The CIT Women

Women made up more than half the teachers in the Auckland-based Catholic Institute of Theology (1989-2012).This Institute (CIT) was set up to meet an increasing interest in tertiary-level theology among Catholics in Auckland. It became the Catholic partner in the Auckland Consortium for Theological Education made up of the Anglican, Methodist and Baptist theological colleges. These ecumenical connections with its partner colleges were an integral part of CIT as were the joint agreements with the University of Auckland.

Theological education focused on three main areas: teaching for university degrees from bachelor to doctoral level; education for teachers in integrated schools; and adult education in parishes.

The group of women (I focus here on the group rather than on single individuals) who worked as lecturers/presenters and administrators in CIT had a profound influence on a generation of male theologians and theology students including myself.

This influence, in my experience of it, came in three main ways. Specific courses in feminist theology was one important current of influence. At that time feminist theology was still regarded with some suspicion in church circles, especially among priests. Such direct study of feminist theologians made it clear how women’s experience and women’s voices had been ignored in mainstream theology and how enriching that experience could be for all of us.

The second influence had a different impact, more complex and more nuanced. This was the inclusion of women’s perspectives, not just as a special course, but as part of every course in the theology curriculum. Here women’s experience and understanding of God was a normal element whether the subject was creation, Trinity, the meaning of Christ, interpretation of Scripture, pastoral practice, and so on. The integration of women’s perspectives balanced male and other gendered perspectives in all branches of theology. So, for example, the teaching of Scripture had to be sensitive to the ways in which women Scripture scholars attended to issues that male scholars had seldom noticed, and the language used in Scripture translation needed to be gender-inclusive.

A third kind of impact came not so much from "teaching" as such but from the ways of relating and organising within CIT itself. Male theologians, and priests in particular, had seldom been exposed to the sensitivities and requirements of consensus decision-making and collaborative organization that women religious, and mothers of families, had been experimenting with for several decades.

Many of the teaching members of CIT were vowed religious, women who had been experimenting with collaborative organisation (including its liabilities and possible misunderstandings) in their own women’s groups, eg, within congregations of women religious.

From this came the "flat" and cooperative structure of CIT which replaced the more pyramid-like or hierarchical structures of decision-making familiar to priests and bishops. It was particularly this group of women who brought the skills of cooperative decision-making (not just "consultation") into the day-to-day organisation of CIT.

Hospitality was an important value practised by this group of women. This meant greeting new people and new ideas with enthusiasm and seeking ways to include both people and ideas into the CIT community and its teaching. Most important here was the sharing of food and participation in liturgy. It encouraged an energy and alertness to new opportunities for new styles of learning and education. This ‘hospitable’ attitude was caught up in the enthusiasm of the adult students who were there because of their excitement at learning theology rather simply to further their careers or attain Ordination.

The teachers were as dedicated to research-based teaching as much as anyone else in the modern university world. But these teachers were not caught up in the "publish or perish" culture of the university. They were not advancing their own careers. These women who worked at CIT had a powerful impact because they believed in themselves and they lived the theology.

Male teachers were full participants in this enterprise of hospitality and inclusive learning. There is no implication here that this experience is about values or qualities exclusive to women. But in that place and that time, it was this group of women who created and sustained that significant influence on a generation of male theologians and students.

Tui Motu Magazine Issue 260 June 2021: 9