Did Church debate if Women had souls?

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SwordofLight

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I have a Professor who mentioned that the Church once said in the 1600’s that women did not have souls, or if they did, that they were somehow inferior to the male soul.

This was also mentioned by a Muslim student in the student paper in one article defending Islam’s problems.

I’ve looked around but can’t really find an answer. So can anyone tell me what the Church *really *debated in the 1600’s??
 
i have no idea…

but, i can say this… the church definately recognizes that
women have souls now… so, i guess if there was debate,
the ‘woman has a soul’ side won…

🙂
 
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axolotl:
No it is not true.

home.nyc.rr.com/mysticalrose/object.html
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good answer…

and another bookmark for my favorites list… thanks…

🙂
 
Remember,

In Catholic Theology, the Soul is what animates the body, gives Life to otherwise Lifeless matter.

To say that women do not have souls would be to say they are not alive and cannot move.

That is obviously NOT the case.

You can also point your professor towards St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica

Refereces here

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=1028380&postcount=6
 
there was a theological proposal that ensoulment occurred later for girl babies than for boy babies — like a few weeks later. that was in the 12th or 13th century. it was never doctrine or even close.
 
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JimG:
That’s a great explanation on the mystical rose site.
( home.nyc.rr.com/mysticalrose/object.html )
It’s amazing to me how these weird allegations take on a life of their own and few people ever take the time to check their historical accuracy.
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It’s not that amazing or hard to do when you already have a bias against the Church 😉
 
The story begins, innocently enough, in the late sixteenth century. A young scholar, Valentius Acidalius, was working as a teacher in Silesia, and, like many young scholars, he was short of money. He thought to turn an honest penny by publishing a “diverting” pamphlet. In Latin the word homo, like the word man in English, primarily means “a human being, male or female, young or old,” but has the secondary meaning of “adult male.” Valentius thought it would be fun to use this ambiguity to “show” that in the Bible only adult males have souls. If he thought the pamphlet would amuse, he was grievously wrong. Simon Geddicus, a Lutheran scholar, launched a mighty counter-pamphlet entitled A Defense of the Female Sex, in which he proposed “manfully” (he actually uses the word viriliter) to “destroy each and every one of the arguments put forward by Valentius,” who, the reader will learn with regret or satisfaction as the case may be, took a seizure and died.
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firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9704/nolan.html
 
From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
The female sex is in some respects inferior to the male sex, both as regards body and soul. On the other hand, woman has qualities which man lacks. With truth does the writer on education, Lorenz Kellner, say: “I call the female sex neither the beautiful nor the weak sex (in the absolute sense). The one designation is the invention equally of sensuality and of flattery; the other owes its currency to masculine arrogance. In its way the female sex is as strong as the male, namely in endurance and patience, in quiet long-suffering, in short, in all that concerns its real sphere, viz., the inner life” (Lose Blätter", Collected by von Görgen; Freiburg, 1895, 50). On account of the moral equality of the sexes the moral law for man and woman must also be the same. To assume a lax morality for the man and a rigid one for the woman is an oppressive injustice even from the point of view of common sense. Woman’s work is also in itself of equal value with that of a man, as the work performed by both is ennobled by the same human dignity.
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Catholic2003:
From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
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I read that in the same way in which I was answering a question similar to the the other night.

I said that in some ways, women are inferior, while in other ways men are. For instance, women are not as physically strong as men (generally). However, women also tend to be more capable of bearing pain then men. In this aspect, men are inferior. In the end, I would say it balances out. In other words, for every one thing mean are superior in, women are superior in some thing of their own.
 
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