Pope Reasserts Policy on the Role of Women

A woman lay leader, saying “not to question, not to challenge . . . is to deny my dignity as a person,” Friday pointedly asked Pope John Paul II to grant women and other members of the laity greater roles in the church.

The pontiff, who told Donna Hanson later that “yours was a great talk,” emphatically reemphasized traditional church teachings and reasserted the church’s stance that bearing and rearing children are women’s most important roles.

Refer to Church Debate

Two representatives of the nation’s Roman Catholic lay organizations spoke to the Pope on the ninth day of his 10-day U.S. trip. Their addresses included references to church debate on birth control, divorce and homosexuality.

The pontiff, while sympathizing with the “difficult situation” many families face on moral issues, budged not an inch on the church’s position.

After the exchange of speeches in St. Mary’s Cathedral, John Paul said Mass at Candlestick Park and then flew east to Detroit, the last stop on his U.S. tour before heading to Canada for a brief visit with Indians at Fort Simpson and then returning to Rome.

Hanson, 46, volunteer chairwoman of the National Advisory Council of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, delivered a blunt representation of dissatisfaction felt by many American Catholics with their church when she said:

“In my cultural experience, questioning is neither rebellion nor dissent. Rather, it is a desire to participate and is a sign of both love and maturity.”

Sustained applause filled the high-vaulted cathedral as Hanson made the point on behalf of 3,000 representatives of lay groups from throughout the nation. The Pope looked at her steadfastly, his left hand pressed against his chin. He nodded slightly, signifying apparent understanding.

In a major speech to the U.S. bishops Wednesday in Los Angeles, the Pope warned that Catholics could not consider themselves full members of the church if they dissent from its authoritative teachings.

Speaking of the questions she had learned to ask through the immigrant experience of her grandparents and her encounters with anti-Catholic bigotry, Hanson declared:

“Accustomed as I am to dialogue, consultation and collaboration, I do not always feel that I am heard.”

Asking the pontiff to “please let me know that you are willing to walk with me,” Hanson acknowledged in her talk that she knew the Catholic Church “is not a democracy ruled by a popular vote.”

But, she said--again to applause--”When I come to my church, I cannot discard my cultural experiences. . . . I expect to be treated as a mature, educated, responsible adult. Not to question, not to challenge . . . is to deny my dignity as a person and the rights granted to me both by church and society.”

Hanson, a married mother of two sons who lives in Spokane, Wash., also noted that U.S. lay Catholics are “now among the best educated and most highly theologically trained in the world.” Yet, she said, “we long for structures in which to truly share responsibility” in the church.

And she said there should be greater diversity within the church.

“Can we reach out and be more inclusive of women, our inactive clergy, homosexuals, the divorced and all people of color?” she asked the Pope.

The pontiff praised the varied and increasing work of the laity, who have come to absorb many of the church’s tasks as the number of priests, nuns and religious brothers has steadily declined during the last 20 years.

“All the special gifts of women are needed in an ever-increasing measure,” the Pope said, “and . . . hopes for their fuller participation. . . . Precisely because of their equal dignity and responsibility, the access of women to public functions must be ensured.”

But the pontiff made it clear that though women and men are equal in dignity, women’s greatest contribution, “in partnership with their husbands,” is “begetting life and educating their children.”

The pontiff seemed not to respond directly to a charge made by the other lay speaker who addressed him.

Patrick S. Hughes of Concord, Calif., director of pastoral ministry for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, said that although more women had moved into significant non-ordained ministerial positions, “sexism still remains a major issue among those who work for the church.”

John Paul devoted a major portion of his message to reinforcing the church’s teaching that Catholic couples have a duty to bear children, that they must not resort to contraception as a means of family planning, and that marriage is indissoluble.

Although assuring divorced Catholics who have remarried of the church’s “deep love,” the Pope nevertheless stressed that they should not be allowed to receive Communion, the church’s most important sacrament, in the Mass. In many parishes throughout the United States, the prohibition is not strictly enforced.

Edward C. Sellner of St. Paul, Minn., chairman of the National Assn. for Lay Ministry, said the Pope avoided a direct response to many of the laity’s concerns. “But that the Pope could debate much of what he disagrees with in our culture conveyed a great deal of love,” he said.

Several lay members lauded Hanson’s speech as they left St. Mary’s and said they were disappointed with the Pope’s muted and unspecific response about the role of women in the church and family. Still, they praised his warmth.

‘We Need More’

Ann Kreyche, 59, of Santa Cruz said, “Many of us are past our child-bearing years, and without our spouses, so we need more”--a role in the church that allows women a chance to do “more than dust altars and make coffee.”

John Revicky, 40, of San Francisco suggested that the Pope still is not in tune with the independent-minded American church.

“I think he needs a new speech writer. There was no dialogue,” he said. “(Hanson) brought up a lot of questions that are on the minds of a lot of the laity. . . . Basically he told (women) to go home, make babies and pray the rosary.”

“Women in the modern world are so much more involved in everything. It’s difficult to step back into that (homemaker’s) role,” said Eileen Aguiar, 41.

The Pope also had his supporters.

“You can’t have pluralism in the church,” said Dolores Anderson, 59, of Oakland, a member of the Catholic group Women for Faith and Family. She was among about 100 devotees waiting outside the cathedral to glimpse the Pope.

The Pope was still pursued Friday by gay and feminist protesters, although Police Lt. Larry Minasian said they numbered “no more than 100.”

There were no protests at the midday Mass at Candlestick Park, where 70,000 people welcomed the Pope with thousands of small gold and white Vatican flags and cries of “Que viva el Papa!” and “John Paul, we love you!”

‘World Without War’

In his Candlestick homily, the Pope stressed the responsibilities of being Christian and affirmed “our common hopes for a world without war, a world committed to justice and governed by fair laws.”

“To be a Christian means to become one every day, ascending spiritually toward Christ and following him,” he said. The church has a similar burden, he added, and must “be faithful to regular prayer and bear witness to Christ in the ordinary life of the community.”

The Pope seemed to appreciate the receptive crowd at the stadium, lingering after celebrating Mass to informally thank the congregation and talk about the state’s heavenly city names. He mentioned San Francisco, named after a saint he particularly admires, and Los Angeles--the City of Angels.

“You are lucky here on the West Coast of America,” he observed. “You not only have a communion of the saints, you have a communion of the angels.”

Meanwhile, San Francisco police spokesman Officer David Ambrose said Friday that the department has revised its earlier estimate of the size of the crowd along the Pope’s parade route Thursday. The counts were as low as 25,000 on the day of the parade, but now have been fixed at 100,000. Police also scaled back the number of anti-Pope protesters--originally numbered at 8,000--to only 2,500 to 3,000.

Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the Vatican’s chief spokesman, discounted the significance of crowd sizes, arguing that U.S. Catholics “did not see this trip as a show, but as a religious event. . . . They wanted to pray with the Holy Father.”

Times staff writers Mark A. Stein and Marita Hernandez contributed to this story.