From June 18 to July 2, four pontifical universities and two Catholic institutes will offer a joint diploma course on “Women and Men in a Synodal Community.” Its organizers want to rethink the role of women in the Church.
ANITA CADAVID
Institute of Higher Studies on Women
We are in danger of falling into a merely functional discussion. To just make a list of what women can and can't do.
It is a matter of continuing a discussion that, in my opinion, has already begun but we need to work on it from various points of view.
Anita Cadavid is the director of the Institute for Advanced Studies on Women. She organized the course together with four Pontifical Universities: the Urbaniana, Angelicum, Salesiana, Lateran, and the Pontifical Faculty of Educational Sciences Auxilium.
She says that the course is not a mailbox for complaints but a laboratory of ideas. There will be an emphasis on the history of the first Christian communities and Mariology, with the aim of determining how to better transmit the figure of the Virgin.
ANITA CADAVID
Institute of Higher Studies on Women
Sadly, the image of the Virgin that has been transmitted to us is not always the most accurate image. Because in certain cultures, they tell us: “She is the one who suffered, suffered, suffered and in the end she had everything good.” No!
It is not a passive image. I believe that she is a protagonist of our salvation history and therefore also of the life of the Church today.
Cadavid hopes that people of different backgrounds will sign up for the diploma: Teachers, priests, and lay people of all kinds. She wants to work with them on the three priorities that Pope Francis has laid out to promote women in the Church.
ANITA CADAVID
Institute of Higher Studies on Women
One, opening spaces of authority. Not only that. Thinking of the Church also with feminine categories.
And to leave aside all the discrimination and violence, which sadly still exist. And that sometimes is not only physical but also psychological
Registration for the diploma 'Women and Men in a Synodal Community' is open until June 16, 2022.
RM
TRANS: OG