Austrian Catholic Women's Movement: Women should be allowed to preach

Chairperson Ritter-Grepl on the Feast day of St. Catherine of Siena: Women's voices often excluded from preaching at liturgical celebrations

The Catholic Women's Movement Austria (kfbö) advocates the promotion of women's preaching in the Catholic Church. An important step in this direction would be a general permission for women to preach at the Eucharist, kfbö chairwoman Angelika Ritter-Grepl said in a press release on Monday. The reason for this was the feast day of St. Catherine of Siena (29 April), which is celebrated in Austria with several "Catherine celebrations". It is true that the preaching of women is already good practice in some dioceses, Ritter-Grepl noted. According to a Vatican decree from 2002, however, only ordained ministers - priests, deacons and bishops - are allowed to preach at a Eucharistic celebration.

With the current regulation, the voice of women in preaching nevertheless remains excluded in many cases from an essential part of church life and liturgical celebration. "However, the official voice of women from the pulpit at the Eucharist is needed so that the church as an institution can credibly represent all people and their realities of life when it proclaims the Gospel," said the kfbö chairwoman.

Preaching by women is a "question of gender justice for listeners and preachers", Ritter-Grepl found. Women want to hear an interpretation of faith and a linking of faith and life "also from the women's perspective" in the service.

In services of the word and other liturgical forms, Catholic lay people - men as well as women - are allowed to preach, although certain qualifications are required. Here, too, Ritter-Grepl pleaded for targeted promotion of women's sermons and attention to a fair presence of the voices of the sexes.

"Day of the Deaconess"

The Catholic Women's Movement has declared St Catherine of Siena (1347-1380), also a Doctor of the Church since 1970 and Patroness of Europe since 2001, as well as its patron and companion in 2014. Based on an initiative from Germany, the day has since then also been celebrated as "Day of the Deaconess" to commemorate the demand for the ordination of women to the diaconate.

In its transmission on Monday, the kfbö also recalled that in February at the European Continental Assembly for the World Synod in Prague, the wish of many for the ordination of women deacons was affirmed and recorded in the official final document.

Europe's patron saint was "quite representative" with regard to the role of a deaconess, wrote Ritter-Grepl. Catherine of Siena had also been a mystic and had gained her self-confidence from her mystical relationship with Christ. She went out in public, criticising the popes of her time, and put her life at the service of her fellow human beings.

Similar to St. Catherine, the Catholic Women's Movement "is also facing a world full of challenges today", emphasised the chairperson, who referred to the worldwide commitment of the Catholic Women's Movement to a better life for women all over the world - above all in the projects of "Action Family Fast Day". In Austria, the organisation is involved in projects for gender justice and women's empowerment. Ritter-Grepl: "In our inner-church commitment, the focus is not only on strengthening women in the Church, but we ourselves are proclaimers of the Word when people encounter Christ through our actions and words."

Numerous St. Catherine's celebrations

The kfbö is organising numerous St. Catherine's celebrations around the feast day of its patron saint: among them on Friday, 28 April at 4.30 p.m. in the Salzburg University Library (Hofstallgasse 2-4, 1st floor), where the nun Sr. Philippa Rath will give a lecture followed by a discussion, before a liturgy takes place at 6.15 p.m. in the Sacellum (Herbert von Karajan-Platz 8). On the same day at 7 p.m. there will be another St. Catherine's celebration in the St. Johannes Kapistran parish in St. Pölten, as well as on Saturday, 29 April at 10 a.m. in Frauenbach in Lavant in East Tyrol, or already on Thursday, 27 April at 6 p.m. in Frauenkirchen in Burgenland.

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See also

God is not a man

Angelika Ritter-Grepl (61) as well as the second chairperson Petra Unterberger and her deputy Anna Raab, responsible for the focus on development cooperation, were elected online for the first time in kfb history due to the Corona rules. Angelika Ritter-Grepl wants to continue the strong spiritual as well as political action of the kfb: "Politics without spirituality is quickly misguided." Further development is needed both politically-structurally and spiritually: "God is greater than the idea that God is like a man." With regard to structures, the kfb chairwoman proposes a department of the Bishops' Conference for gender justice. With Bishop Wilhelm Krautwaschl, who is responsible for Catholic Action, there would be promising preliminary talks with the aim of giving greater consideration to women's concerns.

Elephant in room

Ritter-Grepl calls the "hot potato" of women's priesthood an "elephant in the room". It would be wrong to devote all energy to it. At least as important, she says, is the question of how the priesthood is structured in the first place and whether it is attractive to women in its present form, or what the situation is with regard to the gap between clergy and lay Christians that is anchored in church law. "And formal equality does not mean equality by a long shot," the kfbö chairwoman reminds us of "glass ceilings" in the economy, for example. Nevertheless, the topic of women and church office requires "setting out together to work on it". 

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Cathcon: Agenda driven and deeply embedded in the Synodal process

St. Catherine of Siena on Priests: "...no greater dignity exists in this life. They are My anointed ones, and I call them My Christs, because I have given them the office of administering Me to you, and have placed them like fragrant flowers in the mystical body of the holy Church. The angel himself has no such dignity, for I have given it to those men whom I have chosen for My ministers, and whom I have appointed as earthly angels in this life. " ~ Dialogue  

I doubt if the thought of ordination ever crossed her mind.