Women should play a more active leadership role in the Church.
This was the message of Georgian Ambassador Tamara Grdzelidze’s session with over 1,500 delegates to the 51st International Eucharistic Congress (IEC).
Grdzelidze said that the Church should open up more leadership opportunities for women, especially since majority of the positions in Church ministry still belong to men.
However, she emphasized that there is no full grasp yet on the future of women being ordained in the Catholic Church.
“Women and men have interdependent and indispensable roles in bringing society closer to God. But this does not mean that what men do, women should do, and vice versa. They have different roles to play but their roles are both vital,” she said.
She believes that women in Church administration have the right to influence the community, just as much as rectors of parishes do, and that women should not be prevented from doing so.
She began her session “The Church Is Woman: The Missionary and Pastoral Role of Women in the Church” by debunking certain perceptions of Christianity, which have led to women being placed on the lower rungs of Church administration.
She first tackled how women are often perceived in Christian literature as passive and reactive Christians.
“Mary, the mother of Jesus, is often seen as a passive figure, obeying God’s orders without any question. But frankly, many theologians believe that she was not passively obeying. She knew well what she was doing and she knew the impact she was making, which was why she listened,” Grdzelidze discussed.
She added that there are still people who believe that women represent temptation, destroying God’s relationship with man.
“Such analysis is false. Women have personified the right relationship with God time and time again in the Bible. Women repent, women understand, and women forgive,” said Grdzelidze.
But because Grdzelidze is an Eastern Orthodox Christian, a religious branch of Christianity that has differentiated itself from Roman Catholicism back in the year 1054, many of the audience found it difficult to relate to her ideas.
Dorie Malulu, an IEC delegate from Davao City, felt that Grdzelidze had trouble relating to the Catholic audience because of the religious and cultural differences.
“It may be different for them in their religion, but here in the Philippines where Catholicism is predominant, the women play important roles, even to the point that women have a bigger population in Church, especially in attendees compared to men,” Malulu said.
Malulu agreed though that women should have more opportunities to play more influential roles in Church aside from being readers, but believes that it isn’t time yet for women to be ordained.
“It has to start from education. Women should have more exposure to theological education before we even consider their ordination,” Malulu said.
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