I heard it asserted yesterday that the Catholic Church denies women the opportunity to make use of their spiritual gifts. At the risk of making myself appear chauvinist, I cannot endorse such a proposition, in fact, I'm inclined to think it absurd.
What other philosophies of woman exist in the world aside from the Catholic one? Well there's the Hefner and Flynt philosophy: A woman is a bunny, whose worth depends upon her ability to sexually excite men. One aspect of this philosophy includes limiting the value of the sexual act with the woman to the unitive aspect, that is, to saying there is no value to the woman's ability to actually bring new life into the world.
Then there's the chauvinist philosophy, which basically says woman is supposed to shut her mouth and do as she's told. This is where we get the "barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen" image. It is widely believed that the Catholic Church is to thank for this image, even though this image limits the value of a woman more or less to her ability to bear children.
Then there's the modern feminist view of woman, which is that a woman's value is ultimately predicated on her ability to climb the corporate ladder. There's the reproductive-rights view of women, which says that a woman's worth is predicated upon her ability to exercise power over her own reproductive system. I could go on and on.
The thing that all these philosophies share in common is that they all focus on one dimension of female existence and elevates it to the exclusion of all the other dimensions of the female identity. The word for this is "objectification," limiting the anthropology of women to one particular aspect. We see this everywhere in the world today--in magazines, in corporations, in schools. On the other hand, there is today one institution that is the definitive authority on all these dimensions of the female person and reveres them all equally. That institution is the Mystical Body of Christ that, some in the popular media and even some of our church leaders, would have us believe denies the spiritual gifts of women.
Does the Mystical Body in fact think that women are supposed to be quiet and clean the dishes? Is the woman's only place within the confines of the physical household? Well, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia's entry on women, written in 1912, such a philosophy is at best "imperfect."
the social position of woman is, from the Christian point of view, only imperfectly set forth in the expression "Woman belongs at home". On the contrary, her peculiar influence is to extend from the home over State and Church.
This was written in 1912, long before the modern notions of female "liberation" ever took hold of the West. The fact of the matter is that the Church, by recognizing the divine authorship of women, and applying the universal call to holiness to them as well, actually expects more of women than do any of these other incomplete ideologies, because the Church gives women more credit than anyone else does. The Church wants women to be on the frontlines, on the cutting edge of societal evolution. But because of long-standing and unalterable liturgical norms that offend modern culture, the Church is maligned as woman-suppressing.
Show me, I would implore these critics, one institution in the world that can claim as a daughter a woman like Mother Theresa. Or Catherine of Siena. Or Therese of Lisieux. Joan of Arc. To say nothing of a certain Blessed Virgin. We are talking about women who did enormous amounts of good in and for the world, and no it didn't advance an ideological agenda. All it advanced was the Kingdom of God. Which is greater?
Has the Church always been free of male chauvinist pigs? Of course not. But if that is the case then it is only because these men did not accept the authentic Catholic teaching on women. At any rate, I would implore critics to explain how a woman-suppressing Church could produce such a paragon of chivalry and gentlemanliness as John Paul II, whose works and writings constantly witnessed to nothing less than a Christ-like reverance and awe of women.
Ultimately, the objectification of women in all the aforementioned incomplete ideologies is tantamount to the historical suppression of women. Historical suppression and modern objectification both accomplish the same thing: the limitation and degradation of the female identity to something less than the full objective reality that is Woman. Have leaders in the Church participated sinfully in that limitation and degradation? Sure. But to point to those within the Mystical Body exclusively, mentioning neither any of the litany of other culprits nor the far greater scale on which they limit and degrade the daughters of God, rather misses the big picture.
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