Church for 35 per cent posts to women

By U Sudhakar Reddy

Hyderabad, Feb. 25: Catholic churches in the country have decided to give 35 per cent representation to women in diocesan and parish councils. Women will also get reservation in finance committees and in ecclesiastic bodies at the local and national levels. The 28th Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) which concluded recently at Jamshedpur decided that representation for women in church committees should ideally go up to 50 per cent.
The CBCI reiterated the Vatican stand that women will not be eligible for priesthood. It said that a gender policy will be developed within a year by each regional bishops’ conference with time-bound action plans with monitoring mechanisms. Based on this, a CBCI gender policy will emerge.

"CBCI advised the local regional bishop conferences to study the matter in depth and to implement it with immediate effect taking into consideration the local situation," the Hyderabad archbishop Marampudi Joji said. "The representation pertains only to administrative and associate bodies but not priesthood," he said.

He added that the Hyderabad archdiocese will begin implementation of the decision. A Catholic Bishops Council consisting of 13 bishops will gather for an annual conference in Hyderabad from March 4 to 6 to discuss the issue of empowering women in the church.

The CBCI said the church would provide scholarships and part-time courses for women in theological, biblical and canonical studies and use them as parish workers, researchers and spiritual counselors. The work of women in parishes will be affirmed through the recognition of these as ministries.