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SCMP Reporter

CALLS from nuns and clergymen abroad for women to be ordained in the Catholic Church may at first appear to have fallen on deaf ears in Hong Kong but, behind the scenes, some people have been quietly working towards this goal over the past year.

  As public debate on sexual equality has grown stronger in Hong Kong, concern over women's participation in the Catholic Church has become an issue for church workers and women's groups.

  According to the executive secretary of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Hong Kong Catholic Diocese, Mary Yuen Mei-yin, the existing ban on women priests smacks of sexism.

  She estimates half of the 100,000-strong local Catholic population would support women being ordained. 'A person should be chosen for a job on the basis of ability, not sex,' she says.

  She is worried that the male-only priesthood keeps women away from the centre of power. Although no formal protests are planned, the commission is keen to raise awareness of current inequalities within the Church.

  The commission has devised school-teaching material devoted to sexual equality, doing away with sexual stereotypes in society and emphasising the importance of self-determination.

  The material is being distributed free to secondary schools on request, Ms Yuen says, with 200 Catholic and non-Catholic schools taking up the offer. The material is also available to community centres, to churches or religious groups.

   Education is a useful way to solicit support for women's equality both inside and outside church, she says. 'People may begin to think about the issue once they become aware of stereotypes.'     Sister Marie Remedios, an episcopal delegate who serves as a representative of the Bishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal John Baptist Wu Cheng-chung, on educational matters, agrees that more attention should be paid to the role of women in the Church. But, she notes, it is often a low priority among parishioners.

   'Most people are more concerned with equality in the workplace, or other more important issues,' she says.

   She agrees women are in the minority on most religious committees but says this reflects society as a whole. 'Women are under-represented in the Government too,' she says.

   Despite the heated discussion under way on women priests in North and South America, she does not support the proposed change. She does not feel women's ordination is an issue of equality, but one of different roles. 'Jesus chose men to represent him in the priesthood,' she says.

   Not everyone agrees. In a position paper explaining its stance on the ordination of women, the Hong Kong Women's Christian Council (HKWCC), comprising Catholics and Protestants, states: 'God is not male.'   HKWCC general-secretary Rose Wu Lo-sai does not feel the Vatican's authority should extend to a ban on women becoming priests. 'Women should be allowed to decide for themselves. The Vatican is a male-dominated power echelon.'     A recent episode of the US documentary series Sixty Minutes Plus carried fiercer criticism from representatives of the American groups, Call to Action and the Coalition of American Nuns, which are fighting for equality.

  Members said that a truly holy spiritual church would not teach people that some had the right to dominate others in the name of God, and pointed out the singular structure of the Vatican which allowed one person, advised by celibate and mostly elderly men, supreme authority and the power to tell the world how to behave.

  The programme reported that in Chicago defiant nuns have conducted Mass on their own in small groups.

  The Pope, however, has refused to give ground. In a letter issued in June to the Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Women, he reiterated the Vatican tradition, at the same time upholding other controversial teachings such as the bans on abortion and contraception.

  It is difficult to assess how many local Catholics today accept or adhere to such teachings and their effect on church-goers. Sister Marie agrees some have left, guilt-ridden, knowing they cannot live up to what they are supposed to do.

   Chancellor of the Hong Kong Catholic Diocese Father Lawrence Lee agrees there is room for change in the Church given the changing social climate.

  One way may be to involve more people in the decision-making process, he says. However, on the issue of women ordination, he says, one has to take into consideration the views of all churches.

  Earlier this year the HKWCC tried to draw Catholics' attention to the equality issue. To commemorate Women's Day, the group had wanted to publish a signed letter stressing equal opportunities for men and women in leadership, decision-making and preaching in a Catholic weekly newspaper, Kung Kao Pao. But the paper refused to publish it.

   The full-page letter made no explicit call for women's ordination but called for wide-ranging changes, such as the introduction of feminist theology at all seminaries to 'rediscover the status of women from the perspectives of the Bible, theology, church history and pastoral care'. In the end, it was published by the Christian Times newspaper.

   Some, however, have objected to a rush towards overturning the male-only ordination tradition and suggest that a re-evaluation of the practice is needed first. A theology teacher, who wants to remain anonymous, warns it is risky to overturn the priestly tradition without examining the basis for it.

  'We need to find out in a scientific way whether the rule on priests was due to social customs at a particular period of time or a revelation from God.'   But, she says, such an evaluation is not a top priority for many who see other issues as more pressing.

  'There may be women who want to be priests but people rarely talk about it. To us, there are other more pressing issues, like the Church's relationship with the society it is in,' she says.

  Where equality could more quickly be achieved is in employment, she believes. Like certain employers in the secular sector, some Catholic agencies are less inclined to hire women employees, she says.

  Father Lee says he has not heard of any unfair employment practices among Catholic organisations.

  Meanwhile, although the first Protestant female pastor in Hong Kong, the late Florence Li Tim-oi, was appointed in 1944, prospects for women are still limited. The territory has about 1,000 men pastors and 30 women pastors. Some churches still forbid women from reading the Bible in the pulpit, says Reverend Lee Ching-Chee, who was ordained in the 1960s.

  To the HKWCC this underlines an imbalance in the division of labour in Protestant churches, despite the fact that over the congregations are women.

    A survey of 66 preachers by the HKWCC in 1990 found men generally enjoyed better pay and fringe benefits. In most cases, they were also more experienced and educated.

   Reverend Lee says she has noticed that it often takes women much longer to be made pastors than their male counterparts with similar qualifications and abilities.

  'It is a pity,' she says. 'It is quite contradictory that churches have lagged behind in advocating equality while our society is moving in that direction.' 



Struggle for a place in the priesthood