John Shea OSA: Letter to the Irish Bishops

A Timely Epiphanic Proposal, 2026

Dear Archbishops and Bishops of the Irish Catholic Bishops Conference,

The recent Vatican assertion “women are not fully in the likeness of Jesus” is mistaken, offensive, and perhaps heretical. In singling out Jesus’ maleness instead of his humanness, it invites us to see girls and women as “ontologically lacking,” even as “misbegotten males.” The sad truth, however, is that women in every corner of the world are suffering from a divisive, centuries-held, dogma-asserted, Vatican view—at once firmly defended yet amazingly thin in present-day theology and anthropology.

Our inherited, centuries-suffered misogyny, in so many forms, destroys daily the very fabric of our church. In this Lenten season and as an appropriate response to this ugly disease, can you: 1) take notice of the ongoing abuse; 2) engage honestly and courageously with your brother bishops in synodality; 3) lament the terrible injustices and losses past and present; 4) invoke and then promote metanoia; and 5) do all you can personally to redress, restore, and protect women’s God-given integrity of body and soul.

Our church needs all of you to dialogue honestly with each other. If you cannot collaborate, will not many of the faithful—women and men sick to death of so much abuse—continue to leave us in droves?  Or, to stanch this tragedy, imagine the joy and oneness to be experienced if the Jesus of the Gospels speaks for himself and if all Catholics can be equally catholic. Our church faces a critical moral crossroad. For God’s sake and for the sake of the faithful worldwide, may your thirst for care and justice prevail.

John J. Shea, O.S.A., M.P.S., Ph.D., MSW (retired professor of human and religious development, Fordham University and Boston College)

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