This year’s annual worldwide celebration of International Women’s Day had as its theme “Equality for women is progress for all”.

This international event was commemorated at UN headquarters in New York on 7 March. In his speech in commemoration of International Women’s Day 2014, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that for him “gender equality and women’s empowerment have been a top priority ... from day one”. Furthermore, he stressed that it is when equality for women takes place that real progress for everyone becomes a reality. He backed his argument by saying that “countries with higher levels of gender equality have higher economic growth. Companies with more women on their Boards have higher returns.

“Peace agreements that include women are more successful. Parliaments with more women take up a wider range of issues – including health, education, anti-discrimination, and child support.”

If women’s participation in all life domains is proving vital for the real development of the countries in question, how much more can their participation in the Church’s being and mission become crucial so that the Gospel message of hope is proclaimed to the whole creation? It was the Apostle Paul who, in the third chapter of his letter to the Galatians, states outright that in Christ we are all equal, irrespective if we are men or women. “For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal 3:26-29).

The pastoral consequences for such a statement are huge! In the Church women are co-responsible with men in the foundational task of disseminating the Good News of salvation to everyone. When addressing an audience representing the Centro Italiano Femminile (Italian Women’s Centre) in January, Pope Francis highlighted the importance of Blessed John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter “Mulieris dignitatem” on the dignity and vocation of women, and his message for the 1995 World Day for Peace on the theme “Women: teachers of peace”.

Francis observed: “I too have considered the indispensable contribution of women in society. I have rejoiced in seeing many women sharing some pastoral responsibility with priests accompanying people, families and groups, as in theological reflection, and I have expressed my hope that greater room can be made for a more capillary and incisive female presence in the Church.”

In addition, the Holy Father explained that women can consolidate the Church if they give their utmost to strengthen the family, “the domestic Church”. Pope Francis said: “At this point it is natural to ask: how is it possible for women to increase their effective presence in many contexts within the public sphere, in the world of work and in places where the most important decisions are made, and at the same time maintaining their presence and preferential and entirely special attention in and for the family? Here it is the field of discernment that, aside from reflection on the reality of women in society, presupposes assiduous and persistent prayer.”

But even if they are faithfully fulfilling their primary role within their families’ precincts, the Church craves women’s collaboration in her vast evangelization mission. This is the impression I got when I read what Chiara Amirante, founder of the ‘New Horizons’ Community, a movement within the Catholic Church that puts special emphasis on the New Evangelization, had to say.

“I’m convinced that woman, precisely because of her particular capacity of receptivity, of attention to those who suffer, of listening, because of her sensibility and maternity, her peculiar capacity to love, will be able to make a real, fundamental contribution. Man tends to be more of the head, woman more of the heart and this is urgent today to be able to renew the life of a society that is dying for lack of love.”

Can the Maltese Church enrich her evangelization ranks by involving the feminine genius more?

Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap

San Gwann