I am extremely grateful to the charming young lady who found the time to write to me this week, who is undoubtedly very different from the writing lady in this painting from Vermeer! My gratitude arises because it can be easy to grow despondent as an orthodox Christian living in today’s hostile and secular world, but messages like these provide hope. More important than her sympathy for Catholic teaching concerning holy orders (which delights me) is the importance she clearly places on her faith. Not that I am really surprised that the traditional Catholic faith continues to find meaning in the lives of today’s young, it is truth after all, but I am nevertheless overjoyed when it does. For it means that, life by life, God is working His purpose out, despite the widescale rejection from the majority of modern society. Below is our correspondence, on my insistence the identity of the writer is kept secret as the internet is a public domain and I would not want a young Christian in their twenties to be subject to some of the more hostile and odd messages which find their way into my inbox:
Dear Father Tomlinson,
I just wanted to send an email of appreciation for your blog, more specifically your not-so-vague ramblings on the problems with the ordination of women. I have attended a church in Manchester for over three years but have felt that I have to leave following the ordination of the female deacon. I have thus far, not had the courage to tell friends, clergy etc. in the parish as I have a good idea it will not be received well (not least as the incumbents wife is ordained…although that was not the case when I first attended the church). Furthermore, as an educated female in my twenties, whenever I have talked to people about my reservations, I have been treated at best with incredulity, at worst, as though I am in support of (or responsible for!) worldwide female oppression. However, your blog has given me conviction and courage to speak to those people that I feel I owe an explanation to, which up until now I have been avoiding.
Many thanks again, God bless
A.
Dear A.
Thank you for this uplifting and encouraging email, I am delighted that orthodoxy is calling you but don’t expect the world to catch on anytime soon! Sadly it is highly likely your friends will not understand, such is the pain I have had to learn to live with. But as long as you are generous and gentle I find people learn to respect.
The real difficulty I find is in helping people understand that I am totally in favour of equality, passionate about it in fact, but not as a fight from the individual but rather as a celebration of our mutuality in difference. Complimentarity not sameness is surely part of God’s design?
The problem we face is that the very manner in which people have been taught to think about ‘rights’ presumes a philosophy of the individual and not of a philosophy of self sacrifice and love. It is to begin from the world’s standards and not God’s…anyway I digress and am beginning to ramble…Find a good church, love Jesus and enjoy your faith. Suffer persecution with good humour and love as best you can. That is all we can do and I know God will provide for us. If we are faithful to him – we can be CERTAIN he will be faithful to us.
Would you be happy for me to publish your letter on the blog? (with name and locations deleted of course) I feel it might really cheer others on. You would be surprised how many of ‘us’ are out there. Normal folk who yearn for the full faith and not a watered down version
Yours in Christ
Fr. Ed
Dear Fr. Ed,
Gosh…well now, you will have to excuse me as I indulge in a little philosophy myself this morning. I agree indeed that mankind’s philosophy has radically altered, particularly over the last 50 years or so, to one which presumes we have rights and powers that can overcome any natural order…from altering the fundamental roles that our physiology and physchology are designed for (e.g.
mother/fatherhood), to the wanton destruction of the planet we live on.
I don’t know whether you saw Prince Charles’ talk on the Richard Dimbleby lectures last night (I have to say I am no Royalist and and even less so a Dimbleby-ite), but he delivered an erudite speech that touched on the profound paradigm shift that has occurred in the recent human consciousness. He raised the issue that the biased weight we apply to scientific evidence (over and above philosophical and religous values) has disconnected us from Nature. This struck a real cord with me, not just because I am a raving, tree-hugging greeny but also because the scientific imbalance has touched so many other spheres…Rather than using the philosphical and religious values that have historically explained the intrinsic differences (yet equally significant values) between the sexes, scientific values have been exploited to merge ‘equality’ with ‘homogeny’. This is of course made all the more ironic as true science actually demonstrates the physiological and pyschological differences between male amnd female.
I could go on indefinitely but I have a (much less interesting) thesis to complete and thus should leave my ramblings there.
Before I go, I would just like to explain a little about myself: My Dad is a priest and both my parents have brought me up in an orthodox tradition. After being an undergraduate in xxx for three years I finally got round to attending church (other than when I was back home) and it wasn’t until about a year in to attending xxx that the incumbent announced he had married a women priest. By this time I was the parish thurifer (they make a wonderful pretense of being orthodox, or maybe I am being unkind) and I felt already in a slightly difficult situation. However, I made a decision there and then that I could not irreflectively adopt my parents values and thus when arriving at low Mass one weekday to be presented be a female officiator I tried as hard as I could to forget gender as an issue. I couldn’t. I cannot put into words my emotions, but without any theological basis for either argument I knew that women cannot fulfill the role of priest. From this moment, I have been trying (and largely avoiding) to deal with the issue, and to find some intellectual, theological grounding for how I felt. Whilst I knew that both my parents could provide me with plenty of ammunition (possibly not the right word!), I also think that they wanted me to discover it myself, or rather to allow God to help me to discover the answers I needed. The first thing I did after sending the email to you yesterday was to phone my folks – I hope you don’t mind but I told them how wonderful your blog was and they are going to use it as a reference in future if parishioners are wandering the same route that I’ve just traversed. Because of which, I absolutlely do not mind (nor would have the grounds to complain) if you would like to publish my email; in return, I have memorised your blog address and will pass it on in future where I meet people that are open-minded enough to read it.
Thank you so much again.
A.
So there you have it! I note especially the role played by parents in this personal story, let us never forget how crucial we are as exemplars of living faith in the lives of our children.
I’m another orthodox Catholic educated female in my twenties, so yes we do exist!
Much of what A has written here I can identify with. I regularly get the ‘why are you oppressing you own sex’ comments too, as well as those berating me for my ungratefulness in that a century ago I wouldn’t have been able to vote or take a degree. And the incredulity of ‘You can’t think that, you’re too nice’.
But I don’t think that this is really malice (at least in my experience) but shock and astonishment as I don’t think I fit their stereotype of the traditionalist Catholic woman in appearance, behaviour or opinions. Perhaps a bit of this kind of shocking behaviour isn’t a bad thing!
I think A seems to be doing a better job of explaining her position to her friends than I do but anyway, she’s not alone. And I’m supposed to be writing a thesis too.
Seven years ago, a retired priest friend died. I drove halfway across England to attend his memorial Eucharist, finding when I arrived that there were female concelebrants, so that I attended the service as a non-communicant.
I mention this seemingly trivial story to reassure A that she is not alone in finding herself put into difficult situations. Sadly, many of the “ruling class” in the Church of England rely on peoples’ desire not to “create a fuss” or display bad manners in order to impose their will. Not only individuals but also parishes get bullied.
A – I appreciate that it is especially hard for you to oppose the Zeitgeist – just be honest and be brave; God will give you the grace you need. And lots of people whom you do not know will be praying for you.