Women

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Recently a friend told me that before the Council of Trent, women were considered non-human by the Catholic Church, but at the Council of Trent the Bishops voted and it was passed by a majority of one that women are fully human. I asked, "What about the Blessed Mother and all the women Saints before the Council of Trent? Is there any truth to this? He said he found this out from a Priest.
 
Hogwash. Either your friend misunderstood the priest, or the priest is sorrowfully misinformed. One need only look at Adam and Eve to know that the faith always considered women very human. I would ask him for better documentation of his assertion other than the hearsay of a priest. He might have been just expressing his own opinon and using the “heard it from a priest” as a way to bolster his position.
 
Pure junk.

When people make statements like this, I always ask for evidence. There usually isn’t any.

Anyway, you did the right thing by asking us here, CEMCBP. I’d rather people ask than let such things go unchallenged. 🙂
 
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axolotl:
Ahh, here it is!!

home.nyc.rr.com/mysticalrose/object.html
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Thanks for that link, axolotl. 🙂
 
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Catholic2003:
The Old Catholic encyclopedia from the last century confirms that women do have souls, albeit inferior ones:
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The full paragraph from which the sentence is taken:

**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. **

The context is one not of female inferiority, but of complementary qualities of both sexes. The entire, long article is worth reading.
 
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CEMCBP:
Recently a friend told me that before the Council of Trent, women were considered non-human by the Catholic Church, but at the Council of Trent the Bishops voted and it was passed by a majority of one that women are fully human. I asked, "What about the Blessed Mother and all the women Saints before the Council of Trent? Is there any truth to this? He said he found this out from a Priest.
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From “Those Terrible Middle Ages” by Regine Pernoud
That leads us to discuss the expression “a Church hostile to women”. … “It was only in the 15th century that the Church admitted that women had a soul”. This statement was candidly affirmed one day on the radio by some writer of fiction that was no doubt motivated by good intentions but whose information showed proof of several lacunae! So for centuries, soulless beings were being baptized, confessed, and even admitted to the Eucharist! How strange that the first martyrs honored as saints were women not men: St. Agnes, St. Cecilia, St. Agatha, and so many others. How truly sad that St. Genevieve and St. Blandine were deprived of immortal souls. How surprising that one of the most ancient catacomb paintings represented precisely the “Virgin with Child”., well designated by the star and the prophet Isaiah. And finally, who are we to believe, those justly, reproach the medieval Church for the cult of the Virgin Mary or those who judge the Virgin to have been considered at that time to be a creature with a soul?
Without letting such nonsense delay us…
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http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0898707811/002-0089165-8891277?v=glance
 
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CEMCBP:
Recently a friend told me that before the Council of Trent, women were considered non-human by the Catholic Church, but at the Council of Trent the Bishops voted and it was passed by a majority of one that women are fully human. I asked, "What about the Blessed Mother and all the women Saints before the Council of Trent? Is there any truth to this? He said he found this out from a Priest.
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CEMCPB,

Welcome to the Catholic Answers Forums! I wish you a long and joyful stay here.

I think your response to your friend was absolutely correct: what about all those woman saints in the first 1500 years of the Church’s life?

By the way, I have a copy of the canons and decrees of the Council of Trent, and the question of the humanity of women was never discussed there–at least it never made it into the proceedings.
  • Liberian
 
HOPEFULLY YOU HAVE GOT THE CORRECT INFORMATION
IT IS DANGEROUS TO DEPEND ON HEARSAY.
ALWAYS LET THOSE “FRIENDS” PROVE THEIR ASSERTIONS .
 
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