Thursday, 14 April 2005
 
Today, during a presentation sponsored by the International Movement We Are Church at the Auditorium Cavour, in Rome, Adriana Valerio, President of the European Society of Women in Theological Research, told reporters the next papacy must address the question of how women are perceived and treated in the church.
 
This is not a marginal question, says Valerio, because the “atmosphere of silence and threat in church institutions has increased to such an extent that it has stifled freedom of thought, research, and speech, making it impossible to dialogue or work together.  Once again, women have been reduced to silence and invisibility.”
 
She says the next pope faces five major challenges with regard to women.
- A new anthropology of sex.
- The revision of theological disciplines.
- Open admission of women to the theological faculties worldwide.
- Renewal of ministries.
- Decision-making roles for women throughout the church.
 
Anthropology of Sex: There needs to be a new understanding of partnership between the sexes, rather than a complementary anthropology in which men are given public and political power and women are relegated to home and family. Negative attitudes about women’s bodies led church officials to exclude women from the holy and ascribe to them passive attributes. Today, feminine attributes should be seen in a more positive light, worthy of association with the divine.
 
Revision of Theological Disciplines: The church’s core theological disciplines must be revised in order to respect the dignity of both men and women.  The use of feminine metaphors such as “womb, nourishment, care, welcome, proximity, tenderness, sharing, weakness, Wisdom and Mother, will help overcome the patriarchal concepts that exclude women from the realm of the holy,” Valerio says. Male clerical teaching cannot lay down the law about reproductive roles. Instead, women must be considered as active and responsible persons in the development of church teachings on sexual issues.
 
Church history must reveal the hidden aspects of women’s roles in the church and in scriptures. “Women do not appear at all in the text books adopted in theological faculties,” Valerio points out. “The new pope has the duty of encouraging research and preservation of the female memory and tradition, so that it may become the patrimony of the whole church… the memory of women has to be given back to Christians so that we can revive the history of theology, of spirituality, of the institutions.”
 
Open Admission: Women scholars have published widely, yet their work has not been sufficiently acknowledged and used, nor have women been appointed to theological faculties in a manner commensurate with their contributions to the field.
 
Renewal of Ministries: “No one ministry can be considered incompatible to women.” Valerio adds: “The acknowledgement of the dignity and authority of the human person means to acquaint the person with decision-making power. The inclusive sharing model and the ethos of equality do not exclude the exertion of authority and of ministry. They demand it.”
 
Professor Adriana Valerio is Professor of History of Christianity at the University of Naples, “Federico II.”  She has specialized in role of women in the history of Christianity.