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Walking_Home
Guest
If I am remembering right – it was Pope John Paul II – who said that in marital intimacy – the wife also was to be satisfied. In other words – the husband should not leave the wife “hanging”.
- Status
If I am remembering right – it was Pope John Paul II – who said that in marital intimacy – the wife also was to be satisfied. In other words – the husband should not leave the wife “hanging”.
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Walking_Home
Guest
sttcatherinefan-- It looks like you have your mind set-- and no matter what – nothing will break through.
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sttcatherinefan
Guest
Pope Francis specifically answering questions about what he means by women’s roles in the form of yes/ no answers rather than using jokes and vague phrases to wiggle out of it. The one time a female reporter called him on his attitudes he decided it was time to make a few unfunny jokes about housekeepers and Adam’s Rib.
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Walking_Home
Guest
Things don’t change overnight – it will take time —but the movement for change is happening.
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Xantippe
Guest
I think you’re not quite getting what a big deal that is.
There’s a whole world out there of people that think that wives have to be prepared to offer sex on a silver platter no matter what.
And JPII has made life much less comfortable for people that take that view, insisting that there be mutuality, self-giving, and love in sex. And they really, really hate him for it.
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EasterJoy
Guest
The* Church* has a fixation?
They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house, he began to ask them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they remained silent. They had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest. Then he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” Taking a child he placed it in their midst, and putting his arms around it he said to them, “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the one who sent me.” Mark 9:33-37
There is nothing a Christian ought to be less concerned about than that the “class” he or she is in is somehow not high enough.
*While he was speaking, a woman from the crowd called out and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed.” He replied, “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” *Luke 11:27-28
It is not motherhood that crowns Our Lady, but her Fiat. That is open to anyone, male or female, no matter what ethnicity. Those who are rich or powerful must take great care, because humility and obedience will be especially difficult for them, but it is available to all who pursue it.
So when he had washed their feet, put his garments back on and reclined at table again, he said to them, "Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do. Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it. John 13:12-17
There are too many arguments in the Church right now that are not about what is the truth, but about who gets to run things. Are the hundreds of millions of Catholics who don’t get to run things “second class”? Let’s hope not. It is pretty hard to imagine, then, what anyone whose been taught to read and use a computer has to complain about. Whatever our problem is, it is not that we’ve been shortchanged in what position of privilege or how much self-determination or what station in life we’ve been given. That, we have beyond the imagination of the vast majority of humanity, both now and in former ages. The question is what we’re doing with the benefits we have been given.
By the way, it does not even make sense to accuse the Church both of being fixated on virginity AND of seeing women as nothing but mothers instead of fully realized individuals. Is a Doctor of the Church not a “fully realized” individual? Remember that our full realization is entirely in our sanctity. We are made to be saints. That is how we are to become “fully realized.” We have to be very careful we do not come to believe that it means to “be like gods who know what is good and what is bad.” That belief is the world’s oldest con job.
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DebChris
Guest
Exactly. JPII in his Theology of the Body focused on the sanctity of the sexual act.
When something is sacred, or important and precious, we take extra care of it. We don’t abuse it. This is one of the major themes running through his talks which became the book. It’s a positive approach to teaching sexuality.
We take care of the body because it is the Temple of the Lord.
Scripture says be mutually submissive. Nowhere in scripture does it tell the man to dominate the woman. What it does say is “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the Church.”
The Old Testament even says, “The Lord detests the man who covers his garment (his wife) with blood.” Marriage is often used as a metaphor for the relationship between God and his people, and how we are called to be faithful. Yes, there are acts of violence against women in the O.T. It is a story of a people who are not always faithful to God. They are shown with their flaws as well as with their strengths. There are also women who are sought for their advice and who are known for their heroism.
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sttcatherinefan
Guest
So JPII was against marital rape, which is a criminal act in the U.S. How nice of him. That certainly doesn’t affect my life as a Western women.
And of course, women enjoy sex. Men aren’t the ones who watch soaps or Sex in the City or read books like Fifty Shades of Gray.
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sttcatherinefan
Guest
I get really tired of being told to be quiet about these issues because of starving children in Africa. That reminds me of the old trick about telling your kids to eat their veggies because of the same starving children. And it really does matter who is in charge. Ask any parish who is stuck with a real clunker of a pastor.
Mary was both a mother and a virgin and she is obviously the most idealized woman in Catholicism. And there is very much a lie down and think of Britain mentality when it comes to sex. Women as pure princesses aren’t supposed to enjoy sex but are supposed to lie back and deal with it for children. Of course, the greater vocation is dying as a teenaged virgin rather than marrying.
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Xantippe
Guest
Really, honestly, some women don’t ever enjoy sex, and there are long stretches in the lives of many women when they will regard the activity with either indifference or repugnance.
Here is an enormous archive devoted to all the millions of reasons:
juliagrey.wordpress.com/
And not every woman enjoys the sort of stuff you mention. And, of the women that do, some may watch it for completely different reasons than sex. (Really, how much screen time on a soap is taken up with sex? Not a whole heck of a lot. If you were watching it just for sex scenes, you’d be bored to death.)
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Xantippe
Guest
Something to bear in mind is that people are going to be most passionate and engaged in talking about the path that they themselves have chosen. So, a model train hobbyist will be passionate about model trains, and a Trekkie won’t shut up about Star Trek.
So, too, with vocations. A SAHM (and this is particularly true of a new mother) will often have tunnel vision with regard to anything that isn’t kids and home stuff.
Even just in the secular world, the all-consumingness of early parenthood creates a lot of problems with regard to maintaining friendships with non-parents. This is a well-recognized problem that a lot of people have to grapple with, not just a Catholic problem.
In my limited experience, among Catholics, Opus Dei has the best handle on what it means to live out one’s vocation in the working world, so that might be a good place for a single professional woman that was frustrated with SAHM-dom to look for inspiration. I’m sure that I wouldn’t like absolutely everything Opus Dei does, but I used to go to the women’s evenings of recollection at the Catholic Information Center in DC, and there were so many impressive single professional women there. Opus Dei is really good at helping people find a sense of vocation and mission in their work.
So, too, with vocations. A SAHM (and this is particularly true of a new mother) will often have tunnel vision with regard to anything that isn’t kids and home stuff.
Even just in the secular world, the all-consumingness of early parenthood creates a lot of problems with regard to maintaining friendships with non-parents. This is a well-recognized problem that a lot of people have to grapple with, not just a Catholic problem.
In my limited experience, among Catholics, Opus Dei has the best handle on what it means to live out one’s vocation in the working world, so that might be a good place for a single professional woman that was frustrated with SAHM-dom to look for inspiration. I’m sure that I wouldn’t like absolutely everything Opus Dei does, but I used to go to the women’s evenings of recollection at the Catholic Information Center in DC, and there were so many impressive single professional women there. Opus Dei is really good at helping people find a sense of vocation and mission in their work.
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Bonnie
Guest
I’m beginning to wonder if it is a matter of perception rather than reality. I simply don’t see the problems that you do - and I’m not “just” a mother.
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Sarcelle
Guest
Gentleness, tenderness, sensitivity?
Bwahahaha!
My mom was a housewife when we were young but none of the above descriptive words suit her. She was a stern taskmaster. More like a drill sergeant than a caricature of Victorian sentimentality. She was the one who made sure I was strong enough to face life as an adult.
I look at my friends mothers and they were also the same. I honestly don’t know why Pope Francis subscribes to this Victorian sentimental view women. It seems like the Victorians view women as ornaments.
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edwest2
Guest
Can you provide a reference that quotes Pope Francis saying something like the last two sentences?
Best,
Ed
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Sarcelle
Guest
You misunderstood me. The idea of woman as the angel of the household is a Victorian idea. This is what I was alluding too when I mentioned Pope Francis. I then go on to say that the Victorians were the ones who held the idea of women, especially upper class women as ornaments. I was not alluding this mindset of woman as ornaments to Pope Francis only to the Victorians.
To explain further, Pope Francis seems to hold a view that is similar to the Victorian idea of the woman as the angel of the household. That is all.
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Bonnie
Guest
That was only women of the upper class. Women in lower classes were not treated as ornaments at all. Servants, especially, were treated pretty much (in my modern opinion) like slaves. Lower class women were also fair game sexually. Victorian men didn’t have the expectation of purity that the women did.
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Bookcat
Guest
Catechism
369 Man and woman have been created, which is to say, willed by God: on the one hand, in perfect equality as human persons; on the other, in their respective beings as man and woman. “Being man” or “being woman” is a reality which is good and willed by God: man and woman possess an inalienable dignity which comes to them immediately from God their Creator.240 Man and woman are both with one and the same dignity “in the image of God”. In their “being-man” and “being-woman”, they reflect the Creator’s wisdom and goodness.
370 In no way is God in man’s image. He is neither man nor woman. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes. But the respective “perfections” of man and woman reflect something of the infinite perfection of God: those of a mother and those of a father and husband.241
“Each for the other” - “A unity in two”
371 God created man and woman together and willed each for the other. The Word of God gives us to understand this through various features of the sacred text. "It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him."242 None of the animals can be man’s partner.243 The woman God “fashions” from the man’s rib and brings to him elicits on the man’s part a cry of wonder, an exclamation of love and communion: "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh."244 Man discovers woman as another “I”, sharing the same humanity.
372 Man and woman were made “for each other” - not that God left them half-made and incomplete: he created them to be a communion of persons, in which each can be “helpmate” to the other, for they are equal as persons (“bone of my bones. . .”) and complementary as masculine and feminine. In marriage God unites them in such a way that, by forming “one flesh”,245 they can transmit human life: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth."246 By transmitting human life to their descendants, man and woman as spouses and parents cooperate in a unique way in the Creator’s work.247
373 In God’s plan man and woman have the vocation of “subduing” the earth248 as stewards of God. This sovereignty is not to be an arbitrary and destructive domination. God calls man and woman, made in the image of the Creator “who loves everything that exists”,249 to share in his providence toward other creatures; hence their responsibility for the world God has entrusted to them.
2332 Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others.
2333 Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out.
2334 "In creating men ‘male and female,’ God gives man and woman an equal personal dignity."119 "Man is a person, man and woman equally so, since both were created in the image and likeness of the personal God."120
2335 Each of the two sexes is an image of the power and tenderness of God, with equal dignity though in a different way. The union of man and woman in marriage is a way of imitating in the flesh the Creator’s generosity and fecundity: "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh."121 All human generations proceed from this union.122
2336 Jesus came to restore creation to the purity of its origins. In the Sermon on the Mount, he interprets God’s plan strictly: "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."123 What God has joined together, let not man put asunder.124
scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a6.htm#2334
- III. “MALE AND FEMALE HE CREATED THEM”
369 Man and woman have been created, which is to say, willed by God: on the one hand, in perfect equality as human persons; on the other, in their respective beings as man and woman. “Being man” or “being woman” is a reality which is good and willed by God: man and woman possess an inalienable dignity which comes to them immediately from God their Creator.240 Man and woman are both with one and the same dignity “in the image of God”. In their “being-man” and “being-woman”, they reflect the Creator’s wisdom and goodness.
370 In no way is God in man’s image. He is neither man nor woman. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes. But the respective “perfections” of man and woman reflect something of the infinite perfection of God: those of a mother and those of a father and husband.241
“Each for the other” - “A unity in two”
371 God created man and woman together and willed each for the other. The Word of God gives us to understand this through various features of the sacred text. "It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him."242 None of the animals can be man’s partner.243 The woman God “fashions” from the man’s rib and brings to him elicits on the man’s part a cry of wonder, an exclamation of love and communion: "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh."244 Man discovers woman as another “I”, sharing the same humanity.
372 Man and woman were made “for each other” - not that God left them half-made and incomplete: he created them to be a communion of persons, in which each can be “helpmate” to the other, for they are equal as persons (“bone of my bones. . .”) and complementary as masculine and feminine. In marriage God unites them in such a way that, by forming “one flesh”,245 they can transmit human life: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth."246 By transmitting human life to their descendants, man and woman as spouses and parents cooperate in a unique way in the Creator’s work.247
373 In God’s plan man and woman have the vocation of “subduing” the earth248 as stewards of God. This sovereignty is not to be an arbitrary and destructive domination. God calls man and woman, made in the image of the Creator “who loves everything that exists”,249 to share in his providence toward other creatures; hence their responsibility for the world God has entrusted to them.
2332 Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others.
2333 Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out.
2334 "In creating men ‘male and female,’ God gives man and woman an equal personal dignity."119 "Man is a person, man and woman equally so, since both were created in the image and likeness of the personal God."120
2335 Each of the two sexes is an image of the power and tenderness of God, with equal dignity though in a different way. The union of man and woman in marriage is a way of imitating in the flesh the Creator’s generosity and fecundity: "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh."121 All human generations proceed from this union.122
2336 Jesus came to restore creation to the purity of its origins. In the Sermon on the Mount, he interprets God’s plan strictly: "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."123 What God has joined together, let not man put asunder.124
scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a6.htm#2334
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Bookcat
Guest
“The Chief Rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, has shown in a very detailed and profoundly moving study that the attack we are currently experiencing on the true structure of the family, made up of father, mother, and child, goes much deeper. While up to now we regarded a false understanding of the nature of human freedom as one cause of the crisis of the family, it is now becoming clear that the very notion of being – of what being human really means – is being called into question. He quotes the famous saying of Simone de Beauvoir: “one is not born a woman, one becomes so” (on ne naît pas femme, on le devient). These words lay the foundation for what is put forward today under the term “gender” as a new philosophy of sexuality. According to this philosophy, sex is no longer a given element of nature, that man has to accept and personally make sense of: it is a social role that we choose for ourselves, while in the past it was chosen for us by society. The profound falsehood of this theory and of the anthropological revolution contained within it is obvious. People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves. According to the biblical creation account, being created by God as male and female pertains to the essence of the human creature. This duality is an essential aspect of what being human is all about, as ordained by God. This very duality as something previously given is what is now disputed. The words of the creation account: “male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27) no longer apply. No, what applies now is this: it was not God who created them male and female – hitherto society did this, now we decide for ourselves. Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist. Man calls his nature into question. From now on he is merely spirit and will. The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned. From now on there is only the abstract human being, who chooses for himself what his nature is to be. Man and woman in their created state as complementary versions of what it means to be human are disputed. But if there is no pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation, then neither is the family any longer a reality established by creation. Likewise, the child has lost the place he had occupied hitherto and the dignity pertaining to him. Bernheim shows that now, perforce, from being a subject of rights, the child has become an object to which people have a right and which they have a right to obtain. When the freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God, as the image of God at the core of his being. The defence of the family is about man himself. And it becomes clear that when God is denied, human dignity also disappears. Whoever defends God is defending man.”
~ Pope Benedict XVI
w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2012/december/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20121221_auguri-curia.html
~ Pope Benedict XVI
w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2012/december/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20121221_auguri-curia.html
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Sarcelle
Guest
You are right.
This is how the sexual double standard is sustained. There are entire groups of women who are available for men as playthings and there are women who these same men marry.
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pensmama87
Guest
Well, after reading the thread, it’s become pretty clear to me that the OP really wasn’t interested in learning Catholic teaching about gender roles.
It’s like the “friends” I had who started talking to me like I was five years old after I had a child, as if my reproductive system had turned my entire brain into goo and I wasn’t the person who a few years ago spent all night discussing philosophy with them.
Who, exactly, is being sexist here?
It’s like the “friends” I had who started talking to me like I was five years old after I had a child, as if my reproductive system had turned my entire brain into goo and I wasn’t the person who a few years ago spent all night discussing philosophy with them.
Who, exactly, is being sexist here?
- Status