Wednesday 13 February 2013

In which I wonder if Rome & I have reached the end of the line...

So, yesterday I wrote about Lent and - briefly - about being Roman Catholic.  Then this morning I saw this post by one of my favourite bloggers of all time, Wife in the North.

Judith O'Reilly is one of the reasons I blog.  When I started writing online, she had just secured a contract for the book of her blog 'Wife in the North' and she's a far braver, more open, lay it out there blogger than I am or could ever be.  We met around 3 years ago and it's because she suggested it that I set up my twitter account (so now I come to think of it Judith, you're the one to blame for my inability to get things done...).

In the post I've linked to, she expresses perfectly the ambivalence I'm currently feeling towards the church of my childhood.

I teach my sons that girls are just as good as they are (and of course, that they are just as good as girls are), and that they should never assume something is off-limits to someone simply because of their gender.  And yet, here I am, using as a framework for their spiritual education a structure which is outdated and which preaches and practices a viewpoint of women's importance and relevance that frankly has few touchpoints or crossovers with my existence and experiences as a woman in 21st century western civilisation.

I want to be Catholic.  It's a deep and important part of who I am.  I am educating my sons as such.  But the fact that I care so little about who is the next man to wear the Pope's ruby slippers tells me something has to change, and I'm guessing it won't be the viewpoints of the dinosaurs in Rome.

4 comments:

  1. I totally agree - I've been struggling to express how I feel about the church but have found myself attending mass less and less frequently because, despite the contortions I have always made to blend my instinctively natural liberal tendancies with the church's teachings, I am increasingly struggling with the fact that whilst I still have faith I am unsure I can support the framework of rules the church has created over the years

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  2. how very interesting (thanks for saying such nice things by the way). I wonder how many of us - educated, liberal, vocal women that is feel this way. I bet a lot. I go up and down and in and out with the whole faith thing, but it becomes harder and harder to sustain (other than as a cultural identifier) when you disagree so vehemently on so many issues. Shall we march on Rome you and me and Muddling Along?

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  3. Interesting. I'm not a Catholic, or even religious, and I struggle with questions that my children ask about faith. Just trying to explain to them the story of Adam and Eve the other day (because I felt they should know it, US schools not providing any religious ed), I got all indignant and ended up giving them a lecture on how women were for centuries perceived as inferior, and by many religions still are.

    I didn't mean to go off on a feminist diatribe with my little boys, but I think it worked because they are now going around telling boys at their school who say things like "boys rule", that girls are every bit as good as boys...

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  4. I feel the same about the C of E. I am so angry about the whole non-ordination of women thing. It's just ludicrous. Lu...di...crous...

    I am, however, hoping to start an MA in Feminist Theology in the autumn, so I suppose at least I'm doing something positive about it!

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