The Amazon Synod, the Role Women in the Evangelization: As
Seen and Lived by An African Missionary, Context of Bolivia
By. Nyamunga J.B (MA PastoralTheol CUEA/ Lic. Missiologia, PUU Roma)
The Latin American woman and above all a Bolivian woman in
that matter is today rejecting the place assigned to her by men, of being
passive, inferior, emotional, irrational, and sinner par excellence, she has
discovered the new face of her identity, becoming increasingly visible and
speaking up in society and the church. She feels this is the right moment
for her new historical moment, a time fecund with proper new fighting frontiers
out of poverty. Like Mary Magdalene, the Bolivian woman is rightly reading into
the Bible to bear witness to the resurrection and deny the final triumph of
death over life. They are becoming witnesses to life in despair and defeat,
proclaiming the opening up new roads of hope, looking at a great Bolivian
fighter, defender, and liberator called Bartolina Sisa as the model of their struggles.(Cf. the confederation of Women Bartolina Sisa Foundation -Bolivia)
Bartolina Sisa was an indigenous woman who mobilized her
people more so the indigenous women to wage war against the yoke which the Spaniards had placed on them, together with her husband
Tupac Katari, today most rural indigenous women confederation in Bolivia take
up her name as a true model of emancipation and liberation, to them, she was a
martyr, brutally killed. She was born on 25 August 1750, in the province called
Loayza department of La Paz (Political capital of Bolivia, while the
constitutional capital is in the department called Sucre).
The spirit was towards forming small groups where women and men
toiled side by side and witnessed even up to their martyrdom. This was all towards the
women desire for freedom, combating the colonizers in Latin America. This was
taking place in the whole of las Americas…seeking change, which later came to
be hijacked by the military regimes from the 1960s in many Latin American countries.
In Brazil for example in 1964 the military
government closed down all institutions of civil society or put an
army general in charge of them. The only institution that was not under the
military was the church, which became a privileged space where people could
still meet to discuss their problems. It was during this time that the faith
came to be understood as having social implications. This is the time we can
say was the strongest in the Brazilian church. This meant that students and
priests became involved in social problems, and some went to live in urban
slums or poor rural communities. Living closer to the poor, they came to
understand that religious salvation was to be obtained through their commitment
to the here and now of the suffering "other". (Cf. Sobrino
1984:96-103).
The bible study groups began to appear, reflecting on the
word of God and comparing it with their own lives. The members gradually
discovered ways to aid themselves on their journey along the road of faith
towards the building of God’s Reign. These Bible study groups were also the germinating
seeds of the basic ecclesiastical commitment (CEBs) a new way of being for the
church on our continent. It was precisely the CEBs that women began to exercise
a new and important role by assuming leadership positions, stimulating and
promoting many services such as works of charity, teaching catechism,
organizing liturgy, spreading the word of God. The predominantly male face of
the church began to change. This will remind you that generally that Latin America
women are more religious men. They experience God in their day-to-today lives
and their hope for a better future they march on and are still marching on.
Thus the church in Latin America a continent which is so
rich and yet so exploited and so full of misery has always made the
preferential choice towards the poor. It is usually the women who suffer most
from violence and exploitation. Hence the clamour of women emerges from within
the cry of the oppressed, imploring the heavens for a place, for space. The
difficult task of building the Reign of God involves the concrete struggles of
women, all kinds of persons marginalized from society. These grass-roots
movements began in the community centres of the churches. The organizational
form that became the most important was the Mother's clubs who always hold
their weekly meetings of women in the church hall to learn how to sew and to
join scraps of cloths together to male clothes and quilts, where they also
reflect on the word of God. They work together and begin to trust in each other
and see their lives form common perspective, just like any other normal women chamas- Swahili for women clubs, merry
go around, or micro-finance organization, a strong bond of solidarity arises
among them.
From the communitarian experiences, women discover the
strengths of being united and organized and begin participating in people's
movements. They begin to struggle for a better life for all, in this manner
following Jesus Christ who came to bring "life and life plentiful"
(John 10:10). They are always prepared to open themselves up to more to the
world, they feel the crushing weight of male chauvinism. Going to church and
community meetings is one thing, but getting involved in social movements is another.
After all the home is a proper place for women, the men claim. Thus the women
have to struggle not only against their husbands at home but also against
other men at the union hall, in associations, and at political meetings. These
struggles are usually undertaken together with others for better living
conditions. The first demands are always about better health conditions, then
schools, for better transportation, and for a place where they can plant and
live in short, for the basic elements necessary to be able to live a proper
human existence.
Their struggles have always led to victories. Many have been
taken prisoner, tortured, killed. But female resistance is a hidden force which
they have. Their lives, which have been marked by oppression and marginalization,
have given them fibre, and the will to struggle, anchored in faith and hope.
The strength emerges especially at moments of crisis, such as widowhood (Ruth,
Gen.38) or war (Judith). So they continue courageously the struggle to build a
better world for their children and grandchildren.
Movements of women from among the working classes of Brazil
continue or emerge today. They are sustained by faith and by the churches and
make their presence felt particularly concerning social questions. The situation
arising from the shortage of priests, these women become involved with the
people in a way that contributes enormously to their unity and organization.
They call reflective groups together, they pray and moved by their faith in God
and their confidence in life and love. They have not given up amidst the
difficulties that unveil in their struggles. They are fully engaged in
coordination, inspiration, catechism, liturgy, Bible study groups, helping the
needy, and so forth.
The participation of women in society leads them to express
their very lives in the struggle for better living conditions for all. In the
communities, the women draw from the Bible and find that they too have
citizenship in the church due to the rights conferred upon them by the sacrament
of baptism. This was clearly stated during the participation of women at the
Sixth Inter-ecclesial Meeting of the Basic Ecclesial Communities) (Cf. REV
(Brazilian Ecclesiastical Review). Through these experiences, they discover
that their space in the church as beloved daughters of God. In the CEBs they
are no longer just a passive presence, but discover new ecclesiological values
and bring up new questions for theology.
Most of these CEBs are outskirts where even the means of
transport is a hell of an experience that if you have no fibre for a mission
you give up before reaching, this is the reality we are dealing with in the
Amazon Synod. Majority of women who live in these poor areas, most of them
are responsible for parishes, assuming the functions previously reserved to the
clergy. These new practices besides questioning the mode of their consecration
bring them closer to the people. Such living experience involves them closer to
the challenges: marriage, abortion, sexual relationships, violence against
women, motherhood, educating and raising children, the drama of the unwed
mother, and so forth. All these lead to religious women to a discovery of
herself as a woman.
They are now rereading the Bible as a history of a people
linked to the poor by religious tradition and from whom they can learn faith in
day-to-day life. There is a discovery of the image of God committed to the
liberation of the oppressed, of a more approachable Jesus who chose his friends
and followers from among those on the fringes of society, and new image of
Mary, closer to the problem of women, not as a passive and subordinate woman
but as active and participating and having prophetic dimension. (Cf. Mary
Mother of Jesus, 1981).
The women catechists are the ones who are responsible for
most systematic initiation into the Christian faith, mainly of children and
adolescents. Eighty per cent of these are dedicated to catechism are women. The
evangelical strength of the catechists is tremendous, not in the sense of
memorizing, but in developing an impressive dimension of creativity. This is
Latin America is a revolutionary task that the church cannot afford to ignore.
They are open to an effective and shared manner to the problem of their people.
They are capable not just militant activity in the people's struggle for
justice, by the valuing of life, by the importance of sharing goods in short,
by an alternative to our consumerist society.
As a result of these diverse pastoral activities, a woman
whether as a religious amid the people, or as a catechism teacher, or as a
layperson engages in the movement or religious activity begins to feel the need
to reflect on her faith. Reality raises so many questions for the Christian
faith. And in the trying to respond to these challenges, the woman begins to
study theology to have improved pastoral participation, taking the example of
Martha of Bethany as an inspiring figure for women. According to the gospels
she managed to combine domestic chores (Luke 10:38, John 12:2) with religious
commitment and also theological reflection. Luke and John present her as a
deaconess, a technical term used to designate service to the community. Jesus
makes his supreme revelation to Martha. "I am the resurrection and
life". He explains precisely what kind of messiah he is. And he asks,
"Do you believe this?” Martha responds with a magnificent declaration
of faith: Yes Lord you are the Christ, the son of God who is to come. Until now
theology has been the exclusive sphere of men. Today women are perceiving their
way of creating theology where the elements of daily life are intimately mixed
with talk of God.
A woman who knows intimately the fragility of life, the need
to shelter and protect it, has also an original point of view regarding the
creator of life, that the same God who through the Bible, speaks to us of the
fullness of life, that same God who, through the Bible, speaks to us of the
fullness of human beings. This is because of a woman's way of being, thinking,
and living has never learned how to be compartmentalized. This tells you more
than women who do theology in academic centres tend to be always in contact
with their fellow sisters from poor classes. A woman's theological thought and
deeds are always in solidarity with the situation of others and are the fruit
of her compassion and identification with them. As she theologizes the life
experienced by all God's daughters and sons are always towards the integral
dignity. (Cf. Maria Clara Binger, 1986:19).
The Amazon synod as Pope Francis says "let us not kick
the Holy Spirit out of the Hall" for Pope John XXIII set the stage by his
revolutionary statement "let's open the windows to feel the breath of the
Holy Spirit". One may ask himself or herself what these two have in
common. They are completely centred on the Holy Spirit and they want the Holy
Spirit to cause some bit of movement, now that the Holy Spirit is here with us
whether you closed the window, or throw Him out, something will have turned
around the whole ambient, that those who want to throw it out, might be the
ones catapulted to speak with the power of the same to change the reality
before their eyes.
The world of today is not only witnessing the phenomenon of women voices coming out of oppression but a shaped and focused vision, not what their brothers, husbands or the Church want for them but what they, themselves are making, the voices of faith to be heard by the modern world. They are saying Here we are here also to be counted. They have decided to take their destiny into their hands and for this, they will have to fight through the dominant masculine world with their given God gifted ways and nurture. They are moving away from oppression, the complainer, the forgotten, the little-remembered, women today are starting to be heard, they are making their presence felt, taking on more and more jobs and functions, carrying out tasks of responsibility and explaining in a new discourse their new ways of being and doing.
Bibliography References
Sobrino J., The The manifestation of the God of Life in Jesus of Nazareth,(Sao Paulo: Paulinas
1984),96-103.
CAVALACANTI, T., “On the Participation of Women at the Sixth
Inter-ecclesiastical Meeting of the Basic Ecclesial Communities”, in REV (Brazilian Ecclesiastical Review).
Gebara, Y., “Women Make Theology”, in REB 46 (Petropolis: Vozes, 1986).
Binger, C.M., “And Woman Broke Her Silence”, in Perspectiva Teologica 46
(September/December 1986.
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