Dispatches from Rome

Anecdotal  Dispatches about CNWE’s “Extramural Participation” at the 2024 Synod on Synodality

Dispatch from Rome # 1 – Tuesday October 1

We two (Susan Roll and me) representing CNWE are here in Rome.

And it is obvious our Canadian voice, faith and achievements are needed and valued.

We are acting with American, South African, Polish and British feminists of faith who have come to express themselves.

 It’s a full agenda of actions always in a prayer context, and often with a sense of humour.

For example, this morning started with a noisy “Kick the can down the street action”, complete with empty soup cans, in reference to our perception that this Vatican prefers to avoid contentious issues such as ordination of women to priesthood by just referring it to more secret study.

But I have the distinct impression, and it pleases me, that women are moving past the reform agenda which has dominated our efforts  for 50 years and enervated us in the process, and now claim our full baptismal equality, minister to each other, and to others and push the institution into the background.

After all, all this listening has to lead to outcomes, to changes, to authority.

It is a time of great transition, quiet and unnoticed at first but the pews are emptying and band aids don’t do the job.

Even here this week, fewer numbers of activists have come.

But don’t think for a minute that their belief in the gospel of Jesus has cooled.

They just figure their time and spiritual energy is better spent bringing good news to the poor than in persuading a moribund institution led by celibate men to change.

Too small. Too late. Too obtuse.

But if this week represents a final hurrah, it sure is fun.

Dispatch from Rome #2 – Thursday October 3.

Good day, CNWE sisters and brothers.

Full days over here.

The eternal city has defeated my efforts at figuring out streets with long names and narrow, miraculous lanes with speedy small cars.

But into the breech has stepped fairy God mothers and fathers with cell phones and  the uncanny ability to summon Uber cabs.

Yesterday, a shop owner I appealed to, tore off part of a menu and instructed me to walk along the Tiber to the fourth bridge, the Cavour, and cross it and ascend for 10 blocks, with 3 street name changes and Voila: The 138 Spanish Steps, the landmark for our  guesthouse.

That easy.

Because he has a cousin in Toronto!

And because, no doubt, I have white hair.

This morning before the sun was up we trapped a taxi and went down to Via Conciliazione the broad avenue leading up to St Peter’s Basilica, to help 4 young staffers from Catholics for Choice USA lug and then unroll  a moving piece of fabric art  with 50 quotes from Catholic women who have had abortions.

Tender, resolute and full of faith.

A van of carabinieri watched from a distance.

We were there about an hour and then CFC invited us to breakfast.

One of them took what was to me a Pulitzer- quality photo of the basilica with the words “A Catholic for Choice Was Here” superimposed.

Such adventures were followed by a Zoom conversation with 6 conscientious Catholics from every continent, expressing what can only be described as disappointment in the documents and the remarks of leaders since part one of the Synod a year ago.

Kate M described her mood as “ongoing holy grumbling”.  And Kate is not a grumbler.

A provocative day made bearable by the company of fellow travelers.

And your interest and support. 

Dispatch from Rome # 3 – Saturday October 5, 2024

Saturday here.

You Canadian co-conspirators will be exhausted after this week of messages from us.

And you don’t even have the compensations of real people,of meeting heroines, of prayer vigils when sorely needed and of the Roman environment.

With 3 loving Brits, we’ve formed a little community who linger over breakfast and help each other solve problems, such as a wet cellphone which has given up.

And who are we without our cell phone?

Yesterday, Friday Megan Williams phoned and rode her bike over.

Born in Toronto where her mother still lives, she has been in Rome 25 years. 

Has pitched our story to editors at CBC but says interest is tepid with all the other burning stories in the world.

We three sat outside and she put very well informed questions.

She seemed to stress my age (87) rather than my beauty,but never mind.Susan was animatedly impressive with scholarly background of the issues.

Megan put on her bike helmet and was gone.

We went to an International Women’s centre, like Church House at the UN in New York and Kate M of WOC briefed us …maybe 50 people. on the walk to the Vatican, holding up a map of the route assigned by the police…so far away we could sense the bad faith in it.

She outlined, like a good moral theologian ,the choices of conscience facing us as we walked.

I chose the line of least resistance…walking to the overpass, waving fans that WOC had brought, and, Sophia be praised, that was right for both of us.

A nice man introduced himself there as correspondent from Der Spiegel, the national German daily, and he was interested in my long history of resistance, since 1968 (Humanae Vitae).

But he, Frank Lonig, was clearly thrilled when Susan spoke with him in German!

Back to the Women’s Centre for a sing-song, and to hear that no confrontations had happened to the courageous walkers.

In fact, general approval from people in the street.

The issue is going mainstream, which must disturb hardliners. It’s been for them a dispiriting week with either being ignored or being challenged

Mary Hunt writes that new forms of prayer and belief are rising.

Prayer vigil at 7 pm in Vatican Square. Intentions, personal and political, uttered.

But nobody except me knew the words and melody of “Go Now in Peace”, a standard at my Friday morning prayer group (in person!).

Thank you for support and messages.

Love from Susan and Rosemary, Rome.

P.S. We have lunch with voting delegate Prof Catherine Clifford on Monday.

Hope to report a redacted version of that for you.

Dispatch from Rome #4 – Sunday October 6, 2024

Buongiorno, amici,

Sunday morning here

See how bilingual I am? It’s a Canadian thing.
 
Speaking of that, we’ll need to work on our French-English partnerships. Can’t leave it all to Michelle.
 
I’ve met one francophone here, a member of L’Autre Parole, longtime Quebec feminist resistance group.
 
I credit Quebecois thinking with putting Canada firmly in the social democratic camp, so different from the wounded USA.
 
I’m to offer counsel on Nov 4, the eve of the election, to Americans tuning in to WATER’s meditation, when anxiety will be highest. Advice on that welcome.
 
MEANWHILE, as Stephen Colbert says, we in Rome try to both be seen and influential, while breaking through the ecclesiastical bubble and being shaped by voices from home, from the grassroots. You, for example.
This Roman thing is temporary, even the discouragement we feel  hearing statements made by certain obtuse clerics in the assembly. From Australia…the woman thing is “niche” from a “large powerful western voice”.
 
No, actually it is not. It is constitutive of who we are and seek to be.
 
And again, in Vatispeak, Cardinal Victor Emmanuel Fernandez opines,
 
“based on the analysis so far,there is no room for a positive decision on women deacons”.
 
No? Facing the three horsemen of the apocalypse…clericalism,  sexual abuse and patriarchy?
 
Susan Roll and I make a good tag team in interviews…last night with well briefed Winnipeg journalist John Longhurst,who is coming next week to cover the final week.
 
We heard about the article by Massimo Faggioli in “Commonweal” magazine, saying it’s no longer good enough to move some women into “management ” roles, when what the world is crying out for is “ministry by women”.
 
Pope Francis has said,
 
“A synod is not a Parliament”.
 
Perhaps, for those attached to some form of democracy, synods should take on some habits of Parliaments.
 
In this millennium, I submit.
 
Now the required 3 minutes of silence, please.

Dispatch from Rome #5 – October 8, 2024

Hello to all,
 
We feel a release of pressure with interviews (CBC radio and Winnipeg Free Press) over.
 
Glad we were here the first week and could join in actions and vigils organized by WOC  and WOW.
 
Now it is consolidation , and reflection and a deep critique of the Synod and its stubborn relegation of the issue of women’s exclusion to the backwater.Moving us into management, when what we seek is ministry, says Massimo Faggioli of Villanova.
 
Our mission has become cheering on  our voting  women delegates. The ministry of encouragement, in a word, which every woman knows so well.
 
Lunched with the perceptive Cathy Clifford yesterday, who teaches ecumenism at UStPaul in Ottawa.She  promised to come to Peterborough some time for the splendid Canadian Canoe Museum.
 
Mary Hunt and Diann Neu of WATER in Silver Spring, Md sent us a personal donation so we can treat Marianne Duddy Burke of DIGNITY tomorrow at a cafe near the Vatican called La Penitentienza!  Musing on that!
Michael Higgins takes us to dinner tomorrow night. He’s in the press gallery so we’ll quiz him. Just read his lively new book “The Jesuit Disruptor“.
 
And for Saturday, our heroine Elizabeth Davis will have us visit after her work till 1 pm. But only if we bring potato or corn chips! Done.
 
Today we taxiied to La Piazza Calista  to the Dicastery of Integral Human Development which Cardinal Michael Czerny heads.
 
We chatted with his secretary Sr. Alessandra Smerilli and with an impressive young intern, Chiara, from Milan. Susan tells me St Ambrose in the 4th century developed some variations on the Roman liturgy in Milan. Her scholarship deepens my trip.
 
Social butterflies with a purpose, we have an appointment Thursday morning with the new Canadian ambassador Joyce Napier.
 
Wish you all were here.
 
So different from my experience at the UN Conference on Women in Beijing 1995 which produced the “Platform for Action”, to hold member countries accountable. We were 30,000 women.  And religion was one topic of inquiry, first time ever at a UN Conference.
 
Roman traffic makes Peterborough disruptions seem minor. Of course here, every excavation finds archeological treasures  that must be appraised and catalogued. 
 
Who was it said : “Italy : Eat ,Pray, Love.”
 
Right on.

Dispatch from Rome #6 – October 10, 2024

Hello again, 
 
It’s sunny and windy here today.
 
We set out to keep our appointment with the new, friendly, and impressive Canadian ambassador to the Vatican, Joyce Napier.
 
2d floor of a building on the wide avenue leading up to St Peter’s Basilica, Via Conciliazione. 
 
Susan had wisely looked up and printed out her background and credentials.  Brilliant find! 
 
AND Joyce is  a member of my class (announced in June, 2024) to the Order of Canada.  So when that induction takes place, we’ll have a reunion in Ottawa!
 
We spent 40 minutes telling Joyce and her permanent Italian staff Marcella, our CNWE story and our hopes. We mentioned indigenous concern about return of some artifacts. Susan spoke with clarity of the power of baptism and the implications for Equality.
 
Joyce spent some time growing up in Italy and remembers a girlhood retreat in Assisi! She speaks Italian. Her spouse is highly regarded former CBC newsman Neil Macdonald. They have 3 daughters.
 
We have a great ally here!
Susan Roll, Rosemary Ganley and Michael Higgins in Rome
Last eve Michael Higgins and his  friend Ted Penney took us to a nearby trattoria for dinner.
I have one of Michael’s books, all inscribed, to present to Peterborough’s bishop Daniel Miehm on return.
 
Michael will write in the Star Friday.
Susan Roll, Marianne Duddy-Burke, Rosemary Ganley
Have I even mentioned lunch with Marianne Duddy Burke of Dignity USA yesterday? She’s a faithful servant of LGBT Catholics all over the world.
 
Crowds are here but no real word from or about the Synod.
Susan Roll and Catherine Clifford
Our Cathy Clifford is spoken of with great respect, something about being on a writing team. More on that as we learn.
Angels Unawares by Canadian artist Timothy P. Schmalz
We are invited to gather for prayer each night at 7 at  the very moving sculpture group of refugees in Vatican Square. The sculpture is titled Angels Unawares, and stands in St. Peter’s square in Rome.  The artist is Canadian Timothy P. Schmalz.
 
It depicts a life-sized group of 140 migrants ranging from a Jewish man escaping Nazi Germany to a Syrian refugee fleeing the civil war.  The crowd huddles on a boat, surrounding a pair of angel wings.  

Dispatch from Rome #7 (and final) – October 12, 2024

 
Hello sisters and brothers in faith.
 
With some disappointed impatience here.
 
Last night at prayer vigil in the Square, 20 were present. The group was  enlarged by people from Europe, especially Germany.
 
Sadness pervaded as we learned that Sr Elizabeth Davis, a voting delegate and champion of our issues and with whom we had a date today, had taken sick and was in Gemelli Hospital. Fervent prayers for her.
 
We have two new champions of course, the Calgary spokeswoman, Jeannie M,  whom we heard gratefully, and the strong new Canadian ambassador to the Vatican, Joyce Napier, with whom we had 40 minutes and a warm follow-up thank you. Susan was smart enough to send her the tape of Jeannie’s interview.
 
So our work as networkers has been successful.
 
But the concepts and the language of delay, of  “inopportunism” for women’s advancement is painful.
 
I myself go home determined to work at all levels …. political, ecclesial and grassroots, for the final recognition of permanent equality of the genders.
 
I’ve seen anew the scope of patiarchy set in the world’s largest organized religion, which was once mine, and I won’t burn my membership card, but my heart and soul are a movin’.
 
And as Mary Oliver pleads. “Write about it”.
 
Does that make sense?
 
Blessings to all, and thank you!