Is Catholicism in any way "anti-female"?

[Tips22]

Thank you all so much. My Latin teacher loves my project! This is so helpful and interesting too!

 

[HelenRose]

When I made the comment that men have twisted the teaching " women should submit to their husbands" is when a man forces - either emotionally or physically - their wives to submit to a degrading position. This why the teaching for men to love their wives as Christ loves the Church is so important and very often ignored by men. If only men would love their wives as Christ loves His Church, what happiness that would bring to so many marriages.

Yes, this is another case of what occurs in the physical realm representing greater spiritual realities. The scripture says that a husband is to love his wife as Christ loves the Church, and be willing to give up his life for her. It also says that woman should submit to her husband.

This should occur physically. Each man should love his wife in this extreme way, and each woman should submit to the will of her husband. This physical relationship in this way symbolizes the submission of the Church (or the individual soul) to her Christ, and Christ’s love for his Church (or the individual soul) which is so extreme that he died for her.

Women submitting to men in the marriage bond is not a twisting of God’s words. It is a physical reality, ordained by God, in the relationship between husband and wife. Husband and wife should work together, but if there is a strong clash of wills, the husband wins. If both partners were exactly equal in the power relationship, then clashes of these kinds would drive the partners apart. That is seen a whole lot in modern marriages, and part of the reason is that women are taught in modern times not to pay attention to Biblical teachings on the roles of gender. Men, also, are not taught to love their wives to such an extent that they’ll give up their very lives for them. Neither gender is being taught its appropriate responsibilities. Both are suffering for it.

This power relationship is a great blessing to those that participate in it. The relationships of my parents and grandparents have been very deep and loving, and in both relationships, both the men and the women fulfilled their Biblical gender responsibilities. The women submitted to the men where there was an important and strong clash of wills, but almost always the two were working together on everything. The men loved their wives deeply and made sacrifices for them. Both couples loved one another.

I know that this works on a practical level. It also teaches virtue to both partners. Submission to a god-appointed hierarchy (even when it’s wrong, provided it isn’t ordering you to disobey God’s laws), as I pointed out in my first post in this thread, is a virtue. So is the husband making such sacrifices for his life, and living in such devotion to her. The acceptance of these roles teach virtue to each partner. They also train the souls of each partner for the higher relationship their Lord expects of them.

This physical relationship is symbolic of the higher spiritual relationship. Just as man’s role as protector of his wife to the extent of laying down his life for her is symbolic of Christ’s laying down his life for his bride, so the submission of the woman to her husband is symbolic of the submission of the soul to the Lord. The physical realities are not replaced by the relationship of the Church and Christ. They glorify that relationship and symbolically reveal its meaning to human families.

This is a wonderful case of the relationship roles God created glorifying God.

So is the relationship of children to their parents, for that matter. Parental relationships with their children represent the relationship between God and his children.

 

[Lief_Erikson]

Oh, okay. Good clarification. I completely agree with you.

 

[holdencaulfield]

I would say that Catholicism is definitely pro-female. Here is a quote I have taken off of the SSPX website (a traditional Catholic organization) on this matter. It does a much better job at explaining this than I could.

It was Rousseau who claimed that man is born free, that all men are by nature equal and that man is naturally good. This triple dogma of the sage of Geneva is mingled with truths and errors which must clearly be distinguished for one of the currents underpinning the Feminist Movement as Rousseaustic in origin. It is true in the psychological order that is when each acts in accordance with his nature, that every activity and every tendency is directed toward the good as towards its proper end, but in the moral order a necessary distinction imposes itself; the higher faculties reason and will have a morally good natural tendency; by definition they are conformable to reason, but the lower appetites, the inferior faculties can oppose and frustrate reason.

Liberty is natural to man, i.e., the basic power or faculty itself but regarding the exercise of his freedom man enjoys only a partial and not an absolute independence of action for he must indeed submit to laws not only for his own good but also for the good of society. That all men are equal as regards the constitutional elements of man’s specific nature, in an abstract way, agree; with reference to men’s individual nature, all men are not equal neither in fact nor as a matter of right; the variety of talents which each possesses ensures that human nature does not make us equal.

Furthermore in questions of merit and demerit, each man cannot receive the same reward or punishment. Equality is for the most part an illusion.

It is this lamentable lack of reason which underlies feminist thinking if it can be called that. Men and women are different physically and psychologically. Their respective human natures are not in opposition nor do they seek to usurp each other’s function and role but are complementary.

The Church has always been, historically, a great defender of woman. In ancient civilizations women were frequently subject to male tyranny and despotism. Christianity raised woman from this degrading servitude by sanctifying marriage and making it inviolable. The Church sanctioned the supernatural equality of man and woman by praising both marriage and virginity.

The recognition of the unique role of woman and its defense must not be confused with radical aberrant fanatical feminism; the latter fails to appreciate and value the true purpose and aim of womanhood. Feminism is a vain and foolish imitation of masculinity at the expense of a tragic loss in feminity. Feminism is not the exaltation of woman but her obliteration, the reduction of the feminine character to that of the masculine. It is a self-imposed slavery and loss of identity. It is a travesty of nature in so far as it refuses the nature of woman in the divine plan; it is a perversion also in the natural sphere. Feminists have not understood true freedom, human nature, nor the essential distinctions involved in a proper evaluation of the notion of equality.

The natural order differentiates the two sexes by subordinating the one to the other. In the order of creation the woman comes after man. She is subject to man though not his final end. The final end of both is absolutely equal.

St. Paul makes it clear: “There is neither male nor female just as there is neither Jew nor Gentile nor freeman nor slave” (Gal. 3:28). There are specific differences between male and female but all the baptized are clothed in the same dignity before God. As Sacred Scripture points out, the subjection of the female to the male does not have its principle in the male but in the Lord.

“Wives be subject to your husbands in the Lord.” Furthermore, this matter is more fully explained when St. Paul addressing married couples in his letter to the Ephesians says: “Be subject to one another.”

There is a subordination which many choose to ignore, a subordination given us by Divine revelation: “The head of every man is Christ; the head of the woman is man; and the head of Christ is God.”

Feminism refuses the true nature of woman, confuses the natural and supernatural relations between the sexes and embarks upon a deviant path at the end of which the suicide of thought and the death of womanhood is inevitable. Source

 

[jmcrae]

The last time I heard of a woman being “ordained” as a “priest” the first thing she did was abdicate her power and authority - she didn’t “feel comfortable” having it.

What I had to wonder at that moment was, “Why did you want to become a priest, if you didn’t want the responsibiity that comes with the priesthood?”

She could have saved herself quite a lot of bother (not to mention the emotional pain of being excommunicated) by just becoming a Sunday School teacher (and women are most certainly encouraged to be Sunday School teachers in the Church), by the time she “re-visioned” her “priesthood.”

As for the status of women in the Church, Mother Mary is Queen of Heaven; there is no priest, deacon, Bishop, or Pope who has any equivalent role to that. Men and women work together in the Church.

I also don’t think it’s necessarily true that having all the “power” (responsibility) means having all the influence - many priests and even Bishops are strongly influenced by the women they live and work with.

 

[holdencaulfield]

Another point that may be made is that St. Mary the Blessed and Holy Theotokos is the greatest person to have ever lived. A woman who is greater than man.

 

[Roy5]

WOMEN AT YANKEE STADIUM

I was blessed to be able to attend the Mass at Yankee Stadium on April 20. It was magnificently orchestrated. Pope Benedict demonstrated amazing serenity and energy as he spoke to the thousands after several days of constant activity - and at the age of 81.

Now, as to women. There must have been about 200 priests - among them Bishops etc - clustered around the pope at the altar. In the very last row, behind all the men, were six women, each of whom was a reader. To the average modern observer, this strongly suggested that women face discrimination within the Church. This matter, and the celibacy issue, need to be faced or the Church will eventually become an anachronism, a relic of an earlier age when women were truly subordinate. 

  I'm sure this view offends most readers who believe that Roman Catholicism in its present form will always be preserved by Christ. But I wouldn't bet much money on it. Actually, I don't bet. Christ will preserve the Church only so long as it serves the present age, makes essential reforms, and doesn't live in the past.

   Keep smiling - if you are able to.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

To the average modern observer, this strongly suggested that women face discrimination within the Church.

And if the Church were nothing but an ‘average modern institution’ this might indeed be the case.

But it isn’t.

So it isn’t.

What things ‘look like’ or ‘seem to be’ to us humans is not necessarily what things actually ‘are’ to God.

And as for the ‘living in the past’ remark?
Balderdash.

The real problem is those who insist that the Church ‘has to’ live ‘in the present’ and to ‘adjust itself to the times’.

The Church is timeless.

God’s word doesn’t ‘change’ to suit whatever happens to be the morality of the month or the issue of the week, or whatever a given society has taken upon itself to proclaim as an ‘injustice’.

If something is truly immoral, truly unjust, or truly needing to be addressed. . .God has it covered and the Word He gave is for all ages, not just for the ‘1st century man’, the 12th century man, or the 21st century man–for all men, for all time.

He isn’t going to contradict Himself. He can’t. His Spirit guides the Church and guides it truly, even if it offends the politically correct who cannot FATHOM that the Church won’t make what it feels are the OBVIOUS CHANGES that will bring about utopia on earth and redress the centuries of ‘oppression’ for (insert group of ‘put upon people’ here).

Luckily, it is indeed Christ who guides His Church and speaks for it. So I’ll listen to Him and trust in Him and not in what ‘society’ has deemed He has somehow ‘failed to perform to its satisfaction’.

 

[rwoehmke]

Like Fix, I am still waiting for the OP to tell us how anti-woman is to be defined. There have been a lot of interesting posts, but they seem to be aimed almost exclusively at the Roman Catholic Church’s treatment of women and at the same time be more on the point of “pro-woman.” than the “anti-woman” aspects proposed as the topic by this Latin teacher. What does the teacher mean by “anti-woman” and when she says “religion” which religion or religions? The topics are so broad that one could write a dozen books and still not cover them. Well, I suppose, considering this is an apologetics site.

 

[Orthodox_Guy]

No… the Catholic Church is not anti-female. Just look at the Virgin Mary… she’s the most honored saint in the Catholic church… and is a woman.

So no, the Catholic Church is not anti-female… it has just not gone all liberal (like the Episcopalians and United Methodists) and given in to our feminist society and allowed women priests and bishops

 

[HelenRose]

Whatever our disagreements, thoughts and perspectives are on this forum, one thing we DO agree on is: Our goal is to please God not “the average modern observer”

WOMEN AT YANKEE STADIUM

I was blessed to be able to attend the Mass at Yankee Stadium on April 20. It was magnificently orchestrated. Pope Benedict demonstrated amazing serenity and energy as he spoke to the thousands after several days of constant activity - and at the age of 81.

Now, as to women. There must have been about 200 priests - among them Bishops etc - clustered around the pope at the altar. In the very last row, behind all the men, were six women, each of whom was a reader. To the average modern observer, this strongly suggested that women face discrimination within the Church. This matter, and the celibacy issue, need to be faced or the Church will eventually become an anachronism, a relic of an earlier age when women were truly subordinate. 

  I'm sure this view offends most readers who believe that Roman Catholicism in its present form will always be preserved by Christ. But I wouldn't bet much money on it. Actually, I don't bet. Christ will preserve the Church only so long as it serves the present age, makes essential reforms, and doesn't live in the past.

   Keep smiling - if you are able to.