You can't be both a Catholic and a Feminist

[buffalo]

kev7:

The only philosophical idenity you need is a catholic one. If you are a catholic then you should only vote for the party that supports your views as a catholic.

You should Identity yourself as Pro-life Catholic. Not a pro-life feminist.

I don’t think it is fair to Jesus when you take his teachings and promote them under another name. When you say to someone “Feminism promotes pro-life” you are taking the truth that Jesus gives us and giving the credit to feminism for it.

I guess this is just a problem with American culture. It is full of modern relativism. Everyone seems to have the need to belong to many groups and organizations regardless of how transient and inconsistent they are. It is no wonder the catholic church is having a hard time in NA. None just wants to be a Catholic.

In this regard, our Islamic frends are more faithfull. Just about everything they do is based on their faith to Islam.

 

[ncjohn]

kev7:

my original point from which your response orginated was directed toward the church teaching on holy orders. A teaching that one of the “catholic feminists” here did not accept.

I believed it was Catholic2003’s post and it specifically dealt with the diaconate, as did my response. If I am wrong on that origin point, which your post didn’t specify, I apologize; but I stand behind my response.

 

[Joseph_Bilodeau]

Here you say:

kev7:

…You should Identity yourself as Pro-life Catholic…

While elsewhere you state:

kev7:

You can’t be both a Catholic and a Feminist

Why?

As has already been explained, a Catholic’s reasons for identifying as either pro-life or as a feminist may spring from tthe same source: personal conviction in strong agreement with what the Church teaches about the dignity and value of all human life and of women.

 

[kev7]

Joseph Bilodeau:

Here you say:

While elsewhere you state:

Why?

As has already been explained, a Catholic’s reasons for identifying as either pro-life or as a feminist may spring from tthe same source: personal conviction in strong agreement with what the Church teaches about the dignity and value of all human life and of women.

Prolife is a catholic teaching. Feminism is not.

 

[beckyann2597]

Please read this article
historyplace.com/pointsofview/alvare.htm
It is by a Pro-Life Catholic whom I heard speak one time. She met Pope John Paul 2 one time and he told her “Remember, I am the 'Feminist Pope”.
please read Blogger backing this …
theologyofthebody.blogspot.com/2005/04/john-paul-ii-as-pioneer-of-womans.html

 

[Joseph_Bilodeau]

kev:

…Furthermore, it is not the case that feminism is promoting the Mock Ordination of Women?..

No, it is not.

Some persons who may identify as feminists may promote this. Others do not.

 

[Joseph_Bilodeau]

kev7:

Prolife is a catholic teaching. Feminism is not.

I would disagree. Respect for women is indeed compatible with Catholic teaching.

 

[kev7]

Joseph Bilodeau:

I would disagree. Respect for women is indeed compatible with Catholic teaching.

I do not agree that feminism is catholic, and as I have said before I think that it is wrong to promote the teachings of Christ under another name.

Feminism is NOT ALWAYS just about the respect for women. The Catholic church is ALWAYS about respect for women.

I submit that if you want to promote respect for women you can do so as a catholic and a catholic alone.

I would agree that respect for women is catholic. I have respect for women as a catholic.

 

[kev7]

Joseph Bilodeau:

No, it is not.

Some persons who may identify as feminists may promote this. Others do not.

Exactly. I agree with you that feminism is defined by the individual. Unlike the catholic church, which is defined by the teachings of Jesus

 

[cynic]

You have to ask, has the the Catholic Church actively lobied for equal pay rates and hiring practices for women in the workplace (in law)? Or perhaps you disagree with this anyway?

 

[Joseph_Bilodeau]

kev7:

…Feminism is NOT ALWAYS just about the respect for women…

For many Catholics who also consider themselves Feminists, this is EXACTLY what feminism is about.

 

[beckyann2597]

Kev,
I am surprised that you have not responded to my article link. Here is a point of interest for discussion. In paragraph 99 of Evangelium Vitae (“The Gospel of Life”), written by Pope JP2 it says,
“In transforming culture so that it supports life, women occupy a place in thought and action which is unique and decisive. It depends on them to **promote a ‘new feminism’ ** which rejects the temptation of imitating models of ‘male domination’ in order to acknowledge and affirm the true genius of women in every aspect of the life of society and overcome all discrimination, violence and exploitation.”

So I ask you, how can I promote a ‘new feminism’ if I can’t call myself a feminist. If it was good enough for Pope Jon Paul II, then its good enough for me. But according to you I guess even the Pope wasn’t Catholic since he believed in feminism. The kind of feminism I promote.

 

[Catholic2003]

From usccb.org/prolife/publicat/lifeinsight/mar2000.htm:

What, do you think, would the PPFA conferees make of a ballroom full of happy, fulfilled Catholic women professionals, students and homemakers celebrating the gift which Pope John Paul II has called “the feminine genius”? Could they begin to appreciate the truth of an aside he once made with a disarming smile: “I am the feminist pope”?

From commonwealmagazine.org/article.php?id_article=1045:

Io sono il Papa feminista, “I am the feminist pope,” said John Paul II with a twinkle in his eye. When everyone in the audience room laughed, he repeated the statement. After this merry addendum to his prepared remarks, the pope began his slow progress back to his study, smiling his greetings, patting and being patted; he stopped to have his ring kissed, his picture taken, and tenderly blessed a retarded child.

Sorry, kev7, but when it comes down to choosing between what Pope John Paul II said and what you say, you lose hands down.

Your anti-feminism is not a reflection of what the Catholic Church teaches; instead, it is a marked deviation from what the Church teaches.

Edited to add: Thanks to beckyann2597 for pointing this out!

 

[migurl]

I think that the only reason the Pope used that phrase was because it was the only way to get the message across. I mean, the term feminism means something pretty universal, so he used it in order to hit that point, just like I use certain words and stories when teaching my little sisters math, science and religion, the term may not be exactly right or the analogy may be flawed, but because i use terms they understand and recognize they get the point I am trying to make. the only real feminism that exists is what society creates, the Catholic church does not NEED the term because within its teachings are all the rights, and roles a woman could want. We don’t need a worldly term to describe what is already given to us by Christ and His church. The word is something the world came up with to describe the general rights, liberties and roles of women in the world, not the church.

 

[beckyann2597]

Of course the Church does not NEED the term. Nobody siad that.

 

[Catholic2003]

migurl:

the Catholic church does not NEED the term because within its teachings are all the rights, and roles a woman could want.

Nobody is saying that the Catholic Church needs the term. After all, Mother Teresa didn’t.

kev7 is trying to claim that any Catholic who uses the term “feminist” is not being faithful to what the Church teaches. Thus, kev7 has accused Pope John Paul II of not being faithful to what the Church teaches.

To me, this is enough to conclusively prove that kev7’s arguments are completely bogus, and that they reflect an anti-feminism attitude stronger than, and inconsistent with, what the Catholic Church actually teaches.

 

[Rebecca_Marie]

I think that he may feel a certain way but is just having trouble expressing it in a way you understand. I get what he is saying and am not upset at all. If you use the term feminist as it is used by society, then yes you are in conflict with catholism. The term is the problem, not what he feels it means.

 

[ncjohn]

Hey Kev7,

After spending a lot of time re-reading this thread, and all the passion and vitriol that has built up, I’d like to see if maybe we aren’t really all very close in what we’re trying to say. I’m going to break this up into three parts so we can address each premise separately, my thinking being that the biggest problem we have here is that everybody is trying to use the terminology differently.

Part 1–The basic statement. I think in this part we should be able to agree that the basic statement of the thread is in error. The Church teaches that once baptized, a person is objectively Catholic, regardless of what they believe or even if they “leave” the Church. Technically, one can be a Catholic and a “practicing” Buddhist. They may hold some non-Catholic beliefs or be out of communion with the Church, but they are still objectively Catholic. For purposes of clarity and to not present confusion on this basis I am going to mostly refer to something along the line of “being or not being faithful to Catholic teaching” through the rest of this.

Part 2–You have presented a list of 5 categories that you feel, at least in some circumstances are not faithful to Catholic teaching. They include:

1. Premarital Sex
2. Contraception
3. Papal Infallibility
4. Holy Orders–Ordination of women priests
5. Sanctity of Life

For sake of discussion, I have modified number 4 to only be the priesthood since ordination of woman deacons is still in discussion within the Church and is not considered to be a “closed” topic.

I think we can all agree that one who is in disagreement with these topics is “not being faithful” to Catholic teaching. Alternatively, to be charitible to those who may be struggling with one or more of these but are trying to accept, we might say that one is not fully assenting to Church teaching. In these statements, I think we would agree that you are correct here Kev.

Part 3–I am going to call this section “Definition of Feminism” and think we can all probably also agree that this is where the heat is being generated.

I would start by asking a question: Is there some core belief that one must have to be a feminist? A second question: Do all feminists have to subscribe to some code of beliefs in line with that?

I’m going to go out on a limb here a little and say that I believe that the “core belief” of feminism is that “women deserve equality and share equal dignity with men.” This is NOT to say that women and men are the same and can be substituted for each other, but that in God’s eyes and in legal eyes, neither is a “second class citizen.” Are we together on that? If so, is that belief in line with Catholic teaching? I think we would all agree that it is.

The second question addresses your list. Is there any item on your list that is a requirement for one to believe to be a “feminist?” I would submit that like every other group in the world, feminists are not homogeneous and have different constituencies that hold different things to be important. Within the Catholic church we are not homogeneous–we have people who prefer Latin or vernacular; kneeling or standing for communion; receiving in the hand or on the tongue; etc. These things do not affect our *core beliefs * or make us more or less Catholic. Do any of the items on your list fall into the *core belief * category to be a feminist? I would strongly suggest that they don’t, and those on this thread who proclaim themselves to “be” feminists–myself included–would say they do not. I think that the only “required belief” to be a feminist is that you believe in the inherent equality in dignity of women. Yes, there are feminists that are pro-choice, believe that women should be priests, or don’t accept papal infallibility. But none of those are core beliefs of feminism. I believe if you ask, all feminists will agree on the equality issue; I doubt that you will find any other issue that all feminists will agree on, which leads to a conclusion that there are no other issues that “define” a feminist.

Conclusion–I think in light of all of this, if one is defining oneself as a feminist, while being faithful to Catholic teaching, that there is no conflict. Whether there is a “need” to label oneself is irrelevant to the issue. We all choose to label ourselves in many ways and there is nothing inherently wrong with that. Yes, there is some confusion in the use of the label, but that is true of any label since as we said, groups are not homogeneous.

Is there anything here you can’t agree with? If not, I’ve got cake and coffee. Let’s all go down to the parish hall and have dessert!

Peace,

 

[buffalo]

kev7:

I do not agree that feminism is catholic, and as I have said before I think that it is wrong to promote the teachings of Christ under another name.

Feminism is NOT ALWAYS just about the respect for women. The Catholic church is ALWAYS about respect for women.

I submit that if you want to promote respect for women you can do so as a catholic and a catholic alone.

I would agree that respect for women is catholic. I have respect for women as a catholic.

Feminism is not always about respect for families either. It is not always about respect for men.

Catholicism always is.

 

[buffalo]

beckyann2597:

Kev,
I am surprised that you have not responded to my article link. Here is a point of interest for discussion. In paragraph 99 of Evangelium Vitae (“The Gospel of Life”), written by Pope JP2 it says,
“In transforming culture so that it supports life, women occupy a place in thought and action which is unique and decisive. It depends on them to **promote a ‘new feminism’ ** which rejects the temptation of imitating models of ‘male domination’ in order to acknowledge and affirm the true genius of women in every aspect of the life of society and overcome all discrimination, violence and exploitation.”

So I ask you, how can I promote a ‘new feminism’ if I can’t call myself a feminist. If it was good enough for Pope Jon Paul II, then its good enough for me. But according to you I guess even the Pope wasn’t Catholic since he believed in feminism. The kind of feminism I promote.

You are forgetting the part about society forcing choices on women that are contrary to the family, and that society should be looking for ways to help mothers be at home with their children, instead of having to make the choice to work.