Imagining the Feminist and LGBTQ-Affirming Sacramentality of a Synodal Church

Today’s post is part of Bondings 2.0’s series of theological reflections on LGBTQ+ issues and the Synod on Synodality, which will be published as the General Assembly of the Synod meets at the Vatican this month. For all of Bondings 2.0’s Synod coverage, including reports from Rome, click here.

Today’s post is from Barbara Anne Kozee (she/her). Barb is a doctoral student in Theological Ethics at Boston College studying the intersections of gender, sexuality, culture, and politics. She completed her M.Div. at Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University, and she serves on the Board of Directors for the Women’s Ordination Conference.

Who can bless and who can be blessed?

I think this is one of the central questions that we are grappling with as a church during the Synod on Synodality. Within the context of Catholic theology, this ultimately becomes a question of grace and sacramentality.

The feminist theologian Susan Ross roots her book on sacramental theology, Extravagant Affections, in John 12:1-8, the story of Jesus anointed by Mary at Bethany. Ross interprets sacraments as “works of art” that reveal God’s own extravagant affections for humankind. Sacraments are at the same time ordinary and extraordinary in that divine presence is mediated through earthy and fleshy encounters that often engage our senses, such as in the song or smells of liturgy. In a feminist interpretation of this scene, Mary ministers by anointing Jesus with the sacramental and aromatic oil.

And what is more, Jesus approves of this sacramental vision! When Judas attempts to intervene, Jesus says, “Leave her alone” (12:7), ending with a reminder that “you always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me” (12:8). This remark contrasts to what we usually expect from Jesus. For one, we usually expect Jesus to be a defender of the poor and champion of economic justice. And secondly, especially in John, we usually have a Jesus who emphasizes the eternally abiding nature of God in communion with humanity through the presence of the Spirit. It is not often that Jesus emphasizes the bittersweet impermanence of his earthly relationships.

I like this text for many reasons, but especially for the image of a Jesus who enjoys sacramental feelings of joy, connection, intimacy, and pleasure, in the most human of ways. While Jesus’ suffering and death is soon to come, here he takes a minute to relish in the love that he has in this community of friends. Jesus seems to approve of a feminist sacramental theology, allowing himself to be ministered to by women and indulging in the senses. To borrow a motif from the labor movement, Jesus advocates for bread and roses. Sacraments can be a privileged substantial encounter with grace, and they can also be what makes life worth living.

Who can bless and who can be blessed? In our church currently, this question is largely still determined by gender and sexuality. However, as Ross and feminist theologians show, women’s ordination actually brings us back to our tradition, in the historical sense that we know there were likely female ordinates in the early church, but also in a theological sense, as the Gospel writer of John articulates grace and sacramentality.

For LGBTQ people in the Catholic Church, we long for a theology of marriage that is open to the extravagant affections of God toward the sacredness of queer intimacy. For a minister such as Mary who celebrates the joy of human connection. Similarly, it is possible to consider that queer marriage blessings bring us back to our biblical tradition of the sacraments as living and mysterious.

The working document for the Synod assembly asks, “How can the Church of our time better fulfill its mission through greater recognition and promotion of the baptismal dignity of women?” and “How can a synodal Church make credible the promise that ‘love and truth will meet’ (Ps 85:11)?” I find it important that we as a synodal church consider the interrelatedness of these two questions, regarding the leadership and dignity of women and the welcome and dignity of LGBTQ persons in the church.

Both questions have their roots in anthropological issues of gender complementarity—the idea that men and women each have unique and opposite gifts determined by their gender—that guided church doctrine for many centuries and that have especially been emphasized in recent pontificates. Dispensing and receiving sacraments is fundamentally about who is able to image God and to give and receive God’s grace. Our theology of marriage and our theology of ministry and ordination will each be incomplete without the realization of justice for women and queer people in both sacramental contexts. My image of a synodal church, however distant it may be, includes women preaching the Gospel and ministering during the blessing of LGBTQ marriage.

My prayer for the Synod is for the workings of a more mysterious and undomesticated vision of God’s grace that continues the work of the Second Vatican Council on the expansiveness of sacramental theology. If the image of Vatican II was one of aggiornamento and opening of the windows of the church, the image of the Synod has been one of listening and of enlarging the space of our tent. My hope is for a tent large enough and listening brave enough for the sacramental dignity of both women and LGBTQ people.

—Barb Kozee (she/her), October 21, 2023