My Year of Activism

I came across a sheet of paper while attempting to clear up some office clutter the other day. I didn’t even think it still existed. It was tucked away with a bunch of academic papers I’d brought with me from Rhode Island. And so I was reminded...

My year of activism began in the spring before entering the first year of my divinity program. I can’t believe I fit that in too, with everything else I was doing that year. Through one of my feminist mentors, Annie, I was introduced to a group of Rhode Island Catholic women who called themselves “Spirited Women of Rhode Island.” We gathered twice a month, created rituals, held discussions, read feminist theology and, we protested.

My involvement with Spirited Women came at a time when I was experiencing the tension many faithful women experience when they are confronted with the truth of a misogynist Church. This tension is often experienced as a choice; reject or reform.

There are feminist theologians who stand on either side; those who claim that the Biblical traditions are hopelessly patriarchal and must be abandoned, and those who claim that they can be redeemed through revisionist readings of the texts, reconstruction of women’s history and re-evaluation of ritual language.

But before I faced that decision, I had to face the anger and sense of betrayal. In a sense, this process for me involved something like the grief stages identified by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. First, there is denial. For me that was a good fit. I spent ten years or so in that stage. The next stage is anger, which I experienced during my year with Spirited Women. And it was wonderful. Yes, my anger was wonder-filled, because I did something with it that was creative and healing.

I was never really convinced that active protest would change the Church. I never really thought that my little voice would change a 2000 year history. But that wasn’t the point anyway. The point was that my activism changed me. Protesting the Church’s past was intimately connected to protesting my past and to raising my voice.  

The first act of protest in which I was engaged took place on Holy Thursday, 1991. Holy Thursday is traditionally the day on which the Church celebrates the priesthood, which in the Catholic Church is forbidden to women. The Church interprets Jesus’ words during his Last Supper as instituting a priesthood, a suspicious and spurious interpretation at best. In the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul in Providence, RI, this commemoration takes place during morning Mass. Every priest and every Catholic school child in Rhode Island is in attendance. The place was packed. Twelve of us Spirited Women attended as well. During the entire Mass we stood. We stood, twelve across a single pew in the back of the Cathedral, feminist texts in hand and we faced the Bishop who was also forced to face us. We were quiet. We were as respectful as protestors can be, but we stood. We stood in contradiction. We stood in defiance of our exclusion. We stood in solidarity with each other. And we stood as if our feet could demand justice and make it a reality.

When it came time for Communion, because we were at the back of church, we were the last to approach the altar for its reception. As the first few women received communion something happened as if inspired. In a spontaneous act, they remained where they were and waited until all twelve of us had received the wafer that still meant something to us. And then, as if by instinct, we turned as one and returned to the back of the Cathedral (a long walk). We created what can only be described as a procession, unplanned to be sure, but a procession nonetheless. We raised the texts of our truths high; the words of the likes of Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, Rosemary Radford-Ruether and Mary Daly. We walked, I think, more slowly than required. Every single priest who had been a priest of my childhood, my adolescence and my young womanhood was in attendance and they saw me. O, they saw me. They saw that I was there in spite of them, despite them, because of them. And I was scared shitless. But it was liberating in a way I never thought possible. Fear and courage experienced in the same moment is not rare I think, but one requires the other if one is going to act, doesn’t it?

Later that day, when The Providence Journal evening edition hit the newsstands, there was a story about the protest which included the reaction of the Bishop. He was incensed. He declared that Spirited Women of Rhode Island owed the worshippers an apology for their behavior that morning and for “disturbing the peace” of the congregation. And so we issued one.

One of the amazing things I learned through this entire experience was that if one calls a “press conference,” the press shows up! I couldn’t believe it. Spirited Women called a press conference to be held at Cathedral Square and there they were; newspaper reporters, local television mini-vans, cameras and all. I was elected to prepare and deliver the response, since the form of the "apology" was my idea. This is the text that I prepared and delivered that day (the piece of paper I found in my office this week), microphones shoved into my face:

Spirited Women of Rhode Island has made several unsuccessful attempts to meet with Bishop Gelineau to discuss the role of women in the Church and the issue of sexism within the Diocese of Providence. In his most recent correspondence, Bishop Gelineau once again refused to enter into such

dialogue. In addition, he suggested that Spirited Women issue an apology

for disrupting the “peace and tranquility” of the congregation present at

the recent Holy Thursday celebration of Holy Chrism at which Spirited

Women engaged in a silent protest within the Cathedral. Today, we would

like to respond:

We are sorry that our Church continues to insist that women remain silent, invisible and marginalized.

We are sorry that our Church leadership values “peace and tranquility”

over justice and equality.

We are sorry that our Church measures the quality of ordained ministry

on the basis of sex rather than individual gifts, intelligence, compassion

and call to service.

We are sorry that for centuries, women’s experience of the divine has not

been lifted up as equal in value to that of men’s experience.

We are sorry that the hierarchy of the Church is so threatened by a perceived sense of loss of control and power, that it has lost the ability for leadership within a discipleship of equals.

We are sorry that the Church esteems the maleness of Christ above the spirit of Christ; a spirit of inclusive grace.

We are saddened by the refusal of our Bishop to even consider altering

those elements of oppression and inequality, which fall within the scope

of the local Church; the incorporation of women into the Diocese of

Providence hierarchy; the education of clergy on the concerns of women

and the encouragement of gender inclusive language in parish worship.

It is with deep sorrow that we watch our children and grandchildren continue

to experience the pain, exclusion and sexism of a patriarchal Church.

In lifting our voices in sorrow, Spirited Women of Rhode Island join the

Bishop in praying and hoping for reconciliation borne truly from the teachings

of Jesus Christ.

Whew. Needless to say, we received no further correspondence from the Bishop of Providence.

To be continued….