Four Thoughts about an Interview

 America magazine, a journal published by the Jesuits in the United States, have recently carried an -interview with Pope Francis. A full text has been published online: Pope Francis discusses Ukraine, U.S. bishops and more.

The first thought is less a thought, but more a feeling that this particular observation by Pope Francis should give every Catholic cause to pause and reflect:

I go to confession every 15 days.

[I suspect that the reference to 15 days might properly translate from Spanish to English as every two weeks.]

The second thought is to suggest that there is some parallel between my previous post on abortion as an ideological or an existential question and Pope Francis' account of abortion as a political or as a pastoral question:

The problem arises when this reality of killing a human being is transformed into a political question, or when a pastor of the church uses political categories.Each time a problem loses the pastoral dimension (pastoralidad), that problem becomes a political problem and becomes more political than pastoral. I mean, let no one hijack this truth, which is universal. It does not belong to one party or another. It is universal. When I see a problem like this one, which is a crime, become strongly, intensely political, there is a failure of pastoral care in approaching this problem. Whether in this question of abortion, or in other problems, one cannot lose sight of the pastoral dimension: A bishop is a pastor, a diocese is the holy people of God with their pastor. We cannot deal with [abortion] as if it is only a civil matter.

In answering a question about the role of women in the Church, Pope Francis spoke of a ministerial or Petrine dimension of the Church and of a feminine or Marian dimension. The theme of the Petrine and Marian dimensions of the Church can be found in Charles Journet's Theology of the Church and, perhaps more explicitly, in Hans Urs von Balthasar's The Office of Peter and the Structure of the Church. There is therefore rich hinterland lying behind Pope Francis' references here. Pope Francis then offers a context for his repeated remarks about giving women a greater role in the Church - that there is an administrative principle, which is not theological, but more about the every day running of the Church:

There is a third way: the administrative way. The ministerial way, the ecclesial way, let us say, Marian, and the administrative way, which is not a theological thing, it is something of normal administration. And, in this aspect, I believe we have to give more space to women....

And why can a woman not enter ordained ministry? It is because the Petrine principle has no place for that. Yes, one has to be in the Marian principle, which is more important. Woman is more, she looks more like the church, which is mother and spouse. I believe that we have too often failed in our catechesis when explaining these things. We have relied too much on the administrative principle to explain it, which in the long term does not work. This is an abbreviated explanation, but I wanted to highlight the two theological principles; the Petrine principle and the Marian principle that make up the church. Therefore, that the woman does not enter into the ministerial life is not a deprivation. No. Your place is that which is much more important and which we have yet to develop, the catechesis about women in the way of the Marian principle.

My last thought refers to how Pope Francis understands the relationship between a Bishop and the people of his diocese, a relationship which he characterises by the word "pastoral".  The discussion occurs in a couple of different places in the interview, at one point contrasting it with the role of episcopal conferences:

A bishops’ conference has, ordinarily, to give its opinion on faith and traditions, but above all on diocesan administration and so on. The sacramental part of the pastoral ministry is in the relationship between the pastor and the people of God, between the bishop and his people. And this cannot be delegated to the bishops’ conference.

In the interview, Pope Francis does not connect this to the idea of synodality. I do think, however, that the responsibility of a bishop towards his diocese is one key point on which the practice of synodality turns, and Pope Francis articulation of this responsibility has implications for the synodal pathway.

Different narratives: abortion

As I have followed the coverage of the leak of a draft decision of the US Supreme Court with regard to the Roe vs Wade judgement on abortion, a number of thoughts have come to mind.

The first has been about the way in which the relationship between the notion of the rule of law and the exercise of political office is perceived. So for, example, President Biden has very quickly expressed his concerns (or, more honestly, opposition?) to the striking down of Roe vs Wade that the leaked draft seems to foreshadow. And Vice-President Kamala Harris has been even more explicit. It seems legitimate that those in high public office should attack a possible court ruling, rather than indicating their compliance with the rule of law that might result. 

The public narrative - and it is there in both President Biden's and Vice-President Harris' remarks - speaks in terms of women having a right to choose, and in their having a right to have control over their bodies. This right to choose is seen as a "women's right" to be defended. There is a literature, from authors on both sides of the debate about legalized abortion, that describes the experiences of women who have had abortions. The examples of this literature on my own bookshelves are not particularly recent, but the themes involved were referenced by a speaker towards the end of BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning, who cited a book she had viewed in a visit to an abortion clinic where women had written their thoughts about their experiences. There are a wide range of reasons that lie behind women deciding to have abortions, some examples being family pressures, financial pressures, unsupportive partners or partners with addictions, effect on education or career prospects; and there can be very different emotional responses arising from those decisions. 

In other words, there are multiple narratives, not one single narrative. And in many of those narratives there are one or more constraints being exerted on the woman's freedom in choosing for or against abortion; they are not exercising a right to choose in the real sense of that phrase. Our conversation about abortion, if it is to respect and reflect the real experiences of women, cannot be one about a "right to choose". It has to include the full range of narratives; and, even remaining neutral with regard to the rights and wrongs as such of abortion, that wider conversation could be expected to lead to change in the practice of abortion.

Interestingly, the pro-life speaker in this morning's Today programme interview (Melanie McDonagh) was insistent on our talking about abortion as the "killing of a foetus" rather than using a term like "healthcare procedure", and in recognising that the foetus is a human being in various stages of development. Our conversation needs to reflect that there is this foetus as well as the woman in the situation. From my own reading, the difficult emotional responses that some women experience occur from precisely this recognition.

The full interview from the Today programme can be found here, beginning at 2:22. It will be available for the next 29 days. The BBC news website has a page in which six women from America give their responses to the Supreme Court leak: Roe v Wade: US women divided on leaked abortion ruling. Perhaps Catherine Nix's observation that, whether abortion is legal or not, there will still be women with unexpected pregnancies who need help and support is the most thoughtful response.

A final thought. One of my take away points from the #MeToo movement, and from recent concerns here in the UK about violence against women, has been that the safety of women requires men to take an increased responsibility for the behaviour that they show towards women. And yet the language of a "woman's right to choose" in terms of abortion appears to take an opposite stance, suggesting an autonomy of women from men's behaviours. (As do adverts for the morning after pill, with a strap line "It's my morning after".)

Three thoughts on violence against women

 After recent events, it is important to recognise the sorrow and anguish of Sarah Everard's family and friends, and I join in offering my prayers and condolences to them.

The subsequent debate on violence against women has prompted three thoughts.

The concern being expressed by protestors and others about the safety of women on the streets of our towns and cities is primarily a concern about violence directed towards women by men. Whilst the fashion might be to describe this as "gender based violence" - with all that the ambivalence contained in the word "gender" implies - we are in reality, even when we use this language,  designating a violence directed against women because of their physiological sex. And likewise the men responsible for this violence are being designated, in reality, by their physiological sex.

I think I can be forgiven for thinking that, in recent years, the prime ethical principle governing sexual behaviours is that of consent. The #MeToo movement drew to public attention circumstances where men in powerful positions have taken advantage of their power to engage in unwelcome sexual behaviours with women. In educational circles, attention is given to enabling young people, both boys and girls, to properly understand the significance of consent. But, in terms of building barriers that will discourage men from abusing women, would it not also be helpful to have a recognition that some sexual behaviours are wrong even if the parties involved consent? It would then be crystal clear to all concerned that men in positions of power, or boys exerting peer pressure, should not be engaging sexually with the women and girls they encounter. 

The term "sex worker" has now become common place in referring to women who would previously have been described as "prostitutes". (Though men do also engage in such work, women do predominate). In effect, this change of terminology encourages a societal acceptance of a situation where a man pays women for sex. But, from the point of view of such a man, with an inevitably weakened sense of right and wrong, what is the difference between this paid-for sex on Friday night and an approach to a non-consenting woman in the street on Saturday night?  If the only difference we expect him to observe is that of consent, the difference is not a strong one.

So there are my three contributions to the discussion, for all they are worth: honesty about treating it as a question of physiological sex, being willing to consider the ethics of sexual behaviours to have an objective content other than just consent, and recognising that cultural accommodation of prostitution is not going to reduce risk to women.

Pope Francis General Audience 15th April 2015: catechesis on male-female complementarity

The Vatican Information Service headlines its report on today's General Audience thus: General audience: the complementarity between man and woman.

And Vatican Radio headlined its report: Pope: "more weight and more authority must be given to women”

And the Catholic Herald report, following that at Vatican Radio: The Church must do more to recognise women, says Pope.

UPDATE: and the most useful coverage at Catholic News Service: Gender theory is the problem, not the solution, pope says.

At the time of posting, a full English text of Pope Francis' audience address is not yet on the Vatican website - I assume it will in due course replace the short English summary here. The full Italian text is here. I translate the highlights from there.

E come tutti sappiamo, la differenza sessuale è presente in tante forme di vita, nella lunga scala dei viventi. Ma solo nell’uomo e nella donna essa porta in sé l’immagine e la somiglianza di Dio: il testo biblico lo ripete per ben tre volte in due versetti (26-27): uomo e donna sono immagine e somiglianza di Dio. Questo ci dice che non solo l’uomo preso a sé è immagine di Dio, non solo la donna presa a sé è immagine di Dio, ma anche l’uomo e la donna, come coppia, sono immagine di Dio. La differenza tra uomo e donna non è per la contrapposizione, o la subordinazione, ma per la comunione e la generazione, sempre ad immagine e somiglianza di Dio. [As we all know, sexual difference is present in many forms of life, in the long ascent of living things. But only in man and woman does it carry in itself the image and the likeness of God: the biblical text repeats this three times in two verses: man and woman are the image and likeness of God. This is to say not only that man taken in himself is the image of God, not only is woman taken in herself the image of God, but also man and woman, as a couple, are the image of God. The difference between man and woman is not for opposition, or for subordination, but for communion and generation, always to the image and likeness of God.] 

What I find of particular interest here is the idea that it is together, as a couple, that the likeness of God is present in man and woman, in addition to such a presence in each individually. And let us not overlook that "...for communion and generation ...". Those who believe that the separation of the purpose of generation from the sexual encounter by means of the contraceptive pill and the condom is in favour of the liberation of women will not find solace in Pope Francis' words. Pope Francis also inserts a phrase in the light of the biblical account that says that "God has entrusted the earth to the covenant between man and woman", a thought that I also find interesting. Whilst all of this has an immediate reference to those who are called to the vocation of marriage, and that is the context of the Holy Father's current series of catecheses, I am prompted to ponder -  if it is indeed something that is of the nature of God's creative act - how this also extends to those who are not married.

...io mi domando, se la cosiddetta teoria del gender non sia anche espressione di una frustrazione e di una rassegnazione, che mira a cancellare la differenza sessuale perché non sa più confrontarsi con essa. Sì, rischiamo di fare un passo indietro. La rimozione della differenza, infatti, è il problema, non la soluzione. Per risolvere i loro problemi di relazione, l’uomo e la donna devono invece parlarsi di più, ascoltarsi di più, conoscersi di più, volersi bene di più. [...I ask myself, if the so-called theory of gender is not also an expression of a frustration and a resignation, that looks to strike out the sexual difference because it no longer knows how to face up to it. The removal of the difference, in fact, is the problem not the solution. To resolve the problems of their relations, man and woman must instead speak more to each other, listen more to each other, know each other more, wish each others good more.]

And from this basis, Pope Francis identifies two points, and is not making the first in isolation from the second. The first is that women should be given a stronger voice both in society and in the Church - note that the reference to the Church is alongside that to society as a whole:

E’ necessario, infatti, che la donna non solo sia più ascoltata, ma che la sua voce abbia un peso reale, un’autorevolezza riconosciuta, nella società e nella Chiesa. [It is necessary, in fact, that women are not only more listened to, but that their voice carries a real weight, a recognised authority, in society and in the Church.]

The second is to suggest that a weakness in collective belief in God is connected to a weakness in faith in the covenant between man and woman:

Mi chiedo se la crisi di fiducia collettiva in Dio, che ci fa tanto male, ci fa ammalare di rassegnazione all’incredulità e al cinismo, non sia anche connessa alla crisi dell’alleanza tra uomo e donna. In effetti il racconto biblico, con il grande affresco simbolico sul paradiso terrestre e il peccato originale, ci dice proprio che la comunione con Dio si riflette nella comunione della coppia umana e la perdita della fiducia nel Padre celeste genera divisione e conflitto tra uomo e donna. [I ask myself if the crisis of collective faith in God, which does so much ill, which makes for resignation to incredulity and cynicism, is not also connected to the crisis in the covenant between man and woman. In effect the biblical account, with its great symbolic fresco of the earthly paradise and original sin, tells us that communion with God is reflected in the communion of the human couple and the loss of faith in the heavenly father generates division and conflict between man and woman.]

Which is, of course, all very different to the impression created by some of the headlines!

Women in the Life of the Church

A section of Pope Francis' interview that appears not to have caught the attention of the media, be that the main stream media or that of Catholic bloggers, is the section in which he responds to a question about the role of women in the Church. This is something to which Pope Francis has made reference on other occasions, but this paragraph in his interview suggests a more systematic indication of his views on the subject.

“I am wary of a solution that can be reduced to a kind of ‘female machismo,’ because a woman has a different make-up than a man. But what I hear about the role of women is often inspired by an ideology of machismo. Women are asking deep questions that must be addressed. The church cannot be herself without the woman and her role. The woman is essential for the church. Mary, a woman, is more important than the bishops. I say this because we must not confuse the function with the dignity. We must therefore investigate further the role of women in the church. We have to work harder to develop a profound theology of the woman. Only by making this step will it be possible to better reflect on their function within the church. The feminine genius is needed wherever we make important decisions. The challenge today is this: to think about the specific place of women also in those places where the authority of the church is exercised for various areas of the church.”

 What are the suggestions tucked away in this paragraph?

A recognition that women are asking a question about their role in the Church that must be addressed.

The affirmation of a particular charism for "the woman" in the Church, who has a different make-up than a man. This charism is analogous to that of the Virgin Mary, who is "more important than the bishops".

Rather than an effort on behalf of women in the Church that is inspired by a feminist ideology ("female machismo", in Pope Francis' words - and Pope Francis identifies much that he hears about women in the Church as having such an inspiration), we need to engage in the development of a profound theology of "the woman".

Pope Francis draws an interesting distinction between dignity and function in talking of the role of women. The theological effort just referred to can be seen as one that first seeks to address the nature of the dignity of the place of women in the Church and then, consequently to that, to develop an understanding of their function. The function needs to follow from the dignity. Is there perhaps here an indirect reference to Pope John Paul II's Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem?

Pope Francis ends by identifying the challenge facing the Church on this question: the specific place of women in places where authority is exercised for various areas in the Church. His framing of the challenge in this way - in terms of an exercise of authority - seems somewhat un-Francis like until it is read alongside his earlier discussion in his interview of the idea of decision making as discernment.

A feminist agenda for Catholicism it is not.

St Mary Magdalen: a woman in the Church

The Gospel at Mass for the feast of St Mary Magdalen (John 20:1-2, 11-18) reminds us that she was the first to discover the Resurrection of the Lord, though the Gospel text suggests that it took some time for her to recognise the significance of her discovery.

She then ran to tell Simon Peter and the beloved disciple.


So, in that mysterious moment at the beginning of the Church's life, Mary Magdalen is right up there with the key figures of Simon Peter and John. That moment has its feminine dimension, as well as the Petrine and Johannine dimension (the deference of John/charism to Peter/office as they enter the tomb).

Mary Magdalen is then sent by the Lord to announce the resurrection, and says to the disciples: "I have seen the Lord".


Within the dynamic of the Church's evangelising mission, this is the first example of "primary proclamation", and so Mary Magdalen could perhaps be taken as a patron saint of those who engage in this aspect of the Church's mission.

The Meditation of the Day in Magnificat is an extract from a homily by St Gregory the Great. It suggests another dimension to the charism of Mary Magdalen. St Gregory's account of the soul of Mary Magdalen reminds one of the gifts that would be associated with the great mystics Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, a love that makes a soul burn for the Lord.

Scorching fire burns away the rust of sin in the heart. The soul is inflamed as if it were gold, because gold loses its beauty through use but fire restores it to brightness. So Mary loved, who turned a second time to the supulchre she had already looked into ... Her search had been redoubled by the power of love.

Two letters

On 17th July, the Times published a letter from Fr Timothy Radcliffe OP. One should perhaps recognise that Fr Radcliffe may not have chosen the heading under which it was published.

Clarifying Vatican line on priestesses

Sir, The Vatican did not declare that "female priests are as sinful as child abuse" (report, July 16). That would be absurd. The papal press office direction, Father Lombardi, SJ, explained that they are completely different. The attempted ordination of a Roman Catholic woman raises different issues.

The priest presides at Holy Communion, the sacrament of our unity in the Church, and so an ordination that is productive of division would be a contradiction in terms. Many Catholics believe that women should not be excluded from ordination, but this will only be possible with the concensus of the communion of the Church. Excommunication is not a punishment, nor exclusion from the Church, but recognition that communion is seriously damaged and needs to be repaired. One might not think that this is the best way to do so, but it is a position that is perfectly comprehensible.

FATHER TIMOTHY RADCLIFFE OP
Blackfriars, Oxford

And today, the following letter appeared:

Female priests

Sir, Father Timothy Radcliffe ("Clarifying Vatican line on priestesses", letter, July 17) rightly points out that the illicit ordination of a woman, being productive of division, would be a contradiction in terms. He then interestingly suggests that the ordination of women might be possible "with the concensus of the communion of the Church". Is he suggesting, perhaps, that women's ordination could be considered in those countries, possibly including England and Wales, where such a move would be largely accepted by Catholics? It would certainly be a means of easing relations with the Anglican Church.

It is certainly and unfortunately the case, however, that the Vatican's description of the ordination of a woman as "a grave delict" inevitably reduces its credibility when pronouncing on other matters.

ALAN PAVELIN
Chislehurst, Kent

Fr Radcliffe does clarify that the Holy See did not equate the attempted ordination of women with the sexual abuse of minors. From then on, though, he does anything but clarify the position of the Holy See with regard to the ordination of women. The ecclesiology underlying Fr Radcliffe's second paragraph looks, not just decidedly Anglican, but decidedly that of a particular school of Anglicanism, a school that has been pretty much put to death by the recent decisions of the General Synod. Communion as social consensus seems to be Fr Radcliffe's notion of the theology of "Church as communion". There is a fudge of the Roman Catholic position, fudge in large quantity, too. What do "should not be excluded from ordination" and "consensus of the communion of the Church" mean? Let alone the infallible magisterium expressed by the "Many Catholics believe ..".

Alan Pavelin takes up the implication that the position of the Holy See is that an ordination of a woman is limited to being illicit - it isn't so limited, being that such an attempted ordination would be invalid, it just wouldn't "happen" despite the words being said and the actions undertaken. He also reads the consensus ecclesiology in a localised context - which Fr Timothy Radcliffe and the Anglican school he reflects would certainly not do - though I am not at all convinced that the ordination of women would be "largely accepted by Catholics" in England and Wales.

Ah, bless.

Living together

... is a phrase that can have a perfectly innocuous meaning. I live together with my neighbours, with my work colleagues, with my friends.

It can also mean moving in with an opposite sex partner without getting married. For different couples the circumstances may vary, but I have a sense that it will in most situations be the girl who makes herself most vulnerable in these arrangements. That vulnerability is both material and emotional. [One can perhaps extend the idea of "living together" to same sex partners moving in together, when I sense that the range and dynamics of vulnerability might be much deeper.]

The readiness with which young people do this makes Catholic Analysis' post on the subject of relevance. I think the suggestion in this post that there is something lost that cannot be regained is worthy of particular reflection.

Cherie Blair at the Angelicum

I have at last got round to reading the text of the lecture that Cherie Blair gave at a day conference at the Pontifical University of St Thomas (the Angelicum) in Rome in December 2008. I have two texts to hand, one which I downloaded and printed in December, soon after the lecture itself, and a second text on the official Cherie Blair website. This latter text appears to be a fuller version of the earlier text, but, since I cannot now find my source for the first text, I cannot say this for certain. A transcript of a recording of the lecture is posted at Lifesite News; this transcript is very close to my earlier text, but in at least one point, it completely reverses the sense.

Perhaps the main difference between the two texts - and this appears to represent a difference between the lecture as delivered and the lecture as written up for posting on the website - lies in the concluding paragraphs. The website text is quite forthright in its attack on the Church's teaching on contraception, whereas the delivered text is more indirect. Cherie Blair cites Pope Benedict XVI's insistence that there is no contradiction between faith and reason, referring to his address at Regensburg, and then says:

Yet in relation to contraception the Church has preferred to avoid revisiting old doctrines in the light of present day knowledge.

The reality is that many Catholic couples, exercising their own consciences, in fact limit their families as the declining birth rates in Europe and the US testify. But in the face of the plague of HIV/AIDs where the Church has played such a role of compassionate ministry; that work is undermined by our refusal to allow the use of condoms which are literally making the difference between life and death across the world. And beyond HIV/Aids in a world where two thirds of world’s poor are women, to prevent the devout but poor in the third world, the choice that the devout but rich in the first world have to regulate their own fertility and thus release the potential of women to participate fully in economic and political life just reinforces the stubborn gap between the haves and have nots which the Church campaigns against so passionately across the world....

..unless [the Church] is prepared to be informed and changed by that Enlightenment rationality praised by Pope Benedict at Regensburg, unless it is prepared to look again with clear eyes at what is fundamental truth and what is just a reflection of the culture of the past that voice will be diminished and even distorted to the detriment of the mission of the Church to bring spirituality, wisdom and compassion to the modern world.

It is, of course, quite disingenous to cite Pope Benedict as if his thought provides a basis for supporting a point of view that he would in fact oppose quite strongly. Particularly when Cherie has cited earlier in her lecture Pope Benedict's warning against the "subjective 'conscience' becoming the sole arbiter of what is ethical".

There is, however, a very positive section in Cherie Blair's lecture. This comes in a section headed "The Church and Human Rights", the second section of the lecture. The website text appears to replace a section of the delivered lecture outlining the origin of the discourse on human rights in general with a fuller account of the thought of Pope John XXIII expressed in Pacem in Terris and of Pope John Paul II. I do not reproduce it here but refer the reader to the link above to read it directly. There is also an interesting recognition that the Church contributes a religious underpinning to the principle of universal human rights that genuinely adds something when compared to an exclusively secular understanding. And an interesting citation about the universality of human rights, that they apply to all people. This is a section of the lecture that is well worth reading.

In trying to understand exactly where Cherie Blair is coming from, I recognise two "hermeneutic principles" at play in her lecture. The first is to treat the role of women in terms of "leadership" or "rank". In the text as it appears to have been delivered, Mary Ann Glendon, as head of the Pontifical Academy for the Social Sciences is described as "the highest ranking woman in the Church"; and the roles of Edith Stein, Mother Teresa and others are described as "leadership roles". In the website text this language of leadership is extended, perhaps softened, to include the language of "breaking down barriers to female participation". The language of "participation" is quite nuanced, and to participate is not the same thing as to lead; but I think one should recognise that for Cherie Blair it is a language that refers to leadership and positions of rank in the Church.

However, if we are really to understand the part played by women like Edith Stein and Mother Teresa in the Church, a hermeneutic of "leadership" and "rank" does not work. Instead, one needs a hermeneutic of the "evangelical counsels" which define the religious life that they embraced, and the spirit that is reflected in a genuinely Christian lay lifestyle of those who are active in the Church. I think one can legitimately suggest, as Cherie Blair did, that more women could have roles in the Curia. But that should conform to an authentically ecclesial hermeneutic, which is not one that can be fully expressed in the terminology of leadership and rank. Indeed, a hermeneutic of "leadership" and "rank" misunderstands the part that men should play, too.

The second key "hermeneutic principle" for Cherie Blair is that of freedom for women with regard to child care, and by implication, to an extent at least, from child birth (their "ability to control their own fertility"). For her, the promotion of women's rights only comes about where being a mother does not come in the way of women taking leadership roles. So, for example, in the text of the lecture as it appears to have been delivered, Cherie says of Edith Stein and Mother Teresa that "in return for leadership roles they had to turn away from having children. As a result the Church, like the rest of our society, did not accept the equality of every woman in practice". Fundamental to this, of course, is access to contraception, and this is the basis of Cherie Blair's forthright attack on the Church's teaching on this topic.

It is quite fascinating to see what is present in the text of the lecture as it appears to have been delivered - but has been taken out in favour of the much stronger attack on the Church's teaching on contraception in the website text:

And, while I am on record, as having had difficulties with the current teaching on responsible parenthood, I do recognize that much of what Paul VI predicted could happen in Humanae Vitae as a result of what could happen as a result of wide and indiscriminate use of abortion has been born out in particular in relation to baby girls as the birth ratios of boys to girls in some countries testify. What those lost girls demonstrate is that, across the world, we lack the widely held sense of the contribution of women which is important to society in its own right. The situation of too many women in the developing world shows that we are still far away from women being regarded as of equal worth to men. Here the over-whelming problems: economic, education and health related.

The British Independent newspaper commenting on the 1994 UN Population conference in Cairo singled out the Catholic Church for praise – not something it always does – it persuasively argued that, by being one of the leading providers of education across the developing world, the Church is making a powerful contribution to improving the lives of women, lifting them out of poverty and enabling them to reduce levels of child-birth, which can be, and is actually often dangerous to their health. History teaches us that improving the general economic situation and particularly improving women’s educational levels, gives women more power in society and helps them exercise more responsible fertility.

The appropriate hermeneutic to respond to this second hermeneutic of Cherie Blair's is that provided by the "theology of the body". In other words, a hermeneutic based on an integration of the sexual aspects of women's (and man's) existence into a whole of life. Such a hermeneutic has its application to both married and religious life.

Whilst it is very easy to attack Cherie Blair's lecture for its dissent from Catholic teaching, it is also useful to clearly identify the two "hermeneutics" which underpin it. These can then be evaluated in their relation to wider Catholic thinking and to the thinking of the non-Catholic world.

Invisible women?

The Sunday Times headlines a short piece in today's issue "Cherie in warning to churches over invisible women". This is a trail for a programme on Channel 4 tonight, in which Cherie Blair presents the last episode of their series Christianity: A history. According to the Channel 4 website:

Leading British lawyer and committed Catholic Cherie Blair investigates Christianity over the last 100 years and explores its future prospects.

Cherie Blair is quoted by the Sunday Times as follows:

..when it comes to the public face of Christianity, now women are virtually invisible.

Like, for example, Mary Ann Glendon. Until President Obama was elected, the US Ambassador to the Holy See. And she is a professor of Law at Harvard. And she is is still, I think, president of the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences. Like, she is a pretty visible Catholic woman. And she has a high profile position in a Pontifical Academy.

Like, for example, Chiara Lubich. Founder, and the spiritual source, of the Focolare Movement. Founder and leader of a movement spread throughout the Church, and which leads in many ways the dialogue between the Church and different areas of contemporary life - economics, politics, the media - under a heading "Culture of Unity". Oh, and the constitutions of the Focolare Movement mean that the President can only be a woman .... Like, Chiara was a pretty visible Catholic woman, as is her successor Maria Emmaus Voce.

But there is a difference between women like this and Cherie Blair. They are women who are visibly faithful to the Church. Cherie, for all her high profile, is not known for the Catholic nature of that profile. Is she really, as The Sunday Times suggests, "one of the most influential lay figures in the Catholic Church"?