Opinion: When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary really does come to me
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“There has been an issue processing your prescription,” my pharmacy told me. “I wonder if it’s because we’re Catholic,” my sister responded.
I was angry. In fact, I was furious. I was most of the hateful, ungodly characteristics that my childhood Sunday school teachers had warned me about. More than all of this, however, I was in need of hormonal birth control to soothe symptoms related to Premenstrual Syndrome, or PMS.
But I have Catholic health insurance, and my symptoms were not covered by Catholicism’s “medical reasons” for hormones.
My Psalms told me, “I know that the Lord secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy,” but my causes did not feel religiously upheld.
My Proverbs told me, “Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy,” but the greatest defense I found was a coupon site for prescriptions if your insurance didn’t cover them.
I grew up in the aisles of churches. Having parents who both became church workers helped form my ideas of community, presence and communication. I wrote an article during my first year at the University of Oregon about the struggles of revealing my Christian beliefs while in college.
But now, more than that discomfiture, I feel uneasy claiming my belonging to an institution that has patterns of oppressing women — as my sister makes jokes that she will one day be the pope, or at the very least, a member of the clergy.
A right-wing political commentator, Matt Walsh, discussed his view about women holding positions of power in the churches, saying, “The last thing we need here is more women in church leadership positions. The church is already too feminized, too soft, too focused on feelings and emotions, and being welcoming and inclusive.”
Perhaps my past Sunday school teachers told me not to deal with rage. Still, to me, the most sacred part of religion is the emotional and welcoming principles, and I’ll be damned — literally — before I step foot in a parish of non-inclusivity. And if we use Walsh’s logic, that’s where continually male-dominated parishes will lead us.
Walsh’s comments, however, only pose a fiercely one-sided argument against women’s positions in the church.
The current problem we face lies within the modern interpretation of Scripture and the way it gets translated into oppression against women.
One example of this is in a Bible verse from Corinthians that says women should remain silent in churches. This verse, by itself, sounds antiquated and misogynistic. And it is if you use it as a passage that exists in a modern context. But at the time this was written, it was saying something much more powerful and radical: women were allowed in churches.
Churches encounter issues when they take these messages and make them exist in a context they weren’t originally meant for. The power and ratification need to travel along with the verse, or else they become weapons rather than teachings. They become oppressive instead of welcoming. They pin man against woman and create a dichotomous environment full of hegemonic structuring.
Abigail Favale, a writer and professor of English at George Fox University, talks about the book of Genesis and the presentation of male and female creation.
“Our identities as men and women matter, they carry sacred significance, and they occupy a prominent place in this worldview,” Favale said.
She continued, saying, “Men and women’s sexual differences in Genesis uniquely foreground the importance of the male-female relationship, and this is a relationship not of domination but of reciprocity,” Favale said. “There’s not a hierarchy of value, no dynamic of superiority or inferiority sexual differentiation. It is not a mishap but a cause for celebration and wonder.”
While these statements rely on gender dualism, they also provide a modern and religious understanding of complementary principles. Men and women should be viewed as equals. And the simplicity of existing as such should be applied to our churches.
It remains, at times, difficult to be part of an institution that sometimes uses old-fashioned translations to repress women and prioritizes the potential of new life over my hormonal use of contraceptives. But I remain hopeful for further, future developments.
Maybe someday my sister really will be the pope. And I’ll get my prescription for free.