Women and The Word: Synod Follow Up
FutureChurch is energetically following up on the unprecedented success of our advocacy at last October’s Synod on the Word. For the first time in history Catholic bishops discussed the need to restore deleted women’s stories to the Lectionary. One surprising outcome was Synod Proposition 16 recommending "that an examination of the Roman Lectionary be opened to see if the actual selection and ordering of the readings are truly adequate to the mission of the Church in this historic moment."
To encourage implementation of Proposition 16, FutureChurch launched a new postcard initiative to Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera, the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, and other Synod Council members charged with implementing synod propositions. The postcard contains the following requests:
- Open an examination of the Lectionary to "see if the actual selection and ordering of the readings are truly adequate to the mission of the Church in this historic moment," as recommended by Synod Proposal 16.
- Restore women leaders such as Phoebe (Romans 16), Lois and Eunice (2 Tim1:4-5) and Mary of Magdala (John 20: 11-18) to Lectionary texts from which they have been deleted.
- Include stories about other women leaders such as Shiprah and Puah, the midwives who saved a nation of Hebrew boy-children, perhaps even Moses.
- Convene a gender-balanced group of biblical scholars and liturgists to decide which women’s stories would be most fruitful for prayer, preaching and catechesis if added to the Lectionary.
FutureChurch Executive Director Sr. Chris Schenk also sent follow-up letters and background materials to Cardinal Llovera and to fifteen members of the Synod of Bishops charged with writing the post synod exhortation and following up on the proposals.
To date she received positive replies from two committee members, Archbishop Mark Coleridge, Chair of the International Commission for the preparation of an English-language Lectionary (ICPEL), and Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture.
Archbishop Coleridge wrote that while his committee was instructed to "revise the translation and some of the decisions about the filleting of texts but not the selection of readings," he believed the Congregation for Worship would be "reluctant" to revise the Roman Lectionary when the production of the Roman Missal was pressing. However, he said, "if the Holy See were to embark upon a revision of the readings at some stage, suggestions such as yours could prove invaluable."
Archbishop Ravasi wrote of his personal interest in the topic stemming from an exegetical commentary he wrote on the Song of Songs in which the figure of the woman is the protagonist. The final synod exhortation is not expected until the fall.
