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Church Urged To Be More ´Feminine´ And To Respond To Women´s Needs

Updated: August 28, 2005 05:00 PM GMT
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Catholic women in East Asia gathered recently and discussed how to make the Church more "feminine," to assert the identity of women and to improve their status within the Church.

Sister Theresa Tsou Yih-lan, a resource person from Taiwan, told participants at the Aug. 15-19 First East Asia Meeting on Women that the Church can express its "feminine" qualities by being more compassionate and understanding about women in need.

In all countries, the Sisters of Social Service nun continued, the Church must be able to "reach out to people and be more forgiving to fallen women."

The women´s desk of the Office of Laity and Family, an office of the Federation of Asian Bishops´ Conferences (FABC), held the meeting in Hong Kong. It was titled "Discipleship of Women -- Facing the Challenges of the 21st Century."

As it began, keynote speaker Sister Celia Chua Ai-mei from Taiwan posed the question, "We are in East Asia but are we of East Asia?" She also urged participants "to improve the status of women as women disciples of Jesus."

Of the 38 participants, 34 were women -- 26 Church workers, Religious and lay delegates from mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Macau and Taiwan, and eight observers from Hong Kong. The four male participants were a bishop and priest from Japan, and a bishop and observer from Hong Kong.

The meeting, co-organized by Hong Kong diocese, considered challenges facing East Asian women in society, family and Church, and ways of transforming situations that hinder women from living with dignity.

"Asia needs a feminine and mothering Church, hence the need to foster qualities of compassion, caring, gentleness, hospitality and warmth," the delegates said in their final statement. "The Church needs to become inclusive and embrace people in a non-judgmental way. These feminine qualities can be learned from Jesus."

Among the challenges they identified, that said they must "cooperate with women to face the challenges of today´s complex society which is greatly influenced by unfair economic systems" and they must work to build "true partnership of women and men."

They recommended creation of "a space in parishes for women to come together in sisterhood for reflection, mutual help and support." Meanwhile, they called for establishment of support groups to aid women in situations of domestic violence and called on the Church community "to adopt a caring attitude towards single families and inclusion of divorced women."

At the broadest level participants recommended helping women to raise awareness about being caught up in traditional cultural patterns, a complex economic system and a changing world. Within the Church, they want to motivate "theological education and Scripture studies from a feminine perspective" and facilitate women´s "sharing in the decision-making process."

Rosa Lai Yuk-fai, a member of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, maintained that the Church could do more to help women. Negligence of them and their gender-related needs might be due to the Church´s focusing on itself as a "whole" group, she told UCA News Aug. 18.

Improved responsiveness to women´s needs might be more easily achieved in some countries than in others, the president of the Hong Kong Central Council of Catholic Laity acknowledged. But as she sees it, the difference is more in the pace of change rather than in resistance to it.

Sister Clara Lee Young Ja from South Korea said the Korean Church should offer more shelters for unwed mothers and programs for divorced women.

The nun, a member of the Korean bishops´ subcommittee on women, told UCA News Aug. 18 that Korean society has made progress in improving women´s rights and status. But she also said Korean women´s low average wage and low participation in politics reflect a prevailing mentality of discrimination.

Agnes Gatpatan, a Philippine lay missioner serving in Japan, told UCA News she came to the meeting because she wanted to learn from the experiences of others and apply this knowledge in Japan. Citing the 2004 Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Program, she said only 10 percent of Japanese women hold prominent positions such as legislators, senior officials and managers. Meanwhile, she added, many women from poorer Southeast Asian countries are forced into prostitution in Japan´s entertainment industry.

Anna Kwong Sum-yee from Hong Kong said that while governments and non-governmental organizations need to look into women´s issues, "in all places women themselves should also stand up to voice their needs."

The lay Catholic, who works with various groups that promote women´s rights, listed domestic violence, poverty among the unskilled elderly women workers, discrimination against pregnant workers and increasing numbers of premarital and extramarital relationships among challenges women face in Hong Kong.

Bishop Dominic Ryoji Miyahara of Oita, who works with the National Catholic Women´s League of Japan, told UCA News Aug. 18 that men do not understand the double burden of women as wife and worker. He was impressed, he said, by the "powerful" mass movements and activities women run for themselves, as described in presentations at the meeting.

The issue of gender-sensitive language came up. Virginia Saldanha, executive secretary of the FABC women´s desk, urged participants reading the Bible in English, the common language of the meeting, to use "us" or "all people" rather than "men," especially when women are in the majority.

The meeting included an exposure program that introduced the Hong Kong Church´s pastoral projects for women and other grassroots groups.

FABC-sponsored Bishops´ Institute for Lay Apostolate on Women (BILA on Women) conferences were held three times between 1995, when the women´s desk was formed, and 2002 to discuss women´s participation in Church and society. At the third conference, BILA on Women decided to meet at the regional level. A South Asian meeting was held in 2002 and a Southeast Asian meeting in 2003.

END

(Accompanying photos available at here)

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