Mary McAleese wants to save the Church that spurns her

SO NOW we know why women cannot have a leadership role in the Church – because they can never compete with the Virgin Mary. Speaking on the Marian Finucane show at the weekend, theologian Fr Vincent Twomey mused on the role of women in the Church and explained the rationale for their subordinate position.

“What woman can be compared to the mother of God and the veneration she has and the role she has?” he asked, which presumably must mean that priests are the earthly manifestations of Jesus on Earth.

It was a telling remark. Mere mortal women, the 600 million or so who are members of the Church, can never attain parity with men because they are not the mother of God – although some Irish mothers of Irish sons may sometimes feel differently.

Virgin births are something of a rare commodity and earthly women are contaminated by the stain of menstruation, sex and childbirth. They are betrayed by their bodies and by biology.

If women have a role in society and in the Church, it is not to sit in positions of authority or power.

Their inclusion, among the hierarchy, would be an affront.

A joke, when you consider the saintly woman in whose hallowed footsteps they would be attempting to follow.

Instead, women must accept their lot. Be demure, deferential, compliant and selfless – accepting that the men around them know better. Above all, they must not question. Or argue.

In fact, Fr Twomey said his first reaction when he heard former President Mary McAleese’s powerful speech, about the misogyny that is engrained in the Church, was mirth.

“As a cleric, I thought it was amusing. Over the top,” he said, chuckling.

That poor hysterical woman – an accomplished lawyer, lecturer and former president who has a PhD in Canon Law – had made something of a fool of herself by forcefully expressing an opinion. She had been too emotional and let herself down.

Not only had Mrs McAleese whipped herself into an embarrassing frenzy and opened herself up to public opprobrium, she had debased the office of the President with her outburst.

According to Fr Twomey, her anti-Catholic rant had “undermined the dignity of the office”.

Former presidents, like women generally, should be seen and not heard – condemned to a life of nodding politely and exchanging banal pleasantries.

A conservative cleric who strictly adheres to Catholic dogma, Fr Twomey’s patronising comments were not a surprise. But what is disappointing is that they mirror the views of the hierarchy so rigidly.

For them, there is no problem in the Church.

The fact women are denied the opportunity to become priests, or even to have a role in the formation of doctrine, is simply as it should be. And will be.

FOR them, there is nothing to debate. And if there were, they wouldn’t sully themselves by having that debate with mere women.

There were those who were shocked by the strength of Mrs McAleese’s language when she upbraided the Church as being “a primary global carrier of the virus of misogyny”, but the only surprise is the stunned reaction from some quarters.

For years, the Church in Ireland has actively and enthusiastically sought to domineer and control women – from the torpedoing of the Mother and Child Scheme in the 1950s, the enslaving of women in Magdalene Laundries and the lobbying against the availability of contraception.

Women’s inferior position within the institution itself, then, is hardly revelatory.

But the inability of some – predominantly those in positions of authority in the Church – to appreciate this truth is truly staggering.

Listening to Mrs McAleese on Seán O’Rourke’s show on RTÉ radio, I was struck by the relative modesty of her ambition.

If the Church has definitely ruled out the ordination of female priests forever, she can accept that. But, she wants someone to tell her in what way women can contribute to the Church in the absence of that development.

“All power and authority and discernment and input into formation of the faith is filtered through priesthood,” she said.

So, where will women’s influence within the Church be felt if they are excluded from that position?

Echoing the words of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, that “the low standing of women in the Catholic Church is the most significant reason for the feeling of alienation towards it in Ireland today”, Ms McAleese said she feared for its future.

Its dwindling relevance in the lives of young people, its inability to be truly inclusive, its erosion of authority in matters of morality given its own failure to deal with sex abuse scandals.

MRS McAleese’s own family has been touched by clerical abuse.

Her voice broke yesterday as she described how her baby brother was tortured by a priest throughout his school days and her anguish that she found out about it only recently, nearly 50 years later.

Despite this, her voice didn’t waver as she expressed her love for her Church and her determination to try to make it better.

While those on the Catholic right depict Mrs McAleese as a bitter harridan, intent on damaging and destroying the Church, in truth what she wants is to save it.

To force it to confront the hypocrisy, double-standards and insularity that are eating away at its core like a cancer.

The tragedy is that those who lead the Church are not willing to join in the debate her. They don’t even want to listen.

Fr Twomey said his first reaction when he heard our former President’s speech – about the misogyny that is engrained in our Church – was mirth. ‘As a cleric, I thought it amusing. Over the top,’ he chuckled