Polticised gender theology attacks Catholic doctrine

Women in the Church, the Swiss inspiration of Pope Francis

Ordain women deacons or priests? Pope Francis seeks answers to this question in particular from Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988). But the Swiss theologian's vision is challenged by a number of specialists.

“Women can do many things better than men,” Pope Francis assured in 2016, on the plane bringing him back from Sweden. He was responding to a question about the possibility for women to become priests in the Catholic Church.

While praising the abilities of women, Francis recalled his vision of things, invoking the “Petrine” and “Marian” dimensions of the Church. The first being apostolic, led by bishops, and the second characterizing “the feminine dimension” of the institution. According to this conception, the Petrine dimension is centered on authority and initiative, while the Marian dimension is more linked to receptivity and fertility.

“There is no Church without this feminine dimension” Pope Francis

A “Marian” dimension that Francis does not consider “inferior”, quite the contrary. On the flight from Stockholm to Rome, he asked himself “what is more important in the theology and mysticism of the Church: the apostles or Mary on the day of Pentecost?” “It’s Mary!”, he concluded. “There is no Church without this feminine dimension, because she herself is a woman, mother and wife,” he added. “The Marian element governs in a hidden way in the Church, like the woman in the domestic home,” specifies the biblical scholar Marinella Perroni in the Women, Church, World supplement of Osservatore Romano (2022). For Francis, it was a matter of recalling that this “natural” order of things made it inappropriate for women to have access to ordained ministry.

A Swiss idea

This “two-dimensional” concept has two main sources, notes Natalia Imperatori-Lee in the American Jesuit magazine America (2016). The notion of the Church as the bride of Christ of course has roots in the Scriptures, notes the professor of Religious Sciences at Manhattan College in New York.

But the Petrine and Marian Church was mainly conceptualized by the Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, who died in 1988. His vision had considerable success, particularly with the popes. Thus, Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI took it up, in support of various themes. And so Francis in turn, who considers this notion “as a useful, even necessary, ecclesiological paradigm”, notes Marinella Perroni.

That the Lucerne priest is a source of inspiration for Francis is well known. This was brought home recently, when the pontiff expressed the wish that hell would be empty, an idea put forward in particular by von Balthasar.

The voice of Hans Urs von Balthasar apparently also whispers in the ear of the pontiff on the place of women in the Church. A fact recalled by Linda Pocher, one of François’ main “advisors” on the issue. The Spanish nun was invited in December 2023 and February 2024 by the Council of Cardinals (C9) to express her opinion on women's access to the ministry. She is considered one of the greatest Catholic specialists on the subject. She thus signed the work Démasculiniser l’Église? Critical comparisons on the “principles” of Hans Urs Von Balthasar (Editions Pauline, 2024).

The Pope surprised by criticism

“The first meeting focused on the reflections of Hans Urs von Balthasar on the Marian and Petrine principles and on the use of this thought by the magisterium,” she assured in an interview published on April 2, 2024 in America. “Our intervention aimed to highlight the critical points of [Balthasar's] thought and to ask whether [the Marian and Petrine principles] are really suitable to accompany the current situation of the Church, which is very different from that of “50 years ago [when Balthasar was writing],” reveals Linda Pocher.

“Hans Urs von Balthasar’s idea of the place of women was subordinated to the principle of complementarity”

“The Pope, as he himself wrote in the preface to the volume, was surprised by our criticism,” she continues. We criticize Balthasar's thought in particular for an excessive idealisation of women and an overly rigid division of roles.

The words of the Swiss theologian would therefore not be “Gospel” for everyone. Other specialists have criticized the “Balthasaro-Bergoglian” arguments. In a column in the newspaper La Croix (2022), the French theologian Jean-François Chiron questions “the culturally marked anthropology of Hans Urs von Balthasar”. He wonders if this “does not contaminate theology?”

“If, in the name of an essentially masculine Petrine principle, we must exclude women from the ordained ministry, we cannot help but wonder what men have to do in a Church governed by the Marian principle, in essence feminine: do they have their place there?”, questions the French theologian.

A way to “coax” women?

Hans Urs von Balthasar was not considered a conservative theologian. While deeply rooted in the Catholic tradition, he was not afraid to engage with modern and delicate theological issues. In fact, his idea of the place of women was subordinate to the principle of complementarity within the Church, at the heart of his theological vision. This was certainly not imbued with any misogyny. Like Pope Francis, on the contrary, he held the “feminine dimension” of the Church in very high esteem.

“Francis has difficulty freeing himself from the patriarchal vision which locks male and female into a pattern” Marinella Perroni

This “idealization” still appears suspicious among certain contemporary observers, who suggest an underlying desire to thus preserve the established order, by “coaxing” women. Marinella Perroni stigmatizes this suspicion by asserting: “(…) it is now perfectly clear that the forms of mystical exaltation of the feminine are directly proportional to the refusal of public recognition of the authority of women.”

Reproduction of stereotypes?

Another problem noted by Linda Pocher refers to the “rigidity” of the Balthasarian conception. A criticism already posed by other specialists. Natalia Imperatori-Lee writes in particular: “From a sociopolitical point of view, rigid complementarity deprives men and women of their full humanity. Assuming that women make up for what men lack, or vice versa, reifies stereotypes of masculinity and femininity by dictating the relative strengths and weaknesses that people must have if they are true to their gender.”

“We know how much it does not go without saying, today, at least in the West, to qualify men and women, to ‘essentialize’ them.” Jean-François Chiron

Is this tendency towards “gendered generalisation” a question of the times? Current theologians consider that the vision must evolve according to new social conceptions and scientific discoveries. “We know how much it does not go without saying, today, at least in the West, to qualify men and women, to ‘essentialize’ them,” notes Jean-François Chiron.

Relics of patriarchy

For Marinella Perroni, Francis “has difficulty freeing himself from the patriarchal vision which locks male and female into a pattern, which becomes all the more dangerous when we establish Peter and Mary as symbolic figures of reference and which we reserve for Peter, that is to say to men, the ministry of authority and to Mary, that is to say to women, the charism of love. “Bi-polarisms always seduce because they create illusions,” continues the Italian biblical scholar. They make people believe that differences can be resolved by a formula and that complexity can be passed off as simplification.”

Perceived as hypocritical, generalising, outdated… the “Balthasaro-Franciscan” vision of the place of women is visibly challenged in the Catholic world. During the Synod on synodality and following his multiple meetings with people of very diverse sensibilities, the Pope is inevitably aware of this. Whether we agree with this thought or not, we must recognize that Jorge Bergoglio does not hesitate to take advice from specialists who can, such as Linda Pocher, have a critical vision.

The nun affirmed following meetings with the C9 that Pope Francis was “very favorable” to the female diaconate, while not discussing priestly ordination.

Considering the open-mindedness which characterizes the Pontiff and his attachment to the evolution of the Church, it would however be premature to assert that on the priesthood, “the Mass is finished”.  

Cathcon:  Much would be finished it they continue to pursue this course.

Source.

Cathcon: As something of an expert in von Balthasar's theology, I can say that the Pope has chosen to rest himself on very unsteady ground.    von Balthasar's ideas of the feminine are a projection of his very unhealthy relationship with Adrienne von Speyer, which her husband objected to.

von Balthasar not only holds that hell might be empty but even talks about the self-emptying not just of Christ but of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.  Anything then becomes possible.  The modernists above charge into the spiritual vacuum created in an attempt to twist Catholic doctrine and practice. 

Background