One Final Thought

One final thought on the Vatican's women document. I promise it's the final one. In 1995, the newspaper sent me to a women's conference that tied into the big women's conference in Beijing. The women speakers there talked about "the sunset effect" when power transitions are going on.

Sunsets can be dramatic and filled with color and energy. But they are sunsets just the same. The sun is leaving. When men sense they are losing traditional power, there is much drama and energy. But the power is leaving.

I thought of the sunset effect when I pondered the timing of the Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World.

The timing didn't make a lot of sense to me. I wonder if it was sent out as distraction against another brewing sex crisis, this one in an Austrian seminary where a pornography ring was discovered. See article.

The letter about women and men was released Aug. 1. The seminary was closed a week later. It's a huge scandal and incredibly seamy.

These sex scandals are unraveling the power the men hold. In the sunset effect, you hold on any way you can. Telling women of the world that the best use of their talent is motherhood is one way of trying to hold on to power that is already passing away.

If Vatican III reforms turn out to be in favor of women's increased power and influence in the church, then this ill-timed letter might be mentioned as one of the indicators that the men of the Vatican were deeply out of touch with the experience of modern women.