By Virginia Saldanha

Mumbai, Feb 26, 2020: Cardinal Oswald Gracias’ interview with the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) at the Vatican makes interesting reading.

The cardinal acknowledges a bias among the members of the Catholic Church’s all-male hierarchy against giving women more leadership rolesHe also admits that he and his peers must “shed this prejudice.”

He goes on to admit that he only became a “convert” to the cause of women seeking more opportunities for responsibility in the Church during the 2019 Bishops’ Summit on Sex Abuse in Rome where the bishops were addressed by three women who “brought up some new aspects, new insights into the whole.”

“I am now an advocate for women’s rights in the church,” says Cardinal Gracias. “I empathize with why women are asking for greater rights.”

As someone who has known Cardinal Oswald from his first posting as a priest in my parish, and then studied under him, worked in the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, Bombay archdiocese, and Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences when he held official leadership positions, I admit he endears himself as a welcoming, warm and friendly person. However, when it came to the women’s question, he seemed to have a blind/deaf spot.

In the archdiocese, working most of his time in the archdiocesan curia, he must have been aware that women had been talking about their rights and recognition in the Church since 1985, when the women’s group Satyashodak was formed to reflect and advocate women’s concerns in the Church.

Cardinal Gracias was an official in the Metropolitan Marriage Tribunal, where he came face to face with cases of domestic violence and abuse of women within marriage, and the role patriarchy and male headship has played in perpetuating the violence. Was that not sensitizing?

We asked for the Christian personal law to be changed to allow women to seek divorce based on cruelty. As Canon Lawyer, Cardinal Gracias was aware of these petitions. He could have advised the bishops to act on the request of the women, fully aware of how patriarchy pitches men as head of the family and women as the submissive significant other, who because of her kind and forgiving feminine nature was spiritually groomed to forgive, thus making marriage a fertile ground for abuse.

I was Executive Secretary of the CBCI Commission for Women from 1998 to 2004 and Archdiocesan Secretary of the Women’s Desk from 1991 – 2000. We had a very vibrant group of women who spoke up and asked for the diaconate to be extended to women when the archdiocese decided to ordain married men in 2006, when Cardinal Gracias returned to Bombay as our Archbishop.

Cardinal Gracias was Secretary General in the FABC from 2008 to 2018, and earlier a member of the Standing Committee of FABC, when I made a proposal for a dialogue between bishops and women theologians, which never materialised because the bishops of FABC were closed to the idea of a dialogue with women,

The Women’s Desk of the FABC had periodic meetings on women, from 1995 to 2008 when statements were issued on women’s concerns in the Church.

Therefore I am more than surprised about Cardinal Gracias’ assertion that he only became aware of women asking for more leadership roles in 2019.

As an official in various positions, was he not listening to the voices of women?

He hails from a diocese which had some of the strongest women’s voices in the Church in India. Was he not listening?

Or has the “Francis effect” taught him to become sensitive and listen to women?

But he has been with Pope Francis since 2013. In 2018, the sister abused by her bishop approached him for justice (as President of the CBCI), but he did not hear her? A copy of a letter addressed to Pope Francis was sent to him endorsed by 180 persons requesting action on the abuse was met with silence. In January a group of women wrote to him again requesting him to meet with the survivor sister before going to Rome, as was directed by the Organizing Committee (of which he was part), but there was no response.

Why was Cardinal Gracias unable to hear the requests and pleas of women in India over the years?

Based on this interview, in this new decade of 2020 can we look forward to a more woman sensitive Cardinal Oswald Gracias in India? I hope so.

There is one more woman who can be an inspiration to Cardinal Gracias – Tina Bovermann, national leader/executive director of L’Arche USA, she demonstrates how the Church can deal decisively and compassionately with cases of abuse. There are many more women …, if only the hierarchy will keep their eyes and minds open to their inspiration and leadership.

Women will be approaching you Cardinal Gracias– we hope you will be listening and acting!