Does modern woman need religion?

Does modern woman need religion? I answered that question affirmatively when I turned eighteen, even though I did not precisely understand what religion was, or what I hoped to find in it. It was the eighties – years of stagnation, which even the war with Afghanistan could not shake; every day things were as usual, like always – so much the usual that it was intolerable. No one had raised me in the ways of faith, I had never been to church and, like many of my peers, I felt there was nothing for me to do there. My classmate left university to enter the seminary, and all of us looked upon him as if he were out of his mind, or at least, an original opportunist who, realizing that he would not pass his upcoming exams, decided in this way to evade the army. From whence could religion or faith take hold in an atheistic society? What need did we have of it? The majority of my classmates to this day steer clear of churches and get by just fine without religion. With me everything happened spontaneously, unexpected even by me; all of a sudden one wonderful summer morning I understood that I could no longer live that way nor did I want to, that I should become a Christian, and quickly at that.

When I announced to my relatives that I had decided to be baptized and convert to Catholicism, no one objected or tried to talk me out of it; they only advised that I do it secretly somehow, so as to not bring suffering to any relatives. During the holidays I traveled to Lithuania, to my uncle, and to this day I look upon the day of my baptism as a holiday.

Why did I choose to become Catholic in particular? First of all, that was the religion of my ancestors, of my grandmother, who kept her faith despite all the wars and revolutions. Secondly, Catholicism was closer to me in spirit, more contemporary in comparison with Orthodoxy, including its attitude towards women as well. In the Catholic Church no one banned those coming in jeans or obliged others to cover their hair with a kerchief, which also played a significant role for me. Furthermore, the attitude in the church towards a neophyte such as I was very pleasant, friendly; no one grew indignant if there was something I didn’t know. On the contrary, strangers, who happened to turn up next to me, tried unobtrusively to help, to make a suggestion, to show what needed to be done. So I began to attend church regularly, remaining incognito; though there were many visitors in those days to the only Catholic chapel in Moscow (of Saint Ludwig on the Malaya Lubyanka), no one asked each other’s name, but everyone knew each other by sight. Remaining a secret Catholic, I finished university and went to work, although a career was never a top priority for me. I imagine it’s great to have a career, but I’ve always found the prospect of doing one and only one thing your entire life to be boring, even if you’re fulfilling yourself and moving up the corporate ladder - but for what, if you’ll only tire of it after a few years? My former classmates made a career in the military, but I simply worked in places I liked and only as long as it suited me or they put up with me – I taught grade-school and afterwards in the technical school; I worked as a programmer in one of the ministries, I traveled, I became a guide-interpreter, I was a secretary, a computer programmer/installer. And faith was always with me, not only when things were rough, but also when things were great. I go to Sunday mass not only because it’s the duty of every Catholic, but because I like to go to church and return from there with a rejuvenated soul, one more tolerant of others and of myself. And I feel sorry for my friends who never found for themselves any kind of religion, of which there are many to this day.

I don’t know if faith can be easily reconciled with feminism. Such a problem has never presented itself to me and still doesn’t, because I don’t consider myself a feminist, any and all chauvinism is equally unpleasant to me: white or black, male or female, and I honestly confess that in the pronouncements of certain feminists at the “roundtable” I personally heard specifically female, and not male, chauvinism. It may be that the tedious Komsomol gatherings of my elementary and student years set my teeth on edge, but I do not agree (with the idea) that participation in a given discussion, even a feminist one, is more important for a woman than a family or national holiday (?) And I don’t want any radical changes and revolutions in the Catholic church. At the very least, the experience of Russia should have taught – at least us, living here – that no good comes of radicalism. Remember the enduring proverbial saying: “They wanted things to turn out for the better, but things turned out as they always do.”

Changes will come in and of themselves, by natural means, if they are really inevitable. I myself see nothing wrong with female priesthood and I believe that at some point it will become a reality, and not only in Protestant countries, but is the community to which I belong, let alone the entire Catholic Church, ready to agree with my personal opinion? And if it’s not prepared, then why force upon others my opinion, demand immediate changes, or march out of the church in protest? I certainly do not want to “blow up the situation from the inside out” – I like my church, so then why blow up the home, where I am comfortable and at peace? Or run from it wherever fancy takes me? I don’t think that the church tries to interfere in my private life. Yes, the church offers advice to us, but is this really a crime against the freedom of an individual – to try to explain something, to teach something? After all, the process of teaching always goes both ways - the teacher not only teaches his students, but he himself is constantly learning along with them. And is it logical to deny the Church the right to “control” our private life if there, at the very same roundtable, feminists demand (for themselves) the right to meddle in the religious – and also personal – life of millions of believers?

Much more important than the argument over what God’s nature is, who He is – a white man with a gray beard or actually half woman – is to understand that both man and woman are simply human. Two different beings, two different natures, but nevertheless – above all else human, nothing more, but also nothing less.

All of us need to learn to hear one another, to understand and respect someone else’s opinion, even though it differs from your own, which of course, for each of us, is the only true and correct opinion. And revolutions, social outbursts and radicalism I would prefer to leave in the retreating millenium – as a memory of the notorious good intentions, with which is paved the road to the hell of misunderstanding and wars.