Women Don’t Need More Ministerial Roles—We Need Churching!

In all this talk about women's role in the Church, a more vital and visible female role for the future of the Church has been drastically overlooked—that of the mother.

PUBLISHED ON

January 31, 2025

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The close of the synod a few months ago created a media buzz around the discussion of increasing women’s ministerial roles within the Church hierarchy, including ordination to the diaconate. There was a worldly clamor for “inclusiveness” and to “enlarge the spiritual motherhood” of women. 

The question of a female diaconate was seemingly punted down the road. To assure the world that females could still obtain many—and, perhaps, more important—leadership roles, synod participants reminded everyone that women do already have great leadership roles, from Catholic school principles, to Vatican ambassadors, and even doctors of the Church. 

And now we have our first woman prefect—or prefectess?—of a Vatican department, with promises from Pope Francis that there will be more to follow

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Yet, a more vital and visible female role for the future of the Church has been drastically overlooked—that of the mother.

Your average layperson doesn’t know who the prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life is, who heads this or that Catholic charity organization, or even that Susan is president of the local parish council.

But he or she has a mother. And they also probably know the woman who sits a few pews over every Sunday holding her new baby.

You want to expand the visibility of women in the Church? To “enlarge spiritual motherhood”? To give ordinary women a voice? Well, we would do well to listen to Holy Mother Church in her wisdom and revive her long-standing tradition of the Churching of Women.

It is a uniquely feminine honor to imitate Our Lady with this ancient ceremony. Its nearness to the people touches lives and turns hearts more than any distant woman’s title ever could. 

What is a Churching? 

For centuries, it was customary to offer postpartum mothers a special blessing when they were ready to return to their Sunday and societal obligations. The woman kneels in the narthex or entrance of the church holding a lighted candle. The priest sprinkles her with holy water and then places in her hand the end of his white stole, by which he leads her toward the altar.

The woman then kneels before the altar and gives thanks to God, who through the Blessed Virgin Mary “has turned into joy the pains of the faithful in childbirth.” The priest asks for God’s blessings for the mother and that one day she and her new baby will merit the joys of everlasting life.

There is also a beautiful old-world custom of placing the new baby on the altar. The mother may then consecrate the baby to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The baby, however, is not required to be present at the ceremony; indeed, the blessing may still be offered as part of the healing process for those who have suffered loss. There is also a beautiful old-world custom of placing the new baby on the altar. The mother may then consecrate the baby to the Blessed Virgin Mary.Tweet This

The ceremony imitates the visit of the Holy Family at the Temple for the Purification of the Blessed Virgin and the Presentation of Our Lord—the feast we celebrate on February 2nd, or Candlemas. 

Accordingly, the ceremony has its roots in old Jewish law, which required mothers to present themselves for purification a set number of days after giving birth—40 after a baby boy and 80 after a baby girl.

Yet, Mary in her purity and humility made the ceremony new. The notes to the rubrics are careful to state that the Christian ceremony distinguishes itself from the old Jewish law. The timing of the ceremony should be “without scruple.” As Pope St. Gregory the Great wrote in the sixth century, a woman may run to the church the very hour she gives birth to give thanksgiving. The ceremony need not occur before her first entrance into a church, and she may still receive the blessing even after she has returned to church. 

Moreover, the ceremony was never required under pain of sin, although it is to be recommended as “pious and laudable.” It is important to stress that the language used in the blessing is that of thanksgiving and not purifying. 

Even so, we should remember that the term “purification” is often used in the liturgy without implying moral impurity. We celebrate the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, herself always pure and spotless. The priest purifies the sacred vessels after Holy Communion—as if the Body and Blood of Our Lord could have soiled them! Language fails us here, as the term “purification” is used in a historical manner to refer to a ritual cleansing. 

The Churching of Women has fallen away after Vatican II but has seen a bit of a revival in recent years along with the Traditional Latin Mass. 

The Honor of Churching

Churching not only provides much needed spiritual attention in a mother’s recovery but bestows honor in the church community as well as the broader Christian society. A secular social historian argues that Churching “elevated a mother’s status in the congregation to the point that when churching ceased, women became far less visible in the church.”

In the past, babies would often be baptized as soon as possible, while the mother stayed home to recover. The Churching ceremony was a special rite of passage that shifted focus toward the mother. She would return to church when she was able and receive a magnificent welcome. The ceremony would be followed by what the social historian refers to as “rumbustious” celebrations in the parish.

The ceremony also served as an important social marker that protected a woman’s quiet recovery and bonding time with a new infant. As the rubric notes indicate, the common custom was for women to have a dispensation from their Sunday obligation for six whole weeks. A visible ceremony protects the norms of recovery around childbirth. Of course a woman cannot be expected to return to her work when she has not even been churched yet! 

In today’s “bounce-back culture,” we can restore honor to motherhood and openness to life in caring for our mothers in this way. The ceremony is an indicator to family, friends, and even the mother herself to temper expectations. Let her rest while family and friends take over household chores and meals. When the mother is ready, Holy Mother Church will provide a passage out of the newborn fog to “normalcy.”

The Vocations Crisis

Women have always been the key to the vocations crisis—not as ministers but as mothers. 

The vocations crisis is linked to the fertility crisis. There are fewer vocations when the pool from which we draw is smaller. Fewer baptisms mean fewer marriages and even fewer priests. 

Johann Kurtz argues that economic incentives do little to fix fertility rates, looking at Hungary for an example. Neither does religiosity alone. Curiously, honor does much. Kurtz gives as example an Orthodox bishop who offered to be the godfather to all third-born babies in the country of Georgia. The birth rate subsequently rose. 

How wise is Mother Church to already honor a mother’s fiat in her ancient rites.

It’s not just a question of who is having more children but who is raising the ones they do have with a sincere openness to religious vocations. It should come as no surprise that where the mother is honored less, the motherly hands that tend to the little potential priests and sisters point to fulfillment in other places. Such is human nature. Mothers mirror Our Lady less when they are not asked to mirror Our Lady. And the children follow her lead. 

There is another forgotten tradition to honor women in the Roman Rite that involves priestly ordinations. Traditionally, a priest has his hands consecrated as they are bound in white linen cloth and anointed with oil. The new priest later presents his mother with this precious white cloth. As folk custom goes, she is to keep this white cloth for her deathbed so that when she goes to her judgment day, she may present it to Our Lord to remind Him that she gave Him a priest.

When I hear of traditions such as Churching and the consecration cloth, I must wonder if our new synodal hierarchy is really interested in listening to ordinary women when they set their sights elsewhere. As a mere laywoman and a mother, I don’t want to read from the pulpit or play deacon or shepherd my girls into the sanctuary. I want to be shepherded by a good and holy priest. 

Our Lady did not preach from the pulpit to prepare the way of the Lord; she pondered the works of God in her heart. She was not handed the Eucharist or holy orders at the Last Supper; she stood at the foot of the Cross and was handed the battered body of her dead son.

She housed the Divine Infant in her womb, nursed Him with her body, and when the bitter end came, she arranged Him in a tomb with her own hands. Oh, what sorrowful and joyful work—and such as could only be done by a mother! 

The mother of the priest relates to Our Lady in a special way as the mother of an alter Christus, another Christ. But all mothers relate to Our Lady in their fiat to life simply as mothers. You want to honor women more in the Church? Well, we would do well to listen to Mother Church and the distinctly feminine traditions she already holds instead of worldly titles. 

Oh Lord, send us many holy priests and religious vocations! But first, send us many holy mothers!

[Photo provided by author. Credit: Julie Parthum of St. Joseph Shrine in Detroit]

Author

  • Angela Lill is a wife and mother. She holds her PhD in political philosophy from the University of Dallas. She writes about the Roman liturgy at ourromanroots.com and runs Friday Trivia for Mass of the Ages.

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5 thoughts on “Women Don’t Need More Ministerial Roles—We Need Churching!”

  1. What a well-written, thought provoking, and encouraging article. As a husband and father of four children, I am distressed that this blessing was not incorporated as an important feature of the post-Vatican II liturgical “renewal”. Our family was completely unaware that it existed. What a gloriously encouraging event for chasing away the “post partum blues” and confirming the glory of motherhood!

  2. I suffered from ill health after the birth of each one of my children and for decades after the last birth. When I learned about the Churching of Women years after giving birth, I immediately felt a sense of healing, even though I hadn’t even received this blessing. It was as if something I knew should have happened really did exist as a possibility. It would also have deeply helped my sense of my place as a mother to put each one of my children upon His altar, asking for Mary’s intercession. As it seems that there may be no time limit on this blessing, I may still ask a priest for this gift. Again, I can sense how helpful it would be. And I encourage every new mother to ask for this blessing. Being honored does make you stand up straighter because it reminds you to whom you belong. Thank you for such a good and helpful article. Our Mother Church does give us everything we need, even when we don’t even know about it. Please, Crisis Magazine, remind us of all the we may be missing.

    • “It would also have deeply helped my sense of my place as a mother to put each one of my children upon His altar, asking for Mary’s intercession.” Beautifully said. I can only wonder what effect this blessing would have had on my wife (and even on my appreciation for her).

  3. Fine article – thanks. It always amazes me as a man that feminists are happiest when they intimate us (who they scorn) and ignore what God wanted them to be. No man will ever possess the gift that women do. Maybe it’s the fear of accepting the responsibility for bringing life into the world that makes abortion such a source of enthusiasm for most of them. Very sad.

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