How John Wijngaards tries to change the church from within
Article in Het Nederlands Dagblad – Wim Houtman, 4 January 2022
The Roman Catholic Church perpetuates “ancient prejudices against women,” says John Wijngaards. He is trying to initiate change with his research institute in London, because reform is ‘inevitable’.
“As a student, my eyes were already opened,” says John Wijngaards (86). He trained as a priest with the Mill Hill missionaries and was not allowed to read the Koran. ‘I grew up in the Dutch East Indies and had learned from my father that Islam is also an important religion. For me that was quite normal. But at the seminary, the Quran was a “forbidden book.” We only heard second hand about dissenting voices from the Catholic faith. I felt that as a theology student I should be able to read everything. Then I decided: ‘I will no longer allow my freedom of thought to be taken away from me.’
“I didn’t think about the woman in ordained ministry yet,” says Wijngaards, in his house just north of London. “That came later, when I was working as a mission priest in India. There I became acquainted with about seventeen or eighteen sister congregations, and I saw how capable those sisters often were. Then it dawned on me that something was completely wrong. I started studying the sources and found that some of the reasons put forward in history on why women should not be ordained are completely idiotic. For example, that a woman cannot have a tonsure – the shaven crown, which for a long time was the symbol that a priest had renounced all vanity and earthly pleasures. It was said that women cannot think for themselves, cannot lead; actually they were considered inferior.”
He therefore focuses on scientific research through his Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research (‘it was called that because I was somewhat known’). John Wijngaards was Vicar General of the Mill Hill missionaries from 1976 to 1982 and then professor of Biblical Studies at that congregation’s theological training.
His institute is not a lobby or action group. “It’s no use. Opponents of reform in the church are not bad, just conservative. We have to open their eyes and that means coming up with evidence.”
resistance of three kinds
Three years earlier, the Wijngaards Institute published an extensive study on the Catholic ban on contraceptives. All arguments were discussed and weighed. The conclusion was that those arguments are not correct. Using the pill or other means to prevent pregnancy can be a ‘responsible and moral choice’, sometimes even an ‘ethical duty’. Immediately after, we published a statement signed by Catholic academics who defended the “no” to contraception “on many grounds.”
Wijngaards says about the influence of his institute: ‘There are three types of resistance to change. First, the laity who believe in the authority of church leadership. As long as leaders say no, they don’t have to think any further.
The second category is leaders—bishops, priests, theologians—who know that change must be made, but who say, “I can’t help it. If I object I will come into conflict with the bishop and my parish will be without a pastor.” I can understand that – also with theologians; they risk their jobs if they publicly deviate from the teaching.
Third, there is the organized opposition, which stands by the teachings of the church. We saw that in that counter-statement to our statement about contraception. These people mean well, I presume, but they refuse to go beyond worn-out arguments. With regard to them I put my trust on their intelligence so that they start thinking for themselves. For example, I think Opus Dei is going to change. There are many people who have studied there.’
Changes in the church are inevitable, Wijngaards thinks. The way the church has treated women, sexuality and personal freedom for centuries is untenable. “Most of the Roman Catholic Church knows that change must be made. The synodal process that Pope Francis has initiated can get that going,” he says. The Pope has called on all bishops to hold a round of consultations with believers and non-believers about the future of the church.
conflict of conscience
Wijngaards has just published – in English – his memoirs, entitled Ten Commandments of Church Reform. In the opening chapter he describes his dual relationship with the Roman Catholic Church. In 1994 he met a young woman from India in Leuven. She came from the poor countryside, was a member of the lowest caste of society. She had continued her education through mission schools and now she was studying theology. “I felt proud of the Roman Catholic Church, which is thus restoring millions of people around the world to their human dignity,” Wijngaards writes. But the young woman feels in her heart a calling to become a priest. Do you think I’m going to experience that, she asks. Then Wijngaards also felt disappointment and anger. “The same Church now deprives her of her full dignity as a child of God, created in his image, sharing in Jesus’ priesthood and kingship through her baptism.”
Wijngaards himself resigned from his priestly duties in 1998. He had fallen into a ‘serious conflict of conscience’ over a document signed by the then Pope John Paul II. It stated that anyone who openly deviated from Church teachings—such as on the ordination of women— had in effect expelled themselves from the Church.
Mandatory celibacy was not the reason for his resignation. Wijngaards married in 2000. “I was already good friends with Jackie, whom I had met in India; she was the headmistress of a large girls’ school there. But I didn’t break my celibacy vow. And I’m still a priest; I have resigned my duties, but not the priesthood itself. I sometimes still lead celebrations and if people need me, I can give the sacraments.”
ten-commandments.org
womenpriests.org/nl
