|
Post by sacredheart on May 31, 2017 21:57:30 GMT
'So let's start a new discussion. How can the trad movement - and the church in general - make better use of women's talents?
Does trad upholding of Catholic teaching on the separate/complementary roles of the sexes shade into misogny? How can this be avoided?
IS the liberal/feminist critique of Catholicism on this point ENTIRELY misplaced, or are there really elements in Catholic culture which are intrinsically/extrinsically harmful to women?
Comments from women members of this forum will be specially welcome. Make your voices heard! If we males are insensitive or selective in how we view matters, let us know. '
I thought I would join in as a women being welcomed to give her opinion!, and as this thread has been revived by Young Ireland to focus on an issue which is so important.
Thinking about this comment for a while. First of all it seems to me to be two questions in one, as how I see things, women are looked upon differently in the trad movement compared with the Church in general, as I link the former to the EF in the main, and the latter to the OF in the main, and therefore whatever talents she has will be made use of according to the community she is in. Taking the latter first I think there is little else for women to do in the Church in general without becoming priests. Their talents are well utilised already? - women can read at Mass, give Communion, organise functions, handle finances, chair the parish council, the list is fairly long. I have no experience of a Latin Mass-only parish, ie SSPX, the only EF Masses I attend are Diocesan, but taking the culture or life of the Diocesan Church which centres around its EF Mass I think the lack of opportunity to be on the Sanctuary makes the biggest difference. So maybe women who want to be busier will be attracted to the OF more? I'm just putting thoughts out there, not sure about how they stand up to testing, only my observances over the years.
On another angle, I think the role of women in the Church outside of her traditional roles as laywoman in the pews with family members, teacher, or a nun, will always be something of a shadow. There is so much talk about women's roles in the Church but apart from what I have just mentioned, there doesn't seem to be a system in place for women in any other way, from what I see. I am comparing in a very loose sense to the Jewish Rebbetzin or Rabbanit. From what I have read a Rebbetzin is a Rabbi's wife who ministers, if that is the right word, to the women in her community, seeing to their needs, which her husband or other men could not. This is a beautiful thing to me, and in my biased view in light of my experiences of late, I would welcome such a woman in Church. However, the obvious barriers being that priests can't marry, and I do not support that they should, so there wouldn't be an obvious choice as to who should be the Catholic version of the Rebbetzin, or how this would be worked out. We don't have the rules which Jews have to live by on a day to day basis which supports the function of a Rebbetzin, and in a way I think the less rules there are for women's roles in Church the less her talents are made use of because there is no system of recognising what is needed for women in the congregation and then acting on that. I think, and I know this is very unpopular, there needs to be more day to day rules for Catholics to live out their faith by, which help tackle ordinary and extraordinary problems women and therefore any family, have. I think this is a shame, the Church stopped encouraging women to cover their heads for Mass and public prayer, and then encouraged women to play a role on the Sanctuary. This in my view is an offence against women's dignity and is just a nod to the secular world, all the while any true needs she might have go completely unnoticed and uncared for. Perhaps I view the Church too much through my own experiences.
Just a few ideas, I would be interested to see what other people think. God bless, it's late so I shall check back in tomorrow.
|
|
|
Post by maolsheachlann on Jun 1, 2017 0:52:15 GMT
Certainly interesting to hear a Catholic woman arguing that the lack of head coverings and access to the sanctuary has diminished women's dignity in the church. And yet I agree with you. I do believe that men and women WANT to be treated differently, to have the difference acknowledged.
|
|
|
Post by sacredheart on Jun 1, 2017 6:33:08 GMT
Certainly interesting to hear a Catholic woman arguing that the lack of head coverings and access to the sanctuary has diminished women's dignity in the church. And yet I agree with you. I do believe that men and women WANT to be treated differently, to have the difference acknowledged. Certainly, I think the headcoverings can be tied in Young Ireland's question about promoting chastity in society too. I think some women might fear headcoverings as something oppressive from men in the Church and in this day and age why should they bother in one part of their lives when they don't have to in others, unlike most Muslims and Jews, say. I haven't thought of some good enough ways to promote chastity - and to me therefore headcoverings for prayer, I think one naturally follows on from another and visa versa - in such a way people don't feel they are just being ordered around. I know very few women who wear coverings/mantillas at Church for the Latin, and non for the English. Even women who champion the Latin often won't cover, that I have seen, which I think is a shame as it is a beautiful aspect of being a women when you read up on it. It doesn't have to be all bonnets and puritans, as it were, and therefore implying a life which is totally detached from the world like some of the Amish, which is also what I think women may fear, that they are somehow 'taken' away from society and made to be 'silent'. I think fashion plays a massive part, as well as religious meaning. I know I asked my husband about his mum covering in Church and she said back when it was Latin only, she wore a mantilla, then changed to a hat and then stopped wearing anything as the fashions changed. I think most women were probably along these lines, and as not many people want to stand apart from the crowd maybe?, they abandoned it and the Churchmen possibly linked it to feminism, ie being seen to 'force' women to cover in the modern age was against their rights, the right to choose how to be. And I think that hits it on the head, pardon the pun, for me, what does 'rights' mean in the Church now, compared to a couple of generations ago? As they say you have to wear the veil on your heart as well as on your head, or else it is just a piece of cloth with no meaning, and maybe that it what it was for some women back then, which is how it became so redundant so quickly after what I presume is centuries of uninterrupted use.
|
|
|
Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jun 1, 2017 12:24:19 GMT
There was never unanimity about female head covering in the pre conciliar period. Women had disregarded the veil or hat in many places long before the Second Vatican Council. The 19th century painting "Mass in a Conemara Cabin" reinforces this point as not all the women in the picture have their heads covered. Conversely, men are forbidden hats but if it's appropriate to wear a uniform with headgear, e.g. soldiers at a military Mass, men will cover their heads. I reckoned the discipline was to prevent women displaying their hair and men from hiding their baldness. Anyway in the traditional context,I think the fact the hat or veil or head scarf were current in the French church at the time of the council and have been an issue since but other practices such as the separation of men and women in church which were issues elsewhere but not in France never got the same traction in the traditional movement. To emphasize the Jewish context, I recall how amused two Orthodox Jewesses were on hearing how I was once at Mass in the Conemara Gaeltacht and I unwittingly went to the women's side of the Church. That was an Irish language Mass long after the Econe consecrations. So there is more to the sex divide in tradition than the mantilla.
|
|
|
Post by Account Deleted on Jun 1, 2017 12:44:42 GMT
Not to diminish the conversation, but on a lighter note, it reminds me of this recent photo. Quite what it says about the use of head coverings as a mark of dignity and respect I leave to the viewer to decide! I know of only one woman I ever saw wearing a mantilla in Church here. It too was always black, rather than white. Black mantillas always struck me as a little funereal for regular worship, but a white mantilla is a very dignified thing to see - and they are still very popular with girls as part of First Communion attire. Recently I was in an Orthodox church, where nearly all women cover their head with a scarf during worship. Though I noticed it was the younger generation of women who would be less likely to do so.
|
|
|
Post by sacredheart on Jun 1, 2017 17:36:58 GMT
I agree eirwatcher, black mantillas are very serious looking, especially for feast days, however I find it hard to find much else in the UK, I don't want to wear white as it seems too First Communion/bridal for me, I know there are some lovely mantillas for sale in America on etsy, I should stump up the import tax and get one! Interesting about the Orthodox Church too, I would say in my experience of Latin Mass in the UK, seeing younger women with headcoverings seems to be fairly popular, I know at LMS events, many young women cover, whether that is parents' influence or not I'm not sure.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Jun 1, 2017 22:17:31 GMT
I am not sure that monogamy and fidelity DO remain the ideal in pop culture - at least not universally so. There's still an expectation that the couple should remain faithful while they are together, but even that is being challenged. Monogamy in the sense of chastity until marriage and fidelity thereafter certainly has not been portrayed as the norm for a very long time, and the idea that it is desirable and praiseworthy to sacrifice love for the sake of self-realisation is quite widespread (cf the recent film LA LA LAND). Indeed there are strains of "sex-positivity" which portray promiscuity and exhibitionism as a sign of strength and confidence (this seems to be more prominently asserted in relation to women at the moment, partly because the same attitude is taken for granted in relation to men). This is particularly insidious because it explicitly inverts the sense of right and wrong in a Nietzschean "transvaluation of values". (It often draws on the fact of cruelty being committed in the name of traditional sexual morality - there are elements of this outlook in some of the commentary on the treatment of unmarried mothers and on the Magdalen Asylums, neither of which I am defending.)
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Jul 30, 2017 23:49:04 GMT
Here's an interesting thought. I remember some years ago seeing a feminist writer give as an example of how society assumed maleness as normative and this had permeated the language, a 1960s textbook which stated "Man can be identified as a mammal because he suckles his young". The point of this instance - namely that it is absurd to use male pronouns for something which clearly relates to a specifically female experience - may soon be lost on many readers, given the recent mainstreaming of transgenderism and the view that since you can become a man simply by declaring yourself one, it is the moral equivalent of racism to say that men can't get pregnant etc. www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2017/07/27/resist-the-governments-nietzschean-transgender-proposals/
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Jan 8, 2018 18:09:47 GMT
A young woman discusses ways in which the church could be more welcoming to young mothers (she doesn't mean in a disciplinary manner). One thing that surprises me is her confusion about whether the Church's fasting regulations apply to pregnant and nursing women - I would have taken it for granted that they don't. Maybe the author, being a convert, has not picked up on something that isn't made explicit because it's taken for granted, but I should have thought any priest would make it clear. (BTW Islamic fasting law explicitly does not apply to pregnant women and nursing mothers - they are expected to fast for an equivalent period later when they can. I'm not saying this out of any love for Islamic doctrine, but to show how they handle it as a matter of practicality.) www.catholicherald.co.uk/issues/january-5th-2018/the-church-can-do-much-better-at-serving-young-women/
|
|
|
Post by Young Ireland on Mar 2, 2018 20:56:43 GMT
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Mar 2, 2018 23:27:40 GMT
It has a fairly long history; I've heard that it was one of the reasons why so many nuns exploded in the post-Vatican II era. Basically, it's about lack of consideration for perceived subordinates/ inferiors and it could take place with superiors of the same sex (e.g an abbot or prior ordering monks/friars around, choir nuns looking down on laysisters or choir monks on laybrothers, when those divisions existed) though the sexism/ sexdivide gives it a certain extra dimension. Ever heard the expression "the gratitude of the House of Hapsburg?" (They were notoriously ungrateful because they thought anyone who did anything for them was doing their duty and deserved no particular recognition). That's why Our Lord said the greatest among us should be the servant of the least. www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2018/03/02/nuns-treated-like-servants-by-bishops-and-cardinals-vatican-magazine-says/A couple of other points on this specific story: (1) It's not just a question of personal hurt feelings - the nuns' orders are not being paid adequately - or at all - for their services, and this makes it hard for their orders to support their members (some of whom will be too old or ill to support themselves). (2) The story seems to relate specifically to priests, bishops and cardinals working in the Vatican, so we may have a combination of Latin machismo, older men with older attitudes, and bigwigs assuming the little people exist to serve them. In terms of Vatican politics, word is that relations between Pope Francis and the archetypal Vatican fixer Cardinal Sodano have deteriorated, so maybe someone is firing a shot across the bows of Sodano's proteges: www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otn.cfm?id=1275
|
|
|
Post by maolsheachlann on Mar 3, 2018 16:50:43 GMT
The truth is that we have no way of knowing how true or untrue these accusations are.
They might be true. In which case, shame on the clerics taking advantage of the nuns.
Or they might just be motivated by a feminist and leftist agenda. It would be interesting to know the OTHER opinions of the women making these complaints. Are they all avid readers of America magazine? (One should always be suspicious of anonymous complaints.)
We have no way of knowing. We should not instinctively respond with male guilt and over-compensation...something all too common amongst Catholics.
|
|
|
Post by maolsheachlann on Mar 3, 2018 16:58:30 GMT
Another passsage from the Washington Post article:
While Pope Francis has told Scaraffia he appreciates and reads the magazine, it is by no means beloved within the deeply patriarchal Vatican system. Recent issues have raised eyebrows, including the March 2016 edition on “Women who preach,” which appeared to advocate allowing lay women to deliver homilies at Mass.
So this is the sort of magazine we're talking about.
All this reminds me of the story of the printers of the Morning Star newspaper, who were incessantly demanding higher wages back in the day. The publishers could hardly say no, they were over a barrel. (I can't find verification for that story, but I did hear it from a working journalist, who would presumably know the business.) If you encourage this sort of dissidence at large, you can hardly complain when it bites you at home.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Mar 3, 2018 21:48:30 GMT
On the other hand, just because the magazine may be wrong about some things, that doesn't mean they are wrong about everything. There are some injustices which liberals are more likely to expose than conservatives, and vice versa. I'm not responding with male guilt, any more than with lay anti-clericalism. I'm just interested in decent behaviour.
|
|
|
Post by Young Ireland on Mar 3, 2018 21:49:20 GMT
Another passsage from the Washington Post article: While Pope Francis has told Scaraffia he appreciates and reads the magazine, it is by no means beloved within the deeply patriarchal Vatican system. Recent issues have raised eyebrows, including the March 2016 edition on “Women who preach,” which appeared to advocate allowing lay women to deliver homilies at Mass.So this is the sort of magazine we're talking about. All this reminds me of the story of the printers of the Morning Star newspaper, who were incessantly demanding higher wages back in the day. The publishers could hardly say no, they were over a barrel. (I can't find verification for that story, but I did hear it from a working journalist, who would presumably know the business.) If you encourage this sort of dissidence at large, you can hardly complain when it bites you at home. The fact that the person championing their cause is liberal does not disprove their point. The Communists often had their own agendas, but could often point to real injustices (while ignoring those on their own side). While I would like to know the full facts before forming an opinion, I would be very cautious of dismissing them as a bunch of whiny liberals without knowing the whole story. By the way, when I questioned whether or not they were exaggerating, I was wondering if the heat of the situation would push them to describe their plight in rather trenchant terms, as opposed to them having some ulterior motive.
|
|