Italian Women Theologians and another way of inhabiting the world

The Italian women theologians of the CTI, the Coordination that brings together almost two hundred members, held their annual seminar in Rome, and this year’s title is certainly a program, but also a concern, tension, and perspective: The Right Limit. Strategies of Violence, Possibilities of Peace. This is a further concrete example of how women theologians are actively contributing to the debate on crucial contemporary issues. In times of wars and “unscrupulous practices of domination”, the seminar was announced as “a day of reflection and debate on the possibilities of opening pathways for another way of inhabiting the world”.

The presentations were entrusted to Emanuela Buccioni, a biblical scholar; Cristina Simonelli, a church historian and professor of Patristic Theology; Letizia Tomassone, a pastor of the Waldensian Church; Donata Horak, a professor of Canon Law; Vincenzo Rosito, a professor of Political and Social Philosophy; and Stella Morra, a professor of Fundamental Theology.

“This issue of defining the limit is the central question that theology must address”, said Morra. “The ‘from here on’ is no longer tolerable”.

Italian women theologians are a precise and specific voice in the debate on the role of women in the Church. Some of them—such as the president Lucia Vantini (in the photo by Silvia Zanconato) and Stella Morra, among others—have been heard in recent months by the Pope in the C9, the council of cardinals that Francis established just a few months after his election to the Papacy to help and advise him on the governance and issues of the Church.

The women at the C9 are part of “an absolutely new practice: five meetings in which the cardinals and the Pope listen to women. They do not talk about women, but listen to women speak about their own problems and allow themselves to be challenged”, as highlighted by Sister Regina da Costa Pedro, a missionary of the Immaculate and director of the Pontifical Mission Societies (PMS) of Brazil, after having dialogued with Francis and the cardinals.

The theologians of the Coordination, founded twenty years ago, wisely capture and express the concerns of women in the Church, the Church’s stance towards women in society, and vice versa. They develop thoughts that form an important basis for reflection and initiate processes.

For years, they have been editing and publishing the series Sui generis, Teologhe e Teologie [Sui Generis, Theologues and Theologies], Exousia, and De Genere, with titles that address contemporary issues and examine current problems. Like Giustizia riparativa: itinerari biblici e meditazione umanistica [Restorative Justice: Biblical Itineraries and Humanistic Meditation] by Donata Horak and Fede e Femminismo. Saggi ecumenici [Faith and Feminism. Ecumenical Essays], edited by B. Diane Lipsett, Phyllis Trible, and Renata Bedend, with a preface by Letizia Tomassone.