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I had finished speaking and found myself surrounded by hardy
types with further questions when I noticed this woman hovering
on the edge of the group. Finally she pressed forward, fixed me
with a baleful eye, and informed me that Thomas Aquinas was a
male chauvinist who thought of women as less than human, as
failed males at best. How could I have spoken so favorably of
him? I asked her what texts she had in mind. Of course she knew
no texts, her attitude was not grounded in study, nor of course
was Thomas Aquinas the main target. This woman seemed certain
that whatever the Church had taught of men and women was
obsolete and Neanderthal and must be corrected by the
enlightened view of our own day.
Texts of St. Paul have been altered lest what the Apostle wrote
offend the modern ear. The Gospels themselves have not escaped
such aggiornamento.
It is of course easy to concede that late Roman Empire views of
the sexes differed from those of the Middle Ages which in turn
differ from our own. Regine Pernoud and others have pointed out
how the estimate of woman and her position in society rose under
the influence of Christianity. But whatever improvement may have
come about, it is apparently now to be considered primitive in
comparison with our contemporary view of woman and her role in
society. The assumption is that progress in the matter has been
made.
Surely one does not have to be a Jeremiah to question whether
the moral and social views of the present time can stand in
judgment on those of previous times, let alone the teaching of
the Church. One must be far more selective in his defense of
modernity than in his search for exempla horribilia in
the past to adopt this position. As for Thomas, there is a
recent book, Thomas d'Aquin feministe? by Catherine
Capelle, to which one can go for a thoughtful discussion of such
matters. But my wild-eyed interlocutor had no interest in that.
The discussion was over. The Church's view of women was
hopelessly indefensible.
How sadly common it has become for self-described Catholics to
subject the Church's teaching to the fleeting criteria of our
day. It is as if the Church must adapt Herself to these latter
day outlooks or be set aside as irrelevant. What is the
alternative to this procedure?
Lord, to whom shall we do? You have the words of eternal life.
Perhaps the first move after noting a discrepancy between what
the Church teaches and the ideology of the day should be to ask
where we have gone wrong. Received opinion has no
sanction of itself. The teaching and practices of the Church, on
the other hand, respond to the Holy Spirit. So step one should
be to think that the Church is right and we are wrong. That is
only the first step, of course. Pondering the teaching of the
Church will bring understanding and with it ease in seeing the
flaws in contemporary ideology. Blind acceptance is not the
terminal state. Lord, that I might see. That is the prayer of
every believer and of every theologian.
It is true enough that the women the Church has set before us as
models do not answer to dominant contemporary prejudices. But
then one sometimes finds St. Edith Stein presented as a kind of
feminist in the current sense and in an edition of the Obras
Completas of Teresa of Avila I came upon a long footnote
explaining the saint's discontent with the role of women in the
Church. And the agitation for the ordination of women goes on
despite the clear Magisterial treatments of the subject. The
Magnificat itself has been read as a political manifesto.
The Act of Faith I was taught when I was a boy was short but
comprehensive. O my God, I believe that thou are one God,
Father, Son and Holy Ghost and that thy divine son became man,
died for our sins, and will come again in glory to judge the
living and the dead. I believe these and all the truths which
the Holy Catholic Church teaches because thou has revealed them
who canst neither deceive nor be deceived.
One can get a good night's sleep after reciting that. It is even
more conducive to peace of mind in the daytime.
Ralph McInerny |
