Log In | Register
Nearly 100 women have been ordained as priests or bishops in recent years, and been condemned by the Roman Catholic Church. Their actions, feelings and spiritual urgings make absorbing material in Pink Smoke Over the Vatican.
Unfortunately, the documentary has a lot of other stuff: biased reporting, strident rhetoric, manipulative lighting, and repetition of arguments that make it feel way longer than its 58 minutes.
The title is drawn from an incident on April 17, 2005, when protestors released pink smoke in front of several U.S. cathedrals. The act was timed to the conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI, who soon informed the world he would hold the line on male-only ordination.
"The Church is an unapologetic boys club and deeply hostile to women's agency, power and voice," says author Angela Bonavoglia.
The documentary is actually more current than when it came out several months ago. On March 31, the Religion News Service reported that the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, one of those quoted in the film, is under threat of defrockment for helping ordain Janice Sevre'-Duszynska. He said he's seeking a church lawyer and plans to fight the order.
Pink Smoke takes pains to show advocates' intellectual creds: As Kathleen Kunster speaks, a subtitle shows her M.Div., M.A. and Psy.D. degrees. They are earnest, articulate, engaging as they tell their stories and explain their beliefs.
"My faith is in my DNA," another says.
"I felt cellularly rearranged," one says about the instant of her ordination.
"I knew that there was a place for women on the altar more than just in a coffin or as a bride," Sevre'-Duszynska says.
Victoria Rue of San Jose, Calif., crosses herself not in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, but "our Creator, our brother Jesus and wisdom, Sophia." As part of a homegrown Mass, she uses tai chi-like movements as a bodily way of worshiping.
Patricia Fresen gushes about feeling a "flame of hope and longing and incredible excitement" to hear of the ordination of seven women in 2002 on a ship on the Danube River in Europe. She herself was then ordained by two of them.
But this film doesn’t stop at reporting; it takes the feminists' side. Only one talking head on the other side is allowed -- bald, elderly Father Ronald Lengwin, a spokesman for the Diocese of Pittsburgh -- sitting at his desk, backed by coldly blue-lit walls. When feminists answer, they're shot at gardens and seashores and sunlit churches.
Lengwin says church law is not about sexism but "an understanding of one's part in the church, male and female." He also appeals to tradition going back to when Jesus picked 12 males as apostles.
In rebuttal, the advocates note that the Church once supported slavery, condemned money lending and allowed priests to marry.
They also cite a Bible verse that honors a woman named Junia as an apostle. And they show early frescos of women in vestments apparently saying Mass.
Pink Smoke stumbles in examining Bible verses, though. It approvingly cites Paul saying that all differences -- including those of gender -- are erased, "for you are all one in Christ Jesus." But it disapprovingly cites Paul's verse not allowing a woman "to teach or exercise authority over a man." Why is one verse more valid -- besides, of course, agreeing with the film?
Then it goes too far as its subjects try to link women's ordination with their own favorite causes. Several invoke civil rights leaders like Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth and, of course, Martin Luther King Jr.
Bourgeois and Sevre'-Duszynska complain about the U.S. military, reflecting their focus on peace activism. Fresen tells how she defied apartheid in South Africa by opening her school to all races.
Joanna Manning of Toronto, who has treated AIDS-infected babies in Africa, somehow links condoms with women's ordination. And several advocates push for ending the celibacy requirement for priests.
But they stumble again by claiming that if priests could marry, sexual abuse cases would dwindle. Sexual abuse has little to do with marriage: Thousands of married men abuse their own biological children.
Besides, what does all that have to do with women's ordination? You know, the issue this film is supposed to be about?
For all its arguments, Pink Smoke actually misses a few points. It could have pointed out that Jesus picked all Jews as apostles, yet the Church feels free to ordain non-Jewish priests.
In fact, the Roman Catholic Church itself has honored three women -- Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila and Terese of Lisieux -- as "doctors of the Church," whose writings are valid sources of Catholic teaching. If they can be thinkers, why not be pastors?
Finally, a poll in May 2010 by CBS and The New York Times found that 59 percent of American Catholics favor ordaining women. So the hierarchy's position isn’t well-received in the pews.
As a chronicle of why some women feel driven to a ministry that the Church reserves for men, Pink Smoke is a textured, sensitive success. As a thoughtful, many-sided analysis of reasons for and against ordaining women, the documentary fails.
Whatever you think about women's ordination, it's bad form to tell you what to think. Isn't that one of the things the advocates fault the Church for doing?
For more information on the documentary, visit pinksmokeoverthevatican.com.
