Mother Church / Gender & Violence
Good morning, everyone from all over “Mother Earth”. These past two sessions 10 & 11 tore at my mind and heart. I could not attend the live Zooms in July so please let me reflect with the following online Discussion Group Question: “What it means to me to speak of the Church as Mother?”
As I have mentioned before, I live in California, married 43 years, and I am a grandmother of two boys. Hunter is 17 years old and Lukas is 4 months old. My husband, Jan, and I are comfortable and since we are retired, we have enjoyed vacations and being available to care for our baby Lukas.
With this introduction I will address what it means to me to speak of the Church as Mother. I regard it as only poetic jargon and do not take it too literally. I had a lovely mother and father who took care of my physical and psychological needs until it was time for me to fly on my own. From my experiences, the Christian Churches, not just the Catholic Church, try to keep her members infantile and needy of her. (I catch myself using the feminine pronoun.) It is done so subtlety by the Catholic Church in her Encyclicals, Apostolic Letters, Apostolic Exhortations, homilies, and even church bulletin reflections. More energy needs to flow from the clergy and hierarchy to be a “Mother” to those in need of human necessities such as food and health care.
The image of the Church as Mother with a cloak who gathers all her children into One Faith makes me uncomfortable. This image does not represent the gift of maturity. A better metaphor would be a mother bird who keeps her eyes on her eggs and baby birds to make sure they are safe until it is time for them to fly from the nest. When the time is right the stalling, new fledglings are tumbled out of the nest by their mom, if they had not taken the initiative themselves! Holy Mother Church should keep us close to Her through the Sacraments, but when we are mature and the Spirit of God calls – we are to be released to become prophets, mystics, and caretakers of our world, our brother and sisters and all who suffer without hope.
Because sessions 10 and 11’s source material was at times depressing, Professor Tina’s opening remarks were comforting to me:
“We take away what we are to remember. God opens our minds to the things we are to engage in today, and what we are not invited to be engaged with today is for another time.”
It was the lecture on Harmful Cultural Practices, such as child marriage and female genital mutilation, that made me very anxious. My being could not find a way to lay down gently and quietly my hatred for all these types of torture committed upon young girls. There was no lightness or “okay ness” within my psyche to let this continue. How is a 74-year-old woman from California to proceed? How are we to retell their stories in our parishes? We perhaps are being called upon to gently remind our Pope Leo XIV, that over 300,000 of the world’s poorest women die each year and, according to Professor Tina, their statistics are not to be found in any church documents.
On a lighter note: I am excited about Dr. Tina’s forthcoming book. Please keep all of us informed, long after this course is completed, as to when we can expect a publication date.