Video Conference 29 October 2002
"The Church and Women in Recent History"
"Women and the Family"
by Professor Edith Raidt, Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the Catholic University St Augustine College of South Africa, Johannesburg, and a member of the Secular Institute of the Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary.
In recent years a rich theological reflection on the dignity of women and the Christian family has taken place. Both, women and the family, have been deeply affected by profound and rapid sociological changes in society and culture. Both are interrelated.
[But, while the "dignity and the vocation of women (…) have gained exceptional prominence in recent years" (John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem 1), the family has suffered severe setbacks. Vatican II declared in its Closing Message (8 December 1965): "The hour is coming, in fact has come, when the vocation of women is being acknowledged in its fullness, the hour in which women acquire in the world an influence, an effect and power never hitherto achieved."]
The changes in the role of women have impacted on the family. With the greater self-awareness and professional expertise of women, the marriage relationship has shifted to that of a partnership of spouses with equal dignity. In today’s family, there is an emphasis on personal freedom and interfamily relationships, on responsible procreation, education of children and responsibility for a more just society There is a rediscovery of an ecclesial mission of the family as the "domestic church" which calls for a unique marriage and family spirituality (cf. Familiaris Consortio 6).
On the other hand, it has become more difficult to rear children today, to cope with the impact of the mass media and peer pressure. The relationship of authority between parents and children, and the transmission of values have become problematic. Work pressure, the stress and pace of living undermine meaningful communication in marriages, becoming one of the main causes for the increase in divorces.
Here women play a pivotal role. The sound, God-willed man-woman polarity largely depends on the way in which they exercise their vocation. They can transform this polarity into a fruitful complementation.
[The sacramental marriage partnership is fundamentally shaped by this mutual complementation.]
Women as wives and mothers are the custodians of life and a civilization of love as opposed to a growing "culture of death".(cf. Evangelium vitae 21)
[The dignity of the human person is intimately linked to women and upheld by them.]
They share in the formation of the children and the cultivation of essential values of human life such as: freedom, justice, true love, sincere solicitude and selfless service (FC 37).
["In God’s eternal plan, woman is the one in whom the order of love in the created world of persons takes first root." (Mulieris Dignitatem 29)]
Through their selfless service women exercise a form of "servant leadership" (cf. Robert Greenleaf).
[This could serve as a blueprint for leadership in all forms of society.]
But it often places a superhuman burden on the many women who combine a professional career with the duties of being the "heart of the family".
It surely is the work of the Holy Spirit that so many new initiatives for a marriage and family spirituality are emanating from below, i.e. from couples themselves. Ecclesial movements for families provide an extended spiritual family that can accompany couples through various cycles from early marriage to old age. They should be highly regarded and fostered in parishes as a new form of evangelization.
Finally, "the biblical exemplar of the "woman" finds its culmination in the motherhood of the Mother of God" (Mulieris Dignitatem 19). "The Church sees in Mary the highest expression of the "feminine genius" (Letter of Pope John Paul II to Women, 29/06/1995). According to von Balthasar, women therefore have the unique calling to foster the "Marian-feminine principle" of the Church.