Thinking about God from Women’s Perspective

Adriana Valerio and Cristina Simonelli are theologians, and scholars. These two women have for years carried forward a courageous and profound reflection on faith, on the Scriptures, and on the Church. Their particular attention has been to the female voice, which has often been marginalized in the traditional religious narrative. Adriana Valerio’s most recent publication is, Le radici del mondo. Eva, le donne e la Bibbia  [The Roots of the World. Eve, Women and the Bible] (Mondadori), and by Cristina Simonelli Cercare Dio? Nicea. Un anniversario audace [Seeking God? Nicaea. A Daring Anniversary] (Centro Ambrosiano) and La Chiesa e i sacramenti [The Church and the Sacraments] (San Paolo). These works may differ in approach and content, yet are united by a clear-sighted, critical, and generative perspective.

Adriana Valerio: Between History and Prophecy

Adriana Valerio is a leading theologian and historian in Italy, and has been a professor of the History of Christianity and Churches at the University of Naples Federico II for many years. She has devoted much of her research to the history of women in the Church and to feminist rereadings of biblical texts. In addition, Adriana is one of the founders of the Italian Women Theologians Coordination and founder of the European Women’s Association for Theological Research, and coordinator of the “Bible and Women” project, which is an international initiative that aims to reinterpret the history of biblical interpretation through a gender lens. In recent years, she has also led the “Women in Dialogue in the Church of Naples” project.

Adriana is one of the first women to be admitted to study at the Faculty of Theology of Southern Italy, and a pioneer of feminist theological reflection in Italy. In Le radici del mondo [The Roots of the World] she takes us on a journey through the Bible via the figure of Eve, the progenitor of humanity and a controversial symbol of guilt, desire, knowledge, and freedom.

Valerio recovers the full complexity of Eve as biblical character, and highlights how her image has been instrumentalized over the centuries to justify women’s subordination. The very title, The Roots of the World, suggests a reversal of perspective, which can be understood as Eve not as the origin of evil, but as the source of life, who is connected to the earth and to generation.

The Neapolitan theologian restores centrality and dignity to the image of Eve, and with her, to all the women in the Bible, who have too often been relegated to marginal roles or read through male categories.

Cristina Simonelli: The Challenge of Nicaea

Cristina Simonelli is a theologian and professor of patristic theology, and one of the most influential voices in Italian feminist theological thought. She served as president of the Italian Women Theologians Coordination, which is an association that has given visibility and collective strength to many scholars engaged in both ecclesial and academic contexts.

Her research spans patristics and contemporary rereadings of the Church Fathers, with particular attention to gender issues. In the volume Cercare Dio? Nicea. Un anniversario audace [Seeking God? Nicaea. A Daring Anniversary], Simonelli reflects on the Council of Nicaea (which began May 20, 325 AD), which is one of the foundational moments of the Christian faith, whose 1700th anniversary we celebrate this month.

However, why should we consider this “an audacious anniversary”? Because Nicaea represents a historic turning point in which the search for God became inextricably linked with power, doctrine, and the need for ecclesial unity, and yet also with the necessity to speak of God without exhausting the mystery. To celebrate its anniversary today means to interrogate not only the past but the Church of the future too. In this, how do we safeguard faith without rigid formulas, and how do we hold together truth and plurality, authority and prophecy, dogma and freedom of thought?  In her book La Chiesa e i sacramenti [The Church and the Sacraments], Simonelli returns once more to Nicaea, and analyzes the historical and dogmatic coordinates of the Nicene Creed and reflects on those who profess, “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church”, and how they celebrate it sacramentally.

Biblical Reflections by Perroni and Zanconato

The publications of these theologians (some of whom -including Valerio and Simonelli- also write for Women Church World, as does Marinella Perroni, who sits on its editorial committee) are far more than academic essays or stimulating reads; instead, they are signs of the times. These texts are acts of critical thought, and therefore indispensable contributions to the renewal of theology and ecclesial life, while offering a new language, fresh perspectives, and profound expertise. Above all, their work embodies a feminine protagonism that does not ask for permission, while exercising responsibility.

For example, La cattedra della Croce – Variazioni sulle ultime parole di Gesù] [The Chair of the Cross - Variations on the Last Words of Jesus], curated by Marinella Perroni and Silvia Zanconato (Queriniana), gathers a series of biblical, spiritual, and poetic reflections on Jesus’s last words on the cross, while offering an unusual meditative journey.