Just Church: Catholic Social Teaching, Synodality, and Women
by Phyllis Zagano
What’s the main point? Zagano asks the important question of how Catholic social teaching (CST) applies not only “beyond” the church, but also within the church. In particular, she highlights elements of CST such as human dignity and the preferential option for the poor to ask how these principles apply to women within the church. She envisions the possibility that synods themselves can be occasions not only for listening and responding to women’s experiences but also be catalysts for the structural inclusion of women in ecclesial discernment and decision-making.
What will get you thinking? As an advocate for the restoration of the diaconate to women, Zagano underscores the significance of the lack of ministry to women as part of the church’s institutional structures: “The question arises: ‘If the exclusion of women as deacons today is based on the assumption that the women deacons of history ministered only to women and children, then who ministers to women today?’” (72).
What will most inspire you? While many may feel as though their ability to impact ecclesial structures are limited, one of the implications of Zagano’s argument is that all the baptized ought to be actively examining the life of the church in light of Catholic social teaching. How do our parish liturgies, pastoral councils, catechesis, and outreach programs stand up to the principles of CST? How might leaders, whether lay or ordained, reform parishes to better embody the just social relationships the church hopes to foster through CST?
Where would I push back? Zagano argues that women’s experiences, particularly those of impoverished and marginalized women, must be taken seriously. It is disappointing that her book itself cites few sources written by women. Ways in which women’s vulnerability is compounded within society and the church as well as pathways forward could be illustrated by the experiences of women from the east and global south, as well as women whose work focuses on intersecting social identities.
Suggestions: Zagano undertakes the important task of making her ideas available to a popular audience rather than limiting them to specialists in the academy. Nevertheless, taking greater care to avoid generalizations and imprecision could allow her argument to remain accessible while advancing its depth and clarity. For example, significant terms need more refinement and nuance: Zagano describes ecclesiology too narrowly as the application of theology to church structures (xix), and elsewhere she ignores synods as structures in Christian traditions beyond Roman Catholicism (27). More critically, while Zagano draws some implications from CST for relationships within the church, these insights need fleshing out; this could help her to convey both the realities of women’s experiences within the church and foster a vision for how CST can help transform women’s ecclesial experiences.
Zagano. Phyllis. Just Church: Catholic Social Teaching, Synodality, and Women, Paulist Press, 2023, p. xi-95, $17.95, ISBN 978-08091-8814-7
REVIEWER: Amanda C. Osheim
Amanda C. Osheim, Ph.D. is Professor of Practical Theology and the Endowed Professor of the Breitbach Catholic Thinkers and Leaders Program at Loras College in Dubuque, IA. She is the author of A Ministry of Discernment: The Bishop and the Sense of the Faithful (Liturgical Press), and she publishes and presents on the church and synodality for both academic and pastoral audiences.