Chapters: Ruth McDonough Fitzpatrick, “Forward to Women in Dialogue”, 1979

Shortly before the Latin American bishops were to meet in Puebla, Mexico for the Third Episcopal Conference of Latin American Bishops, otherwise known as “CELAM III” , an international group of Catholic women met for three intensive days in Cuernavaca, Mexico. For three long days, sometimes late into the night, we worked over the preliminary Working Document the bishops would be using. The sessions continued in Puebla, during which many more Latin American women participated in the dialogue. We named ourselves “Mujeres para el Diálogo”.

Participants included women from diverse cultures and backgrounds. The core group had deep roots in the Latin American culture. Called together on the invitation of Elizabeth Hollants, a remarkable and indomitable woman, we were religious nuns, lay women, married, single, separated, divorced, mothers of all ages including one expectant mother. We had come from Mexico, Peru, Chile, Brazil, Haiti, California, Indiana, New York, Washington DC, Virginia, Connecticut, Arizona, Illinois, Texas, Washington State. Some were originally from France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Cuba.

Yet all were united by our experiences, hopes and visions. We were women in a traditional male, hierarchical institution. In various ways our lives had been shaped and influenced by the prior CELAM II meeting in Medellin. We knew that in the “Conclusions” of CELAM II, The Church in the Present-Day Transformation of Latin America in the Light of the Council, women had all but been forgotten. We were determined it would not happen again. We joined together in that large temporarily-empty seminary to do theology and critical analysis from a feminist perspective–even if the Latin American women there had to completely re-write the CELAM III Working Documents then being sold at corner news stands. In solidarity, we would be the voice for the voiceless–to let the Latin American Bishops know that in their deliberations they must recognize that women are oppressed socially, politically and economically in both Church and Society.

By the time we boarded a bus for the Papal Mass which would open the Conference in Puebla, we had struggled through the problems of sexist language, birth control as a method of eradicating the poor, human rights as a tool of imperialism and the question of women priests in this clerical institution. Preliminary papers were read and discussed; and position papers were written.

This was especially difficult for the North American women who were there in larger numbers than first expected. We were not there to impose our views as North American Catholics. We had come in solidarity to listen and learn and to join in dialogue. Sometimes it was not easy. Gradually, friendships and trust developed.

In Puebla we held a formal press conference, slipped packets of our papers to bishops, theologians and women participants, and gave sessions in downtown Puebla hotels. Meanwhile, the conservative press printed unmentionable slanders about us, priests threatened ex-communication to families who had offered hospitality to us. Others took us into their homes and their hearts. We came together when we could, to share meals and prayers. We were joined by Professor Rosemary Radford Reuther who came with some of her students for her seminar on Feminism and the Church.

“Mujeres para el Dialogo” met other women who had decided to come to talk with the bishops–they were mothers and relatives of the disappeared from Argentina, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Chile. One of these women, Thelma Dorothy Jara de Cabezas, went to the Bishops’ meeting in order to beg support of the Latin American Episcopate. She is Secretary of the Family Commission for Prisoners and People who have disappeared, a commission centered in Buenos Aires, Argentina. An active organizer of the mothers, wives and other family members of those who have disappeared, her group is called the “Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo” . Her 17 year old son was kidnapped in May of 1976. After she returned to Argentina, Thelma went to visit her hospitalized husband who is dying of cancer when she was seized by Security Police May 2, 1979. She, too, is now one of the disappeared.

In this interdependent world, the message contained in these papers from Mujeres para el Dialogo is one we need to hear in North America. A key question today is “What does Liberation Theology have to say to the Church in North America?” We add to that, “What does the feminist perspective have to say?” We can have no answers until we first have listened to what they are saying. Readers are invited to participate in “Women In Dialogue”.

The idea for this book grew with some of us who were part of the Women In Dialogue group, especially Sister Mary O’Keefe, O.P., co-director of the National Assembly of Women Religious who initiated the move for publication Sister Helen Volkomener, S.P. of The Catholic Committee on Urban Ministry (CCUM), who was, likewise, present in Puebla, responded enthusiastically to the project, offering to have it printed and distributed as a companion piece to the English translation of the CELAM III documents from Puebla, which CCUM has just distributed.

The following translators who gave of their talents on very short notice, also make this book possible: Louise Bernstein, CSJ; Mary Peter Bruce, SL Margherita Cappelli, RSCJ; Rosemary Empen, OP; Marie Walter Flood, OP; Betsy Flynn, SND; Tom and Anna Gergely; Sally Hanlon, Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz and Scott Wright.

For those wishing to lend their support to the continuing network of Women In Dialogue, write to “Mujeres Para El Dialogo”, Apartado Postal 579, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico.

Ruth McDonough Fitzpatrick

Fairfax, Virginia

July 1, 1979

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Women in Dialogue: Inter-American Meeting. Notre Dame, Catholic Committee on Urban Ministry, 1979

January 27 to February 13, 1979, in Puebla, México, gathered the bishops of the Latin American and Caribbean Roman Catholic Church for a conclave that would decide the future of Christian commitments on the continent. Meanwhile, “an international group of Catholic women met for three intensive days in Cuernavaca, Mexico [… working] over the preliminary Working Document the bishops would be using. The sessions continued in Puebla, during which many more Latin American women participated in the dialogue” recalls Ruth McDonough in the Forward, “We named ourselves ‘Mujeres para el Diálogo’.” That group bussed to Puebla city to intervene and make sure that women would not be ignored in the episcopal conference as they had been in the past.

The English translations here were the work of The [U.S.] National Assembly of Women Religious, in collaboration with the Catholic Committee on Urban Ministry, who published this text for English-reading audiences who might join in solidarity with the women of the Latin American and Caribbean churches facing violence on all fronts.

For the story open up the first LTA boletín.