c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Suzanne Holland is Assistant Professor of Religious and Social Ethics at The University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington where she teaches classes in feminism and religion, responsibility ethics, and bioethics.)

UNDATED _”Why write fiction _ truth is stranger,”said gonzo journalist and writer Hunter Thompson.

As if to reinforce Thompson’s adage, the chief protector of Roman Catholic doctrine, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, had unusual words of praise for feminist theology in Los Angeles last month. It seems the Vatican now thinks feminist theology has contributed to a heightened understanding of God’s love.

Did someone say”feminist theology?”That pariah of the faith? That same feminism that Pat Robertson claims causes women to leave their husbands, abort their children and become lesbians?

Well, since I am a feminist theologian credited with contributing to a heightened understanding of God’s love, I think I’ll take that ball and run with it. Because if the love of God means anything here and now, it has got to mean God rails at the injustice of situations like the one I read about in the paper last week.

In a story on welfare reform, I was introduced to the phenomenon of”welfare grandmothers.”It seems a whole generation of mothers, for a whole host of reasons, can no longer reasonably care for their children. And increasingly, child rearing for families formerly on welfare is being done by women who have already raised their children, women who are largely on fixed incomes, are in poor health themselves and are often caring for aging and ill husbands. In fact, it’s estimated that for millions of poor children, grandmothers are now the primary care givers.

I suppose”family values”advocates would see this as a good thing _ children being raised in a stable environment by an elder family member. Sure, it’s preferable for children to be reared in the home of a grandmother rather than in a foster home, or left with a negligent parent, but isn’t it also problematic to expect that young children will get what they need from women who have all but”retired”from child-raising? Or are women ever allowed this kind of”retirement?” The fact is, more and more mothers are being moved off welfare. The lucky ones are moved into the labor force, usually as hourly employees without health care or other benefits. The more troubled ones can end up in drug rehab programs, in prison, or on the streets. Any one of these situations creates a crisis for their children and increasingly, for the grandmothers of these children.

Why is there no public uproar about this? Why do we seem to think it’s OK to ask these women to carry the burden of raising small children at age 50, 60, or 70? Where is the same public outrage that showed itself when a 63-year-old California woman had a baby through in-vitro fertilization?”Too old to raise a child,”people said.”Self-centered,”they said.”Ought to be illegal,”said others. Or perhaps it doesn’t matter how old you are if you can afford a child.

These”welfare grandmothers”are less likely to be able to afford the costs and stresses of child rearing than other women their age; yet no one calls them”too old to raise a child.”There is no hue and cry about outlawing this practice. A woman who can afford the high costs of artificial reproduction at a fertility clinic is likely to have the resources to raise children and likely to be in good health, age 63 or not. But a woman whose life has been ravaged by the stresses of poverty, lack of affordable or adequate health care, poor diet, high blood pressure and the strain of responsibility for extended family care well into her 60s is having the deck stacked against her. So are the children in her care.

This is one of the consequences of”welfare reform.”And it exposes the scandal of American free market/Calvinist ethics: If you can afford it, it’s probably moral or at least none of anyone’s business; if you can’t afford it, the fault lies not in your stars, but in yourself. Oh, and one more thing: it’s up to you to fix it _ the rest of us are absolved from responsibility.

One of the real insights of feminist theology, it seems to me, is that God’s love and God’s justice are inseparable. So for the love of God, don’t we need to get on with righting wrongs like this one?

DEA END HOLLAND