JOHN E. writes:

In the previous entry, your commenter John wrote: 

The “new feminism” of JPII is destructive of marriages, families, and souls, not so much because of what he said, but of what he didn’t say.

I agree with John, and add that what seems to be lacking in the two documents you referred to by JPII is an even-handed perspective on human relationships. I don’t think there is anything asserted in Mulieris Dignitatem that is blatantly false (it is even difficult to make that assertion of the Letter to Women), but, as John said, the things that are not said hinder one’s perspective in understanding the truth of the good and evil of which all humans, men and women, are capable.

An example, from para. 14 in the document:

Jesus enters into the concrete and historical situation of women, a situation which is weighed down by the inheritance of sin. One of the ways in which this inheritance is expressed is habitual discrimination against women in favour of men. This inheritance is rooted within women too. From this point of view the episode of the woman “caught in adultery” (cf. Jn 8:3-11) is particularly eloquent. In the end Jesus says to her: “Do not sin again”, but first he evokes an awareness of sin in the men who accuse her in order to stone her, thereby revealing his profound capacity to see human consciences and actions in their true light. Jesus seems to say to the accusers: Is not this woman, for all her sin, above all a confirmation of your own transgressions, of your “male” injustice, your misdeeds?

I admit that I don’t exactly know what the Holy Father meant by “habitual discrimination against women in favour of men,” but I think it’s at least safe to assume that he meant there has consistently been unjust discriminatory practices throughout history that have worked against women unfairly. I am certain that this is true to an extent, but are we to believe that men have experienced only just practices toward them throughout history solely by virtue of their maleness, or that any practices unjustly discriminating against them because of their maleness are so negligible as to not merit mention in this document or any other that JPII promulgated? I am not here suggesting that we all should give men their due sympathies for the hardships they have endured in history; I think most men would probably find that repulsive. What I am suggesting is that there is another side of the story that JPII leaves out, which is nonetheless necessary, since he has opened the discussion by giving one side of the story. That he leaves the other side out is problematic, causing people to be easily misled in their understanding of men, women, and human relationships, and ripe for the believing of feminist lies.

Often discussions on these matters that I have observed devolve into the feminist’s argument showing examples from history of how women have experienced life harder because of their femaleness, while the non-feminist’s argument shows examples from history of how men have had it just as hard because of their maleness. For the Christian, however, it seems a basic understanding of anthropology (in the theological sense) should lead to the conclusion that everyone’s got it hard, and nothing should cause you to think that you have it particularly worse than anyone else, not as a woman, nor as a man. Inasmuch as man has certain power over woman, we should not be surprised that he abuses it (but we should neither take it for granted that he often uses it for good). Inasmuch as woman has certain powers over man, we are very familiar with the idea that she uses it for good, but we should also presume that she abuses it similarly to man, in spite of our society’s, and even the Pope’s, apparent blind spot toward this abuse. Indeed, there are particular difficulties that only a woman will ever know, but there are also particular difficulties that she will never know because she is not a man, yes, even in the Third World. Let me be clear that I think it is right to work for the end of all injustices that are injustices indeed, wherever and whenever and to whomever they occur, but without a proper perspective of how injustice has occurred in history, I don’t think any proposed solution will run very deeply or permanently.

Laura writes:

I don’t understand why the Church should ever approach human beings from a sociological perspective, as if the Church were a religious U.N., rather than from a spiritual one. All categories of social injustice are encompassed within Church definitions of sin. The important thing is the individual’s salvation and his role in history.

                                            — Comments —

John writes:

I don’t understand why the Church should ever approach human beings from a sociological perspective, as if the Church were a religious U.N., rather than from a spiritual one. All categories of social injustice are encompassed within Church definitions of sin. The important thing is the individual’s salvation and his role in history.

I agree. It seems that the Church is trying to argue in a language it does not know, when it talks of social justice. Not that the U.N. really knows what justice is, but organizations like the U.N. thrive on the squishiness of terms like social justice, and how they can be molded to fit whatever their current program is. The Church has tried to argue for universal and fixed truths using their terms, and I think by-and-large it hasn’t worked.

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