Searching for SHE

Is God a woman? Some people would find this simple question blasphemous. But this is the question that has been on my mind lately as I continue to contemplate the related issue of the role of women in the Roman Catholic Church.

I believe the answer is no, God is not a woman. So then, is God a man? No, God is not a man either. But I think that most of us, either consciously or subconsciously, think of God as a male; that is the logical effect of more than 2,000 years of Christians calling God he, him, Father, King, etc. As many scholars have noted, insisting that God is a male (or a female) is a form of idolatry, as it assigns to God the human characteristic of gender.

Why do I care so much if God is male or female? The truth is that I have become tired of being left out of my own religion. I am a woman who, as a young girl, was saddened watching my older brother serve at Mass and consider the priesthood, because I could do neither myself.

I am a woman who has sat in countless church pews, passively watching male priests lead Masses, give sermons, and consecrate bread and wine. I am a woman who has wondered what is wrong with my hands; why can bread and wine be transformed into Jesus' body and blood only in a male's hands, and not in a female's?

I am a woman who has watched many wives take theology classes with their husbands preparing to be deacons, only to have to eventually drop out of the studies because of their gender. I am a woman who is angry that the church community is missing so much wisdom because women cannot preach at Masses.

I grew up in a church where I always felt a layer of hurt and exclusion underneath the beautiful rituals and priestly actions. In my early years, steeped in the tradition of male leadership within the Catholic Church, I had a vague sense that something was not quite right. I may not have been able to define it exactly, but I knew that boys were better than girls.

God, after all, based on the dominant he pronoun we used to describe him, was clearly male — and if God was the supreme being of the universe, then obviously males are the superior species. It seemed very reasonable, and unfortunately natural, to believe this to be true. As theologian Mary Daly has noted: "If God is male, then the male is God."

I chose to join a religious order within the Catholic Church after meeting some strong, vibrant religious sisters who clearly loved their faith. I also knew, of course, that the avenue of priesthood was closed to me. Spending so much time with such active, engaged women of the church, I was able to squelch down my uncomfortable feelings with gender and the church during my early stages of religious life. It certainly was a shame, however, that none of the smart, theologically educated sisters I lived with were allowed to preach or take leadership roles in the church.

But eventually, as I learned more about the church and theology, something began to shift inside of me, an uncomfortable swirling in my gut at Mass and at other church functions. It took me a while to realize what it was: a deep burning anger. The anger only grew worse as I rarely allowed myself to show it. I felt silenced in such a male-dominated institution and I felt affected in a personal way.

After all, I am a woman supposedly made in God's image just like a man. Nothing I had ever encountered in the Gospels, our account of Jesus' life and our best examples of how to live as Christians, gave me a satisfactory answer as to why women were excluded in the church.