Vatican Disapproves of Gender Ambiguity

That was the headline our local newspaper (no online archives available) slapped on an Associated Press story about the Vatican's new pamphlet denouncing feminism. My wife opined that there was something very amusing about a bunch of guys wearing skirts being worried about "gender ambiguity."

Comments

[Gary Gunnels]

dhex,

That's probably true of European Catholics as well.

[Mark S.]

Part of the reason I abandoned my Catholic upbringing is partially due to how it's traditional practices flew in the face of real life, as well as rationality.

In church on Sunday's, the reader would occasionally read from the Genesis account of the worlds creation. I, a rather well read kid, couldn't figure how the Earth could have been created in 6 days after all the science books I read seem to indicate otherwise. It doesn't surprise me that it took so long for them to admit Galieo was right.

When I got into my adolescence, my parents removed anything of a slippery nature from our home's medicine cabinant to prevent me from masturbating. I was told that it was no better than raping 10-year-old girls.

I bought into the rhetoric about gays and lesbians being perverts and wanna-be pedophiles... until I actually met a few in college and found they were no different than you or I, except whom they want to take to bed.

When it came to the topics of abortion and birth control, I was flaburgasted by the number of low income Catholic families who kept popping out child after child despite their inability to make ends meet because they believe that Rome was right and the condom manufactuers were evil. Don't get me started about Third World Catholic nations.

If their is a priest shortage, and a large number women who wish to take up the priesthood, shouldn't it make sense to open that door for them? Also, why not allow priests to marry? What's wrong with a priest having a sex life... with someone besides an altar boy?

Still, even in the unlikely event the RCC does reform, it doesn't mean I'd go back to Catholicism. For me, it wasn't just Catholic conservatism that pushed me out, it's that whole "God" thing that I started to question.

(Of course, I'll probably get e-mail from Bill Donahugh about how my expectation that Catholics get out the Middle Ages and join the rest of civilization are defamatory. I mean, married priests, a postitive attitude about sexuality, women being equals? What would the Great Queen Spider say?)

[thoreau]

The rules do in fact apply to American Catholics, but we don't care. Being far richer than third world Catholics we've already bought tickets for the luxury boxes in hell.

Sucks for the atheists, though. Even though American atheists could easily afford luxury boxes, they don't believe that the demon selling them actually exists 🙂

[joe]

No, dhex, it's everyone else who has the weird relationship 😉

[joe]

"A first tendency is to emphasize strongly conditions of subordination in order to give rise to antagonism: women, in order to be themselves, must make themselves the adversaries of men. Faced with the abuse of power, the answer for women is to seek power. This process leads to opposition between men and women, in which the identity and role of one are emphasized to the disadvantage of the other, leading to harmful confusion regarding the human person"

See, it's not the subordination of women by men that creates the antagonism; it's noticing that subordination, and disapproving of it.

See, it's not the imbalance and abuse of power that leads to opposition; it's the attempt to equalize that power.

See, it's not the emphasis of the identity and role of men to the detriment of women that leads to harmful confusion; it's the emphasis of the indentity and role of women.

Also, the Vatican must have been working on this letter for a long time, because it seems to be a rejoinder to a school of feminist thought that last held sway among feminists during Reagan's fist term, if not Carter's.

[Tim Cavanaugh]

Joe, I thought you were down with the red hats.

[joe]

Tim, I'm down with the people in the pews. Equating "the red hats" with the Church is like equating "the government" with America.

[dhex]

he's an american catholic - none of the rules actually apply. 🙂

just kidding, joe. but american catholics do have a very weird relationship with the church.

[Shem]

I'm confused. Would the luxury box in Hell be better, or worse than Third-World Hell? Or would it just be more ironic?

[James Kabala]

It's hard to take seriously anyone who repeats the "priests wear dresses" nonsense. Can't anyone tell the difference between a dress and a robe? Do judges wear dresses? Did Julius Caesar wear a dress? Did you wear a dress on your graduation day?