A canon prays in St. Joseph Chapel at Westminster Cathedral in August 2010. (CNS photo/Marcin Mazur, courtesy of Bishops' Conference of England and Wales)
When the
Association
of Catholic Women was started more than 20 years ago, it was partly in response
to the sense of confusion created by the strident campaigning of some extreme
feminists. There were repeated and insistent statements that “Catholic women”—by
implication, large numbers of us—were hurt, angry, and frustrated by the
teachings of the Church. We were endlessly told that women felt unloved by the
Church and marginalized in Catholic life.
I can still remember
the sense of enthusiasm in the room when a good number of us came together to
talk about what we really believed concerning these things. We looked at Church teachings in a number of
crucial areas, notably those concerning marriage and family life. We talked
about the state of religious education in Catholic schools, about liturgy,
about how to pass on the Faith to the next generation, about the reality of
living as Christians in the rapidly-changing culture of Britain. The
Association of Catholic Women came into being with an affirmation that we as
women “give our glad assent to the teachings of the Church.” We all felt a
strong sense of wanting to spread the Faith, and to communicate the beauty of
Christ’s message. We didn’t believe that the Church undervalued or despised her
daughters. We wanted to develop our
knowledge and understanding of what it truly meant to be a Catholic woman in
today’s world—and tomorrow’s.
From the start our
meetings, pilgrimages, conferences, and various projects have had a feeling of passion
and vigor. In those early years, however, we did seem to spend a good deal of
time denouncing extreme feminism and worrying about its influence on Catholic
groups, on bishops, and on religious education in Catholic schools. We wrote
letters and argued at meetings. I think that, alas, we often simply came across
as annoyed—and annoying.
Things are rather
different now. In the last few years, the strident voices of feminism within
the Church have been much less evident.
But we in the Association of Catholic Women have, in any case, taken a
very different approach, and it has grown from strength to strength, with
activities widening and deepening year on year.
Everything is really
centered on prayer: we undertake to pray together, and individually. Our major
events and meetings always, of course, include Mass and the Rosary. We begin
our committee meetings with prayer—including the Angelus, which has come to
have a special importance for us. We don’t have a regular membership fee—we ask
people to keep in touch, to send whatever money they can from time to time, and
to say the Angelus every day! We have a prayer newsletter that keeps everyone
in contact, and we rely heavily on the prayers of our older members who cannot
get out to our meetings but who pray at home.
There has been
concern for a long while about the quality of religious education in Catholic
schools. We decided to stop complaining about things and start being part of
the solution. We began a Schools Religious Education Project, offering prizes
for children in Catholic primary schools (ages 5-11) for essays on specific
topics. This was started on a small scale—we bought a trophy, produced a
brochure to send to schools, organized teams of judges, printed some
certificates. It grew rapidly. We needed another trophy as we divided the
children into age groups. We held prize-giving ceremonies—I remember one at the
Catholic Central Library, and another at one of our annual meetings at St.
James Church in London’s Spanish Place, with a bishop making the presentations.
It all got bigger and bigger—we had the idea of teaming up with the Catholic
Truth Society, Britain’s main Catholic publishing group, which for more than
100 years has produced books and pamphlets (and now DVDs and more) on the
Catholic faith. They are magnificent, and every year offer cash prizes for the
winning schools, plus a wonderful range of book prizes, gift certificates, and
hardback copies of the Catechism of the Catholic
Church for all the runners up, as well as beautiful holy cards for all the
children.
The Schools RE
Project is now a massive nationwide event which involves a team of us working
at the CTS office mailing out brochures, relays of judges reading the essays,
and a busy time in the summer organizing prize presentations, visiting schools,
and wrapping up parcels.
In the year of Pope
Benedict’s visit to Britain we invited the children to study the papacy, St.
Peter, and the relevant Scripture passages. They also wrote prayers for the
Holy Father, and in some cases letters to him. Many of these were just too good
to keep to ourselves, so we published a small booklet. My personal favorites
include the child who warmly invited the Holy Father to tea at her granny’s
house in Manchester, and the children in Glasgow who wrote at length about all
that the Pope was going to do—meeting the Queen, celebrating Mass at
Bellahouston, lunching on haggis—before grudgingly adding “the Holy Father will
also visit England.”
We run pilgrimages—our
most recent to the convent at Minster in Kent which has connections going back
to Saxon times. We hold a Day of Recollection each Lent, and conferences with
guest speakers—last September this included a talk from a senior doctor on “Blessed
John Paul and medical ethics” and a wonderful documentary film John Paul the Great.
We write, lobby, and
take part in meetings with government and other authorities on topics of
current concern—notably the current (ghastly!) plans announced by the Prime
Minister to create same-sex marriage, the continuing pressure for euthanasia, and
the continuing promotion of abortion and
contraception through public funds. We are members of the “Care Not Killing”
alliance fighting to defend human life.
We are one of the
main organizers of the annual Towards Advent Festival of Catholic Culture,
which has now been running for more than 10 years at Westminster Cathedral
Hall. It began with a small gathering of representatives of some Catholic organizations,
including the ACW. This year we are teaming up with EWTN to bring Marcus Grodi
from the Coming Home Network to be a speaker, and will also have a celebration
of the anniversary of Blessed John Henry Newman’s famous “Second Spring”
sermon, led by a group from Oxford.
The ACW also supports
Catholic teachers. Our popular “Days of Art and Music” for teachers at Catholic
schools include sessions on Gregorian chant, led by Jeremy de Satge, himself a
professional musician and singer, and lectures by Dr. Lionel Gracey of the
Maryvale Institute showing some of the world’s glorious art with commentaries
explaining how these images teach us central truths of the Faith. The study days
always conclude with Mass, at which the chant is sung.
Perhaps the single
most important thing that we do, however, happens in Holy Week each year. At
Westminster Cathedral, as the priests of the diocese walk in procession for the
Chrism Mass, they are met by a group of us with a big placard that says, “Thank
you to our priests.” Each priest receives a holy card with a prayer and a
message of thanks. We are joined in this by a team of young people from St.
Patrick’s Church, Soho Square. We have
had a wonderful response from the clergy—gratitude, sometimes even tears of
thanks.
It actually began as
a sort of opposition to feminist campaigners who used to turn up at the cathedral
with a banner demanding the ordination of women. They don’t come any more. The
“thank you” idea started independently in the diocese of Southwark—the ACW took
it up in Westminster and it is now a major part of the annual Chrism Mass
tradition. In ways that we could never have imagined, it has become really
important: priests today face so many challenges and badly need to know that we
are with them, and praying for them
Looking back, I think
we wasted a certain amount of time in indignation in the very early years. It
is much better just to find out what is good and useful to do, and then do it
with joy and with big hearts. We certainly have plenty of plans for the next
months and years. Links with the new
Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, continued expansion of our work with
schools—someone has suggested a possible annual award for Catholic teachers
that would recognize good work and express our thanks—our website, our booklets,
our quarterly review…
There
is a genuine debate and discussion about the role of women in the Church. Some
of the feminists have raised good questions—but haven’t listened to the
Church’s answers, and don’t seem interested in dialogue. Blessed John Paul’s Mulieris Dignitatem is a crucial
document which points the way ahead. I am grateful for having been challenged, more
than 20 years ago, by ardent feminists, to think about what it really means to
be a Catholic woman.