What Paul’s boat teaches us

If there is a deeply traditional idea that the Second Vatican Council allowed us to internalize, it is that the Church does not coincide with the hierarchy. The Council permitted us to affirm in every possible way what we have always known, which is the Church is the people of all those who believe in the Gospel, who have been and are baptized in this faith, and who want to live this faith, notwithstanding all the poverty that marks their experience.

Therefore, it is not the right question to ask a believer why they remain in the Church, since each believer -together with others- is the Church. We might instead ask the same person what makes them suffer in experiencing and speaking of the Church of which they are a vital  member and whether this suffering might lead them to distance themselves, to disengage, or to invest elsewhere the resources that the Gospel offers. In reality, many already do this. In fact, there has been added to this phenomenon a faith in God without feeling the need to belong to the Church, which has been observed for decades (although no one can know how much this is a Christian faith or a different religious experience expressed with Christian categories, as our cultural context only offers those). The phenomenon of those who, having consciously embraced the Christian faith, distance themselves from the life of the Church because it does not help them, but rather hinders them in living the faith they have come to know. However, these people distance themselves because of the disappointment of not finding what was promised to them, because they perceive themselves to have been betrayed, and not because they do not consider themselves to be the Church. If the Church were to take different paths, they would resume their commitment.

I will give a concrete example of the issue of women to clarify what I am talking about, and I choose this because it is within my expertise and personally involves me. In the Church, the symbolic and practical imbalance between the sexes is enormous, and comparable to that which existed in Western societies three hundred years ago (and today’s societies have not resolved the issue; in fact, quite the opposite). If we applied the ordinary criteria used to calculate the gender gap to the ecclesiastical institution, we would realize the absolute gravity of the situation. This situation cannot be solved by a few leaders (who are always male) by assigning certain responsibilities to a few women (of course) whom they prefer. Without structural changes to social rules, the game does not change and the imbalance remains.

Today, the symbolic and practical imbalance between women and men is not only blatantly – at least in parts of the world that have acquired equal dignity and capability between the sexes – humanly unjust, but it also makes the Church weaker because she cannot invest the resources and charisms that the Spirit gives to women. Consequently, this renders the Church a discredited witness to the Gospel, who makes no distinction among people, nor can the Church, in these conditions, be a sign of the unity of all humankind (cf. Lumen Gentium 1). Thus, the entire Church is damaged by her inability to recognize the imbalance. In addition, she is enormously weaker and less credible (even becoming scandalous in this specific aspect). Indeed, many (especially women) have left because of this scandalous imbalance. Why then do others who also perceive the imbalance and injustice so strongly continue their commitment to a real ecclesial change?

The right question is not why one does not leave the Church – since one cannot leave once one has known and loved the God of Jesus – but rather why one does not cease to commit oneself to renewing and reforming a Church that, for the most part (but is this true? Or is it just the part that has more visibility?), thinks she only needs to make small adjustments to continue essentially as she always has (and this position is also based on a myth, as a little knowledge of history shows that we have continually changed doctrines, practices, and rites). Why do we continue to persevere in the effort to make the damage of the imbalance between the sexes understood when it is more than evident that the social entity does not want to hear about it or even pretends to tell women who notice this injustice that in reality, there is no injustice? Should we not go elsewhere to find a ‘land’ with fewer stones and thorns?

In trying to answer this question, I do not claim to provide an answer that applies to everyone or that takes into account all the perspectives and sufferings involved. I offer, for what it is worth and nothing more, my testimony of ecclesial commitment for over thirty years. My answer is rooted in the same dynamic that began to make me feel part of the Church many years ago. It is not possible to discover the Gospel without feeling inextricably linked to all those who recognize Jesus as Lord, and it is not possible to discover the Gospel without wanting to do good to all creatures (human and non) because the God of life desires the flourishing of all of them. For this inextricable bond, when one realizes that what is needed in the Church is not being done, is not being recognized, or that the demands of the Gospel are being ignored, those who notice this cannot help but give voice (while being aware of their own limits and infidelities) to the demands for ecclesial conversion and reform. My answer on why I continue in my commitment thus returns to the Gospel that binds me not only to God but also to all others.

I cannot leave because I am also on this boat that gathers those who have believed and carries a treasure for all, which is the faith and lives of those who have believed. However, I cannot remain passive because the storm that threatens the credibility and ecclesial life is raging fiercely. Hence the perseverance in the commitment that the Church herself asks of me (because she knows she needs it). Therefore, all those who perceive the storm can manage to do what Paul did during the shipwreck described in the Acts of the Apostles. Paul indeed makes every effort, with persuasion, prayer, sharing, intelligence, and care, to save all the lives at the mercy of the waves, and to do this he does not hesitate to throw everything on the boat overboard, even to destroy the boat itself.

I do not devote elsewhere what the Gospel has offered me. Why? Because I am bound to other lives and do not want any of them to be lost. I do not go elsewhere because the credibility of the Gospel proclamation, which all humanity needs (the precious pearl that must be found), depends on the renewal and reform of the Church to uplift, rest, heal, hope, and change her way of being in the world. This is what keeps me going. Of course, sometimes I have the impression that the ecclesial approach is to throw lives overboard in an attempt to keep the damaged carcass of a useless and empty ship, and this causes me deep suffering, but as long as people’s lives are at stake, I cannot and do not want to leave. Lives that matter to many, lives that we want to protect and help flourish, lives that want to reach safety on the shore. With this tension, even the boat that is falling apart and taking on water might be a good sign, an indication that we are trying to do what we have been entrusted with, which is to give everything to ensure that no one is lost. Perhaps we stay just to help, while a figure of the Church sinks, to commit ourselves so that not even one life is lost, to take care of every blade of grass, child, or fragment of the Church within reach. The rest will grow by itself like the seed of gospel memory.

By Simona Segoloni
* Vice President of the Italian Theologians’ Coordination, and full-time professor of Ecclesiology at the Giovanni Paolo II Theological Institute in Rome