PAGE 16 — The Georgia Bulletin, March 12,1987
Women Included
In Foot Washing
WASHINGTON (NC) — Women can be included in
the Catholic Church’s Holy Thursday foot-washing
ceremony, says a memo sent to the U.S. bishops in
March by the bishops’ Committee on Liturgy.
The inclusion of both men and women in the rite
emphasizes Christ’s “humble service” to his
followers and “the service that should be given by all
the faithful to the church and to the world,” the memo
said.
Last year Bishop Anthony Bevilacqua of Pitts
burgh provoked a nationally publicized controversy
when he told his priests that only men’s feet could be
washed. The governing liturgical rule, he said, spoke
of those chosen for the rite as “viri,” a Latin term
which refers only to males.
Before Bishop Bevilacqua’s order, parishes in
many parts of the country routinely involved both
men and women in the foot-washing ceremony. The
ceremony imitates Christ’s washing of his apostles’
feet at the Last Supper, as a sign of his love for them
and service to them.
The memo to the bishops said the Vatican is still
studying the question of including women in the rite,
along with a number of other questions regarding the
Holy Week liturgy, and it has not yet given a
definitive answer to inquiries about the issue.
In the meantime, the “variation” in the United
States of using both men and women “is an
understandable way of accentuating the evangelical
command ... that all members of the church must
serve one another in love,” the memo said.
Bishop Bevilacqua, who received an advance copy
of the memo, sent it out to all parishes in his diocese
with a covering letter urging pastors to exercise
“prudent pastoral judgment” as to “the most ap
propriate manner” of celebrating the rite in their
own parishes.
He said pastors could follow either the more tradi
tional rubric excluding women or the “variation"
that has grown up as a custom in the United States. In
either case, he said, he hoped they would celebrate
the rite in a way that “will promote the ecclesial uni
ty and Christian charity” which are central themes of
that and other Holy Week services.
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Affirmation In Home, Society
Pope Asks Recognition of Women's Rights
BY GREG ERLANDSON
VATICAN CITY (NC) — Pope John Paul marked Italy’s
celebration of Woman’s Day with a call for recognizing
women’s social and civil rights, as well as “affirmation” of
their role in the family.
The pope’s comments followed his March 8 Angelus ad
dress in which he reflected on the “common priesthood" of
Catholics, but emphasized that the priesthood of believers
and the ministerial priesthood are “essentially different."
In other weekend activities, the pope sent a telegram ex
pressing his sorrow for families of the victims of a March 6
ferry disaster off the Belgium coast.
Speaking to a crowded St. Peter’s piazza after the regular
Sunday Angelus talk, the pope called attention to a nearby
meeting of Catholic women’s associations marking
Woman’s Day.
“The church is interested in the questions regarding the
presence of woman in society,” the pope said. He praised
the associations, saying they work to bring a “Christian
spirit to the temporal order.”
Particular concerns for the church, he said, are “the un
disputed affirmation of (women’s) proper roles in the en
vironment of the family” and “the just recognition of their
social and civil rights in the light of the dignity and identity
of every woman.”
As the pope spoke, many in the piazza waved bunches of
yellow mimosa flowers, a symbol of the annual celebration
of women.
During his regular Angelus address, the pope continued
his reflections on the role of the laity in preparation for the
synod on the laity to be held in October.
Pope John Paul said the Second Vatican Council had
restored the biblical teaching of a common priesthood of
the faithful which, “for various reasons, had fallen in
darkness.” Based on the sacrament of baptism, this com
mon priesthood has a community dimension which
“transcends individual testimony” for the faith, the pope
said.
It also carries a responsibility to face difficulties
“together with other men and other women,” he added.
The ministerial priesthood consists of members of the
people of God “chosen and called by God himself” to
“assure the continuity of the functions that he has given to
the apostles,” the pope said.
The two priesthoods “essentially differ," he added, but
together “guarantee that superior harmony which is an in-
dispensible factor of genuine pastoral progress.”
Earlier in the morning Pope John Paul visited the Roman
parish of Santa Maria ai Monti, located only a few blocks
from the ruins of the imperial forum. Speaking on the first
Sunday of Lent, the pope said the parish must become “an
environment of Lenten conversion.”
“During Lent the parish must become a special environ
ment for the salvific study of the truth about sin and
grace,” he said.
The pope also told the parishioners he felt joy at visiting
their Marian shrine, which he called “among the most
venerated in Rome.”
The 400-year-old church is the site of a fresco of Mary
which has been venerated for centuries.
On Saturday, March 7, the pope sent messages of con
dolence for the British ferry disaster in Belgium to
London’s Cardinal George Basil Hume and Brussels’s Car
dinal Godfried Danneels.
Sent by Vatican Secretary of State Agostino Casaroli, the
telegram expressed the pope’s sorrow and solidarity with
the victims and their families.
At least 135 people died in the North Sea ferry accident.
In the early afternoon the pope met with a group of
bishops from the Emilia-Romagna region of north-central
Italy. The bishops presented the pope with a book com
memorating his visit to the region, which has a strong Com
munist Party, last May.
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