Catholic Women Speak Up in Archdiocese’s ‘Gentle Revolution’

If a “docile” image once seemed apt for Roman Catholic women in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, it hardly fits today.

Subdued deference to the male hierarchy would not describe the tenor of many opinions given by 2,500 women in a series of hearings and consultations on how the Catholic Church and society treat women. The responses were requested by U.S. Catholic bishops working on a pastoral letter on women planned for 1988.

“A gentle revolution is happening within our archdiocese; I’m not sure how long it’s going to remain gentle,” said Cynthia Yoshitomi, vice chair of the Los Angeles task force that designed and conducted the hearings last year.

Attitudes Challenged

The task force’s recently released report challenged some priestly attitudes and established church policies. Among its conclusions:

- “Most women feel that ordained clergy are not adequately trained to be sensitive to women’s gifts and strengths. The clergy are often authoritarian, judgmental and/or patronizing. . . . Some women feel that a married clergy would allow for more sensitivity to women’s concerns.”

- “Women feel they are excluded from the benefits of study in seminaries, that they are excluded from eventually taking their places as deacons and priests. . . . The language used in prayers and in liturgies is sexist.”

- “Women feel oppressed by a law-making system in which they are ignored in the decision-making process. They are subject to rules and laws made by men. . . . Dress codes for girls, women and religious (sisters) are dictated by men, who judge ‘modesty’ by their standards.”

- “In many parishes, women are not allowed to serve as liturgical ministers due to an attitude that ‘women should not be on the altar.’ ” When women in the parishes seek to act as lector or be commissioned to serve Communion in extraordinary circumstances, they receive “a condemning attitude, rather than a welcoming one, from clergy and lay people.”

Many women also called on the bishops to re-evaluate church teachings that ban the use of artificial contraceptives.

A total of 2,549 women and 47 men were heard at a variety of settings in the three-county archdiocese last spring and fall.

‘Without Fear of Censure’

“For a large number of people attending,” the report said, “it was the first time they felt they could openly, without fear of censure or judgment, examine their attitudes toward women’s role in the church and in society.”

“I think that many people within the church thought that the women’s movement was a fad,” Yoshitomi said. “But the reality is that it is a deep-felt human rights issue and that women will be losing their patience if it is not dealt with. That impatience is coming from a deep spiritual longing to follow Jesus.”

The report listed a cross-section of women participants including, among other categories, 1,049 homemakers and 849 employed outside the home; 354 Latinos, 121 blacks, 61 Asian and 1,167 Anglos. “Any woman within the archdiocese was allowed to speak,” Yoshitomi said.

The head of the task force, chosen by the former archbishop, Cardinal Timothy Manning, was Msgr. Royale Vadakin, who once was the archdiocese’s chief interfaith representative and now heads the peace and justice commission.

The 19 women and two priests on the task force voted for a woman to run the process, however, and picked Yoshitomi, the mother of two children and coordinator for a Catholic-Jewish woman’s dialogue last year. She also works part time as a Catholic lay minister at Occidental College, where she is a counselor and plans the liturgy for Catholic speakers at the chapel.

Discussion at Congress

Yoshitomi and three other women task force members will discuss the report Sunday morning during the large archdiocese-run Religious Education Congress this weekend at the Anaheim Convention Center.

The most frequently mentioned issue in the hearings was one usually linked to the conservative moral agenda--pornography.

But Yoshitomi said that issue “cut across age, ethnic, economic and feminist/non-feminist lines” in the hearings. “It is offensive to women,” she said. “It was mentioned in every single one of our hearings.”

Some issues raised were not ones normally associated with women’s concerns--such as an allegation that there is “a lack of real information about church policies and church wealth.”

Questions sent by the U.S. bishops’ pastoral letter committee asked for ways in which women felt supported, appreciated, oppressed or alienated in church and society. The report noted that women felt most appreciated when they were employed in roles that respected their abilities and were sought out for decision-making posts at various levels of the Catholic Church.

The report gave no percentages for the responses. Instead, it often used “most,” “many” or “some” to indicate the frequency of stated concerns. No issue was left out of the final summary if it “represented a depth of concern voiced by a significant number of women,” the task force said.

The answers did not suddenly acquire a more liberal slant once the conservative Manning was succeeded by more liberal Archbishop Roger Mahony, task force leaders said. “There was no difference (in responses) in the spring or fall hearings,” Yoshitomi said.

‘Pleased With the Process’

Vadakin said the open-ended nature of the questions accounted for the wide range of response. “I was very pleased with the process,” the priest said.

The hearings with women are one of several ways the Los Angeles archdiocese is asking more advice from its 2.56 million members, Vadakin said. The chancery recently got back 90,000 questionnaires from parishes surveyed on priorities for an archdiocese-wide convocation near the end of 1986. Church officials expected only about 5,000 responses.

Ann Redmond, a lay woman on the convocation committee, said the maturing process is slow for many Catholics.

“Before the Second Vatican Council, most Catholics felt like children, and we were not educated in the faith,” she said. Some Catholics now feel old enough to “have the keys to the car,” she said.

Lay Catholics had started to take more responsibilities under Manning’s administration and the process is speeding up under Mahony, Redmond said.

“Cardinal Manning let us do it, but he did not take a strong stance in promoting participation,” she said. With Mahony’s active prodding of the lay membership, she said, “it’s very exciting.”