religious gender elitism

[sophiaserpentia]

About 100 men and women gathered outside Atlanta's Roman Catholic cathedral Thursday to protest the archbishop's exclusion of women from the Holy Thursday foot-washing ritual.

Contrary to the order from Archbishop John Donoghue, the protesters said the rite should include everyone. Donoghue did not address the protest during Mass Thursday night. He and his staff have refused to comment on the issue.

... In a letter last month to Atlanta priests, Donoghue said they should select 12 men from each parish to represent the apostles who had their feet washed by Jesus at the Last Supper.

from Faithful Decry Foot-Washing Ban of Women

It takes a special closed-ness of mind, and a special hatred of flesh, to think that the "fact" (disputed by some scholars and some non-canonical accounts) that Jesus' disciples were male sets a precedent that only people with penises deserve to participate in the remembrance of this event.

Jesus' message here was about humility, service, and compassion -- and this archbishop (and many before him) has turned it into something exclusionary.

Any mindset that reads the gospels and sees "people with penises" vs. "people without penises" instead of, just, people, is one that dehumanizes and closes the doors of the heart and soul.

Edit. It's difficult not to contrast the foot-washing scene in John, wherein Jesus washes the disciples' feet, with the foot-washing scene in Luke, where a woman (tradition says Mary Magdalene) washes Jesus' feet. If you restrict the remembrance of the scene in John to only male recipients, you are sending the subliminal message, intentionally or not, that it is fine for priests, who follow in the tradition of Jesus, to be served *by* women, but not to give service *to* women.

Comments

[badsede.livejournal.com]

Looking at a statement like this, I can see someone easily arguing for the arbitrariness of the sign, so that anything should be able to stand for the 12 apostles, so long as it is recognized as standing for them.

Actually, it is fairly arbitrary, and I do support the changing of the discipline. There should be no problem with only choosing men, or only choosing women, or choosing both, and some bishops have changed discipline within their diocese - as is their authority to do. However, I do not support the means. This is the Triduum, the highest, most significant liturgy of the whole year. I highly object to distracting from it with protests and demonstrations. I object to the protestors putting their own issues and politics before this holy time.

Given how long Catholicism has been of Western culture, and its integral part in developing Western culture — I am thinking of that whole middle period — why cannot one say that Western culture is Catholic culture, and that if Western culture does not appear to be what we think Catholic culture should look like, then perhaps our image of Catholic culture has been mistaken, and we are in fact living in it now?

Western culture and catholic culture diverged even before the Reformation - that is largely what necessitated it - and have only diverged more and more since. I would say that in contemporary times, Catholic values and Western values have more points of contention than coincidence.