The authority of women in the Church and in society: challenges and ideas
(Vatican Radio) "Female Authority" is the title given to an unprecedented encounter
taking place on Tuesday at the Pontifical University Regina Apostolorum.
Organized
by Marta Rodriguez, Head of the University’s Institute of Superior Studies on Women,
the encounter aims to provide an open space of discussion and ideas stemming from
the idea, first expressed by Pope John Paul II, when he exhorted women to employ their
“feminine genius” to build a culture of life.
Participants at the encounter
are the philosopher Luisa Muraro who will focus on the concept of “Authority and female
excellence”; the journalist, author and blogger Marina Terragni who will speak on
the theme “Authority: male and female?”; the journalist and President of ACMID-
donna, an association that offers support to Arab women in Italy presents a talk on
“The Authority of woman in Islam”; and the obstetrician Flora Gualdani who is also
the founder of Casa Betlemme, an association that helps mothers in difficulty who
focuses on “Authority and suffering”.
Just a few days before the encounter,
Vatican Radio’s Linda Bordoni spoke to Marta Rodriguez about her expectations and
her hopes for the event, and asked her where the idea stems from…
Listen
to the interview…
Marta
Rodriguez is Spanish. She is a consecrated laywoman who has been in Rome for 13 and
a half years. For the past 3 years she has headed the Institute of Higher Studies
on Women at the Pontifical Regina Apostolorum University, a reality she herself helped
to found in 2003.
Marta explains that the inspiration that led to the setting
up of the seminar has its roots in the fundamental role of women in the Church. “It’s
not a matter of power” she says “in the Church we do not speak of power – of course
the very existence of a hierarchy implies a certain amount of power, but” – she points
out – “power is not the focus and that is why we decided to talk about authority because
we women have a lot of authority in the Church and we should do much more with that
authority that we have, and give more value to that contribution, not in terms of
power”. That’s because in the Church, Marta explains, “we talk about service, not
about power – it’s a different language”.
Referring to the “feminine genius”
that Pope John Paul II described in his 1995 Apostolic Letter to Women, Marta says
“that was exactly the inspiration that led to the founding of the Institute because
we wanted to embrace this challenge, and to deepen our understanding of what this
feminine genius means”.
Marta explains that the encounter dedicated to “Female
Authority” is part of an initiative called the “Officina delle Idee” – “Workshop of
Ideas” in which “we want to have an open platform and create an encounter, a dialogue.
In these encounters what we want to do is to invite people with different approaches”
with the aim of sharing points of view and exchanging ideas and perspectives. “We
want to open our window as Pope Francis invited us to do. We don’t want to listen
only to our own voices, but to other voices as well so that we can really enter into
dialogue and be able to offer a much richer message to culture”.
That’s why
she says, the “Workshop of Ideas” was created. It is part of the more fundamental
part of the Institute. It’s where a group of researchers can really look closely at
what “feminine genius” really means, “what is the specificity of women hood if there
is a specificity of women hood, what does motherhood have to do with that…”
That’s
why – Marta says – Flora Gualdani, the founder of an institute that supports motherhood
– was invited to speak at this encounter. “We were very interested to hear of her
experience of suffering. We gave her an interesting title: “Authority and suffering”.
We think that maybe women have a special capacity to suffer, to resist, enduring.
And this could be a characteristic that gives her a special authority within the family,
and we wanted to look to that and to her experience”.
Of course men are welcome
guests at the encounters. Marta says in this occasion she has invited a group of seminarians,
because “we are very interested in talking with priests because they are the first
ones that have to understand our role in the Church and in society”. She tells of
a recent experience entitled “ethics of sexual differences”. She says it was very
interesting because “we had a group formed by moms, women students and 18 seminarians
– and for them it was very important because they knew nothing of women”. And Marta
says she believes it is important for future priests to listen and enter into a culture
of exchange: “they must be aware that the male perspective is not the only one!”