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Exclusion from the priesthood may seem humiliating, a source of suffering to women who feel a calling. But Catholic theology exalts humility as a virtue and teaches that men and women can find redemption through suffering. Bernadette Counihan, a Franciscan nun in Iowa, believes that Christian truth is at stake. "Jesus never said if you want to be my disciple, go out and fulfill yourself. He said take up your cross, deny yourself and follow me." Feminists may nod knowingly, sensing paternalism, or propose that ennobling pain could also be produced by leaving cherished tradition. "Very often, what we're called to do within the promptings of the Holy Spirit is very painful," says Nancy Wuller, a progressive lay leader in California. "Look, we're following somebody who was crucified. There is pain inherent in change, and I think we have to recognize the discomfort that might be asked of each one of us in this journey."
THE LANGUAGE OF FAITH
If Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of man, is incontestably male, what about addressing God as the Father? The debate over inclusive language touches Protestants and Catholics alike. An inclusive-language Mass will soon be proposed for Catholics in all English-speaking countries. Churchgoers of many traditions find profound comfort in singing hymns and reciting prayers that are shared across generations. Many are not prepared to sacrifice majesty in the name of fairness, to replace the resounding "Our Father . . ." that opens the Lord's Prayer with this rendition from the United Church of Christ press: "God, our Father and Mother, who is in the heavens, may your name be made holy . . ." Even parishioners who are eager to see women play a more visible leadership role may feel that making the language more inclusive comes at too high a price, in principle and in poetry.
But language, as secular and sacred scholars have been arguing for a generation, carries immense symbolic power. "The fact that God continues to be thought of as a male God means people begin to equate power with maleness," says the Rev. Joan Campbell, the first clergywoman to be chief executive of the National Council of Churches. When noninclusive words crop up during Mass, asserts Sister Francis Bernard O'Connor of the University of Notre Dame, women "sit there and say, Why am I here?" She argues that "God does not have gender, and there are a number of ways God can be addressed without calling God a he or a she."
Citing doctrinal grounds, conservative theologian Donald G. Bloesch of the University of Dubuque, Iowa, rejects many neologisms that feminists use to avoid the traditional Father, Son and Holy Spirit. "Heavenly Parent," for instance, makes God more a world soul than a Person, he contends, while "Father and Mother" smacks of dualism or paganism. God includes masculinity and femininity within himself without having sexual gender, Bloesch explains, but "the God of the Bible is not androgynous." San Francisco Jesuit Joseph Fessio, editor of Catholic World Report, is more direct. "If you change the language of the liturgy and prayers and feminize it," he says, "you're ultimately changing the religion."
THE PROTESTANT REBELLION