a point where they wanted it tomorrow. But if you've taken a long while to build that up in the Philippines, it is not quite to that point. But it's coming very, very quickly. There are geographical problems in the Philippines and linguistic problems in the Philippines with 7000 islands and more than 82 dialects. Okay. It's it's mind blowing. So that the ability to get them together to merge them to have people share the same frustrations, the same problems, the same root course, core the same, excuse me, the same core roots of the oppression, it's much more diverse, and takes longer time to build up. What how they do this is the people's decision. As Marian all missionaries, and as any kind of missionaries, I'm sure we just happen to be Mary knows, but there's what I'm saying is true for many, and all right, not many. We believe that they can be empowered, and we believe they have the right to self determination, and that they can determine for themselves, whatever their future is to be and how they want to get it. Our role as missionaries with them there is to stand with the people, to stand with them, really to be nonpartisan. And because we believe in a theology of liberation, we believe it is based on love. We want these people to love but also to learn to love the oppressor to change it, but not to be revengeful. Because otherwise, what you have is a group that has been sorely oppressed and has lived under a system where the only models that they have had are people who have put their the heel of their boot on people's neck. And at times past what has happened is we have had many revolutions throughout history. But those who have been oppressed have arisen to be oppressors, right? It is a cycle. And only real faith can break that cycle that those people if they win, and this is the case in Nicaragua, what they have done, as far as the country's or at least the national guys that have returned to the country, they have not been vengeful on them. They're very definite and what they want what they want is a better life for their people. They do not necessarily want revenge by taking the blood of somebody else are penalizing that person. And so what our role is in resistance is to support people in their choice of what will be all right.

Unknown Speaker  19:44
And when we come into this, and we see a whole question of violence, non violence, I am not going to get into that that's a hot potato in this country. All right. It's a hot potato among Christians, among Catholics especially, and personally I refuse to speak about Got it. Because I don't believe that anybody has a right to make a decision for somebody else. I think each of us can choose what our non violence is and the position we happen to be in. But I don't believe that anybody can make a judgement. No matter how much we're reading the peacefulness of Jesus Christ, how many of us can deny that the Holy Spirit is in any other person and where the Holy Spirit is going to lead that person, so I don't even touch, violence, non violence, I speak of a theology of liberation, theology of resistance, a theology of change is very necessary. I think all of us have seen that this theology has brought us a new view of God, a view of hope. And I think we see this God in people in their progress toward what they should be what they were intended to be. Think that as women in the church, we have been more able to grasp this. Because we have shared in our own experience of going through this much of the oppression that we have felt, and to feel a pressure Marcy's going to really touch this a whole lot more, that I think that this is the only way you can really be in solidarity with people. It's not to feel pity for them, or to say, oh, yeah, I'm on your side. That is not Solidarity. Solidarity is only when you can recognize the same kinds of structures and how they are keeping you down. And so life is a whole new life, for all of Marinol for all missionaries, for all I think women in the church. Since I've been home, I have recognized very, very much that the same kind of struggle is here should be here. There is equal poverty right here equal powerlessness, right here, among minorities and so forth. This country may be very great as far as weaponry is concerned. But personally, I have found this nation to be poorer than any people that I have ever worked with. Because with the powerlessness that they have, their power has been taken from them. And they read maintain a wisdom and a dignity that is beautiful. But in this country, I have seen people throw away their power. I have seen people lose the dignity by groveling before the idols of things and money. And that's the greatest poverty that anybody can ever have. If anybody needs to be liberated, it's this country. We look to the future and we don't know where we're going to go. As far as women is concerned, and Marcia pull on this, as far as Marina was concerned, we don't know the future where we'll be, are we going to be expelled, reporting from all the countries are we going to come here we're in God's hands. I believe that God is going to use this as he will, she will, right? It's exciting. It's a very exciting time. And there's a great need for faith in that spirit. We believe that God's will is that the people will inherit this earth, the poor will possess this earth. And someday it will be a place where people can be truly human, all people. We look forward to that we're excited by this new, tangible God that lives in individuals becoming more and more within the church, I think there's a big problem, as Marcy will probably say, if we don't know where we're going, and countries, less and less than we know, within the church, the church is not exactly happy with the things that we do, to put it mildly. As women taking part in these different places, I think we have led this new theology, a theological reflection because we've had less to lose. We haven't worried about status. We haven't worried about things we've been free. We've been free to love, free to appreciate. And a lot of men can't do that. Because they're too busy protecting themselves. The future is coming. It's In too many countries that people are coming alive. Communications has helped a great deal. People realize that the Filipinos have something in common very, very much in common with the South Americans, with the Indonesians with the Central Americans, that women around the world are coming slowly but surely to say, hey, I don't want to live this way any more.

Unknown Speaker  24:45
It's becoming worldwide. And I believe in nothing God and the great God, a great and caring God. And I hope I live another 60 years. I'm not going to close but I wish I could. Because I think the few shoe is really going to be more. But that's I'll leave it at that.

Unknown Speaker  25:09
Well, now that we've talked a little bit about the future, I'm going to take you back to the past. I guess a little bit about a quick introduction about myself. And what brings me able to talk about this today is that from the beginning of my time on Earth, many moons ago, I had lots of questions. And I couldn't understand why as a girl, I couldn't do a lot of things. And so I'd like to start my presentation or my side of resistance, my face of that with a reading and a song. As well as being a former National Director of the women's ordination Conference, which sounds very prestigious, which means you stuff envelopes, mail, things, carry boxes, up and down, plan conferences, meet people. I also am a feminist poet, a feminist musician, composer, comedian, which the Catholic Church gives me much material to work from. We don't laugh, we'll cry and we need to do both. So I'd like to start with your minds and your hearts. Thinking about what was your history in the Catholic Church? What were some of your questions? What was some of your oppression that you can distinctly remember? And while thinking that I'd like to share from Jonah Hansen's book, woman survivor in the church, and a song from my own album called The album is called circling free and the song is called Oh, tell me and the song was written. While being a campus minister at Manhattan College three years ago, a young woman came to my room like Nicodemus in the night says, What does it mean to be a feminist? So we talked for about four or five hours. And from that talk, a song rose. And so now as you sit here today, with in mind resistance and Kapha community, maybe some of you are ex Catholics still Catholic somewhere in the midst of them between deciding what are you and where are you going? I'd like to present some word and song

Unknown Speaker  27:40
no one ever told me finish that sentence with your with your own words with your own life. No one ever told me I was talented, or organized, or bright or funny. No one ever told me I was gifted in healing and speaking, in loving in reconciliation. No one ever told me I was chosen out of and for the community. No one ever told me I was called. Called to exercise my talents. My uniqueness in ministry. No one ever told me. So I never really know. And because I am human, I need words. I need to hear them from myself from others, just as I need to listen. No, no one ever told me. But what is even more important? No one ever asked me. Even though I compromise over half the membership of the Catholic Church. No one ever asked me what I thought. How I felt what I needed, who I dreamed of becoming. I have been waiting. I have been waiting for centuries. And I have grown weary of work without words without hope, without promises. I am tired of having God used against me in the politics of exclusion. When I am told at the same time, that I am a pearl of great price. And so since no one has asked me I must begin to ask myself and others of my kind Can you tell me

Unknown Speaker  30:38
has been touched you they helped you to strong me so we can get a song okay can you tell me what hasn't touched you touched you these are being recorded

Unknown Speaker  33:38
these sessions if anyone feels uncomfortable being recorded you can either not give your name

Unknown Speaker  33:43
or obviously not speak to the table

Unknown Speaker  33:56
change your voice

Unknown Speaker  33:59
get paranoid.

Unknown Speaker  34:02
I'd like to talk a little bit about the questions and what really has shaped us to come to the moment and time in the history of women in the Catholic church that we can in fact, entitle something resistance to patriarchy in the Catholic Church. Our own self understanding I think has many pains with it and many needs and many wants and many dreams that have been crushed. I hate to say within the last 10 to 20 years women have been able to outloud claim their work in the church as ministry. We were told since they one of our consciousness about exclusion that because we were girls, we couldn't be altar boys. We couldn't be priests. I can remember playing priests when I was a little girl and not understanding why I could do it at home and with such ease with my stuffed animals. And I couldn't do it in church where everybody was stuffy anyway so So I think we have to look back. Where does our self understanding come from? What were we told what Weren't we told when we were young. And it wasn't until women began to sit around and share their stories that we began to realize that a lot of us have the same kind of questions, a lot of us have the same kind of images, and that we came from a very spiritually traumatic background. Trauma personified in the Catholic Church otherwise known. And I think anytime a woman, whether it be in the pastor society or in the church began to take a forward step or an independent role, whether she became a lawyer or a teacher, she was right away looked as, oh, she's acting like a man. That woman acts like a man. Okay, so right away, when we began to assert our power, we began to be called something other than ourselves. We were a man, therefore, because we did that. And I think our whole appearance of self, and what we believed about ourselves was always defined by the male, Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all. But when we looked in that mirror, there was a man on the other side or ourselves through the eyes of the male dominant reality in society, and both in the church and society women supported their husbands through school, not saying any of this is wrong, but a lot of that we help them to their school, we carried their titles, you were the wife of the mother of the daughter of so we had a lot of maleness even in our name. And so we, in the society, we began to, and we were not began to we always had our male definition. And a male dominant. We helped them through school, we help them through work. We were, you know, we went to the meetings, we went to the dinner parties, in the church, the same thing. We supported the men for ordination. Yes, father in society was Yes, dear. And the church was Yes, father. So it was always, yes, the hunching down the lowering of ourselves. But what were some of the effects of that understanding of ourselves in terms of our claiming our own ministry, there's some good ones and some bad ones. I think, what we did in the olden days of church participation, and I'm not that old, and but I'm not that young anymore, either. I think I remember back teaching CCD, you know, we taught catechism when we if we were a nurse or a teacher, we or we visited the sick. We were doing good works. We had auxiliary services, they were never claimed as ministry. You know, we help Father. So again, our definition was through the male eyes. And there was a sense of sacral unworthiness. You don't step in the sanctuary. Do you ever ask why did you try it and afraid God was gonna strike you dead. Elizabeth Schuessler Fiorenza, who's a famous, not famous, but infamous, to feminist theologian who just finished her book in memory of her, told me a story one time at a women's ordination meeting. When she was a little girl, she grew up in Germany, you were not allowed, you know, to be in the sanctuary, of course, but Halloween, they have this tradition. Like if you walk in the church with your costume on, you're gonna die instantly. I mean, God's gonna get you so little defiant little theologian that she was she dressed her costume and ran and church like really up to the sanctuary and stood there and was laughing and like waiting for this moment. And she discovered that it didn't happen, that she grew up, and she still wore costumes.

Unknown Speaker  38:45
So I think we have to come to an understanding that our image was, we're going to die, God's gonna get you will get zapped, you know, we're unworthy to be in the sanctuary, the holy place. And God forbid, if you touch the sacred vessels, you were going to wither up, for sure. But it was funny that an eight year old boy could carry across that an eight year old boy could bring the chalice to fire that eight year old boy could be up in the sanctuary that he had the consciousness and the ability to do that. But any of us is a grown mature woman or even as a young, mature woman, which all women are girls are. We couldn't do even these simple things. Confusion. So what do we have we have an image of ourselves beginning that we were bad that we were unworthy, that if in fact we did walk into the Holy of Holies, we would be dead of dads. Our sacramental system, we were totally dependent on men. totally dependent on men and our sacramental system and it was male controlled. Therefore, we became male dominant. And if you look at the sacramental system now through a feminist analysis is Very, very feminine. The birthing, the welcoming the water, the brick breaking the bread, the serving of the bread, the healing, there's a lot of feminine reality in our sacraments. But we were told again that we couldn't do that. Imagine how hard it was for mothers to explain to us I know my mother had a hard time explaining to me why I couldn't be an altar girl. I just could not understand that. And neither could she. But it was very difficult for her to explain that. So it put our mothers in a position of not knowing why they were on Holi telling us that well, because that's the way it is. Or because you're a girl. Again, our mothers had to become those who were male dominant. The sisters who had any religious communities who had to go to weekly confession, and we always heard the good sisters, the good sisters, and I remember a priest one time saying, hearing weekly confession from nuns was like being bombarded by popcorn. I mean, they weren't pleased what they were doing either. But they still continued the system. And what about the control of the sacramental system and how women who were divorced or remarried, and who had to leave their home situation either because of domestic violence, or other reasons, were denied the sacraments men had control. So therefore, women were very subordinate. And we were always under the control of man. We heard our imaging of God as man, therefore, man was God, woman was not God, we could not be holy. And the only access we had through to the holy publicly was through men. The priest was the mediator. Priests was the image of Christ. And I always wondered why men in dresses to do this. So in a lot of way, our imagery and our self identification was lost, and is in pain. What was some of the outcome of this history? I think there's some good things that came out of this, believe it or not, and some bad things. Because our ministry, or our work really went unnamed, and even unrecognized, but not saying it was any less for that. And because it never was ritualized, it was unfortunate, and it was also a blessing. Our personal service was one to one, usually we could minister without looking for power, we could be there for one another. We didn't have to get permission. I mean, to really minister one on one. And the image of God through what women could give to one another was not necessarily the image that was God, that was stern, or God, that was me. And so in some ways, because of this reality, the feminine image of God, whether we could name it, that at that point began to creep in. And women ministers, because of their own sense, and we heard this because of our sense of oppression, and identification with the oppressed, we could have a real commitment to the personal and and to the oppressed, because we ourselves have had the pain. And I think in a lot of ways, what we went through as women in our stages of church development, if one wants to call it that was a lot of what Jesus went through.

Unknown Speaker  43:31
I think we have a more claim to the gospel reality than the institutional church does. Jesus was disowned by the religious authorities. He was questioned. He also found solidarity with the poor and he didn't in ritualize, any of his ministry, he met the needs of the people. You know, and that's always a question and when we when we talk about women's ordination, well, Jesus now, you know, didn't ordain women. Well, Jesus didn't ordain anyone number one, you know, and if that is the model of priesthood, then our priests should be Jewish fishermen who are married zealots. Yeah, exactly. So that's a very falsified kind of thing. I think our relation to the Gospel has a reality that I think the institutional church can't claim because of that, because of our roots. One day, at a meeting of walk, we were talking about, you know, confronting the bishops and doing some things which I'll get into later. And it just dawned on me, I said, Why do we waste our time? You know, and I just think about Jesus going up to the authorities and saying, You vipers, you brood you parade around in your robes, you know, you have your incense or send your dresses and everything else. He says, I don't want that. In turn, he went and built the alternative. And I think that is the blessing of resistance that has happened in the woman's movement in the church is that we smelled the coffee and woke up institutionally, we've had no voice. We've been passive objects. Everything has been male dependent. What any leadership roles have taken place of calm basically from religious communities, which are now looking at their lifestyle and their history and questioning. What do these Vows say? How do we live them? Now? If we look at the names of the Vows, poverty, chastity and obedience, I think there's some question of how can we relate that to society's domination over women? Poverty, when they make 59 cents to the dollar, nuns probably make 20 cents to the dollar in most parishes, still. Chastity, sexual control. We hear that from the Vatican. Birth control, what we must do with our bodies, there's a lot of lot of similarities on how things came down through history. And what do they stay? Obedience the whole sense. I mean, there's different definitions. Now I'm going to the old definitions, obedience, the whole sense of not being in dialogue with your authority, but Father says the superior says, that whole thing of keeping us in the childlike position. So all through our church history, women have been made to be less, to be unable to control their bodies, to be unable to earn equal pay for equal work and beyond equal work. Because I think women without women in the church, I think the church wouldn't have moved where it has today. So we see that our history includes the reality that women have been victims. We've been victims of power. And because of that, I think we realized in, in looking at how are we going to change or how do we change the church. We don't want to create the same thing. We don't want non hierarchical structures. We want participative leadership, we want shared authority. We talked about empowerment and mutuality. We don't want dominant values and patterns. We want two way communication three way four way five way communication rather than the almighty EDID. Coming down. We want cooperation rather than competition. We want persuasion rather than coercion plurality. And so I think women suffering in the church, our question has been with, with a bearing of fruit, we have beard fruit because of this. And I think there are still women who would like to get in this system the way it is, and there assist women who'd like to change the system. Our imaging of God has always been male God, God, the Father, God sitting in his heaven with the big book, I remember that when I was a little kid, the checkmarks, I was sure I was the queen of checkmarks. You know, I had a lot of them, I was sure. And so God was the father. Therefore God was man, man was God. Jesus was man. And it goes on and on. And we are somewhere down here. And I think that has really impoverished us in some ways. And yet also, again, there's a blessing that has come out of the fact that we have not been godlike, because it helps us to understand that God is not stale. God is not one sex, I think.

Unknown Speaker  48:30
Also, I think, we have come to understand because in some ways we do not relate to God or have not, I'm talking past I'm not talking present or future. Because our history says, you know, God is man man is God, in the name of God. Men have killed, men have had war, women have never destroyed in the name of God. Never in the history of life, nor have women condemned other women in the name of God, unless of course, women buy into that system and try to act like God. ie we had the need of Brian episode, we have the Phyllis Schlafly episode with era and we can go I'm sure we have personal people in our own lives. And so women I think, because of our unrack ignition and our on nameless are a namelessness have been able to move into a ministry that works with the nameless that works with the so called quote unquote sinners, the divorce, the remarried the gays, the lesbians, the prostitutes, the alcohols, the addicts, the poor, the blacks, the Hispanics, and so on and so forth. The peace people. So I think what has happened is that our history has helped us to stir the ashes has helped us to take our ashes of oppression, our ashes of physical, mental and emotional violence that has happened, and somehow let the Phoenix of new life appear. And that's what I have tried to work with, and help build as the Phoenix of new life. And I'd like to talk about that. I think women have been refined in the fire. And I'm not saying that our suffering has been good, nor have I enjoyed it. I'm not an masochistic person. But I have to say that because of it, because of that oppression, we have been able to raise a voice that has never been raised before so clearly, and so profoundly as it is in the woman's movement in the church today. There have been people along the way, we heard a few saints names. We're finding a few more. Teresa of Avila, Julian of Norwich, and the list goes on Catherine of Siena. There's more and more some we don't even know about. Joan of Arc, the nameless those burned at the stakes, those who were the martyrs The name was martyrs have today. Our models are few. Therefore we have to be the creators. The only models we really had in the church was one, Mary. And how did we find Mary? Mary, through their language through their eyes was meek and mild and gentle. We forget during the Annunciation or the story that presents that reality to us. That marry so how can this be done? I don't know any man. We forget her restlessness. We forget her questioning. All we learn is her passiveness. Be it done to me, according to your word. Yes, father. What would it be like when you were 16 years old and go to your mother until you were pregnant? And God did it? Let's be real. Who else did we have the other woman we heard about Eve? What did we hear about her? She got thrown out of the garden. Why? Because she became an uppity woman. Of course, she called us all to suffer. It was her fault that we're suffering. You know, and I think a lot of time when I used to teach religion in school, the kids said, Well, you know, Adam, you know, she was created from Adam's rib. I said, Well, if you want to believe that, then that's just remember it was the prime rib. Okay. And I think also, you know, the Apple has become the forbidden fruit, we should raise that Apple in consciousness and with great power because it was the core experience of the first uppity woman and in the men of Ai in when women become that way, what do we do, we have to get rid of them. And so we have the story of the woman being banished from where from the garden, the earth, take the earth away from the women so we can rape it, we can blow it up. It's a story that we we haven't really looked at. So our models are far and few behind. In 1975. A few models Catholic women, I do this little comedy act of coming out as model of the church.

Unknown Speaker  53:25
A few women who in their own questioning got together in Chicago, began to talk about their call, the feeling rumbling in their guts, that something was very wrong with this institution. We were lucky enough to have it happen in an age of media, and an age of newspaper, and an age that word could get out. And this was word that for once women could say out loud, and not through the eyes or the mouth, or the books of a man and the woman to start this rumbling was named Mary B. Lynch. Who is a new model of our age. Mary died a few years ago of cancer but Mary was the woman who began the Whole Woman's ordination conference. She and some of her friends got together in their apartment and talked about their questions. They're wondering why they couldn't be priest. Why couldn't they be in the ordination aisle? Reality of the church? Why couldn't they have a say? Why could they break bake the bread and not break the brim? And so about three to five women gathered in an apartment scared still with the thought that they were going to get zapped. Well they did but it wasn't like God, the Father or God the evil one. It was by the feminine spirit, the Rua the breath to push forward and give life And those five women with no money call together the first conference in 1975, of the women's ordination conference in which 1000 women went to Detroit, I happen to be living in Detroit, then I was really lucky. 100 Lay women, and 900, religious, nuns, whatever one wants to call them, and one bishop appeared. And it was the first time that the issue was raised and made public that there is a stirring that women are asking questions. That conference, the issue was brought public, why not ordination? What does it mean to us? And it was a time of searching and looking at the structure of the church, do we want it the way it is. And so out of that was birth, the office or the national movement of the women's ordination Conference, which said, we are women of Catholic tradition asking for ordination to a renewed priestly ministry. And I think that's the important thing is the renewed priestly ministry. We think or we always thought when it first came out, and I remember at the end of that conference, that they really didn't define what they meant by renewed priestly ministry. And at the end of the conference, they had all women who felt called to the priesthood, they asked us to rise and we had a blessing service, and I didn't rise and I even though I felt called as to because they didn't tell me what they meant by renewed priestly ministry. And when I look back on that, I say, I was distrusting. It was a lot of my socialization. What are these women talking about? They haven't put it in a package for me. I'm used to I was used to the church, you know, father says, I mean, so it was a lot of my unconscious roots of oppression coming up.

Unknown Speaker  56:58
And I said, I'm not going to stand up because they haven't defined it. And I realized you can't define it you live in.

Unknown Speaker  57:06
And from that time, from that moment, in 1975, when those women gathered, the voice was heard the Vatican got scared. The great line from Jesus Christ Superstar, we have a problem he, they are danger. So boys in their dresses got nervous in Rome. And what did they do? They put out an almighty EDIC Vatican declaration against the ordination of women. Unless we look like Jesus, we cannot be ordained. I quickly put together women's ordination kit, which included a fake penis, a beard and sandals. I figured by then we could make it. But that wasn't the reality either. And the best cartoon I ever saw after the declaration came out was the shroud on a table, you know, the Shroud of Turin, which they think is related to Jesus in the face, and, and all behind the shroud were these men all in their Roman collars, and they all looked like the shroud. And then it said, unless you look like Jesus, I've yet to found a male priest who looks like Jesus. Some of them I don't even think know who he is or act like. But anyway. So you can see when we began the rumblings and we went public, and our resistance was very non violent. It was by word, word of mouth, theologians came together. Ethics were being looked at moral imperatives, women in the Episcopal Church, who ordained were there sharing their experience and edging us on and giving us courage and saying, don't lose sight of the renewed priestly ministry we got in the system the way it is, and what have we really gained? Not much. If you talk to the women, even today, some changes have been made, but they still are, that haven't been made. changes have not been made. And so from 75, the women's ordination conference was born to became a national organization and it felt good to be one of the 100 Lay women there. And to know that I wasn't crazy, that there were other women who finally told me who finally asked me the questions who called me to look and own my call. Finally, someone told me yes, I was holy. Yes, I was talented. Yes. What I have been giving my life to is ministry is priesthood. 1978 in Baltimore. The second women's ordination conference came into being this time 2500 women get appeared in Baltimore. This time we learned a little more about strategy, papers and so on and so forth. This time, we began to realize that our struggle is not unique, that it relates to women around the world. And that sexism, racism, classism, heterosexism, were words that became very evident in our vocabulary. That words that we began to look at. In 78, we marched down the streets of Baltimore from the harbor, our opening service to the convention center wrapped in a large chain, representing that we, as women are chained carrying before us an anchor of hope. And during the conference, we broke the chain, and each of us took a piece home. The conference itself had inner rumblings. Bill Callahan, who is a Jesuit priest who came out publicly for women's ordination and was asked to be in exile. Also works for the god Center, also is the starter of priests for equality, helped with the liturgical celebration. Some women had problems there in 78, that a male was celebrating our liturgy. And so they in turn, at the same time, which made it terrible, in some ways, in good and other ways, had an alternative Eucharistic service. It was the first time that women took the initiative publicly, to do something like this. Of course, no one called it Eucharist. They didn't call it liturgy, it was an alternative service.

Unknown Speaker  1:01:58
And it was a hard time for a lot of women because a lot of women knew Bill Callahan had supported the women's movement. And we're torn between staying to support somebody who's been here with us, or to choose. It was a real hard time. And it was a good time for women, because I think it was the line where we began to cross and say, Do we really need men still to be our providers. And that was a step. I think from three years, it was a big step. Also, during that conference, the lesbian issue came up. They tried to have an economic boycott. If you imagine every woman who was related to church ministry, whether it be your first grade teacher to the woman who washed his father's clothes, stops work for a day, leaves her job in the institutional church. All the secretaries all the people who clean all the people who teach colleges to minutus unnamed woman who works some half of the church leaves her job. Hospitals, what what happened? We tried to put that strategy out, women freaked out, they weren't ready. So we decided, well, what would be another strategy economically, the parents of funny money began. Funny money was invented by Dali Pomerleau, who works at the Kyoto center now. And it is $1 bill that has a peach picture St. Teresa of Avila on the front. And it says I refuse to put $1 in this collection map basket until there was equality between men and women. And it was the greatest thing to go into church, especially when there's a seminary fun and get 15 or 20 women doing it, and you see these big green dollar bills coming up. So that was another strategy of resistance. One time in the national office, we got $1 back from a press and says, I don't know if I should credit this woman in my books for this. Give her credit, though, you know. So I think little funny things were happening. Humor started to come in to our struggle, we had to laugh because when we began to tell our stories, we began to cry and cry hard. I wrote a song A while ago, and there was one line from it. And it says And if you should cry, let cleansing be your gift. And I think I've seen that gift happen in women as I have traveled around the country and heard their stories. So 1978 brought us to another place. It brought us to begin to ask questions not only the institution but of each other. What do we mean by ministry? Where do we stand? Who and how do we accept the marginalized even within ourselves? How do we deal with the divorce women? How do we deal with the women who choose abortion? How do we deal with the lesbian women? They are our sisters. We are those people they are us. So How that began to raise the consciousness even within herself. So we had simultaneous consciousness as going. As we began to confront the institution, we began to realize that that institution is so oppressed that we don't want to part of it. They oppress their own kind. They oppress men so bad. I mean, look at our priesthood, we tell them, they have to be accountants, they have to be counselors, they have to be celibate, they have to be able to do this ABCD, I can go on live alone, super people, the system oppresses them. We don't want to feel pressed even more. And so we began questioning the system as well as began raising consciousness among ourselves, and undoing the fact that no one ever told me, I could be divorced, I could be gay, I could be a woman in pain, and that it was okay to have that reality in my story. And that it didn't mean I was any less, or that God or the goddess, whenever one names it does not love me or call me holy. So as we began to resist the institution, the resistance among ourselves, the horizontal violence that had been set up among ourselves, was beginning to be looked at, and slowly being dissolved. 78 brought us on. We began after the seventh eighth conference, to look think of other strategies. One was to write to our bishops, the congressman of our church, sad to say, those who make the policies to write letters and people say, Oh, he's they're not going to read it. Yes, they do. We've gotten responses from them, to begin to challenge them to say, look, boys, we're tired of this, and we won't take it anymore.

Unknown Speaker  1:07:00
So we began to write, we began to call them to look at their own systems, how are they being oppressed. In 1980, the bishops invited the women's ordination conference to sit down and dialogue with them. That's only a five year span. Since the first public word about women's ordination came out. That is a miracle in history, and in most recent history of women in the church. Five women were invited from the Women's ordination conference along with theologians of our choice. This dialogue went on for two years. With five of them and five of us, they brought in speakers we brought in speakers and they dealt with the imaging of God, feminist theology, patriarchal systems. A lot of the words had to be explained to the bishops. They have never heard what we were talking about. First meeting they got there, they were all in their bishop clothes, the women went in there women clothes. The bishops called them by their first names are the Joan, the women called the bishops, Mike Frank, and they refuse to call them bishops. By the second meeting, the bishops came in sports close some of them, they began to call each other Frank, Mike Joe, instead of Bishop. So why the women were trying to work for the women a strategy to confront the institution to dialogue, some internal changes in the bishops were happening. A blessing out of our curse. As the story continues, 1980 I worked in the national office. I left Manhattan College and took a job in the national office to be part of the team. I went to my first bishops meeting and national bishops meeting they meet every year in November in Washington. I felt like I was I didn't know where I was when I got there. They're all in their black. They all sat in rows. podium was there and they're all here. You see him in the lounge, they'd hardly talk to each other. Yes. This show. Yeah. Especially titles everywhere. And we were there with our pamphlets talking about women's ordination. If we knew we had spies in the walls, you know, you have their spies in the system. So some of the priests who are on our side would tell us this guy's good go for him. We would be lobbying. I mean, we did political lobbying with these bishops. You have to get up there and talk to them and not saying not in a sense of saying Bishop, you know, you're really wrong or whatever, but thank them. Nobody ever thanks the guys who risk and say, hey, you know, thanks for that word of support. But you could have took it a step further. See, and you never just like pat him on the head and walk away. You pat him on the head and then give him a little kiss. Because you go to help them on their way. So we began to see we started to lobby, we had 25 women with blue armbands sitting there as a presence. And they knew where those armbands meant the first meeting, which was they went to I think it was after the Baltimore conference in 1978. The women went from Baltimore to Washington, and, and sat there to sit in with blue armbands and demanded that they have time and their agenda of the bishops meeting and they refused. Five bishops stood up and said, We have to start listening to these women. So that was a little crack in the wall. So when I went to my first meeting, it was like you would rally and you lobby, that was one of our strategies of letting them know that we're there and we're resisting quietly and loudly. The second Bishop's meeting I went to we decided now we knew they were going to come in a day earlier. Well, how are we going to make the fact or the visible fact that we're it's not only the few women that are there, but that we have grown unto unto a 2500 member organization, and that we want them to look at this system and how they have oppressed women and the fact that we want to change the system. So we had our information take back the church march on Washington, where 500 Women rallied in Lafayette Park, with a rally speech in saying we won't take it anymore. I was commissioned to write a song that became the walk national anthem, or the walk anthem, which says Do not forget the calling you received. Instead, stand up and be strong. For we are women and we know that we are free and together we will go on. We had trumpets to blow around the walls of the Hilton which became the walls of Jericho. Many of us stayed on the floors of friends because we could not afford the Hilton. And we marched around the Hilton stopping at three specific spots, blowing the horn and proclaiming

Unknown Speaker  1:12:02
that the bishops have been sexist, racist, classist, heterosexism. And during these stops having different readings and having different people give talks, with signs and songs, we marched around the walls. The Hilton didn't tremble. But many bishops peeked out from behind their curtains, and a few of them were trembling.

Unknown Speaker  1:12:27
They were getting nervous.

Unknown Speaker  1:12:30
We have taken to the streets, we refuse to be silent. Women went to the meeting, still in rows, this time running away from the women with the blue armbands. But the dialogue continued. And 19 I think it might have been at two then the last bishops meeting and the one before it. When the nuclear pastoral was being talked about, that wasn't this recent one, it was last November. I walked in the room or the bishops meeting and I almost fell on the floor. There were round tables. The bishops were talking to one another. Women were invited from different communities, different organizations to sit around their tables, and talk. A little step, a big step. The recent Bishop meeting last November, was held at the same time, as the women in the church Coalition, which included all the various groups, the women's ordination conference, National Assembly, women, religious church, Women United, several women's groups got together and held a conference called Women church speaks. It wasn't there were about 1200 women, they're not a man to be heard or seen from, in which we said from generation to generation will give a birthing cry, women church is here. The same time the bishops were in Washington, sitting around the table, discussing the outcomes of the dialogue and realizing and beginning to sense with urgency that they have sinned against women. cracks in the wall and the institutional resistance. There are changes going on in the church. Not giant steps for mankind, but giant steps for women can't. That has been the institutional, political kind of resistance that has been going on. The curse has given us the blessing. But there was a bigger blessing going on. As I said Jesus confronted the thought Are these but he built the alternative? If the bishops were smart, in 1975, they would have ordain women on the spot. And we would have had what we have in the Episcopal Church women in the system. Not saying that that's not a good strategy. Still, I think there are women who believe to get inside the walls and to change is a good strategy. If that for someone they feel that's the way they would like to to explore that fine. But for myself, I don't choose that way. Because of this struggle of resistance against the institution, women began to understand that yes, in fact, we have the power to do it ourselves. The summer of 1980, a whole issue of the National Catholic Reporter came out about women doing what we would call feminist ritual. Across the country, today, there are over 300 base communities of women who celebrate Eucharist or whatever one wants to name, women's ritual, who are ministering, who are building community. The alternative was born from the ashes of the institutional struggle and the resistance. There was a continuum. Women realize their call to priesthood, they realize their call to ministry, they worked within the institutional church that still continues, and yet at the same time, the building of women stories led them to the building of their own community. And beyond the reality, women now are saying, forget the ordination. We're beyond that. We're beyond that. And they're claiming that. So out of the women people came the whole sense of women's spirituality. How many years ago did you hear about feminist theology? When was the feminist theological Institute started? The politics of women's spirituality published

Unknown Speaker  1:17:06
because we realized we were oppressed because we dare to speak because we dare to resist because we dare to take action we have among us, especially in the Catholic community, and it goes beyond us. But because I'm speaking from the Catholic perspective, we have a woman church that speaks. And last November when those women gathered in Chicago, the fruit of two years of my life, the fruit of several years of all of our lives, became visible. And when 1200 Women danced at the end of that conference, singing from generation to generation of birthing cry will go for, through all the races from all the places, woman church was born. We give birth to ourselves. And because we have struggled, because we have resisted, because we have asked questions, because we dare to envision a future that is beyond anything we ever knew. There is hope. There is hope that the institution will change. There's hope that we know as women, we are holy, with an H and with a W. And that we have changed, and that we have risen out of the ashes of oppression. And we can't give up the fight. On the continuum, many of us have crossed the line of ordination or beyond some of have been post post post church, ex Catholic, feminist, spiritualist, psychic goddess ritualist. We hear all different kinds of words to now claim whatever spirituality is in our life. But we can't forget that there are women behind us who still sit in the pews who still think they're unholy, who still are abused, who are still oppressed. The greatest gift of resistance to patriarchy we can give is the turn around and to minister to one another, and to call each other forth to take the next step and resist the old cries of no one ever told me. And I think our stories melt together to form the new story. And the story is only told by turning around and telling Another sister you hear resistance births assistance and we have to assist one another now to walk with one another now to walk justly to walk with a reality that we love and our love is valid to walk with the reality that God is in our midst

Unknown Speaker  1:20:36
WE ARE THE CHURCH we are the new church we are women and we are good and out of our curse we have found I think the greatest blessing ourselves Hi I'm Ron in my see me I'm standing strong going to say come to sing my song and restore you you then to use drugs you D's in my sea standee also strong

Unknown Speaker  1:23:37
come to see my song think now we'd like to you know, I don't know if you have any answers, but maybe you have some questions or shared thoughts.

Unknown Speaker  1:24:20
First of all, I'd like to get a personal history on Air Force bases. Exactly. And one of the major forces that telltale signs passed by

Unknown Speaker  1:24:40
the President's claim Maribel missionaries weekly and monthly bulletin, which told me about the sufferings of people in the third world. The way the missionaries were saying that these people had dignity and I It wasn't their fault and somebody was to blame. But it wasn't that these people were stupid and incompetent. And that's why they were so poor. And I wish I read faithfully when I was nine and 10 years old. So I thought that I should

Unknown Speaker  1:25:18
thank you for that. Now, I feel very strongly that a lot of where I come from has come from some of the good stuff that I learned in the Catholic Church. But the reason I brought with the church and left when I was 16, and had never walked back, and this is as close as I can. 25 years, right, is because because the church taught me that suffering was good. And had an image of Jesus on the cross is the most important image of my childhood in the bleeding, suffering Jesus with the crown of thorns, right, and the blood, the stories, the stigma. And that fostered a an atmosphere of what I think of as competitive suffering, right? The person that's in the world is the person who suffers the most. And the, you know, in New York City, right now, we're going through this to the Jews from the black boys, the Jews, which one is a better person because of this. And I regret to say that I hear in both of your talks, and idea that the suffering that women and that poor people in the Philippines have had is good, and that people have gained from this. And, you know, it just terrifies me, I'm trying to build a world in which suffering will be reduced. I'm trying to build a world in which women will get 100 cents on the dollar, and that I'm an economist. Women will, you know, not 59 cents on the dollar, but 100 cents on the dollar in a world where women can afford to feed their children. And, and we're aware, you know, I would not want to raise my children to suffer. I mean, the as you know, having been raised as a Catholic, I assume that all my suffering probably is good. But I don't think I managed to bake the bread with my children. I don't think that it's good for my children to suffer forever. Right? And, and I really am upset. Because Brandon, both your suffering is a good thing.

Unknown Speaker  1:27:15
Yeah, I, I don't want to get theological about this. But I think that suffering is a fact of what is happening. And the thing is, what I was saying, when I was trying to say, and perhaps I said it very incorrectly, that when you see that suffering, you say this can't be what God wants. It that is what has been taught to us that people are there. And that's good. And so for that is the old theology. And that is precisely what I was trying to say that the new liberation theology is almost a denial of that. The only thing that it includes is that all theology is so incomplete, with God and myself and the more I stuff in the world, God loves me and my salvation is up there. And I should just obey. That that is completely repudiated, I would say, by the newer theology, that sees that that has just been that the church itself has been part and parcel of the whole international structure to keep people oppressed, because other people are gaining from it, to take that suffering, and to bless it. But the new theology is precisely that we can't deny that it exists. And there's no way we can prevent it right now, this minute, you might be able to prevent it for your children, but you're not going to be able to prevent it for your children, because they live in a system, honey. I mean, that's the basic fact. So the point is to empower people to say whatever suffering there is, it does not come from God, it is coming from something in which I live, and to empower them. That's precisely the exciting part of this and why the future is there. I don't know if we're gonna live to see the day where there's no suffering. But we're certainly going to live to see a day when we all recognize that that the suffering that people have inflicted on this world making other people suffer, that has to be taken care of the oppressed, must become more human, and to believe in themselves. And the oppressors must be made to admit that they are sinning. So I mean, I get frightened when you say that, because I mean, I hope I didn't get that across to others. That's precisely where the old theology is reputed, and the new thing comes in suffering is a horrible thing, a horrible thing. And here in the States, we might say, Yes, I'm going to eat meat on Friday, and we're fast for one day, this is my sacrifice to God because God loves me to give up things. Well, it's good for your waistline. And I think God when I need to sacrifice we're into really helping people. And that's what God himself said. Take your sacrifices, kids, I really don't want them. Do something else. And that's what Christianity is about.

Unknown Speaker  1:30:00
I see. And I think what I was trying to present what I mean, we all share a history, I'm sure everybody in this room if they relate to the Catholic Church shares a history that women were, were oppressed. I mean, we had pain. And what I was trying to say is, we can take that pain and wallow in it and do nothing with it. But what happened as women woke up and said, I refuse, I refuse to have any longer be told that I'm no good, or that I'm not worthy. Instead, because we experienced that we were able to stand up, we refuse to take it anymore. You know. So I think what I was trying to say is that is reality that all of us in this room have shared. And I think the next generation or the generations that follow us, will have to hear that story to know, in some ways that there has been a struggle so that they don't have that kind of pain anymore. I'm not saying pains one, I'm not into pain. But I think what I was trying to say is that that has been our history. And from that history, we were able to take that anger and turn it into empowerment. And I think that's the key is that we have to keep empowering, and not continue to tell people they're not any good or they're less or they're not holy, because that has been our story. And we know that hurt.

Unknown Speaker  1:31:28
I don't know if there's such a thing as being an X capital election, there's many of us who say we are. But I left the church, because I felt I could not be a part of what it was.

Unknown Speaker  1:31:40
It's listening to you,

Unknown Speaker  1:31:42
it seems as if there is a part of that church that is existing somewhere else in a different form. Do you see yourselves as being Catholics? Or do you see yourselves as being people with a sustaining spirituality about what they see as their work in life forming a different religious community? Because I don't see you as being the Catholic Church.

Unknown Speaker  1:32:12
I knew

Unknown Speaker  1:32:13
and left

Unknown Speaker  1:32:15
and that I have felt deprived. Yet you are in many ways connected to the church, I don't know where to get you.

Unknown Speaker  1:32:31
I think you know, I my experience from Mauritius is very different in the sense and just to go through it very briefly, I definitely consider myself a Catholic. I don't really know how that differs from a Christian, except that perhaps on some theological elements, like I really believe in the Eucharist. And I believe that Mary was the mother of God, I don't know if she was a virgin or not. And personally, I really don't care whether she was immaculate or not. It doesn't bother me and at least a little bit, right. Take it a leader. There's no point in touching my life. I think I was very Roman Catholic. In joining Marino. Okay, a part of the church. But I think that for all of us, in going out, you very rarely touch the institutionalized church no matter what country you happen to be in. I mean, my essay a priest for days, no, nothing, you bury the dead. You take care of this and this. And really what the Church says really doesn't make too much impression on it doesn't it's not part of your life. No, I really don't get like that we've been celebrating I feel for you, Chris. The past 20 years. Formally, as at our center at Marian Hall, it happens a little nooks and crannies and the main main chapel, you've got a priest there. But it, the institutionalized hasn't touched my life. I mean, and I can't tell you how long and I think for us, as a community, we revamped our entire congregation as most most groups did. Okay, and we had our own little revolution within. And for me right now. I consider myself a Christian and a Catholic, as I just said, and I don't know, I presume that the Pope would not approve what we do or what we say, but I really am not enamored with the Pope either. You know, I mean, but I am with Jesus Christ. And I believe that that's what the church is that is people. I don't think that bishops describe it or priests describe it. I believe that the church is people and that we are beginning to create what we want it to be maybe in little groups, maybe in bigger groups, but I think the era of great organization wrong. It's gonna crumble. I mean, who cares? And I personally don't care I mean, but this tape it has no me meaning. So what is What was Jesus about? It doesn't matter who is sitting on the throne in Rome. It has nothing to do with the people, the suffering that must be eliminated the humanity of people. And so I don't know what I am, I consider myself very much a part of the church. But to me, the church is people striving to be godlike and trying to be human.

Unknown Speaker  1:35:33
I, well, can I can I cut that I'm a woman who has grown with Catholic roots. I used to have a love hate relationship with the Catholic Church. And I'm talking about the institutional thing I, I was a Sister of Charity for six years, my left 10 years ago. And I also worked in campus ministry and worked in liturgy. And if it wasn't for my work in the institutional church, I wouldn't have this music I have today. I wouldn't have the knowledge of how oppressed I am. I don't think you're alone in saying you left when you were 16 years old. I think a lot of women left. I mean, remember, after eighth grade, after you got confirmed you knew it all. You know, that was it, you had all the answers. And a lot of people left the church at a very early age. And I think, in some ways, it was unfortunate that many women haven't kept abreast of the fact that there has been a movement of women in the Catholic Church, a great movement of resistance that has birthed something else. And from that birthing, and from that struggle, lots of things were born, I haven't stepped foot and institutional church service in years, set the five to sing at a wedding. And usually because I do that, because I need the money to pay rent. But otherwise, I mean, that's not part of my experience any longer. And it doesn't invalidate that. That was a part of my experience. I think I look back on the experience and say, What, I look at the good stuff, what did I gain from it? And where did it leave me? You know, where would I be without those roots? Where would I be without questioning the system being in such a system? For myself, right now, I say I have Catholic roots, I do women's ritual. And that's usually ecumenical. I'm into women's spirituality, I think that's, that's, I think, I learned learned and yearned for some sense of the holy in me. And it just manifests itself in many ways right now in my life, whether it be through my poetry, my art, my music, my gathering, women talking ministering. So I don't claim myself to be institutional, of anything at this point. I think I'm, I'm a floater in some ways. I go with the Spirit leads. I do believe in the gospel. I think what the gospel has to say, is very important. I think we, we misinterpreted that in so many ways, the church the institutional church just took and I think I've brought some of that out about Jesus building the alternative. And so I guess my work now in working with women's music, from women's experience, and is that I have chosen to create to be part of the alternative and whatever that means, for me in a certain time in my life. Right now, it's very much with music. Two years ago, it was with ministry, campus ministry, counseling, lot counseling, so it changes as I change. I think as long as one is in tune to what is good and holy in themselves, and that leads them to do good for others. I think that's important.

Unknown Speaker  1:38:47
How do you what do you function as at this point? Are you a sister? No, I left the Sisters of Charity. No, I'm

Unknown Speaker  1:38:53
alive. Well, all moms are laypersons to me that, no, I'm a single woman. I'm working in a printing company right now packing boxes. I was unemployed for a while, and I worked on my album. So I'm functioning like you functioning as a woman.

Unknown Speaker  1:39:12
Which troubles me a little bit, even though I realized that it's very difficult to work at all levels all the time. But it worries me that one can say, I don't care about who's on the phone, because he doesn't touch me. And it worries me tremendously that he is someone who does touch the vast majority of your attention. And I wonder to what extent the alternatives or what might be described in certainly as a shopping bag, supermarket, where we take what we want and rejecting the aspects that you don't want. That that is not enough. That is something which is open to educate. But for the vast majority are not. That that isn't possible. So, when one looks at the effects on women particularly, and the terrible effects it has on the psyche of the church, you say in what way? Should should should you be trying?

Unknown Speaker  1:40:21
I think that perhaps there are from different experiences. For example, I could never, I think, get as excited or as involved as, perhaps if I lived in this country, right, where you see the majority of people with at least subsistence level, living I mean a lot of poor people into, by and large, that there is a higher standard of living than in other places. I have worked on my life, among really abjectly poor people. And the women in those guns, why worked very, very specially with women, that's what I was trying to bring out. There are levels of oppression. And some of them are economic, which is the very basic thing that they want. I mean, that's the first thing that they're working for is this economic freedom, right? Then perhaps political freedom, because they're very closely united. But there is also a cultural freedom that they need, which which very much involves the whole cultural role that they have to play as women, which is extremely oppressive. In any place that you go, when you're talking about Nicaragua, white right now, that while the module ism is declining, somewhat, because of the role in the revolution itself, there is still a great many people who still think the same way that's got a long way to go. But for myself, when I consider maybe who I am, maybe what I've been called to and so forth, that I happen to work in the Philippines. But if you really look at it, two thirds of this world is in that state of abject poverty. So personally, I'm not going to get on the case of John Paul. Because really, yes, the way he thinks, and he speaks about you cannot use birth control. Well, there aren't really too many people who buy that. Right? Because he says it No, I mean, in comparison to the whole world, right? And the Philippines and others, they are baby producing machines. That is what woman is, but it's not because Pope John says it or any Pope. It's because culturally, that's what they are. And I think we have to distinguish very, very clearly, what you might think the impact of Rome is and what the actual obedience to that because of what he said is, you see this a whole mixture as you begin to analyze this stuff, how much is religion, a part of a culture, how much it is a reinforcement of the whole economic system, it's all intertwined in there. So I think we have to be very careful not to give it it's suited people to have a little Pope in Rome, because they ruled in his name, they conquered nations in his name, it was a very convenient thing. In the modern day, even among the people who have not had an advantage of education of any kind, or an exposure to any kind of education, he's looked at as a symbol of kind of like God. But he himself has quickly broken that, as we saw that in Nicaragua, where people were looking for a pastor. And he came down as an authoritarian, not even caring about the people preaching all the obedience to terrible tyrant. So what is happening? And that is not lost around the world. All right. So what's happened is personally, I could never put my energy into making the bishops Listen to me. I really don't care what the bishops think, because I'm really concerned about these people who are suffering. You know, I think it's all needed. And I'm not saying it's wrong. And I certainly in no way mean, to deny great anything that Marcy has said, I think this is extremely needed. But for myself, I could never put my energies into that. I would agree. It's worth doing. But please don't ask me to do.

Unknown Speaker  1:44:02
From what you've just said, I gather that you then have also a very changed Concept of Religion. And I would like to add one, just one, make a comment. And I would like to ask you talk about that. I'm a Marxist feminist, and an ex Catholic, and a historian and thing that I've had been very interested in. I've been doing some reading in South America and Central America, as part of a group in Rockland and his mirror effect we had sister pick Dylan come in was marvelous. This, the thing that is interesting to me is the convergence of a feminist who is critical of Marxism, watching the convergence between socialism and this kind of much more fundamental religion, which I think is in many religions and certainly in the Catholic Church, and I'm thinking of the early Christian attitude as a kind of thing that turned out it's a kingdom of God on earth as a social gospel. Did that It seems to me have be happening in, say, Nicaragua, where socialists have benefited from the dialogue with the people from the base communities. And vice versa. They, the Catholics have been changed by seeing some of the the fraternal and the broad and basically humanistic attitudes of socialism, which have also gotten lost along the way, in many respects.

Unknown Speaker  1:45:30
I do believe that that's true. I think that while most of us would be in there, it's very difficult to say you're a political, I believe there is a person who can be a political right. The espousal of a particular ideology is something very different. That's another choice that we make. But for those of us who are, I think, deeply Christian, or really feel that as a moving force in our life. While we might espouse a particular ideology, I think that we there are always points where we have to be critical. And we all know that there's no panacea that has still yet to be created. I do think that in dialogue, I found myself in these situations, as I said, when resistance first began in Philippines, what you had was a fracturing of, of the people, right. And you had some people we had the, the cotton Mollison, we had the Marxists and people like that you could personalities involved, and so forth. In order to really study the past and the present, to give people hope for the future, to understand what to do, you've got to understand that they have to have some tool of analysis. And I think that when you talk of the difference within the Catholic Church days as as different as you make religion differs from faith, religion being the whole traditional baggage that's been put down on us, that to me is what religion is. And very, very rarely did you get a glimpse of faith. You were told you had it. But what you said, you got faith. Now you believe this baggage over here, but nobody helped us to find out what this faith was in Jesus Christ. Right. So I think that's what's come out. And as we have enunciated that more clearly, what you do find is and you speak to people with a particular ideology, you do find a coming together, first of all, this respect for the people who are religious people coming into the political arena. That's very true. And vice versa. I think for the most part, though, in most of these countries, the people who are resisting the basic Christian communities, have not really espoused any ideology as yet. And that completely they do not have that. That takes a long time. Whatever they choose, it's their choice. And whether they choose to be communists or socialists, whatever, they choose to be able to create something new, that is their choice. The important part is that a BS system in which there is respect for every person, and that vengefulness that's an essential part. I don't know if that answers your question, but I would agree with you.

Unknown Speaker  1:48:18
There seem to be during the time, I guess, Pope John does seem to be an arm of the church that seemed to become more socially active for a short period of time. And I'm still very much involved in church at that time. And then it seemed to have swapped off. And I don't know when it exactly happened, probably. I mean, I felt that my life about 10 or 12 years ago, when I really just stopped dealing with the church anymore and talking to people and discussing and further. Now I'm faced with a dilemma because I have two stepchildren who go to Catholic school. And every day we're faced with my fiance is a communist and the kids, you know, and he's been an atheist for years. So I mean, we're in a great bind now, because we're trying to let him understand that we're not bad people. Know, although they don't know what father believes in doesn't mean. So he comes home now with, well, Daddy's divorce, do you people are really rotten people. Now, now, we had this, this whole thing where we're trying to, you know, make him face sort of the generic ideas of the church and go back to school. And he's, he's like, in this total quandary. I mean, and I discussed this with a friend of mine who also has a children Catholic school, and she's much more accepting of the status quo. And always was and she just said, Well, look, you know, you want to send the kids to Catholic school. Look for the education and this and that, well, you got to swallow the whole thing. Well, what happens to all those meetings? You go to the homeschool meeting? She says, Oh, the line is clearly drawn, we have nothing to do with policy. You know, and like a hierarchical experience. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's really a dilemma, not to actually break church and a lot of the ideals that I find acceptable. But at the same time, it's all this, I feel like you mentioned, it's sort of like, well, you can take a little of this and a little of that, you know, you have to take the whole thing. And, you know, how do you how do you proceed with children? Like that? I mean, I'm really asking you a practical question,

Unknown Speaker  1:50:48
because I think that's where parent education is very important. I think you also have to see, where's the source of what your child is learning? Where's it coming from? And that's why I think the whole change in religious education is really needed in a lot of ways. I think as a parent, then it's your responsibility to help your child understand, and it's not easy. Where this thought is coming from, and what are you feeling? And what is your love? It I mean, obviously, they're being introduced to patriarchical experience that if you're divorced, you're bad, and so on and so forth. I think you can look at using your own family as an example, I'm sure if there's a loving situation in your family, you can you know, out of your own experience, come to spirituality and try to say, Do you really think I'm bad? Because, you know, and so on and so forth,

Unknown Speaker  1:51:41
by extension? Now, the good sisters, unfortunately, have jacketed this kid when he gets in trouble. Well, kids from divorced families, you know, they're kind of hopeless. And I think, you know, there's, you know, saying, I

Unknown Speaker  1:51:55
talked with him. Have you talked with them? Yeah. See, and I think even your image, they're the good sisters that you put you and you're saying these women are obviously are not aware of themselves. So why would question is that the right that is the right cash flow school. If you haven't check him out.

Unknown Speaker  1:52:13
I had another I'm actually not a problem. But I had another experience, I want to share that in the time of Pope John. I was still in grad school. And the school that I went to was in Queens. And the nuns were of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And they had begun to institute a lot of changes on the educational level. They knew that racism was a big problem in the neighborhood. So they had instituted this idea of, albeit it was kind of an artificial format. They wanted white kids to meet black kids and Puerto Rican kids who lived in maybe a next community. Well, the parishioners just went crazy. After that, time of Vietnam War came about and they introduced a Marine, and then they introduced a conscientious objector. And the kids were sitting, you know, eighth grade, taking all this, and it was like, you know, one progressive scene after another. And what happened was, the parishioners really, really couldn't take it. They complain to the pastor. They went and petitioned, they came to my mother's door and said, Hey, these nuns are pulling down a crucifix and putting a bowl people's picture up stolen. My monkey, I didn't see this stuff. I go to church, you know, I go to the school on a monitor, I don't see the stuff. Eventually they got the nuns out, they empty that convent instantly. Like over summer. The whole school was taught by lay persons and it is now like a very strict, you know, old format, old church, the whole thing. I mean, they just and they got dispersed. The nouns are not even near each other

Unknown Speaker  1:54:03
anymore. It sounds like what happens in the bass communities. It's the political structure when you threaten them they have to disperse you see, and I think that's what obviously was happening there. The nuns were empowering, to have a different vision to have an honest vision to have a gospel vision that challenge the structure. Many structures obviously racism, sexism, classism, middle military ism. And if the people are still into the whole other system, you know, white male, yes, Father, God is white God. God hates niggers. God hates Puerto Ricans, let's you know this whole thing. When one begins to challenge that system. We have a problem here they are dangerous. So we have to disperse them

Unknown Speaker  1:54:59
and you have to do This question, you know, in many places, I've heard tales since I've been home, I have a lot of pastors who are bullied, or sisters who have been booted out of particular places because they then we ourselves, we've been asked to leave diocese. And I know the Philippines, we just committed ourselves to work only with those bishops who really shared what we were talking about. Yeah. And even the point that, you know, it couldn't we would do something to get money to pay for it. But you have to make real choices because there is a split. And there's a great split within the church. And I think under this Pope Now, John Paul, whatever his name is, he's done a lot with these, what he's made of them as a procedure of Opus Dei, which is one of the most conservative conservative conservative groups and

Unknown Speaker  1:55:48
flagellation. Oh, yeah.

Unknown Speaker  1:55:50
It their person. I think they're sick. Yeah, it's an order of all these things. And they're sending them down. I know, they've gotten places down in Peru, whole diocese down there, where a lot of the great progressive stuff that's been going on is just being cut a little bit more and a little bit more. So what's happening within the church as they get louder. And as more and more groups continue to get into this liberation theology, missionaries do it as more and more parishes here begin to do something, there's going to be a backlash. That's it. I mean, just expect it and just say, Okay, what do we believe in what we're doing? Because you're going to be called a communist, a bad woman. You know, whatever. I mean, just whatever word is the word I mean, that doesn't have any meaning. But they'll they'll brand you with it, whatever. It happens to be.

Unknown Speaker  1:56:48
The house. It seems so smug. You know, even now. I mean, the new Archbishop in New York, the Holocaust and the abortion would like

Unknown Speaker  1:57:02
to move? Yeah, I think so.

Unknown Speaker  1:57:04
A final note, in case anybody's interested. A lot of scholarship has come out recently, like in the last four years, on the topic of feminist theology and reemerging of God and read, rereading the Bible with a feminist perspective and trying to see some of the stories of the women in the Bible and knew like, some really good women to read a Phyllis Trible happens to be a professor of Hebrew Scriptures over union. She's got a wonderful book on God and the rhetoric of sexuality. And a new book will be released in May on the violence done to women throughout the Old Testament and a reinterpretation of that Rosemarie roofers got a very, quite a number of really good books out Elizabeth's new book, and I mean, some of them, if you're, you know, are late. They may be over your head. But it's, I mean, just in taking a course with Phyllis, this year, have found such hope. And such we knew how can I say, satisfaction reading the Old the Hebrew Scriptures once again, because I'm reading stories of Hagar and Ruth and Naomi in new ways, where I can find power in those women's stories in the in the book of Judah, which is recognized in the Catholic canon, that woman was called from, you know, called by God to save her people. And there's no way that you can't deny that that was a woman called and, and, you know, you find hope and in, you know, in those stories, and it's maybe your responsibility and my responsibility as a feminist to do that, to find that hope. And then I go home and tell my mother and she's blown away because my mother was raised in the old church never would have interpreted the story that way. And they're not real difficult reading. And I really mean, if you are interested, they are common market.

Unknown Speaker  1:58:57
I also, you know, a woman books is on 92nd Street in Amsterdam has a lot of these, you should try the seminaries around your union and a few of the other ones. Also, I brought some brochures from my album, I brought some albums. Maybe you just want to take a brochure with you. And there are women artists, poets, musicians, writing a subculture, saying, out of our experience comes the holy and the good. And we have to stop blowing up there. And this is one of the album's that do it. I just happen to be the author of this one. There are several others and other women WBA WPA, I have been playing my album a lot and they have lots of other things. So take brochures and whatever. Thanks