Women and the Word: Bridging the Gap
Panel Presentation by María G. Covarrubias, Director, Office of Catechetical Ministry, Diocese of San Bernardino
June 13, 2009
Good Afternoon/ Buenas tardes
I would like to begin by saying I am vey honored for the invitation to be here today participating in this important opportunity to come together as women of faith to represent all women from the past and present and to reflect and proclaim that women are the image of God in the world. This morning, Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza in her keynote address expressed the need to reclaim the authority of women for shaping and determining biblical religions, and feminist theologies to recover the histories of women’s religious leaders and struggles which have been forgotten or diminished.
To continue this reflection, I would like to include in my presentation: my own story, my ministerial experience as a minister in the Diocese of San Bernardino, and the affirmation to today’s topic for reflection.
Allow me to begin with my own story, I am a professional, but also I am a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a cousin, a friend, a wife, a mother and a grandmother. I have many titles and roles, but the most important, the one that defines the nature and core of all these roles is that I am a “woman.” And if I want to define this even more, I am a “Latina.” I came from Mexico, a country with a social, historical, political, and religious culture that favors “machismo,” which is the name for male domination and superiority above women. Machismo also defines the woman’s traditional role as dependent and submissive.
I am the oldest of seven children. Sometime during my upbringing I learned that when I was born my father wanted a boy, because the expectation was that the first born should be a male. You could imagine his disappointment when he was told that I was a girl! That was my first encounter with a reality that was supposed to shape my understanding of my role as a woman. But in my childhood, something must have happened in the way my parents educated me that made me aware of this reality in which I was a second-class citizen. The main player in this education was my mother. My mother did not portray the suffering underestimated and submissive role that most women of her time did. She was and still is a strong woman that has a great sense of dignity and self respect. She fought for her rights and taught her children that equality in our home was an important value.
When my father left us to come to this country to work, she became both the father and the mother. During those years, I watched her become the leader of our home. I saw her making all the decisions and how she kept us all in line in spite of our gender. In this process, my mother gained the respect of all her children and gave us, her daughters, a great sense of dignity and strength that has always been with me.
I also saw the contrast in my uncles and ants’ homes. I experienced the suffocating feeling of the abuse of male power over my female cousins. I remember watching how they were constrained in the already described role of women as subordinate and inferior. Allowing the males to do whatever they pleased and placing on the females the responsibility to guard the honor of the family by their “descent” behavior, restraining them from an education because they did not need it for marriage.
I was caught up in between these two realities that awakened in me the dissatisfaction to this cultural inclination. I still remember the feelings of imprisonment and lack of mobility that I experienced every time I witnessed such disadvantages for women. I also witnessed how most women accepted this situation as normal and how mothers socialized their children both male and female into these described roles of inequality.
As a young adult woman engaged to be married, I faced the dilemma of accepting “machismo” as part of my life as my husband to be told me that once we were married he was the only one to make decisions in our home. I still remember his surprise when I took my engagement ring off my finger and threw it at him as I told him that I will not marry him under those circumstances, that I wanted to be treated with equality and respect and I thanked him for letting me know his intentions. This was not the end of the story, since weeks later we had a long talk about it and finally got married. But, it was easier said than done. For years, my husband and I struggled with each other to rupture the chains of a well learned behavior. I never gave up; many times creating lots of disappointment for us. In the long run, we wanted our sons and daughters to experience a life of equality in our home in which both felt respected and appreciated.
Throughout my life, I have also had the opportunity to meet and interact with many other women who through their example of dignity, courage and self respect have been tremendous models to follow.
Because of all these experiences, today I am a leader for the Catholic Church of San Bernardino. In this diocese, we are living a unique moment in which women have been recognized as important partners inviting them to share their unique gifts and to be part of decision making. Our Bishop Gerald R. Barnes through his Vision Statement of 1995 recognizes the need for the change in structures. In the last years, he has named many women to occupy important places in the structure of the diocese. We have 13 parishes run by Pastoral Coordinators, of which 11 are women both lay and religious, two of them are Latinas. One of our vice-chancellors, a Latina, and our new chancellor are lay women. 90% of our offices at the Pastoral Center are directed by women. I was the first lay woman appointed by Bishop Barnes to be a member of the Ministerial Priest Personnel Board which before was only composed of priests.
Yearly, Many women are entering our Ministry Formation Institute and Limex program to become educated; a lot of them Latinas. This is possible because many women throughout history have recognized their call for leadership in the Church.
Today, more than ever, we, women need to search for those biblical stories of women of faith to reaffirm that we are the image of God and that we have a place in the Church. I also think that it is important to continue to tell our own stories. We love to hear stories, and stories are powerful ways of portraying who we are as women, as those stories inspire other women. A few years ago, I did a segment on our Catholic Channel called “La mujer en el tercer milenio ” (Women in the Third Millennium), in which I talked about my life as a woman and the importance of an education for women to fulfill not only their dreams but their most inner needs for identity, self esteem and self respect. Later that year, I received a phone call from a woman called Gloria, she told me that she was a housewife, with no education, her children did not respect her and her husband had the total control of her life. She was always home and her only window to the outside world was her TV. She had seen my segment on the Catholic Channel several times and she wanted to ask me how I had done it. I asked her, what do you mean? Gloria told me that she wanted to know how I had become the woman I am. She had a lot of question for me. Was I married? Did I have children? How was my relationship with them? How did I become a leader and work for the Church?
This encounter with Gloria spoke very loudly to me about the importance of inspiring other women through the telling of our stories. Women are looking for stories that inspire them and bring new insights to their circumstances. We know that through stories scripture comes alive. The disclosure of our biblical stories will help us come to a new understanding of our place in these stories that will capture our contribution and our importance in the salvation story.
Today, What I really want to stress is the need for recapturing the biblical stories of women to bring conversion, transformation and liberation to all as a way to overcome androcentric-patriarchal societies, to bring balance to a world that it is in desperate need of it.
It amazes me that even when cultures and religions have attempted to hide and make women invisible, women throughout history have continued to show the imperative need for a “discipleship of equals,” as an important element for the construction of just relationships between individuals and peoples. Let us recapture the stories of women of faith from our Christian tradition and at the same time let us tell our own story!
Thank you!