Six years ago everyone believed St. Mary Magdalen was a repentant prostitute. Today, thanks to a massive organizing effort administered by FutureChurch and partnered with Call to Action, the world knows better. In its August 11 issue, Time magazine devoted four pages to setting the record straight. The Time story is perhaps a watershed piece in a five year succession of feature articles, aimed at changing how we think about this preeminent woman of faith.
Sr. Chris Schenk dreamed of restoring Mary of Magdala to her rightful place ever since she discovered in graduate school that there is no biblical basis for the idea that Magdalen was a harlot. In 1997, Schenk designed a campaign to correct the mistake. Grassroots Catholics were asked to celebrate Magdalen’s July 22nd feast with a presentation by a biblical scholar. A prayer service would follow the academic presentation. Since women’s perspectives on Scripture are either rarely heard or forbidden at Mass, the services provide opportunities for competent women to preach and preside. They would become the flagship for the FutureChurch/CTA Women in Church Leadership project.
The idea caught on thanks to a wholehearted response from ordinary Catholics, CTA regions, and a bit of luck (aka the Holy Spirit). In 1997 Kimberly Winston, a Dallas Morning News’ free lance writer, interviewed Chris for a story about the project. Los Angeles Times religion writer, Larry Stammer saw Winston’s story, was intrigued and wrote an article which was picked up on the national wire.
Suddenly St. Mary of Magdala went from the much maligned prostitute to the “Apostle to the Apostles,” a title actually given her by the early Fathers of the Church. People everywhere were hearing about the FutureChurch/CTA effort to correct history’s tragic mistake. The number of celebrations exploded from 23 to an estimated 300 this past July. Responding to national media releases from the FutureChurch office as well as contacts from local organizers, individual journalists wrote articles in secular newspapers large and small. Along with interviews of biblical scholars, national and diocesan Catholic media especially U.S. Catholic, National Catholic Reporter and Catholic News Service
carried quotes from project organizers. Broadcast media even got in on the act with special programs or interviews on A&E’s Biography, the Odyssey channel and Vatican radio.
Media attention played a significant role in encouraging people to attend their local celebrations or (even better) to organize a celebration in their own parish or small faith community next year.
2003 Celebrations Exceed Expectations
Many groups made creative use of the new More! Celebrating Women Witnesses resource. The Superior Catholic Herald in Wisconsin featured women from a local parish portraying Phoebe, Prisca, Edith Stein, Jean Donovan, Dorothy Kazel and Dorothy Day. Program co-chair Lorry Skelton said: “The women were chosen because of their spirituality, compassion for the poor, courageous deeds and leadership in our church...”
Three women at a parish in Baltimore organized WOMENSPIRIT, which was designed “to affirm women, to acknowledge their contribution to the faith history of our Church and to awaken women to their invaluable role in the life of our Church.” The program included a Sunday prayer service honoring Mary of Magdala, a Monday evening live dramatization of women in Scripture and a Wednesday daylong women’s retreat. Organizers hope this will become an annual event to “acknowledge and awaken women as generous contributors to the life of the church.”
Worldwide, an estimated 16,000 people participated in St. Mary of Magdala celebrations. Besides the U.S. celebrations were held in Germany, Australia, Ireland, Switzerland, Canada, Samoa, the UK Puerto Rico and for the first time ever, Russia.
Twenty one CTA regions or cooperating organizations sponsored celebrations along with nine Dignity chapters Many parishes and retreat centers sponsored larger celebratisons as did coalition groups in Cincinnati (ten cosponsoring organizations), the Magdalen group in Atlanta (where Diana Hayes spoke), Canada’s Catholic Network for Women’s Equality (which created a French celebration this year), and the Sisters for Christian Community.
Most programs were held in Catholic settings: parishes, convents, retreat houses, schools and Newman centers with many also finding a home in small faith communities, Protestant churches and private homes. A number were held during holy week or at another convenient time.
Perhaps the most moving celebration of all was described by a harried New York priest:
“I can tell you with humble sincerity that the service was beautiful, moving, very scriptural, powerful, prayer, and lasting in influence. We had about 170 people which is incredible considering the poor advertisement.
The lesbian community attended, the Singles for Christ attended, along with a varied mixture of New York's global village community. Also, I drummed up attendance because of the situation in Liberia. We have people visiting our church who are from Liberia. I “dubbed” Mary Magdalen the patroness of Liberia ([whether] she is or not, I did it to offer these poor people hope as they watch their relatives being slaughtered.
I used Mary as the model as she watched Jesus being crucified. All in all, it worked to offer compassion and hope to Yahweh’s wandering people in this crazy city. I thank you for being part of it...”
When all is said and done, Time magazine aside...maybe this is the “real” story.
As happy as we are with with the heightened media attention and the increased number of celebrations, our work is far from finished. Just last week an Ohio priest preached that the term “Apostle to the Apostles” meant that “St. Mary of Magdala took care of the Apostles in their old age.” Hmm...We REALLY need to have a special celebration in that parish. Any takers?