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Women in the Church

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2024

Elisabeth Wangermann
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Extract

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There is a characteristic attitude towards women in the Church which expresses itself in certain customs and regulations. I have tried to find out something about the assumptions behind this attitude and have thought it worth reporting and commenting on what I found, because I suspect that much of it will be as surprising to others as it was to me.

The customs which set apart the sexes in the Church begin to impinge very early in life. The little girl sees her brothers having fun serving on the altar, initiated and ‘in the know’, while she has to stay inner pew, bored, an outsider. The boys usually have precedence at first communion and confirmation, and even on her wedding day, the only day in her life when a woman is allowed in the sanctuary, she comes second throughout the ceremony.

Type
Research Article
Information
Life of the Spirit , Volume 17 , Issue 201 , May 1963 , pp. 475 - 482
Copyright
Copyright © 1963 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 According to the Instructions of the Sacred Congregation of Rites (1958) ‘Lay persons of the male sex … when deputed … to the service of the altar … exercise a direct, but delegated, ministerial service … ” ‘ Women must never fulfil the office of commentator, but this one thing is allowed, that, in case of necessity, a woman may lead the singing or the prayers of the faithful.’ Reading aloud by women during mass is not forbidden in so many words, but appears to be ruled out by the context.

2 I got most of my information about this from J. Daniélou, S.J.: The Ministry of Women in the Early Church. (Translated by the Bishop of Llandaff, London, 1960).