The apostolic letter Mulieris dignitatem published by John Paul II on 15^th August 1988, fits explicitly in the context of the 1987 Marian year, in strict connection with the Encyclical Redemptoris Mater. This Marian and Mario-logical physiognomy, read by some commentators as richness, by others rather like a “bond” in regard of the women’s  vocation and mission, constitutes anyhow an indispensable key of reading for the understanding of the document.

The Woman and women

The fundamental theological idea, in fact, is that the woman –rather, the Woman- is at the centre of salvation event. “The sending of the Son, consubstantial to the Father, as man “born from a woman”, constitutes the culminating and definitive point of God’s self-revelation to humanity. This self-revelation has a saving character (….); the woman is at the heart of this saving event” (No. 3).  

The successive point develops this idea, “the ‘fullness of time’ manifests the extraordinary dignity of the “woman”» (No. 4), rather «the archetype of the woman’s personal dignity» (No. 5). At the end of the Mariological part this intention is re-affirmed solemnly and partly explained: the dignity of each person, and the vocation correspondent to this dignity, find their ultimate measurement in the union with God

In this case, the woman represents the entire humanity, made up of men and women.  «On the other side, however, the Nazareth event highlights a form of union with the living God, that can belong exclusively to the “woman”, Mary: the union between mother and son» (n. 4). The term Theotòkos itself, that is Mother of God, recognised to Mary in the Council of Ephesus, according to the encyclical, expresses the particular meaning of union with God. To this purpose, a relevant observation on the subjectuality of Mary is advanced (therefore on the role of the feminine subjectuality in the work of salvation): on one side this very special union is pure grace, a gift of the Spirit, on the other side, Mary with her consensus of faith, manifests her free will, the full participation of the “I” in the event of incarnation and becomes a true human subject that is going to be fulfilled in her

In the Annunciation also the dialogical character is underlined (See. n.5), which is also a characteristic of the covenant in its wholeness.

Though on the line of post-council reflection for what regards Mary, the Apostolic Letter seems to pose the accent more on the ancillarity than on a disciple’s reading. It is probably because of its symbolic valence. The expression «Servant of the Lord» consents to establish a parallel with Jesus “come to serve” and identifies in the Christian reading with the Servant of the Lord, whom the second Isaiah speaks of: therefore, it underlines the union of man and woman’s vocation: however this is one of the problematic knots of the Encyclical, the at least implicit tendency to put in parallel the relation man-woman and that of Christ-Mary. Verses 2-5 of Mulieris dignitatem, converge particularly on Mary, though there are countless reminders in the remaining part.

Without any doubt, the Biblical part (Nos. 6-14) is the best and, apart from the theological-Biblical value, it is also historically meaningful: It is the first time that an official document  openly –and enthusiastically, we would say- perceives mostly the acquisitions of the best feminine theological reflection. 

Image and similitude

The letter starts from the stories of creation in the Genesis, foundation of the theological anthropology of the sexes. The human being is the apex of creation, and the human being is thought of by God from the very beginning as a “couple” united in love an in mutual relationship. “…the truth on the personal character of the human being emerges from the Biblical notion. Man is a person in equal measure man and woman: in fact, both of them were created to the image and likeness of the personal God.” (No. 6). The first blessing of God was addressed to this primordial human couple, indistinctly from its very creating act.

The more mythic and figurative character is underlined by the second story of creation which, among other things, has determined more influence from the imaginary aspect in all epochs and by the fact that, despite the great difference of narrations, there is a surprising convergence towards the theo-anthopological message: the mythical detail of the woman being created from a rib of man, which has been read for a very long time in  a key of subordination (a derivation as inferiority), helps us to understand more deeply the equality between man and woman, expressed as another “I”, as an interlocutor near man….”(n. 6)

N.7, that is of an extraordinary theological importance, analyses in particular the theme of “help”, the ’adiutorium simile sibi, which we know very well has been subjected in the past to many equivocations of patriarchal and andocentric character. In reality the “likeness”, which comes with the Vulgata translation, would be better expressed with “correspondent”; the original text has the literal meaning of “like against him” (that is: at whose eyes we can see oneself!!). If the Fathers of the Church, not different from the most traditionalist Rabbi, read only the woman as help to man, and not vice-versa  -for which te woman finished by feeling to be an added being, complementary, more or less “supplementary”-, and the help referred only to the act of generation (since, as St. Augustine candidly observes, for any other activity man could be better helped by another man),  the  Mulieris dignitatem recognises and says officially what the XX century exegesis, above all the Biblical feminine reflection had brought to evidence, often in a marginal and suspicious way, if compared with the more official preaching. Woman and man were created by God as reciprocal “help”, never in view of a function, very noble as it may be, like the generative one, but for sharing, humanisation and enrichment of the entire existence.  In a certain sense, reciprocal help “allows one and the other to discover always anew and to confirm the integral sense of one’s own humanity (…) Humanity means: call to interpersonal communion» (n. 7).

An indispensable digression

It is well known that in the Western history, putting aside other cultures, we find different models of relation between the sexes, and all of them influence in different ways the official thought of the Church in the various epochs.

Historically predominant –in the sense that it has been theorised until a century ago not only in the Christian community, but also in the lay area, in the legislation and custom- is the model of subordination, for which the woman, though recognised at par with man in the Christian epoch, is subordinated to him in the order of nature. We know that the order of nature is actually predominant and anyhow more visible in society and human relation: This means that the Christian newness tended to be re-absorbed by tradition and by custom up to the point of becoming invisible.

The progressing of civilisation and the great romantic season influence this model of subordination, without undermining, but with various kinds of sweetening and idealisation. Leo XIII, in his Encyclical Letter “Arcanum divinae sapientiae” (1880: the first one dedicated to Christian matrimony throughout Church History), stated that the wife, according to the unchangeable project of God must be submitted to her husband, however not in morem ancillae, but in morem sociae: “not like a servant, but as a companion”. Beyond the noble intentions, the assumed thesis sounds like an insoluble aporia, because the being companions is co-notated as being at the same level.

The model of complementarity was affirmed in the XX century, when the woman was seen as complementary to man, necessary for him to complete his own personality and existence. This is undoubtedly evolved, if compared to the previous model, being it more attentive to the dignity of the woman and to the value of communion; however it keeps its attention centred on man-male (they speak of complementarity only about the woman in her relation with man, never vice-versa) and it does not put under discussion the general model of the human and social relations. The idea, of philosophical-literary derivation, and with a trace of the eternal feminine, is favourably welcomed by the Church: it is found above all in the flourishing current of the 50s, stimulated by the Holy Year 1950. It was called: Theology of the woman (one of the many “theologies of the genitive” which was affirmed at that time, like the theology of terrestrial realities, the theology of the laity…) and it had nothing to do with the feminine theology or feminist theology that would follow, being it anyhow a theological reflection elaborated unilaterally by men (most of whom clerics, therefore celibates), in which the woman constituted always the object, never the subject. A unilateral relation can never help the growth of relations.    

We need to wait for the developments of Christian personalism and its reception on behalf of the Church (which can be considered as concluded with Vatican II), to see the model of mutual relation, of reciprocity undoubtedly assumed by the Pope in Mulieris dignitatem: «We read that man cannot exist “all alone”(See: Gen 2,18); he can exist only as “unity of the two”, therefore in relation with another human person. It is the matter of reciprocal relation: of man towards the woman and of woman towards man. To be a person to the image and similitude of God implies also and existing in relation with another “I”. This preludes to the definitive self-revelation of God one and triune: a living unity in the communion of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” (n. 7).

Thus it becomes possible –basing it on the two fundamental principles of the through in the Letter (the person as image of God and the mutual relation between man and woman) - to affirm that man and woman, in their tending towards one another, are “image” of the relational and creator God; they realise the “likeness” by living their union of love in history with a character of authentic reciprocity.  This concerns above all the matrimonial reality, but not only it, “The whole history of man on earth is realised within this call. According to the principle  of the reciprocal being for one another, in the interpersonal communion, the integration of humanity itself develops in this history, wanted by God, of what is male and what is female» (n. 7).

To say that man is created to the image and likeness of God, that he creates different things to communicate himself, for the human being means also the call to exist for others, thus to use his life as a gift. Man and woman realise this fundamental call according to their own peculiarities.  

To be the image of God –foundation of our personal dignity, in the Christian tradition- is not meant only for man and woman considered individually, but also for their relational structure, for their union that gives the image of the Trinitarian reciprocity. Believing in a God Trinity, means that the God we believe in is relational in His very deep essence. “Only like this the truth that God is love in himself becomes comprehensible (See 1 John: 4, 16)» (n. 7). Sin, as we shall say further “blurs”, “diminishes” the image, but cannot destroy it.

The images of God

Connected with the previous one in considering the theme of the image- No 8 is of a fundamental importance for another reason also. The Biblical revelation constitutes also a “discourse of God on himself”. Speaking first through the prophets, then through His Son (See: Hebrews: 1, 1.2), God uses a human, logical language, with human images and similitude. From this, above all in the Old Testament, could derive the effect of certain anthropomorphism. This, as the Letter says, depends on the fact that man is in the likeness of God (likeness not equal), and therefore God also can be thought of somehow “like” man, though remaining totally the Other.

Always remembering anyhow we add –it is only a making explicit of what the document means in underlining the limits of analogy-, that it is a matter of images and figures, not of the ineffable reality of God “in Him”. Every time an image (there are also mental images besides the physical ones) is made absolute and adored in place of the ineffable reality it should mediate, one falls into idolatry.   

A non discussable merit of Mulieris dignitatem is to be found in the overcome instinctive, traditional conception of a “male” God. The Letter gives value to the most significant maternal images of God (we need not underline the male ones, being they well known and relevant; statistically, because more numerous, as well as in the history of effects”). It adds an observation of high relevance on the main human hypostasis of God, which is that of the Father: «This characteristic of the Biblical language (…) shows also indirectly the mystery of the eternal “generating” that belongs to the intimate life of God. However, the “generating” does not possess in itself the “masculine” or “feminine” quality. It is of totally divine nature. It is spiritual in a perfect way, because “God is spirit” (John: 4, 24) […]. Therefore, paternity also is wholly divine in God, free from corporeal male characteristic, which is specific of the human paternity. (n.8). Therefore there is no human “parental being” like the divine one; while the generating act of us creatures finds its first model in the “generating act” of God, which is divine and entirely spiritual, “In the human order, instead, the act of generating is specific of the two”: both are generators, man as well as woman.

Man, woman, sin

Nos.  9 and 10 turn on the theme of sin, and a fundamental principle concerning sin stated by them, in which the one who signs openly dissociates himself not only from the traditional voices (from the time of the first Christian writers), but also by some neo-testamentary authors  who attribute substantially to the woman the first responsibility of sin, leaving to man the fault of having seconded her wish. First of all, it is reiterated that the responsibility of sin is of the human being as such, and therefore cannot be attributed in a privileged way to one of the two sexes; we remember that the first consequence of sin is division, understood as loss of harmony (of the human being with God, with the other, with self and nature), but also as “cultural” division of roles. “There is no doubt that, independently from this “distribution of Parts” in the Biblical description, the first sin is the sin of man, created male and female by God, (…). At the same time, however, the human being also –man and woman- is touched by the evil of sin, of which it is the author”  (n. 9).

Briefly, according to the Author, the dominion of man on woman which we find also in the Scripture, at least in many of its pages, is real, but a consequence of sin, and cannot therefore be attributed to the unchangeable will of God. “This “dominion” indicates the upsetting and the loss of stability of the fundamental equality, that man and woman posses in their unity while only the equality resulting from the dignity of both as persons, can give to the reciprocal relations the character of an authentic communio personarum» (n. 10).

The recognition of a lasting value follows: the violation of this equality, which at the same time is gift and right deriving from the same God Creator, historically it is carried on to the disadvantage of the woman, but at the same time it diminishes also the true dignity of man.

The old-testamentary part, to a certain sense, acts as a zip between the old-testament part and the New-Testament one in the Biblical reflection of Mulieris dignitatem n. 11, under the meaningful title of proto-Gospel, as the promise of God 3, 15 in Genesis is usually called: “I shall put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers: it will bruise your head and you will strike its heel”. The Marian layout of the document, already amply founded on Nos. 2-5, comes back to the first level also through recalling an old and classic theme of the Christian tradition, namely the anti-test Eva-Mary.

In the reflection of the Fathers often the perspective appears very much penalising for the historically concrete women: Eva, the mother of all living beings was taken as the representative of all women, while Mary in her perfection and in her privilege as Mother of the Messiah, seemed to represent only herself. With this regard the document makes an important precision, «The woman of the Proto-Gospel is in the perspective of redemption. The comparison Eva-Mary can be understood also in the sense that Mary assumes in herself and embrace the mystery of the “woman”, whose beginning Eva was. (….). Mary means, in a certain sense, to go beyond the limit which the Book Of Genesis speaks of (3, 16) and going back towards the “principle” in which the woman finds herself again as she was wanted at creation, therefore, in the eternal thought of God (…). Mary is the “new principle of the dignity and vocation of the woman, of all women and of each of them” (n. 11).

This idea, which recurs in numberless places and constitutes  without any doubt, the leading thread od the Mulieris dignitatem, has appeared fascinating and promising, while arousing perplexity in others, above all because the difference between symbolic level and historical-ethical level is not always wholly clear, and made explicit.

The freeing praxis of Jesus

Anyhow, no. 7-11 are the doctrinal vertices  of the letter. The remaining Biblical part is very interesting and meaningful, but less new theologically less deepened. This can be said also of nos. 12-16, dedicated to the praxis of Jesus

It is stated that the whole saving project of God “is more cleared by the words of Christ and by his attitude towards women, which is extremely simple and, just for this, extraordinary. (…); an attitude characterised by transparency and depth. Several women appear along te mission of Jesus of Nazareth, and his encounter with each of them confirms “the newness of evangelical life” (n. 12).

Almost all the women whom Jesus met in his public ministry are remembered: the disciples, the women he healed, the interlocutors, in part also the feminine images mentioned during his teaching to the crowds. The impression we draw from all this is that of a complete approach and conduction in terms of a noteworthy positive character; however, we do not have in it the theological-symbolic attention we have met in the first part. Perhaps, the signatory presumes that the public life of Jesus, through the Gospel, is already familiar to his readers. Perhaps, simply, the space at disposal does not consent more deepening (in fact, though the appearing of Mulieris dignitatem impressed us also because of its being quite lengthy, it remains always an encyclical, not a theological essay).

The forbidding of repudiation (Matthew: 19, 6) is read in a key of attention to the feminine dignity, re-stating that the ethos of communion at par and relational imprinted in creation “is reminded and confirmed by the words of Christ: it is the ethos of the Gospel and of redemption” (n. 12).

All, or almost all the women of the Gospel pass rapidly under the eyes of the readers: the curved woman healed by JESUS, the Samaritan, the repented sinner Luke speaks of (for a long time identified as Mary of Magdala), Peter’s mother-in-law, the woman who suffered of haemorrhage, the Canaanite or Syro-Phaenician , the daughter of Jairus, the widow of Nairn, the adulterous (to whom a particular attention is dedicated, as a woman victim of sin and of the injustice of men), Mary and Martha of Bethany, the woman who mysteriously anoints Jesus with a precious ointment a few day before his passion

We are a bit sorry to notice that the Mulieris dignitatem does not use (we would say: avoids accurately) the term of disciples for the women who follow Jesus in a stable and itinerant way; this, however, may depend on the fact that, even today, the exegetes to not all agree that they were considered, or could be considered, or they themselves considered to be disciples.

The Mulieris dignitatem says only, quoting almost literally Luke 8, 1-3, that “at times the women, whom Jesus met and who received many graces from Him, accompanied him, while with the apostles he went through cities and towns announcing the Gospel of God’s Kingdom;  they assisted him with their own goods”. Out of the women the Gospel mentions Joanne, wife of the administrator of Herod, Suzanne and “many more” (n. 13). It is surprising that here Mary of Magdala is not mentioned, though she had a primacy role among the group of the followers of Jesus and is always mentioned first of all from among them; however, she is recuperated in the supreme ecangelical role as witness of the Resurrection (n. 16).

As conclusion of this part we can say that the equality between man and woman in the project of God is remembered also in relation with the work of the Holy Spirit, “Both of them welcome his saving and sanctifying “visitations”. The fact of being man or woman does not imply any limitation, just as it does not limit at all the saving and sanctifying action of the Spirit in man. The fact of being Jew or Greek, slave or free, according to the well-known words of the Apostle, “All of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3, 28). This unity does not annul diversity…” (n. 16). Therefore, every vocation has a deeply personal and prophetic sense.

Lilia Sebastiani
Articolista e conferenziera in materia teologica
Via Isonzo, 9 - 05100 Terni