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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2014
Feminist theology and the Roman Catholic sacramental tradition share a common concern for the integrity of the body and the goodness of the natural world. Yet traditional sacramental theology has used its understanding of body and nature to define women as ontologically distinct from and inferior to men. This article argues that recent feminist theological writing on the body offers a corrective to the ahistorical and dualistic understanding of the body prevalent in Roman Catholic theology. By including women's interpretation of their own bodily experience, situating this experience in a social and historical context, and celebrating the variety of human embodiment, feminist theology offers a truly “sacramental” understanding of the body as it also criticizes the sexist assumptions of the tradition.
1 Weedon, Chris, Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), pp. 1–11.Google Scholar This article has greatly benefitted from the careful and critical readings of my colleagues in the Loyola University Theology Department; from the moral and financial support of Loyola University which granted me a paid leave of absence in 1987, during which time I completed this article; from my colleagues in the Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago; and from the editorial readers of this article at Horizons. I am deeply grateful for the help of all.
2 In “Feminist Theology and Bioethics” in Andolsen, Barbara Hilkert, Gudorf, Christine E. and Pellauer, Mary D., eds., Women's Consciousness, Women's Conscience: A Reader in Feminist Ethics (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1985)Google Scholar, Margaret A. Farley describes “embodiment” as a central theme in feminist theology. See also Cooey, Paula M., Farmer, Sharon A., and Ross, Mary Ellen, Embodied Love: Sensuality and Relationship as Feminist Values (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987).Google Scholar The centrality of “embodiment” for feminist thought in general is argued in this essay.
3 A recent example of this attitude is expressed in a speech given to the 1987 Synod on the Laity by Rev. Fessio, Joseph, “Reasons Given Against Women Acolytes and Lectors,” Origins 17/32 (January 21, 1988), 398.Google Scholar For the theological grounding for this position, see “Declaration on the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood” in Swidler, Arlene and Swidler, Leonard, eds., Women Priest: A Catholic Commentary on the Vatican Declaration (New York: Paulist, 1977);Google Scholar see also Paul, John II, “Mulieris Dignitatem: On the Dignity and Vocation of Women,” Origins 18/17 (October 6, 1988).Google Scholar
4 See Miles, Margaret R., Fullness of Life: Historical Foundations for a New Asceticism (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981);Google Scholaridem., Image as Insight: Visual Understanding in Western Christianity and Secular Culture (Boston: Beacon, 1985); Bynum, Carolyn Walker, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987);Google ScholarBrown, Peter, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).Google Scholar
5 See Ruether, Rosemary Radford, New Woman/New Earth: Sexist Ideologies and Human Liberation (New York: Seabury, 1975), especially pp. 186–211;Google Scholaridem., Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology (Boston: Beacon, 1983), especially pp. 179-92; Maguire, Daniel C., “The Feminization of God and Ethics,” Christianity and Crisis 42 (March 15, 1982), 59–67.Google Scholar
6 See, for example, the widely used text (in courses on Women and Religion), Clark, Elizabeth and Richardson, Herbert, eds., Women and Religion: A Feminist Source-book of Christian Thought (New York: Harper and Row, 1977)Google Scholar, especially the selections from Jerome, Augustine, Aquinas, and the Malleus Maleficarum.
7 See Washbourn, Penelope, Becoming Woman: The Quest for Wholeness in Female Experience (New York: Harper and Row, 1977).Google Scholar
8 For a concise summary of the sacramental in Roman Catholicism, see McBrien, Richard P., Catholicism (Minneapolis, MN: Winston, 1980), pp. 731ff.Google Scholar For more recent and extensive discussions on sacramental theology, see the very helpful articles by Irwin, Kevin W., “Recent Sacramental Theology: A Review Discussion,” The Thomist 47 (October 1983), 592–608CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Recent Sacramental Theology,” The Thomist 52 (January 1988), 124–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarSchillebeeckx's, EdwardChrist the Sacrament of the Encounter with God, trans. Smith, N. D. (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1967)Google Scholar remains an essential source for contemporary sacramental theology.
9 Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologiae, III, Q. 62, a. 1.Google Scholar
10 Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theoiogiae, I, Q. 92, a. 1.Google Scholar
11 It should be noted here that the Aristotelian metaphysics employed by Aquinas sees activity as prior to and superior to passivity and receptivity; it is God who acts, and human beings who are acted upon. Those who act are ontologically superior to those who receive, as Thomas understands the sexual act. See ST, I, Q. 2, a. 3, for the classic “five ways” in which Aquinas demonstrates God's existence. The first way discusses God as “Pure Act.” For a compelling refutation of the nature of women as “passive receptacles” in the process of conception, see Farley, Margaret, “New Patterns of Relationship: Beginnings of a Moral Revolution,” Theological Studies 36/4 (December 1975), 627–46, esp. 637.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12 See Borreson, Kari, Subordination and Equivalence: The Nature and Role of Woman in Augustine and Thomas Aquinas (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1981);Google Scholar for Augustine, see 23-30; for Aquinas, see 174-78.
13 See von Balthasar, esp. 309-22; see also Bouyer, Louis, Woman in the Church (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1985), 33Google Scholar: “God, inasmuch as he reveals himself supremely as the unique Father, appears in certain regards as a masculine being, and not feminine.”
14 John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, Par. 29. Emphasis added.
15 “Nevertheless, the Incarnation of the Word took place according to the male sex: this is indeed a question of fact, while not implying an alleged natural superiority of man over women, cannot be disassociated from the economy of salvation: it is, indeed, in harmony with the entirety of God's plan as God himself has revealed it, and of which the mystery of the Covenant is the nucleus … the Covenant… took on, from the Old Testament prophets onwards, the privileged form of a nuptial mystery …” “Vatican Declaration,” par. 28. For critical perspectives on the “complementary” view of human nature, see Buckley, Mary, “The Rising of the Woman is the Rising of the Race,” Catholic Theological Society of America Proceedings 34 (1979), 48–63;Google ScholarButler, Sara, ed., Research Report: Women in Church and Society (Mahwah, NJ: Theological Society of America, 1978)Google Scholar, esp. the section written by Carr, Anne, “Arguments Based on the Nature of Women,” pp. 32–40.Google Scholar
16 See “Vatican Declaration,” par.6: “For this reason one cannot see how it is possible to propose the admission of women to the priesthood in virtue of the equality of rights of the human person, an equality which holds good also for Christians.”
17 For Rahner, see “Women and the Priesthood” in Concern for the Church, Theological Investigations 20, trans. Quinn, Edward (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 35–47;Google Scholar for Schillebeeckx, see Ministry: Leadership in the Community of Jesus Christ, trans. Bowden, John (New York: Crossroad, 1981), pp. 96–98.Google Scholar
18 Schillebeeckx's theology has had a consistent focus on the concrete and sacramental character of God's revelation. See Ross, Susan A., “Church and Sacrament” in Hilkert, Mary Catherine and Schreiter, Robert, eds., The Praxis of Christian Experience: An Introduction to the Thought of Edward Schillebeeckx (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989).Google Scholar Rahner addresses this issue in a somewhat different way, but with no less an emphasis on the concrete and embodied form of human religious experience. While his Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity (New York: Seabury, 1978)Google Scholar remains the basic introduction to his thought, many of his earlier essays on such issues as “Personal and Sacramental Piety” and “The Resurrection of the Body” (in Theological Investigations 2 [Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1963]Google Scholar) remain important sources for his understanding of the body.
19 Augustine, , City of God, 13, 6Google Scholar, quoted in Miles, , Fullness, 73.Google Scholar See also Miles's full-length study. Augustine on the Body (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1979).Google Scholar
211 Ibid., 14.
21 Nelson, James, Embodiment: An Approach to Sexuality and Christian Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1978).Google Scholar
22 Ibid., 57.
23 Power, David, Unsearchable Riches: The Symbolic Nature of Liturgy (New York: Pueblo, 1984), p. 94.Google Scholar
24 Ibid., pp. 96-97.
25 Ricoeur, Paul, The Rule of Metaphor: MuJtidiscipiinary Studies in the Creation of Meaning in Language, trans. Czerny, Robert (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), esp. pp. 230ff.Google Scholar
26 Tillich, Paul, The Dynamics of Faith (New York: Harper and Row, 1957), p. 50.Google Scholar Tillich escribes a modern, critical perspective on Christian symbols as one which recognizes their “brokenness,” yet still is open to the reality they attempt to represent. See also Ricoeur, Paul, The Symbolism of Evil, trans. Buchanan, Emerson (Boston: Beacon, 1969)Google Scholar for a discussion of “second naiveté,” closely related to Tillich's idea.
27 Tillich, p. 52.
28 Steinberg, Leo, The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion (New York: A Pantheon/October Book, 1983), p. 23.Google Scholar Carolyn Walker Bynum points out that it is genitality rather than sexuality that is key. See Bynum, p. 307, n. 3.
29 This failure has been addressed in many recent works on sacramental theology. The influence of cultural anthropology has been acknowledged; seek Worgul, George S. Jr., , From Magic to Metaphor: A Validation of the Christian Sacraments (New York: Paulist, 1980).Google Scholar The influence of Mircea Eliade in particular has been immeasurable.
30 Ortner, Sherry B., “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?” in Rosaldo, Michelle and Lamphere, Louis, eds., Woman, Culture, and Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974).Google Scholar
31 Ortner, p. 87: “Ultimately, it must be stressed again that the whole scheme is a construct of culture rather than a fact of nature.”
32 See, for example, Douglas, Mary, Natural Symbols (New York: Vintage, 1970)Google Scholar and Sperber, Dan, Rethinking Symbolism, trans. Morton, Alice L. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975).Google Scholar
33 The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults is one outstanding example of how sacramental theology had adapted to a changed understanding of the person.
34 See Ross, n. 18 above.
35 Lawler, Michael G., Symbol and Sacrament: A Contemporary Sacramental Theology (New York: Paulist, 1987);Google ScholarOsborne, Kenan B., Sacramental Theology: A General Introduction (Mahwah: Paulist, 1988).Google Scholar
36 Patrick, Anne E., “Coming of Age: Women's Contribution to Contemporary Theology,” New Catholic World 228/1364 (March–April 1985), 61–69;Google Scholar the quotation is from 64.
37 See Ruether, Sexism, esp. chap. 3: “Woman, Body, and Nature: Sexism and the Theology of Creation,” pp. 72-92, and chap. 4: “Anthropology: Humanity as Male and Female,” pp. 93-115. See also Carr, Anne E., Transforming Grace: Christian Tradition and Women's Experience (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988), esp. chap. 6Google Scholar, “Theological Anthropology and the Experience of Women,” for a helpful survey of feminist anthropologies and a discussion of interpreting women's experience.
38 The New York Times, April 28, 1984.
39 Ruether, Rosemary, Women-Church: Theology and Practice of Feminist Liturgical Communities (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1985).Google Scholar
40 See Ruether, Women-Church, Part II.
41 See Ruether, New Woman, chaps. 4 and 5, where she attributes racism and anti-Semitism to psychic dualism.
42 See Ruether, New Woman; Maguire, “Feminization”; see also Gilligan, Carol, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982);Google Scholar Andolsen et al. (See n. 2 above).
43 See Castelli, Elizabeth, “Virginity and Its Meaning for Women's Sexuality in Early Christianity,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 2/1 (Spring 1986), 62–88;Google Scholar Bynum, Holy Feast, n. 4 above. Bynum's work is especially interesting for the ways in which she shows how women and men differed in their expressions of spirituality and how food was more central for women than for men.
44 See Jaggar, Alison, Feminist Politics and Human Nature (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allenheid, 1983)Google Scholar, for an explanation of the use of these categories.
45 Jaggar, p. 179. See also Spelman, Elizabeth, “Woman as Body: Ancient and Contemporary Views,” Feminist Studies 8/1 (Spring 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who develops this point at length.
46 Jaggar, p. 180.
47 Here I would note a major difference between the predominant stream of feminist thought in the United States, which tends to be “liberal” in its sympathies (and therefore uncomfortable with ideas of difference) and feminist thought in France, which places a much greater emphasis on “difference” between women and men. See Marks, Elaine and de Courtivon, Isabelle, eds., New French Feminisms: An Anthology (New York: Schocken Books, 1981)Google Scholar and Moi, Toril, ed., French Feminist Thought: A Reader (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987).Google Scholar
48 Weaver, Mary Jo, New Catholic Women: A Contemporary Challenge to Traditional Religious Authority (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1985), p. xiv.Google Scholar
49 Ruether, , Sexism, p. 228.Google Scholar
50 Harrison, Beverly Wildung, Our Right to Choose: Toward a New Ethic of Abortion (Boston: Beacon, 1983).Google Scholar
51 Ruether, , Sexism, p. 228.Google Scholar
52 Harrison, p. 106. She notes the title of the book on women's health, Our Bodies/Our Selves, Boston Women's Health Collective (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976)Google Scholar, as further evidence for this understanding.
53 Goldenberg, Naomi, “Archetypal Theory and the Separation of Mind and Body: Reason Enough to Turn to Freud?” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 1/1 (Winter 1985), 55–72.Google Scholar But see also Van Herik, Judith, Freud on Femininity and Faith (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983)Google Scholar for some reasons not to turn to Freud.
54 Goldenberg, p. 65.
55 Ibid., p. 68.
56 Ibid., p. 72.
57 Ibid.
58 Ruether, , New Woman, p. 3.Google Scholar
59 Ruether, , Sexism, p. 245.Google Scholar
60 Ibid., p. 257.
61 Ibid., p. 256.
62 Ibid., p. 257.
63 Ibid., p. 258.
64 See, for example, French, William C., “Christianity and the Domination of Nature,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1985.Google Scholar
65 This is especially true of goddess-oriented feminists who see the woman's connection to natural cycles as significant. My major focus in this essay is not goddess feminists (although their influence on feminist thought as a whole cannot be dismissed), but the more “mainstream” feminists who are reluctant to posit a female and not a male connection to natural cycles.
66 Mulieris Dignitatem, par. 10.
67 Fessio, , “Reasons,” p. 398.Google Scholar
68 See Daly, Mary, Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (Boston: Beacon, 1979).Google Scholar The more “mainstream” feminists I consider here, while not agreeing with many of Daly's conclusions, nevertheless consider her an important and valuable thinker. See, e.g., Ruether, , Sexism, p. 187.Google Scholar
69 O'Connor, June, “Sensuality, Spirituality, Sacramentality,” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 40/1–2 (May 1985), 64.Google Scholar
70 O'Connor, p. 68.
71 Feminist writing in ethics, psychology, and educational theory bears out this characterization. See Gilligan, n. 37 above; Chodorow, Nancy, The Reproduction of Mother: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978);Google ScholarBelenky, Mary Field, Clinchy, Blythe McVicker, Goldberger, Nancy Rule, Tarule, Jill Mattuck, Women's Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1986).Google Scholar Gilligan describes the “web of responsibility” involved in women's ethical decision-making, in contrast to a process of adjudicating competing “rights”; Chodorow argues against both the exaggerated and highly individualistic sense of self characteristic of male development and the lack of individuation characteristic of female; and the four authors of Women's Ways argue for an educational process based on connection with what is known rather than separation.
