Stand Up 4 Vatican 2

the women of Vatican II (1996 Carmel McEnroy)

1964 – 1966 – third and Fourth sessions of the Council

A paper written for Stand Up For Vatican II by Myra Poole snd  -January 2010,

Introduction – setting the scene of the Council

I based my talk mainly, but not completely, on the book Guests in Their Own House: the women of Vatican II by Carmel McEnroy (1996). This book is well known in the USA but less well known in Britain and other parts of the world. This paper formed the basis of a twenty minute talk where I tried to connect the experience of women in the 21^st century with that of the women of Vatican II. My purpose was to illustrate, from the women who were auditors at the Council, the position of women in the RC Church in the nineteen sixties, their involvement in the Council and whether attitudes towards women had changed since then.

While we worry about whether we should worship in Latin or not, His children, our brother and sisters in Haiti are suffering unimaginable hardship, pain and loss. Please be as generous as you can so we follow the Master's imperative... but when did we see you hungry and feed you?

I am thoroughly convinced that humanity is making an evolutionary shift into a new consciousness. Already in 1936 Teilhard de Chardin wrote: We now have to accept it as proven that mankind has just entered into what is probably the most extensive period of transformation it has known since itsbirth. … Today something is happening to the whole structure of human consciousness: a fresh kind life is beginning to appear. (Science and Christ)