Chapters: “Women for Dialogue Press Release”, February 7, 1979

Women for Dialogue is a group of women assembled together on the occasion of the third CELAM Conference, called by a small nucleus of Mexican women, who have been gradually widening their circle of contacts and invited persons. It is an international group composed of women coming from various countries of Latin America and the United States. The group does not have any internal structure except that it functions democratically with a small group which facilitates communication and coordination.

The purpose of Women for Dialogue in Puebla is to establish dialogue among ourselves and with bishops, theologians and friends who are present at the conference.

The press conference on Wednesday, February 7 was called to inform interested people of our positions on women and the Church. We have also been concerned to rectify some of the declarations made by the press in the preceding days, declarations which we judge to have been sensational and totally incorrect. At a time as important as the present, we consider that manipulation of the press is a potent asset to those who have no interest in the cause of justice.

Women for Dialogue place the women’s cause for betterment and their mobilization within the world-wide process of liberation. We wish to emphasize this fact because, if this mobilization were to become separated, grave harm would result for the popular movement. On the other hand, we consider that the mobilization of women is exceptionally crucial for a change in structures.

The oppression of women in Latin America is a very grave affair in every area: in unpaid work where the woman has specific difficulties in unionizing; in the home; in her sexuality; and in the educational and political fields.

The indigenous and the peasant woman suffers a triple oppression: as poor, as woman, and as a person of a marginal race. The indigenous woman plays a fundamental role in the economy of rural self-sufficiency, and in addition, she has the responsibility of household tasks. All the other services, of health, of education, etc., which are difficult to obtain for others, are almost impossible for her. The indigenous and peasant woman possesses a strong potential if she joins in the struggle for the liberation of the Latin American people.

Woman has been marginalized in the Church by lack of participation in decision-making and in administrative posts. But the most oppressed woman in the Church has been the religious woman, who has made a tremendous contribution to the institutional Church by her donated service, her work among the sick, the elderly, children, etc. and yet has had no control over her own life and activity. One of the most important steps for the religious woman to be able to behave in a responsible and involved way is for her to obtain economic independence. Woman has also been marginalized in liturgical service and in official ministry. It is important that we view ministries as expressions of the total community in which men and women participate in the evangelizing activity of Christ.

Women for Dialogue wish at this time, when the bishops are gathered together, to ask them that the Church:

• revise its static concepts on the nature and function of woman and that it not restrict her role only to the home.
• encourage child care centers so that woman may be free to participate more fully in wider social concerns.
• promote change in those structures which bring about permanent and organized violence and which affect directly woman and the family.
• favor woman’s control over her own body and over her reproductive system.
• be open to the participation of woman in its ministerial life, on the basis of an internal justice.
• recognize in woman her right to participate in the leadership of the Church at all levels.
• foster reflection on woman as object and subject of theology.
• assist woman theologically and pastorally in her struggle in sisterhood for the liberation of the people (we refer here to all Christian women and particularly to religious women).

Finally, we wish to state publicly our special solidarity with women of all the countries of Latin America, in particular, the countries of Nicaragua, Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Guatemala. These women at this time are suffering persecution, imprisonment, torture and the loss of their loved ones, a result of their commitment in the struggle for the liberation of the people, a struggle to which we unite ourselves.

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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.

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