While gobbledygook is a part of neither the theological nor the canonical lexicon, use of the term is perfectly appropriate here. Speaking about the ordained ministry for women, Sr. Mary Barron, the president of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG), has declared:
I think we have to look broader than just can or can we not from a theological or canonical point of view, but in terms of the spirit calling to ministry today and in terms of the needs of mission today, are those calls there and can we continue the discussion.
So it’s not about objective truth, but about people’s subjective feelings. In other words, reality gives way to what I want. This gobbledygook is redolent of the “funny inner feeling” — or FIF — often invoked by Mormons and others whose religion is logically or historically indefensible. It’s true, they say, because of the feeling they had when they were baptized. While there is a place in the true Religion for emotional experience, the great synthesis of Faith and Reason that is the Catholic intellectual achievement is not founded on the shifting sands of human emotion (a.k.a., the passions), but rests on much surer criteria.
It seems to me that the last five words of the above quoted statement (“can we continue the discussion” — which she repeats with emphasis in the video) are the operative words and they fit in nicely with what Cardinal Fernández has said: Vatican declares ‘no room’ for female deacons but will ‘continue the work of in-depth study’. Even though the Church has definitively and infallibly ruled out Holy Orders for women, there is a desire to prolong “the discussion” of the matter.
This strikes me as the strategic use of ambiguity. What better setup than the Synod on Synodality to employ such a stratagem?
Here is Sr. Mary Barron herself, in case you don’t believe me (complements of Michael Haynes):
Sr Mary Barron, leader of @uisg_superiors, says re women deacons that “we tend to look at it from the question of ‘can women be ordained in the church today’ & I think we have to look at the question very much from the spirit. Is the spirit calling women, because some women do… pic.twitter.com/SjPRwsTmqO
— Michael Haynes 🇻🇦 (@MLJHaynes) October 7, 2024
