Angela Bonavoglia

Newsday
May 19, 2005

Reprinted in the Miami Herald, the Contra Costa Times (CA), the Houston Chronicle, the Hartford Courant (CT), others.

There is a new face of Catholic ministry in the United States, and it is female. With the crushing shortage of Catholic priests worldwide, maintaining the commitment of Catholic women to ministry is one of the most important challenges facing the new pope.

More than 80 percent of the nearly 30,000 Catholics in lay paid parish ministry in the United States are female. They pastor priestless parishes. They serve as directors of religious education and family ministers. Seventy percent of the members of the National Association of Catholic Chaplains are women, too; they work in hospitals, hospices, universities and prisons.

More nuns than laywomen are chaplains today, but laywomen - single, married and even divorced - outnumber nuns in lay paid parish ministry 2 to 1. From 1965 to 2003, the number of U.S. nuns plunged from nearly 180,000 to just more than 73,000. It is unlikely women will ever stream into U.S. convents as they once did, when they had few options for independent, professional lives. Conversely, the number of nuns has increased considerably in the developing world, where women's options are slim and the priest shortage crippling.

This means Pope Benedict XVI must address the issues faced by women ministers in the Catholic Church - nuns and laywomen alike. In the United States, these issues include inadequate wages and benefits, no contracts and little or no job security. Stories abound of women being summarily fired when a new pastor arrives. In some dioceses, women with long records of ministerial service are being replaced with male deacons. Women chaplains report attempts to delegate spiritual responsibility to the priest and onerous administrative tasks to them. Worldwide, Catholic nuns and other adult women have endured sexual exploitation at the hands of priests in 23 countries - another epidemic of abuse the church has yet to address.

Because women cannot be ordained priests or deacons (who can administer some of the sacraments), their hands are tied. While a Catholic female chaplain can pray at a hospital bedside, if the dying Catholic needs the sacrament of absolution or the sacrament of the sick, she is forbidden to administer either one. If a parish has no resident priest, Catholics can go months without a Mass - despite having a woman with a master's in divinity available.Parishes are closing by the score, testament to a hierarchy that prefers to see the church shrink rather than allow women in its sacramental ranks.

Benedict XVI's record as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on such issues is not good. He argued that the ban on women's ordination should be an infallible teaching. He fought to retain masculine prayer language for God and humankind. He authored a letter to the world's bishops on the collaboration of women and men, vigorously denouncing feminism. And he excommunicated seven Catholic women who were irregularly ordained priests in 2002, but no sexually abusive priest or complicit bishop faced such sanction.

To keep Catholic ministry alive, Benedict XVI must respond to women's concerns. Recognizing the profound disagreement among leading theologians about the church's ban on women's ordination to the priesthood, he could respectfully resist the temptation to declare that ban an infallible teaching, which no previous pope did. He could at least ordain women deacons. He could lead an effort to guarantee just wages and working conditions for women in ministry. He could ensure sexual safety for Catholic women and their children by addressing the crisis of priest sexual abuse and exploitation worldwide.

And, finally, he has thrown open the doors for dialogue with other religions and the world outside the Vatican. He would do well to open that same dialogue with Catholic women, who are crucial to the future of Catholic ministry and the church itself.

Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.