Pope John Paul II's Writings about Working Mothers

Submitted in Connection with the University of St. Thomas

Sienna Symposium

Summer 2004

Elizabeth R. Schiltz

Associate Professor of Law

August 27, 2004

At the end of July 2004, the Vatican released a letter written by the Prefect of the Offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, entitled "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World."1 The document was greeted with a flurry of commentary decrying it as another example of the Pope's "anti-feminism." The headline of the article about the document in my local newspaper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, was "Vatican Issues Another Anti-
Feminism Pamphlet."2 The headline of the article posted on Yahoo news.com was "Pope Hits Out at Feminist Radicals."3

I think it is fair to attribute the ideas in Cardinal Ratzinger's letter to Pope John Paul II, because the letter consists essentially of a restatement of Our Holy Father's prior writings on the topic. However, is it fair to characterize the Pope as 'anti-feminist"? I do not think that a careful reading of his writings about women justifies that attribution.

Perhaps the Yahoo headline was accurate. Indeed, the Pope absolutely rejects the strand of feminism (perhaps accurately labeled "radical feminism") that has as its fundamental premise the notion that gender is purely a social construct, that does not admit of the possibility that biological differences between men and women have any relevance to any policy or legal issue. But I do not believe that that is the only school of thought that is entitled to call itself "feminism." My identity as a feminist does not depend on accepting gender as a purely social construct. My identity as a feminist arises, instead, out of my experiences as a professional woman who has four children. From this vantage point, I tend to judge whether or not someone is a "feminist" in a large part on the respect they evince for what I consider to be some inalterable facts of life: that women bear children and men do not; that women bear the brunt of child-
raising in our society; and that women who are either forced or who choose to work outside the home, as well as raise children, suffer from our society's general hostility toward working mothers. From that vantage point, I do not consider it legitimate to characterize Pope John Paul II as being "anti-feminist." A careful reading of his writings evinces nothing but respect for the obstacles faced by contemporary working mothers.

Pope John Paul II has been a consistent and tireless advocate for radical reform of the workplace to accommodate the needs of working mothers from the beginning of his pontificate. As early as September 1981, in his encyclical Laborem Exercens, he wrote:

. . . the whole labor process must be organized and adapted in such a way as to respect the requirements of the person and his or her forms of life, above all life in the home, taking into account the individual's age and sex. It is a fact that in many societies women work in nearly every sector of life. But it is fitting that they should be able to fulfill their tasks in accordance with their own nature, without being discriminated against and without being excluded form jobs for which they are capable, but also without lack of respect for their family aspirations and for their specific role in contributing, together with men, to the good of society. The true advancement of women requires that labor should be structured in such a way that women do not have to pay for their advancement by abandoning what is specific to them and at the expense of the family, in which women as mothers have an irreplaceable role.4

Later that same year, in the encyclical Familiaris Consortio, he wrote:

There is no doubt that the equal dignity and responsibility of men and women fully justifies women's access to public functions. On the other hand the true advancement of women requires that clear recognition be given to the value of their maternal and family role, by comparison with all other public roles and all other professions. Furthermore, these roles and professions should be harmoniously combined, if we wish the evolution of society and culture to be truly and fully human.

This will come about more easily if, in accordance with the wishes expressed by the Synod, a renewed 'theology of work' can shed light upon and study in depth the meaning of work in the Christian life and determine the fundamental bond between work and the family, and therefore the original and irreplaceable meaning of work in the home and in rearing children. Therefore the Church can and should help modern society by tirelessly insisting that the work of women in the home be recognized and respected by all in its irreplaceable value.5

This theme is repeated powerfully in two more documents issued 14 years later. In Evangelium Vitae, the Pope writes:

A family policy must be the basis and driving force of all social policies. For this reason there need to be set in place social and political initiatives capable of guaranteeing conditions of true freedom of choice in matters of parenthood. It is also necessary to rethink labor, urban, residential and social service policies so as to harmonize working schedules with time available for the family, so that it becomes effectively possible to take care of children and the elderly.6

And finally, in his 1995 Letter to Women written on the occasion of the Forth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, he wrote:

And what shall we say of the obstacles which in so many parts of the world still keep women from being fully integrated into social, political and economic life? We need only think of how the gift of motherhood is often penalized rather than rewarded, even though humanity owes its very survival to this gift. Certainly, much remains to be done to prevent discrimination against those who have chosen to be wives and mothers. As far as personal rights are concerned, there is an urgent need to achieve real equality in every area: equal pay for equal work, protection for working mothers, fairness in career advancements, equality of spouses with regard to family rights and the recognition of everything that is part of the rights and duties of citizens in a democratic State.7

This same refrain was echoed most recently in Cardinal Ratzinger's Letter, which consists essentially of a restatement of Pope John Paul II's prior writings on this topic:

[A] just valuing of the work of women within the family is required. In this way, women who freely desire will be able to devote the totality of their time to the work of the household without being stigmatized by society or penalized financially, while those who wish also to engage in other work may be able to do so with an appropriate work-schedule, and not have to choose between relinquishing their family life or enduring continual stress, with negative consequences for one's own equilibrium and the harmony of the family.8

As is amply demonstrated by the foregoing excerpts, Pope John Paul II's calls for working conditions that permit mothering are inevitably accompanied by a criticism of society's devaluation of the work performed by mothers in the home, for their families – primarily the traditionally unpaid job of childcare. What they are never accompanied by, though, is an exhortation that mothers stop working outside of the home. It is possible that the complete realization of his vision for the creation of a social order in which mothering is as highly valued as any other vocation or skill that any woman could possibly have might, indeed, consist of a world in which no woman would choose to split her time between mothering and any other job. But the Pope does not write to a world citizenry living in the fully-realized Kingdom of God. Instead, he writes to women living in the world today, and his writings express an appreciation for a couple of important realities about working mothers.

First, some mothers always have and always will work outside of the home, for various reasons. Economic necessity compels many mothers to work, even though they might prefer to take care of their families. As Carol Sanger recognizes, "Poor women have always worked–as servants, maids, laundresses, field hands, factory workers–with little concern from employers or anyone else about how or where their children fared."9 Furthermore, some mothers always have and always will chose to work outside of the home for non-financial reasons, responding to the human need to "make a difference, to make one's mark in the world."10 The Pope challenges society to ensure that neither economic necessity nor discrimination prevent the woman who works – either out of economic necessity or through choice – from also mothering.

Second, as articulated most forcefully in Mulieris Dignitatem, Pope John Paul II's Apostolic Letter "On the Dignity and Vocation of Women,"11 Our Holy Father is convinced that there are vitally important things to be done in the public sphere, that need to be done to help bring about the Kingdom of God here on earth, that can only be done by women, some of whom are also mothers. Pope John Paul II recognizes that women play a unique and vital role in the solving many of modern society's most pressing problems, he challenges women to assume that role, and he challenges society to make it possible for women to assume that role while at the same time fulfilling their responsibilities towards their families.

Pope John Paul II has consistently presented forceful arguments for restructuring the workplace in ways that would make it easier for me to pursue both my vocation as a Law Professor and my vocation as a mother. From my perspective, that makes him a feminist.