Women leading the way to a brighter future

By Claudia Torres

On the occasion of International Women’s Day, women and men from different countries and areas of expertise gathered at the Jesuit General Curia in Rome for the conference, “Women Leaders: Towards a brighter future”. 

Held on Wednesday, 6 March, the sessions focused on women’s empowerment in the Catholic Church; success stories of how education, economic empowerment and skills development have contributed to women’s empowerment in different parts of the world; and proposals to increase collaboration among faith and government actors.

The conference was organized by Caritas Internationalis and the British and Australian Embassies to the Holy See, and moderated by Giulia Isabel Cirillo, Advocacy Coordinator of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG).

To open the conference, Fr. Arturo Sosa Abascal SJ, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, read a message sent by Pope Francis to the participants.

Signed by the Substitute of the Secretariat of State, Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, the message communicated the Pope’s appreciation for the event and for the invitation to participate.

“While unable to attend the event”, the message read, the Holy Father “invokes upon the participants Almighty God’s gift of wisdom, and prays that the deliberations of the Conference will bear fruit in an ever greater commitment on the part of all, in the Church and across the world, to promote respect for the equal and complementary dignity of women and men.”

Setting the stage for the day’s discussions, the Australian Ambassador to the Holy See, Ms. Chiara Porro, pointed out that there is still much work to be done in women’s leadership.

She spoke of the challenges that come with becoming a leader and being recognized as one, highlighting that “for women, that challenge is twofold.”

In fact, “in order to rise to the top”, she said, “we are required to stand out, surpass expectations, prove ourselves worthy of equality.”

An equality that remains elusive, according to Kirsty Robertson, CEO of Caritas Australia and Vice President of Caritas Internationalis, who explained in a video message shown at the event, that women are disproportionately affected by poverty, and yet, “despite some important progress to change this in recent years, in no country have women achieved economic equality with men.”

She noted however that although “the face of poverty remains a woman’s face”, women are also the face of change and “builders of hope at the grass-roots and all the way to the halls of power.”

This power to create change was brought into focus by panelist Sr. Maria Nirmalini AC, National President of the Conference of Religious India (CRI), who shared that until recently, consecrated women in India had no platform from which to speak up against abuse and other injustices.

On 10 March 2023, the CRI inaugurated a so-called “grievance redressing cell,” a space for women religious to freely speak up about all forms of abuse.

Sr. Nirmalini also discussed the leadership development programmes that have been launched to help women religious working in areas affected by violence, particularly in eastern regions.

Meanwhile, from Mexico, Sr. Ruperta Palacios Silva, a Carmelite Missionary of Santa Teresa and the Secretary of the Afro-Mexican Pastoral of Caritas Mexicana, spoke on behalf of the Afro-Descendant communities in Latin America and the Caribbean, who she said, feel under-represented in the Church.

Despite there being an estimated 200 million people who identify as Afro-Descendants on the continent, she explained, these communities remain largely invisible in the Church and are often and erroneously lumped in with Indigenous populations, despite their different contexts, cultures and ways of living out the faith.

To highlight this diversity, she described Afro-Descendant Catholics’ unique image of God: “For us God is not a serious man. Because sometimes that’s the image we see —  a very solemn God, a God you’re not allowed to smile at.”

For Afro-Descendant Catholics, instead, God is associated with joy, dancing and celebration. Sr Palacios added that despite their suffering and ‘invisibilization’, the Afro-Descendant people are full of life and hope.

Speaking instead from a theological perspective, Dr. Maeve Heaney, Director of the Xavier Centre of Theology at Australian Catholic University, reflected on authority and governance in the Church and how it relates to priesthood, and on the theological anthropology underpinning leadership.

In this regard, she noted that “many theological anthropologies, that is to say, ways of understanding the human person, ‘essentialise’ too much what men or women bring to the table in ways that are unhelpful and not reflective of real human experience.”

She called for greater investment in theological education for women leaders as well as greater scriptural and theological reflection to allow women and other lay people to help “make Church structures and agencies more effective, collaborative, and, hopefully, more in line with how Jesus imagines his Body.”

Meanwhile, Alistair Dutton, General Secretary of Caritas Internationalis, shared the leadership example of Mama Maggie, a woman who went into one of the poorest Muslim areas of Aleppo, Syria, with a Caritas team, to provide aid to a community that had spent years on the front-lines of the conflict.

“Maggie has led this team, and day in and day out, been in the community,” doing very practical work like providing food, bedding and clothing, creating “child-friendly spaces for the kids to play, and helping the community heal as a community.”

Mr. Dutton described how the people in the community in Aleppo look up to Maggie because of her tireless care, a testament to her high level of “leadership and engagement”.

As for tangible ways to promote greater partnership among the Catholic Church, faith-based organizations and governments committed to women and girls’ empowerment, Sr. Helen Alford, OP, President of the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences, first highlighted the Catholic Church’s need to find more effective ways to tell the Church’s story.

To that end, she recommended the use of data to help people, especially those in government roles, understand the Church’s mission and work throughout the world to promote fruitful dialogue and decision-making.

“Data is becoming a language in which you speak in today’s society,” she said, but the Catholic Church does not really have a culture of this. She joked that if Saint Paul were here today, he would be using data instead of Greek philosophy to spread Jesus’ message.

To conclude the conference, the British Ambassador to the Holy See, Christopher Trott, thanked the speakers, attendees and organizers, and expressed his hope that the conversation on women’s leadership and women’s rights will continue, because, he said, they are topics “worthy of more time, more energy and more commitment.”