From Homo economicus to Homo ecologicus ~ Sequel 5 ~ Human Agency
Luis T. Gutiérrez
May 2022
Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, an apostolic letter published by Pope St. John Paul II in 1994, was the climax of religious patriarchalism and arguably the climax of the patriarchal culture that has prevailed since the inception of human history. This ancient culture of competition and domination, as opposed to collaboration and resilience to pursue social/ecological justice in harmony with the human habitat, has led human civilization to acts of violent ecocide and has induced the social/ecological crisis now unfolding worldwide. History confirms that religious patriarchy and the patriarchal culture are inextricably connected and reinforce each other. Click on the image to enlarge.
Human agency is the human capacity to act in ways that influence human communities and the human habitat. The choices any acting person makes over time are influenced by culture and the evolution of culture. Since time immemorial, the patriarchal culture of human supremacy has prevailed, with nefarious social and ecological consequences. Integral development of the human person is forged by the way he or she acts within the web of human relations in which the person is embedded. Human agency emanates from the choices a person makes to guide his or her actions.
Moral agency is human agency guided by notions of right and wrong. The choices made are also influenced by culture, including religious traditions. All the major religious traditions are culturally patriarchal, and therefore share a propensity to competition (via proselytism) and male domination by brute force. The Christian ethos is no exception, as evidenced (in the Catholic and Orthodox churches, for example) by the reluctance to have women in roles of apostolic authority:
Cartoon courtesy of David Hayward.
Click on the image to enlarge.
1. Jesus Christ is the Redeemer, God made flesh, not a patriarch.
2. God the Father is a person, but not a male.
3. God the Son is a person, but was not a male before the incarnation.
4. God the Holy Spirit is a person, but not a male.
5. The Trinity is a communion of persons, not a patriarchate.
6. The "Son of Man" is God made flesh, not a patriarch.
7. All men and women are fully consubstantial in one and the same human nature.
8. Bodiliness and sexuality are not simply identical.
9. Being a body-soul is more fundamental for human nature than sexuality.
10. The body is a sacrament of the entire person, but is not the entire person.
11. The priest acts in the person of Christ, not in the masculinity of Christ.
12. All men and women are ontologically homogeneous in their whole being.
13. All men and women are of the same flesh in their somatic structure.
14. The complementarity of man and woman is enabled by their consubstantiality.
15. All men and women are fully consubstantial with Jesus Christ as to his humanity.
16. For the redemption, the masculinity of Jesus is as incidental as the color of his eyes.
17. Jesus Christ is the Bread of Life, not the male of life.
18. The substance of the Eucharist is BODY, not XX or XY chromosomes.
19. The substance of the Eucharist is FLESH, not testosterone.
20. The Church is "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic," but not necessarily patriarchal.
21. Patriarchy is a disordered attachment to the supremacy of masculinity.
22. The Church is a communion of persons, not a patriarchate.
23. The Church is the body of Christ, not a woman with a male head.
24. The Virgin Mary is the "type" of the Church, not a woman with a male head.
25. The Virgin Mary precedes the sacramental economy as Mother of the Eucharist.
26. The Marian dimension of the Church precedes the apostolic dimension.
27. Apostolic succession is contingent on redeemed flesh, not on masculinity.
28. The nuptial mystery of Christ and the Church is not a patriarchal marriage.
29. Canon 1024 is an artificial contraceptive and abortifacient of female priestly vocations.
30. Catechism 1577 reduces the priesthood of the New Law to priesthood of the Old Law.
31. Catechism 1598 declares that ordaining only males is a choice, not a dogma.
32. The exclusively male priesthood makes invisible the "feminine genius" in Christ.
33. The Christian/Catholic/Orthodox faith is not intrinsically (dogmatically) patriarchal.
34. The conflation of patriarchal gender ideology and Christian doctrines is a disgrace.
35. Institutionalized ecclesiastical patriarchy is an abuse against Christ and the Church.
36. It is time to discard the patriarchal scaffolding that obscures the Catholic faith.
37. Male headship is an ancient but entirely artificial cultural custom, not natural law.
38. After the resurrection, nothing requires that apostolic succession be exclusively male.
39. The first "transubstantiation" in history happened in the Blessed Virgin Mary's body.
40. Transubstantiation can happen via women ordained to act in persona Christi.
When Jesus chose the twelve male apostles to represent the patriarchs of the twelve tribes of Israel, was he mandating that only males could follow them in apostolic succession? No, that would be a listeralist reading of the gospel texts that is no longer credible because it emanates from the patriarchal culture and the anthropologically false sex/gender binary whereby women are "defective males."
Twenty centuries after the redemption, the patriarchal gender ideology of male headship and sex/gender binary continues to exclude women from sacramental ordination in the Catholic Church. It is time to leave behind the conflation of revealed truth and patriarchal gender ideology; it is time for the hierarchy of the Church to exemplify the redeemed "unity on diversity" of man and woman by ordaining women to the ministerial priesthood.
Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is not a dogma of the Catholic faith. It is an admission that we are still prisoners of patriarchal gender ideology and patriarchal theology, but apostolic succession is not dogmatically masculine. By the power of the keys, the church can and should ordain women to the ministerial priesthood.
"What is not assumed is not redeemed." Humanity is male and female, not male or female. For the redemption, and the sacramental economy, what really matters is the body-soul humanity of Jesus, not simply his masculinity; for the New Law, what matters is that the Word became flesh, not that Jesus is male. The Church should stop defending culturally biased doctrines and allow Christ to call women to the priesthood and the episcopate.
"As seafaring colonizers divvied up the world and justified their actions using the Doctrine of Discovery, the era of land-grabbing imperialism led to outrageous exploitation of indigenous peoples and ecosystems." A Load of Papal Bull: Greenlighting Colonization and the Mindset of Extraction, Asher Miller, Rob Dietz, and Jason Bradford, Resilience, 7 April 2022. See also
The Doctrine of Discovery. Click the image to enlarge.
Fast forward 500 years, and now we hear news of Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox church supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Never mind the solemn prayers for peace at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. Prayers notwithstanding, it is hard to imagine that this religious blessing of the invasion is unrelated to the ongoing rift with the Ukrainian Orthodox church over issues of religious jurisdiction after the Ukrainian church realigned with the Ecumenical Patriarch in Istanbul. Again, Christians fighting a "holy war" against Christians. Again, Christians killing each other and wasting enormous amounts of resources in a war where the degree of barbarity is completely out of proportion with any nationalist issues and/or geopolitical factors in Eastern Europe. This is religious violence conflated with secular violence, driven by delusions of grandeur in both the religious and secular domains. It is a toxic mix of religious patriarchy and maternalistic Mother Russia, with the feminine symbol at the service of the masculine agent, as usual. But isn't Mary, Mother of God, also used a maternal symbol at the service of a masculinized God and the male (exclusively male!) hierarchy in the Catholic Church? It is pathetic.
In various ways, there seems to be a resurgence of religious intolerance that populist demagogues are using to dupe people and advance their political agendas. This kind of human agency is very dangerous. We don't need wars (hot or cold) and we don't need culture wars pursuant to recovering past delusions of grandeur. The following video is an interview with Rex Weyler, founder of Greenpeace International. He also has published a book, The Jesus Sayings: The Quest for His Authentic Message, that is recommended for Christians seeking to know more about the historical Jesus and subsequent cultural accretions. We need more of this kind of human agency, and less religious pomp and circumstance rooted in ancient patriarchal ideologies.
It is crucial to recognize that patriarchy is a cultural/social pathology that conditions people (especially men) to dominate other people (especially women) and the entire community of creation. Religious patriarchy is the most harmful symptom of such pathology, because religion influences people most deeply in their personal subjectivity. Seeking new paths for integral human development, and for an integral ecology, is an exercise in futility as long as this pathology is not mercifully healed in both secular and religious institutions. Let us pray that discerning New Paths for the Church and for an Integral Ecology leads to rediscovering the original unity of man and woman, restored by the redemption 2000 years ago, in this Season of Creation 2022. Let us pray for the ordination of women to the priesthood and the episcopate. Is there hope? Listen to the first eight seconds of this video:
He expresses hope for "ordained sisters" as a future possibility. This used to be anathema. So, there is hope. Going forward in the historical human journey, Pope Francis' encyclicals Laudato Si' on sustainability, and Fratelli Tutti on solidarity, are good guidance for human agency by all men and women of good will. There is an intrinsic connection between the two encyclicals, because ecological sustainability is not attainable without human solidarity. The Laudato Si' Action Platform and the Laudato Si' Movement are recommended as a most effective means, especially for 1.2 billion Catholics, to play a part in conscious cultural evolution for the renewal of humanity and human civilization:
Goals of the Laudato Si' Action Platform:
(1) Hearing the Cry of the Earth
(2) Hearing the Cry of the Poor
(3) Ecological Economics
(4) Adoption of Sustainable Lifestyles
(5) Ecological Education
(6) Ecological Spirituality
(7) Community Resilience and Empowerment.
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