Our Church has become an old, hard of hearing lady claims stealth priestess

Hannah Audebert: Our church has become an old, hard of hearing lady

This Sunday is the World Day of Prayer for Spiritual Vocations. Chaplain Hannah Audebert is still searching in vain for her place as a woman in a church that is handicapping itself and making itself increasingly untrustworthy. She therefore prays for women who feel called and for the Catholic Church to clean its ears as soon as possible in order to listen better. A guest commentary.

Hannah Audebert*

Every year on "Good Shepherd Sunday", prayers are said for vocations. And then the prayer is always two-winged: on the one hand, the general vocation to be a Christian, that each and everyone can develop being a Christian in their own gifts and circumstances.

Major clerical event

And on the other hand, the prayerful request that God may call people for the special ministry as priests or for the consecrated life. For many, this is just as good and right and continues the image of the shepherd and the sheep. Visible, for example, in an ordination to the priesthood, which becomes a major clerical event, also because it has such a great rarity value.

But how can we honestly ask God for vocations in the Church when the Church structure hinders and prevents so many? For example, so many women who feel called to be priests and deacons.

Sister Philippa Rath collected their biographical stories in the book "Weil Gott es so will" ("Because God wants it this way") and it is deeply touching to listen to them, how they courageously try to live their vocation in spite of everything, switch to other professions, change denominations and do what is possible. Or also the women of the Junia Initiative, who freshly and persistently stand up for equality.

"Are they being heard? Who is calling and who is appointing? Is it God or the church leadership?"

The theme of this year's Day of Prayer is "Listening". Here is an episode: in order not to become embittered as a theologian in the Church after Pope John Paul II banned non-consecrated people from preaching and blessing, I joined the community of the Little Sisters of Jesus.

Deeper relationship with Christ

It was not quite my vocation. But the fraternal contact with each other and with all people was good for me and the contemplative orientation deepened my relationship with Christ.

After 7 years I had to renew my vows. And then my inner ear became inflamed. The ear doctor was at the end of his tether, because no medicine helped and the hearing decreased. "What else can we do? Is there anything you can't or won't listen to?" he asked me.

This question opened my heart and it was suddenly clear to me that I had to follow my vocation and leave the community for this. Just that day, the Gospel of the day was: "When he has driven out all his own sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, because they know his voice". (Jn 10:4). The sisters affirmed that they see me in the pastoral field and blessed my departure. After that, the ear infection quickly subsided.

I am still searching in vain as a woman for my place in the Catholic Church, which so handicaps itself and makes itself more and more untrustworthy in the eyes of society when it stands up for the equal worth of people and then selects and discriminates in the admission to priestly ordination.

A second episode

As a chaplain, one of the places where I work is an old people's home. In a conversation with a 98-year-old woman, she told me about her many successful life experiences and also about difficult times. When asked if there is anything she would do differently, she immediately replies, "Yes, I should have listened to my children and bought a hearing aid when I was 90. Now it's too late."

"It's never too late," was my spontaneous response. And indeed, this lady bought herself another hearing aid and you should see her joy that she can understand so much better again at the table or during the services and can even hear the birds again. Perhaps our church is also like an old lady who has become stiff and hard of hearing?

So prayer for vocations has three addresses: God who calls, we human beings who seek to hear God's voice in the midst of polyphony, and the Church who stands in between.

May the voice be clearly audible and the ears "cleaned" (or amplified with hearing aids) - so that the "sound of heaven and the sound of earth" can resonate.

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