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A recent conference in Rome on ‘The mystery of Mary’ surprised one Christian feminist who took part. Tina Beattie, who has written on Mary and lectures in theology at Bristol University, found herself inspired by the wealth of the tradition. FOURTEEN years ago, when I was living in Zimbabwe and exploring the possibility of becoming a Catholic, I told a priest that my two main difficulties were with the Pope and the Virgin Mary. One Sunday morning recently, I found myself sweltering but jubilant on the steps of Saint Peter’s Basilica, where Pope John Paul II was celebrating Mass. This was the culmination of a conference on "the Mystery of Mary and the Trinity", organised by the International Pontifical Marian Academy, to which I had been invited as a speaker. It has been a long journey from that time in Zimbabwe. The conference brought together delegates from around the world, including participants from other Churches. It left me with a sense of the complexity and vitality of the Church today, and of the centrality of Mary to the Catholic faith. But it also made me ask myself with renewed persistence: what is the significance of Mary in the modern Catholic world? There can be no simple answer to that question, because there are many Marys, and the modern Catholic world is many worlds, held together by some elusive life-force which emanates from its Roman heart. I became very aware of this when I met participants from non-Western countries. In plenary sessions, the conference tended to be dominated by those with a Western, conservative theological agenda, although to their credit the organisers had made a real effort to include speakers with different perspectives. But in informal discussions, it became apparent that there is a process of transformation unfolding in the worldwide Church, and its dynamism comes not from Europe but from the Third World, and particularly from Asia. As one Asian delegate said of the European hierarchy: "We must tell them who we are, because if we don’t, they will tell us who we are." Women formed a significant minority of conference participants. The ones I met were strong-minded and highly educated, some with doctorates or licentiates in theology, many of them religious sisters living in ways which are truly radical in the context of our modern world. They included members of communities which minister to street children, prostitutes and drug addicts, university lecturers and school teachers, artists and musicians, all women who are sculpting the contours of a future Church which is visionary, joyous and brave – qualities which surely epitomise Mary. But with few exceptions, these women were deeply suspicious of feminism. Doctrinally conservative and socially radical, they challenged some of my own ideas about the aspirations of women in the Church, and about the ways in which Mary both reflects and moulds those aspirations. There was much good-humoured bantering about some of the clerical participants, and they were quick to criticise the boring rhetoric of some speakers, but it was refreshing for me to be among women who were happy with the Church, at peace with themselves, and able to laugh rather than rage at the foibles of the male hierarchy. I also became aware of the chasm between the Mary beloved of millions of ordinary Catholics, and the Mary idealised and conceptualised by the men of the Western theological tradition. The conference was held at the shrine of the Madonna del Divino Amore outside Rome, where a large new shrine and conference centre have been built alongside a much older hilltop shrine. Staying there brought home to me how vital Mary is to an incarnational theology which can be lived and not simply theorised about. It was a place where people were able to be themselves in the presence of an accessible and intimate God, irrespective of the theological abstractions about "divine generativity" and "trinitarian processions" being propounded in the conference hall. There was a room decorated with family snapshots, sports trophies, racing bikes, photographs of mangled cars and a glass cabinet full of crash helmets, all attesting to the Madonna’s capacity to embody God in every aspect of human life – and death. Italian girls in skimpy skirts lit candles and crossed themselves, buxom mamas gossiped through the Mass to the accompaniment of chattering children, men came in lycra cycling shorts and business suits to offer their devotions, weddings, baptisms and funerals seemed to form a constant procession through the place, and families came by the carload to combine their prayers with a picnic and a day out. This is the ordinariness of Catholic religious life, giving rich expression to the humanity of the incarnation which focuses on Mary’s motherhood. This is what was ripped out of Protestant culture during the Reformation and its aftermath. It is not about morality or following the teachings of the Church or attending Mass every Sunday. It is about Mary’s capacity to gather people around her Son in all their vulnerability and diversity, and that is perhaps why the cult of the Virgin is one of such detailed particularity. There is no universal Mary, for every Catholic community has its own Mary who reflects the images and interests of her devotees. This is a Mary through whom the incarnation sanctifies the earth and all its inhabitants by the diffusion of her cult through a million cultural lenses. During one of the more interesting sessions in the conference, Fr René Laurentin asked Fr Johann Roten about the relationship between the incarnation and inculturation. Fr Roten replied that he thought that inculturation was necessary to manifest the full diversity of the incarnation. The truth of this was beautifully illustrated during an international concert in praise of Mary in the Paul VI auditorium adjacent to St Peter’s. The concert was directed by Patricia Adkins Chiti, president of the Women in Music Foundation. This was the first time that a pontifical organisation had appointed a woman to such a role, and the principal performers were also women. A group of Indian women in saris incensed an icon of the Madonna, an Iranian Muslim women’s choir sang Marian verses from the Koran, and the concert culminated in a magnificent dance by young women dressed in the colours of the jubilee, celebrating the resurrection. The stage of the auditorium is dominated by Pericle Fazzini’s vast bronze sculpture of the resurrection, with Christ rising out of an abstract nightmare of disintegrating flesh and skeletal fragments, his feet still lost in the decay, the lower part of his body shrouded, but his arms lifted in a light, ecstatic gesture of freedom. He seemed to be conducting the music and movements of the women on the stage, as they emerged from a history of silence to celebrate the incarnation in song and dance, just as Mary and Elizabeth did in the beginning. Speaking to the director a few days later, she told me of how obstructive the Vatican had been, with at least one cardinal seeming determined to prevent the concert from going ahead. But, she said, "history was made for women that night". I have come away from Rome with much to think about, but also with renewed respect for the enduring strength of traditional Catholicism. As a feminist theologian, I must continue to ask difficult questions about Mary in relation to Catholic doctrine and devotion. Some of what was said during the conference about Mary’s passivity, obedience and total surrender of self as the bride of Christ was troubling, because it was based upon an anachronistic view of marriage. There was something bizarre about the confidence with which many male speakers propounded their theories about Mary in theological concepts which seemed remote and irrelevant, not only to women’s lives but to any tangible human reality. But I have also come away feeling that I am part of a living body of faith which can accommodate all the abundance of the human family, women and men, young and old, of different races, cultures and creeds. So much is said today about what’s wrong with the Church. I left Rome wanting to celebrate what’s right with it – and there is much to celebrate. |