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ASSOCIATION FOR THE RIGHTS OF CATHOLICS IN THE CHURCH
3150 Newgate Drive
Florissant, MO 63033
Contact:
Ingrid Shafer, Chair, Publications Committee, 405-224-3988
John Sheehan, National Coordinator, 413-527-9929
Leonard Swidler, President, 215-477-1080

August 1, 2004
For Immediate Release:

The Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church does not receive the Vatican "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World" on the grounds that no women experts were in any official manner involved in the drafting of the document. As a consequence, it represents itself an example of the violence done to women by men who assume that they have the right to define women, assign roles and duties to women, and speak for women. In addition, any discussion of sexuality, gender roles, and family life is suspect as long as it is prepared exclusively by celibate males and refuses to engage current scholarship in the social and biological sciences. Finally, the document offers no indication that women and lay people (especially married lay people) will be given the opportunity to participate in any meaningful way in Church governance. Stating that "the reservation of priestly ordination solely to men does not hamper in any way women's access to the heart of Christian life" does not make it so. As long as only men can be ordained, the role of women in the Church is supportive and subservient. A call to "combat all unjust sexual discrimination" rings hollow if it is voiced by representatives of an institution that has built sexual discrimination into its very structure.

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(Bishop Geoffrey Robinson in converation with Dr Ingrid Shafer)