A few weeks ago, a mini-storm of controversy erupted when Archbishop Sean O’Malley of Boston, at the Chrism Mass, included feminism in a list of ills facing society and the Church. And then a few days later, on Holy Thursday, he abided by the Church’s discipline and only washed men’s feet at the Holy Thursday Liturgy, which some women took as a great insult. If anything fit the definition of tempest in a teapot, this did.
However, the archbishop decided that the issue needed to be addressed so he used his column in The Pilot this week to explain himself. Much of the local media, characterized it as an apology, but that’s not really what it was, as it was an apologia.
I was among the first to decry the Holy Thursday “controversy” as a non-issue, but what the Archbishop wrote gave me pause:
This year the fact that “The DaVinci Code” has been number one on the best sellers’ list for the last 56 weeks (and soon to be made a Hollywood movie) should give us some cause for reflection. “The DaVinci Code” maintains that Mary Magdalene sat next to Jesus at the Last Supper, that they were “joined at the hip,” that they later got married, had children and together founded one of the French dynasties and foisted Christianity on the world. In light of that rather confused portrayal of the Last Supper in the popular culture, the more accurate representation of the 12 Apostles as men makes preeminent sense.
Makes sense to me.
Brian, “The Boston Globe” also headlined the Archbishop’s words as an “apology to women,” so I’m not surprised that the AP picked up on it.