Thanks, Ken Trainor, for your recent column, “It’s critical that Catholics find their voice.” It’s an important message. Thanks for your courage.
One small correction though. You mentioned that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. I think you were referring to the common misconception about Mary Magdalene. This maligning of St. Mary of Magdala was a way for the church to suppress her prominence in Jesus’ ministry, to distort sexuality, and to suppress all women and feminine energy and influence. As a business woman of financial means, Mary was a major financial supporter of Jesus’ ministry. For a woman to accomplish that in the Middle East 2,000 years ago is a remarkable feat. Jesus loved Mary of Magdala.
The group Future Church (FutureChurch.org) encourages churches to celebrate her feast day of July 22. In honoring this powerful woman in the early church, we are reminded that all four Gospels show Mary Magdalene as a primary witness to the most central events of Christian faith. In John’s Gospel, Jesus commissioned her to bring the Good News to the Apostles. The early Church Fathers named her “the Apostle to the Apostles.”
So understanding the prominence of this powerful woman in Jesus’ ministry is one wonderful way to support the re-empowered role of women in the church. It’s time. This could then encourage a richer mystical spirituality, responsible contraception, optional celibacy and some true healing of the sexual abuses. With feminine energy prominent and in partnership within the church, as Jesus was modeling, there could be an honoring of all of God’s creation. This would include women, children, men, homosexuals, all races, all religions, the sick, the poor and Mother Earth herself.
We are the church.
Gina Orlando
Oak Park
You’ve spread the awful lie that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. [It’s critical that Catholics find their voice, Ken Trainor, April 28] Please correct the record. The Bible does not say she was a prostitute. It says she financially supported Jesus’ ministry. Years later, men acted to reduce Mary’s importance by labeling her a whore. If you need substantiation, see: www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/Bible/Life-Lessons-from-Women-of-the-Bible.aspx?p=12
Susan Piha
Oak Park
