The Catholic Church is male-dominated by institutional design. The conclave of cardinals that will elect a new "Holy Father" is all male. Only men vote for the leader, who appoints only men to vote for his successor. It doesn't take a women's studies major to see that by definition this is a self-perpetuating patriarchy.
The most fundamental prayer of Christianity is even more emphatic. While the College of Cardinals is only 1,000 years old, the fatherhood of God is as old as the Trinity — beyond the category of time. Christ taught us to pray that the eternal patriarchal rule of the father "be done on earth as it is in heaven."
Let's face it. This peace plan does not exactly accord with the feminist vision that only the rise of female leaders will save humankind from those testosterone-nourished twins, war and violence.
Christ commanded his apostles to love one another as he loved them and as his father loved him. He said "love" — and he was talking to an all-male group. For Catholics, this conclave really is about the Christian nature of love. It was the topic of the last pope's first encyclical: "Caritas" — charity, love.
The patriarchal fraternity of the priesthood puts itself forward as a "communion" of masculine-ordered love. The love of this brotherhood of fathers is called to be particularly protective toward that ancient biblical formulation of the needy, "widows and orphans." The fatherless have always been victimized, so a band of brothers pledge their loyalty to the father and their protective strength to the vulnerable. It is a mission that appeals to a manly heart.
The vow of celibacy — by men who are deeply and naturally drawn to women — is a pledge to forgo the sexual communion of marriage in favor of the sacral bonds of worship, building up the Body of Christ. This deep love, which replaces the need for offspring by overcoming death, bears much fruit in this life. Schools, hospitals and relief centers always complete the Catholic landscape — wherever our priests are free to first erect our churches.
Brotherhoods are blood oaths; priests drink the blood of the covenant. Eleven of the first apostles were martyred. Brotherhoods are circles around a feminine center that is cherished, and so the priest guards the tabernacle housing the sacred presence, and he loves Mary, who housed the presence first.
We Catholics cannot ask Protestants or atheists or feminists to affirm our understanding. No doubt our processions, statues, fasts, candles, sacraments, special seasons and ancient garments seem like practices the college-educated should have long ago outgrown. But to understand the conclave, it is imperative to think in Catholic categories, not about modern trends.
