The Vatican may not be ready to confer priesthood on women, but the Catholic church in India decided to earmark 35% representation for them.
Earmark 35% for them in church and its various bodies
NEW DELHI: The Vatican may not be ready to confer priesthood on women, but the Catholic church in India, admitting that it discriminated against women, has for the first time, decided to earmark 35% representation for them in the church and various bodies associated with it.
Even as the political class is divided on its promise of enacting a bill providing 33% reservation for women in parliament and state legislatures, the church has declared to “support women in their process of political leadership in panchayat, legislative assembly and parliament”.
The decision was taken at the 28th plenary assembly of Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) which concluded in Jamshedpur on Wednesday. The theme was “the empowerment of women in church and society.”
“In spite of the great contribution of women in spheres of education, health care, etc, their potentials are yet to be sufficiently tapped in the administrative and executive roles, as well as theological, liturgical, pastoral and missionary apostolates of the Church,” the CBCI said.
The meet, attended by over 160 bishops, 40 lay and religious women and seven lay men representing all the 12 ecclesiastical regions of the country inter alia decided to offer “at least 35% (moving towards an ideal of 50%) representation of women as office-bearers and members on parish and diocesan pastoral councils, and finance committees and in the ecclesial bodies at the local and national levels.”
Admitting with a sense of “sorrow” that “even church discriminated against women,” the CBCI declaration said, “the structures which facilitate collaborative partnership between women and men as well as clergy and laity needed improvement.”
The process of globalisation which is market-centred and profit-driven, leads to further exploitation of the weaker sex as cheap labour resulting in the increasing pauperisation of women. Fundamentalism and communalism reinforce the subjugation of women to men, suppress women’s movements by dividing them along religious lines and intensify violence against women, the bishops said.
k_benedict@dnaindia.net
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