Women and the Catholic church

the culture of deference

I think this is a valid question that was raised from the census thread.

the culture of deference wrote: »

How many women are RCC in the census, and why would they consider themselves RCC when the church treats them like child rearing cattle, and with no positions or opinions available in the church for them outside of reproduction.

Peregrinus wrote: »

There are 1.98 milliion female Catholics (as opposed to 1.88 million male Catholics). However badly the church treats them, they may prefer it to your condescencion.

Did you mean: condescension

MrPudding

the culture of deference wrote: »

I think this is a valid question that was raised from the census thread.





Did you mean: condescension

I have to say, I have long held the opinion that the catholic church sees women as nothing more than breeders that should be kept pregnant with the next lot of victims for its indoctrination. Glad it isn't just me then...

MrP

robindch

MrPudding wrote: »

I have to say, I have long held the opinion that the catholic church sees women as nothing more than breeders that should be kept pregnant with the next lot of victims for its indoctrination.

Well, they are sticking to the bible:

1 Timothy 2:15 wrote:

But women will be saved through childbearing--if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

And here's John Knox on the duty of women:

John Knox wrote:

Woman in her greatest perfection was made to serve and obey man, not to rule and command him: as Saint Paul does reason in these words, “Man is not of woman, but woman of the man.” And man was not created for the cause of woman, but the woman for the cause of man, and therefore ought the woman to have power upon her head (that is a coverture in sign of subjection).

And, well, generally:



.

MrPudding

robindch wrote: »

And here's John Knox on the duty of women:And, well, generally:

Please fix your John Knox quote. I would prefer not to be linked to those comments. :eek:

MrP

Knasher

Considering how the Irish educational system is run, children born outside the church are at a disadvantage to children who have some nominal type of faith. This coupled with the fact that the church often portrays itself as the source of morality, there is a certain amount of latent fear that because apostates were only thought morality through a religious framework, they may be ill-equipped to teach morality outside it.

Generally speaking, women are more concerned about starting a family than men. So this coupled with the reasoning above seems to be more than enough to overcompensate for the latent misogyny of the church.

Of course it is far from just a catholic or christian phenomenon, I was listening to a podcast a while back which was covering the problem of female genital mutilation with someone who works for a charity who was trying to stop it. She made the point that, perhaps counter-intutively, the hardest group to get to give up the practice are the mothers of the daughters who are being victimized by it. The reasoning for this is that if any one women gives it up may cause her daughter to be considered less eligible for marriage and ostracized from her community. So the only way to make any headway is to get the entire community to give up the practice at once, putting all their daughters on an equal footing.

robindch

MrPudding wrote: »

Please fix your John Knox quote. I would prefer not to be linked to those comments

eeek ^ 2! Fixed.

Skrynesaver

robindch wrote: »

eeek ^ 2! Fixed.

If you are going to mess about with notation 2! = 1 * 2 so it remains eeek squared !

WolfgangWeisen

Catholics picking and choosing what part of their instruction manual they believe applies to them?

Surely you jest?!

Peregrinus

the culture of deference wrote: »

I think this is a valid question that was raised from the census thread.

Did you mean: condescension

I did mean condescension. And I admit that my post was a bit snarky, but it did strike me as not a little ironic that the culture of deference would suggest that the church is disrespectful of women, and in the same breath imply a judgment on them for not sharing his view that “the church treats them like child rearing cattle, ans with no positions or opinions available . . . outside of reproduction”. (A suggestion that would be greeted with surprise by mother superiors up and down the land, I think.)

The culture of deference raises a fair point, but he raises it in a way that makes a productive discussion unlikely. On the one hand, the Catholic church plainly excludes women from access to clerical power. On the other hand, Catholicism plainly has a strong appeal to women - stronger than it does to men, the figures suggest. Whether this is his intention or not, I think the culture of deference’s tendentious way of raising the question implies or invites a judgment that the women concerned are stupid, or unwise, or ill-advised. We can see, I think, that the women concerned might dislike that even more than they might dislike the idea that they cannot become pope.

But if we’re actually interested in exploring the question, we could perhaps rephrase it in a less tendentious way. Why are women more likely than men to identify as Catholics? And what can we learn from this? And we can make a couple of relevant observations.

- Women are more likely than men to identify with most religions. Why is this? And, given this, why would we expect Catholicism to be different?

- The willingness of women to identify with Catholicism despite the obvious sexist discrimination when it comes to ordination tells us at least this; women are less concerned than they might be with getting access to the levers of clerical power. (Is it mischievous of me to suggest that this is because they have a better understanding than men do of where real power is exercised?)

panda100

It would be interesting to see the breakdown of statistics,but the slight increase in females over males, could be explained by the fact that women live longer, and there are many more elderly females who frequent mass? It would be interesting to see a breakdown by age.


I went along to mass yesterday with my parents, and discovered that they have changed the wording of the order of the mass in a new liturgy.It was quite funny to see all the brain dead drones get confused as all their empty repetitions have now changed.
I almost fell of my seat when I saw the church now refer to themselves as a 'she'!!!!
Here's an example at the beginning of the Eucharistic prayer:

'which we offer you firstly
for your holy catholic Church.
Be pleased to grant her peace,
to guard, unite and govern her
throughout the whole world,
together with your servant N. our Pope
and N. our Bishop,
and all those who, holding to the truth,
hand on the catholic and apostolic faith'

Talk about gender issues! How can they possibly justify referring to the RC Church as a she when it is dominated by men,founded about and by men,blames the downfall of mankind on a women, and has oppressed us for centuries. What an empty,tokenistic gesture to be more appealing towards a gender they have oppressed and shunned for centuries.

I am absolutely bemused and disgusted at this.As far as I'm concerned the RC church has always favoured masculine pronouns, because lets face it they hate women. How dare they know decide to use our gender to attribute to their sexist and patriachal church!!

Pwpane

panda100 wrote: »

It would be interesting to see the breakdown of statistics,but the slight increase in females over males, could be explained by the fact that women live longer, and there are many more elderly females who frequent mass? It would be interesting to see a breakdown by age.


I went along to mass yesterday with my parents, and discovered that they have changed the wording of the order of the mass in a new liturgy.It was quite funny to see all the brain dead drones get confused as all their empty repetitions have now changed.
I almost fell of my seat when I saw the church now refer to themselves as a 'she'!!!!
Here's an example at the beginning of the Eucharistic prayer:

'which we offer you firstly
for your holy catholic Church.
Be pleased to grant her peace,
to guard, unite and govern her
throughout the whole world,
together with your servant N. our Pope
and N. our Bishop,
and all those who, holding to the truth,
hand on the catholic and apostolic faith'

Talk about gender issues! How can they possibly justify referring to the RC Church as a she when it is dominated by men,founded about and by men,blames the downfall of mankind on a women, and has oppressed us for centuries. What an empty,tokenistic gesture to be more appealing towards a gender they have oppressed and shunned for centuries.

I am absolutely bemused and disgusted at this.As far as I'm concerned the RC church has always favoured masculine pronouns, because lets face it they hate women. How dare they know decide to use our gender to attribute to their sexist and patriachal church!!

The church has always been personalised as female in recognition of it's subservient role to Christ, hence the common reference to the church as the Bride of Christ.

qrrgprgua

Greatest Saints in the church are women.... Saying the women give birth to children.. Is saying water is wet. Everyone has a plan. Important is to be fulfilled. Look at Joan of Arc, Cathering of Sienna, Theresa of Avila, Theresa of Lixieaux, Mother Theresa... All great women with powerful faith.

the church has always been "she"
as well as references to "mother church"

robindch

Pwpane wrote: »

The church has always been personalised as female in recognition of it's subservient role to Christ, hence the common reference to the church as the Bride of Christ.

Taken from Ephesians 5:25-27:

Some Guy wrote:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

Pwpane

robindch wrote: »

Taken from Ephesians 5:25-27:

Lol - first time I noticed 'without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless'!

Lads, when ye're spotty and wrinkled, don't look to be holy and blameless!

panda100

qrrgprgua wrote: »

Greatest Saints in the church are women.... Saying the women give birth to children.. Is saying water is wet. Everyone has a plan. Important is to be fulfilled. Look at Joan of Arc, Cathering of Sienna, Theresa of Avila, Theresa of Lixieaux, Mother Theresa... All great women with powerful faith.

I wouldn't count a few virgin martyrs and corrupt individuals as 'great' women tbh.

bluewolf wrote: »

the church has always been "she"
as well as references to "mother church"

Well you learn something new every day. I thought this 'she' thing was new, in order to appear more female-friendly.How stupid am I!
So from what I'm reading the church is the wife in the relationship, and Jesus the husband, and the church, as she is the wife, has to do everything that her husband says??

Just when I thought the RC church and their teaching couldn't get any more sexist, I go and learn this!

iguana

Pwpane wrote: »

The church has always been personalised as female in recognition of it's subservient role to Christ, hence the common reference to the church as the Bride of Christ.

I never knew that either, I always thought Bride of Christ was the term for a nun. (Actually I say always but only since I was teenager staying with my nana while she was watching the Australian mini-series about nuns called Brides of Christ. I recall it had a lot of sex for a show about nuns.)

robindch

iguana wrote: »

Bride of Christ was the term for a nun.

Yes, it is. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, uses the term in the early fourth century, so it's been around for a long while.

The same page defines the current understanding of "Solemn Profession" (the second, and final, profession made by a contemplative), suggests a similarly atavistic understanding of women, and the role of marriage, at least as far as catholics are concerned:

Catholic Encyclopedia wrote:

Solemn profession carries with it the inability to possess property [...] annuls a marriage previously contracted but not consummated, and creates a diriment impediment to any subsequent marriage

ie, you can't own anything (ie, any property becomes the property of the order), any previous marriage is invalid (subsequent claims upon property are invalid) and you can never marry again (so, screw you).

iguana

Can ex-nuns still not marry? Two of my gran-aunts were nuns but later quit and got married. Though maybe they were only novices at the time they quit.

robindch

iguana wrote: »

Can ex-nuns still not marry?

From the above quote, I'd agree with you that if an ex-nun was solemnly professed, then she probably can't marry in a church. I haven't heard of any cases of this happening.

There's no problem with a civil marriage service obviously.

qrrgprgua

robindch wrote: »

From the above quote, I'd agree with you that if an ex-nun was solemnly professed, then she probably can't marry in a church. I haven't heard of any cases of this happening.

There's no problem with a civil marriage service obviously.

Wrong.. The Nun gets dispensed of her vows and leaves. She can be married if she wants. Usually nuns will leave before they take perpetual vows as it usually takes 5-8 years before you take these vows. But a Nun can leave at any time.

Shenshen

qrrgprgua wrote: »

Wrong.. The Nun gets dispensed of her vows and leaves. She can be married if she wants. Usually nuns will leave before they take perpetual vows as it usually takes 5-8 years before you take these vows. But a Nun can leave at any time.

And would they get their property back?
Just curious, really, because I know that one big deterrent in the past for any clerics to leave office or order was the fact that the moment they did, they'd be destitute and homeless...

Dades

My aunt is an ex-nun and married a few years back.