Lady priests + other rich yt people problems
Lady priests + other rich yt people problems
Bishop Randazzo on "niche" Western issues
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“So often we get caught up with niche issues that we talk about in Europe or in North America. Oftentimes [these issues come from] churches and communities that have great wealth, great access to technology, and resources. Those issues become all-consuming and focusing for people, to the point that they then become an imposition on people who sometimes struggle simply to feed their families, to survive the rising sea levels, or the dangerous journeys across wild oceans to resettle in new lands.
[This is] a new form of colonialism [that is] certainly not the mind of the synodal church in mission. [These issues are important,] but they must not be so all-consuming to the point that others cannot live or exist on the face of this planet simply because people of might and power and authority and wealth decide that those niche issues are the most important ones. Please, do not forget the most vulnerable, and remember, when you come to Oceania, you here in Europe are the periphery.
When we talk about women in the church, [ordination] is the hot-button issue, and as a consequence women in many parts of the world and the church who are treated as second-class citizens are totally ignored. It’s scandalous [that] a small minority, with a large powerful western voice, are obsessed with pushing this issue. I have no problems with this issue being talked about and studied, [but not at the cost of discussing women] pushed to the margins…Let the other issue be studied, but for heaven’s sake, in the name of Jesus, can we look after and include our women? Can we stop talking about women and listen to and speak with women?”
The only people I know who harp about the Catholic Church needing to ordain women and sacramentalize same sex unions are well-to-do white people over the age of 50.
I, like the Bishop, understand that there are arguments for these issues that are worth our attention. But there’s a reason that you rarely hear BIPOCs, working class folk, non-college educated people, and those living outside of North America or Europe harping about these issues.
Further, I find it strange that people who prioritize issues like these dare to call themselves “progressive,” when their concerns have little to nothing to do with changing the plight of people who are actually oppressed. Sorry, but these “niche” issues about your “right” to “self-expression” are bourgeois. How about expending more of your energy harping about the need to protect workers’ right to organize, or to build strong local communities where people can own businesses and property without having their rights trampled upon by corporate interests?
Here’s an excerpt from my essay in Ethika Politika from back in March 2020 about Pope Francis’s engagement with the question of women’s vocations in Querida Amazonia in a very “difference feminist” manner: