This week Million Minutes hosted a webinar exploring the experiences of young women in the Catholic Church. As part of this event, we heard from Catherine Bridgwood.
Catherine is 24 years old and lives in Birmingham. She currently coordinates a befriending project of Birmingham Churches Together aiming to welcome refugees and asylum seekers in the city. Catherine is interested in engaging with diversity in Birmingham and exploring what we can learn from encounters with difference, particularly across faith. She is involved with her local Catholic parish community as well as with the Columban Missionaries.
Catherine’s contribution is published below.
Good evening! What a privilege it is to be part of this panel this evening, such an important conversation. Initially I was unsure if I had anything particularly profound to add to the discussion but then ultimately, I am a young woman in the Catholic Church so all I can do is share a small part of my own experience. So what I’d like to share with you briefly this evening is what I’m giving the catchy title…
‘My journey away from Dumbledore’
I am extremely thankful for the spaces that I’ve had as I’ve grown up to explore and question faith and church. I think especially, as a teenager when you’re forming stronger opinions and a sense of self and identity, these spaces are crucial. As a 24 year old, they continue to be crucial.
I was lucky enough to have a parish youth discussion group, so between the ages of about 15 and 18, we’d meet every couple of weeks on a Sunday evening to unpack all this churchy stuff, it was totally liberating.
I have a particular memory, about a conversation we had about our images of God. I remember repeatedly saying that my image of God was a Dumbledore type character.
Old white man, long white beard, long robe. No questions asked.
It’s interesting because looking back, I think I have always felt somewhat frustrated, excluded from and not quite accepting of all the goings on in this institution. I’m quick to criticise, I’m angry with the way things have been done and the exclusion of not just women in church leadership but so many groups from the church as a whole. But I have also found great joy within the church, great peace, I have felt listened to, encouraged, inspired to take action and built meaningful relationships. So it’s safe to say, it has been at times, a confusing space to be in.
But I think, as of course should be at the heart of all this is a relationship with God…
So this Dumbledore character…. I suppose he’s a wise and loving father type figure, he’s powerful and knowing. But he’s a he.
The language to describe God, as well as the non-inclusive language used in the Mass shaped so much of my early understanding of who God is. And whilst early on, it’s easy to accept that. I think, certainly in my experience as a young woman, there comes a point where that is uncomfortable. If I am made in the image and likeness of God, where do I fit into this?
I’m sure that is not the experience of every young woman, but it is certainly mine. And I think without the spaces to question, to criticise and to develop my own relationship with God, I would have quite probably walked away from it all.
I have come to know that God is so much more than this image of a figure in my mind shaped by the language used in Catholic worship. God is who I experience through encounters with other people.
I am privileged enough to have encountered and walked alongside many people who find themselves on the margins of society. In my current role, for an ecumenical organisation, I work with refugees and asylum seekers, people who have been trafficked into slavery, those who have experienced domestic violence. And it is in encounters I have with these women, that I realise how far from the Dumbledore image of God I have travelled. God is truly on the margins, in the face of those who suffer. And whilst that is deeply challenging, as a young woman of the church, a church that can be I think, so restrictive and inward looking it has been hugely life-giving to become aware of that.
So, you ask me what my experience of being a young woman in the Catholic church is? I think it’s one where I’ve wandered away from what I imagine to be a church epicentre… does this really exist?
But maybe I’ve found a real epicentre over here. And perhaps my imagined epicentre needs to come and have a look at what I’ve found? Perhaps there are thousands of these scattered around the church...let’s be open to looking at where young women have wandered to. They may still see themselves very much part of the church. I would challenge us not to seek to bring people ‘back’. To see real change, we need to explore where people are living out church. Being a young woman in society full stop has it’s challenges - forgive us if we don’t have all the answers, but maybe this has asked some questions!
Thank you so much for listening.
