ROME, NOV. 7, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Women are increasingly present in the field of theology, but they still have a long way to go, was a consensus at a congress at the pontifical Marianum Faculty.
The weekend congress, “Women and Theology 40 Years after the Second Vatican Council,” was organized by the Costanza Scelfo Institute of the Italian Society of Theological Research. Its aim was to reflect on women’s contribution to theology and to study conciliar documents in the light of woman.
Donatella Scaiola, professor of Scripture at the Urbanian University, noted that women’s contribution to Scripture has been above all in the field of exegesis, particularly at the methodological level.
Scaiola said that “the presence of women is a chapter of the presence of the laity within theological reflection.”
The biblicist encouraged women to explore other, more general hermeneutical fields and not only those related to woman.
Sandra Mazzolini, an expert in ecclesiology, said that as a theologian she sometimes feels “uncomfortable with biblical studies, which are either very specialized or very trivial,” and suggested further study of the nexus between Scripture and Tradition.
Theologian Stella Morra of the Gregorian University said that “today, learning is fragmented and theology is not immune to this fact,” the reason why it is necessary to have “multidisciplinary work” among the various theological specializations.
Marinella Perroni, president of the Coordination of Italian Women Theologians, commented that curiously there are more women specialized in the Old than in the New Testament.
The symposium gathered some 100 participants, many of them young women dedicated to theology in various centers in Italy.
