The Silence We Keep: A Nun's View of the Catholic Priest Scandal (24 page)

At least among the women I know (sisters included), the days of blind obedience are over, and for many women in the church they have been for quite some time. Just like Judith, Esther, and the other women liberators in the Bible, holy disobedience is revealed to women in the church as divinely motivated by a Holy Spirit who inspires faithfulness to one’s conscience. One of the
gifts of the Holy Spirit given to the church today is the divine gift of holy disobedience. Given that the infallible voices of church authority continue to fall from grace, we are called to pay close attention to our own divine voice and listen for what we hear revealed as true. When lies become the common language of the Church Fathers, we are called by the Holy Spirit to listen to our souls and the soulful voices of one another in order to hear truth revealed. Unquestioning obedience to church authority has lost its credibility, and the current crisis of faith in the Catholic priesthood leaves us with no other choice but to turn to one another in seeking the truth. Both in and out of the pew, women are finding one another and coming together in what looks like sisterhoods of the Second Pentecost, the holy disobedient likes of which Roman Catholicism has never known. Never again will women in the Catholic Church believe they are unworthy of priesthood.

In order to understand how disobedience can be holy, particularly for women forced by men (physically, spiritually, and emotionally) into submission and silence, it’s important to look at the divine reasons for doing so. In exploring the questions of “why disobey,” “when to disobey,” and “which voices to disobey,” we can see where the holiness in disobedience comes from. We can see how disobedience to church authority can become a holy path, a call of God we feel compelled to follow. Because Catholic women (still devoid of equality in the Catholic Church) have the least to lose in conscientiously objecting to the “divine authority” of Church Fathers, and have the most experience in being submissive, silent, and holy obedient, it’s to the sisterhood of those women that we turn to for guidance in how to holy disobey. No one knows better than the women in the Catholic Church how
holy and powerful disobedience can be. Those who’ve been beaten into submission for ages understand that perfectly.

The God who inspires holy disobedience within the women liberators of the Bible is the same true God who inspires holy disobedience within women in the Catholic Church today:

The God of the humble,

the Ally of the insignificant,

the Champion of the weak,

the Protector of the despairing,

the Savior of those without hope. (Jdth. 9:11)

The divine reasons revealed by God for holy disobedience appear threefold: The situation is unbearable; the act of disobedience promises deliverance; and last but certainly not least, God is inexplicably still and silent, with divine intervention by a swift act of God not likely. In looking at what’s happening in the Catholic Church, we are given every reason to holy disobey. Given what we know of the sins of the fathers, it’s as though we are given a holy mandate to dissent with the grace of God. Holy disobedience emerges in the Catholic Church as a new law of God for the faithful. We no longer hear the voice of the priesthood as the infallible voice of God, and the divine mystique surrounding the privileged priesthood is gone. As we did in the beginning, we are once again discerning together the will of God revealed in the voice of the people, all the people, not just a privileged few.

Unbearable situations consistently inspire solidarity with all those oppressed by them, serving to motivate acts of defiance and disobedience. Whenever we find out that we’ve been lied to and betrayed, especially by religious authority, two responses are predictable: blind self-serving loyalty by some and confusion, dissent,
and disobedience by others. While enforced silence may serve as an effective short-term method of damage control, it also provides a divinely fertile breeding ground for conflict and unrest, the intensity of which motivates us to do whatever we can to stop the madness. Unbearable situations, especially when created by “men of God,” consistently work by the grace of the very same God to inspire acts of disobedience, as though the faithful have no choice but to protest in any way they can. Women in the church are beginning to feel that now. The safety and protection of children has moved the most obedient of women to see that these voices of “divine authority” must of necessity and by the grace of God be holy disobeyed.

Not only do unbearable situations inspire holy disobedience, but whenever the oppressive voice of “divine authority” claims to be above the liberating voice of God, holy disobedience is called for. Whenever “men of God” and their privileged, self-serving laws claim to be above the law of the land and the voice of its people, holy disobedience emerges as the law of God to follow. We are beginning to see that the voice of the Church Fathers is not that of the voice of God, and all claims to the contrary call for nothing but holy disobedience. With all the divine power of a Second Pentecost, even the most submissive and obedient of women in the church no longer support blindly and without question these “men of God” who hide the truth and betray the faithful in the name of God.

The “absence” and “silence” of God in the midst of the church’s lies, crimes, and cover-ups provides the deepest motivation to risk individual or communal acts of defiance. When an act of God is not likely to undo clerical corruption, the faithful are left with no other alternative. In choosing disobedience, we do so trusting in the hidden workings of God while mindful at the same time that in the end our holy disobedient efforts may come
to nothing. Just as Queen Esther prays before her defiant appearance before the king, so do we who contemplate holy disobedience pray:

My Lord, our King, you alone are God. Help me who am alone and have no help but you, for I am taking my life in my hand…. Manifest yourself in the time of our distress and give me courage…. Put in my mouth persuasive words in the presence of the lion…. From the day I was brought here till now, your handmaid has had no joy except in you, O Lord…. O God, more powerful than all, hear the voice of those in despair. Save us from the power of the wicked, and deliver me from my fear. (Esther 4:12, 14, 23, 24, 29, 30)

In confronting what this priesthood has done to women and children, the silence and stillness (not absence) of God is all it takes to move women into a sisterhood bound by an unshakable faith in the God. As women begin to break the silences they keep, and rediscover within themselves the voice of God, they will never again obey blindly any authority but that of God, in themselves and in one another.

In trying to discern “when to disobey,” it’s becoming clear to women in the church, as it did to Esther, that disobedience presents itself as a survival technique and not an ordinary course of action. In other words, when the survival of Holy Mother Church is at stake, holy disobedience is the only course of action called for from the faithful. In doing whatever needs to be done to safeguard the sanctity of women and children in the Catholic Church, we meet those occasions when holy disobedience is the only course of action. The most important indicator of when to disobey rests within the divine ability of the Christian community to
discern the right time and the most appropriate way, the “most educable moment,” so to speak. The critical need to prepare oneself spiritually for acts of holy disobedience cannot be underestimated. Remaining in close prayerful contact with God is the condition that inspires all acts of holy disobedience.

The profound effects of communal discernment and solitary prayer in contemplating dissent appear to be twofold. In approaching every situation as an opportunity for divine intervention, our sensitivity is heightened, and we receive the strength and courage necessary to persevere. Holy disobedience serves as divine intervention when survival is at stake, when one has nothing to lose, and only after extended periods of personal and communal prayer. Recognizing the time and place to conscientiously object is a precarious task demanding the utmost care, prayer, and caution. Accustomed as women in the church have been to blind, holy obedience, we know what a precarious task holy disobedience can be. Women have a long history of being beaten to death for it. Women know that when their lives and the lives of their children are at stake, holy disobedience is the only divine alternative. The more women begin to see and understand what’s been done to them in the name of God, the more they will come together to ensure that such abuse and oppression never happen to them or children again. In discerning “when to disobey,” all women need to do is read the daily news to see that the divinely appointed time is now.

Every thinking Catholic knows instinctively by the grace of God which voices of “divine authority” warrant nothing but the most holy acts of disobedience. Three timeless voices of the Church Fathers can be heard as those authorities with whom no one should comply: voices that are abusive, demeaning, and deceptive; voices motivated by fear of widespread insubordination;
and voices that seek to silence and eliminate all that challenge their “divine authority.” All three voices appear to be the only language Church Fathers know. And all three voices warrant nothing but the most holy acts of disobedience.

No one knows how abusive and demeaning the voice of the Catholic priesthood can be more than the women and children who have been diminished by their teachings. As the sisterhood of women in the church grows and strengthens, even the most silent and submissive will begin to demand that the Catholic Church treat them as equal (as sisters do), and treasure as divine their priestly lives and voices. Once the women of the church waken completely and see how profoundly these “men of God” have abused them and their children, they will never obey sexist voices again. In sisterhood, women grow to see that when they hear voices that demean and abuse them, what they also hear is the call of God to holy disobedience, to reject all abusive voices as evil regardless of who they come from. When the sisterhood of women grows and strengthens in the church and throughout the world, women will never again allow themselves or their children to be abused in any way.

Equally vocal in Catholicism, especially among the highest of church authorities, are those voices motivated by fear of widespread insubordination. To illustrate what these voices sound like, there is a scene in the Book of Esther where the king is at a banquet with his male cronies and commands Queen Vashti to appear before them naked with only the royal crown on her head. When she refuses outright to be humiliated like that (and most likely sexually abused), we are told that “the King’s wrath flared up, and he burned with fury” (1:12). How dare she deny his kingly request? What follows is reflected in the thinking of Church Fathers today and could very well be the biblical foundation for the divine conspiracy to protect the male ego. In one
single act of female insubordination, the queen not only offends the king, but every other man in the kingdom. Strange, but still true, one small but significant act of disobedience by the queen and the well-being of all mankind is undone completely.

Queen Vashti has not wronged the King alone, but all the officials and the populace throughout the provinces…. For the Queen’s conduct will become known to all the women and they will look with disdain upon their husbands when it is reported…. there will be endless disrespect and indolence. (Esther 1:16–19)

The profound disturbance of male authority by the solitary voice of one woman’s disobedience remains just as baffling and revealing today. And the Church Fathers today, like biblical kings then, still seek outright to suppress and silence any voice of dissent out of fear of “endless disrespect and indolence.” What a divine twist of fate we witness today in seeing how those priestly voices motivated by fear of widespread insubordination are met with nothing but the “endless disrespect and indolence” they inspire and deserve. Voices of “divine authority” that work to silence and eliminate those who challenge them call for nothing but holy disobedience.