Pope Francis' Genius & The Genius Of Women

MANILA: How does Pope Francis view the role of the women in the Church? The women want to know, and so do the men.

We know that he values women truly. In his first Holy Thursday after his election on 13 March 2013, Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of 12 juvenile offenders, 14 to 21 years of age, at Rome's Casal del Marmo detention facility, not all Catholics, not all male: 2 were Muslims (1 male, 1 female), 2 were female (Wikipedia).

He views women as having "fundamental value" (Noomi O'Leary, 03 April 2013, reuters.com). More to the point, he said later that the woman's vocation and mission remain essentially connected to her capacity for motherhood (protectthepope.com). "This is not simply a biological matter, but carries a wealth of implications for the woman herself, for her way of being, for her relationships, for the way in which we lend respect to human life and to life in general." Beyond this maternity role, he said, "We have to think deeply about this." That is because "Woman has a particular sensitivity for the things of God, above all in helping us to understand the mercy, tenderness and love that God has for us."

But no to the priesthood of women (Robert McClory, 16 September 2013, ncronline.org):

With regards to the ordination of women, the Church has already spoken and says no. John Paul II said so with a formula that was definitive. The door is closed.

What about unwed mothers? When he was still a Cardinal, Pope Francis criticized priests who did not baptize children of single mothers. He argued that "their mothers had done the right thing by not receiving abortions and should not be shunned by the Church" (Russell Goldman, 13 March 2013, abcnews.go.com):

In our ecclesiastical region there are priests who don't baptize the children of single mothers because they weren't conceived in the sanctity of marriage. These are today's hypocrites. Those who clericalize the Church. Those who separate the people of God from salvation. And this poor girl who, rather than returning the child to sender, had the courage to carry it into the world, must wander from parish to parish so that it's baptized.

Hate the sin, love the sinner.

Early in 2014, he baptized the baby of an unmarried couple in the Sistine Chapel during the Baptism Of The Lord mass at the Vatican (Kashmira Gander, 13 January 2014, independent.co.uk). Not only that, he allowed mothers to breastfeed their babies in the chapel during the service! He said, "If they are hungry, mothers, feed them, without thinking twice, because they are the most important people here."

Now listen to this. "How are we treating the people of God? I dream of a Church that is a mother and shepherdess," Pope Francis said (Antonio Spadaro, 30 September 2013, americamagazine.org). What does he mean by that? He must mean a Church that is both merciful and compassionate.

A woman had saved the life of Pope Francis when he was operated on his lung (Spadaro as cited):

The frontiers are many. Let us think of the religious sisters living in hospitals. They live on the frontier. I am alive because of one of them. When I went through my lung disease at the hospital, the doctor gave me penicillin and streptomycin in certain doses. The sister who was on duty tripled my doses because she was daringly astute; she knew what to do because she was with ill people all day.

The genius of that Sister came from experience.

The doctor, who really was a good one, lived in his laboratory; the sister lived on the frontier and was in dialogue with it every day. Domesticating the frontier means [not] just talking from a remote location, locking yourself up in a laboratory. Laboratories are useful, but reflection for us must always start from experience.

"What should be the role of women in the Church? What can be done to make their role more visible today?" Spadaro asked. Pope Francis answered:

It is necessary to broaden the opportunities for a stronger presence of women in the Church. 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.

Pope Francis must be referring to the refrain "empowerment of women" as against the obvious and natural role of rule of men:

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.

Is the role of women merely biological and, along with that, maternal?

We must … 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.

"The feminine genius is needed wherever we make important decisions." By "we" he means the Church. The Church can learn from the mothers in the Philippines. In these islands, we have a matriarchal society, so it is mostly the female who makes important decisions at home.

The concept of "same-sex marriage" does not support the concept of "complementarity of men and women in marriage," Pope Francis said in the Vatican conference titled "Humanum: The Complementarity of Man and Woman" (Joshua J McElwee, 17 November 2014, ncronline.org):

We cannot qualify with concepts of an ideological nature that only have strength in a moment of history and then fall. We cannot talk today of conservative family or progressive family. Family is family. The family is in itself, has a strength in itself.

The complementarity of man and woman – in the end, we must think of family. And children. "Children have the right to grow up in a family," Pope Francis said, "with a father and a mother, able to create a suitable environment for their development and their emotional maturation." And why should we? Traditional marriage is, Former Chief Rabbi of the UK Jonathan Sacks said during the conference, "the best means for which we have discovered for nurturing future generations."

On 06 December 2014, Pope Francis said the Church needed more women theologians, members of the International Theological Commission (ANN, catholicherald.co.uk). The IT Commission advices the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He appointed 5 new female members in July last year. "They are the strawberries on the cake, but there is need for more," he said. "The Church acknowledges the indispensable contribution which women make to society through the sensitivity, intuition and other distinctive skill sets which they, more than men, tend to possess."

The mission of the Commission is "to study doctrinal problems of great importance, especially those which present new points of view, and in this way to offer its help to the Magisterium of the Church," Pope Francis said 05 December 2014 on Vatican Radio (news.va). "This mission requires not only intellectual competence but also spiritual dispositions." Like listening. "In virtue of their feminine genius," he said, "female theologians are able to take up certain unexplored aspects of the unfathomable mystery of Christ."

What about the fathomable mystery of married life? In the complementary fields of income and expenses, the woman has been found to be the best decision maker in Africa and Asia among the poor families by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), of which I have been writing for years (try my "Science with a human face, 2: The Best Businessmen? Women," iCRiSAT Watch, blogspot.com). The wife always thinks of the family first.

"The feminine genius is needed wherever we make important decisions." And so, marrying the thoughts of Pope Francis in the Church with the experience of ICRISAT in the field, I say:

Wherever they are, the genius of women lies in thinking about family.