I discovered the controversy thanks to the Facebook page of Feminist Peace Network, which pointed me to a Washington Post blog entry by Jason Pitzl-Waters of the Pagan Newswire Collective. He writes:
Leaving aside the “separate but equal” theory of religious gender roles for a moment, one has only to look towards the headlines to see how dangerous the idea of female empowerment still is within the world of faith and belief. The New York Times reports that a committee of American bishops have accused Catholic theologian and nun Sister Elizabeth A. Johnson of violating church doctrine, issuing a lengthy critique of her book “Quest For the Living God” due in part to her suggestion of using female imagery for God, an idea (among others) the Committee on Doctrine says “contaminates” traditional Catholic understandings of God. “Contaminates,” what an interesting and unintentionally apt choice of words! Because reading that critique you can see the fear of contamination dripping from its sentences, hoping against hope of placing (in the words of the NYT) “the study of the male and female aspects of God [...] substantially off-limits,” lest women once more start making offerings to the Queen of Heaven.(If you don't know who the Queen of Heaven is, you can find this out by reading the rest of the post.)
I followed Pitzl-Waters's link to the statement of the Committee on Doctrine of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. They object to more than her treatment of the female nature of God. They don't like her "pantheism" or her belief that non-Christian religions also convey useful knowledge about God. They think she undermines their rigid and unchangeable idea of a god who is all-powerful and unchanged by the suffering in the world. They object to her portrayal of the official Catholic God as an "arrogant monarch," and go to great pains to explain what a sweet, kind, caring monarch he is. And they strongly defend Biblical language that describes God as "father" and "lord." They insist that "The names of God found in the Scriptures are not mere human creations that can be replaced by others that we may find more suitable according to our own human judgment." They would surely resent being called sexist, but what they are saying is, (as Mary Daly would have put it) God is male, and male is God.
Why the bishops waited four years to attack this book is not entirely clear. The National Catholic Reporter says that "the committee felt compelled to publicly denounce the 2007 book because it is directed to a `broad audience,' and because it’s being used in many venues `as a textbook for the study of God.'" The same NCR post notes that Sister Johnson says that the bishops portrayed her book inaccurately and did not talk with her before condemning it. Cardinal Donald Wuerl responded that Johnson should have sought the bishops' imprimatur (official approval) before publishing the book. The NCR has a link to Wuerl's statement.
One can only imagine the choice words that Mary Daly would have used about this situation. (Or, one could pick up a copy of the Wickedary.) But even some Catholics--including a Catholic columnist for the Washington Post--think that the bishops went too far in trying to stifle theological discussion. And sales of the book have increased dramatically.
