Bishops' aide sees positive signs in new Vatican text on women

Published: 2004-08-04

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The new Vatican document on collaboration between men and women promotes women's equality and its guidance on collaboration is important, said Sheila Garcia, assistant director of the U.S. bishops' Secretariat for Family, Laity, Women and Youth. "I think there's some very positive things in this letter," Garcia said in an interview with Catholic News Service. "Any time that there is a clear affirmation of women's equality with men, that's a good thing. And I think sometimes we lose sight of the fact that, although we accept women's equality here in this country, in a lot of places in the world women are still struggling very much for equal rights in many areas." The document she referred to was the "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World," released July 31 by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In terms of church teaching or policy on women, "I don't think there's anything really new in this letter," said Garcia, who staffs the bishops' Committee on Women in Society and in the Church. "A lot of it was said in 'Mulieris Dignitatem,'" Pope John Paul II's 1988 apostolic letter on the dignity of women.

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