The Church ‘must reflect full equality of men and women’

A conference at the Vatican held to mark International Women’s Day on Sunday heard calls for the Church to address limits on female participation in church structures. It was organised by the Liechtenstein-based Fidel Götz Foundation and held  at the home of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

Some participants complained that the Church tends to stereotype women as reflecting only the sensitive or tender half of humanity. They said the Church needs to reflect full equality between men and women, and to include women at every level of decision-making. Astrid Gajiwala, an Indian biologist and one of five panellists, said: “I dream of a Church where it won’t matter whether you’re a man or a woman and you just respond to God’s call of service.” According to the National Catholic Reporter she said: “I also dream of a Church where men and women would participate equally in all decision-making so that they both would contribute to the policies, structures, teaching and the practice of the Church … And both would engage in ministry.”

“I would like to see women have [the] opportunity to be strong, courageous, intelligent,” said another panellist, Ulla Gudmundson, a former Swedish ambassador to the Holy See. “I would also like to see men have the opportunity to be tender, patient, sensitive.”

The panel was moderated by Deborah Rose-Milavec, head of the US reform group Future­Church, and included British theologian Tina Beattie.

In a second conference, an international group of philosophers, sociologists and theologians gathered to discuss how to renew the Church in a secular age. Philosopher Charles Taylor, professor at Canada’s McGill University and one of the main speakers, at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University, said the Church must find new ways to reach people and new ways to promote harmony within its communities.