So, over the summer I was at a party with a mix of Catholic and non Catholic friends. As the night drew to a close my closest friend and I found ourselves sat at a table with a young couple. The young man mentioned some close friends of mine and commented on the fact they were very religious, he raised his eyebrows and pondered something for a moment.
"No. It is much worse than that." He concluded "They aren't just religious, they are Catholic."
My friend and I exchanged a look and then professed our own allegiance to the faith. It seemed much fairer to tell the young chap then to let him go on. He looked even more perplexed than he had before and asked
"How can any young, educated woman be part of an institution which scorns women?"
This is a question which I have been asked, more often far more indirectly than this, many times in my life and it is one which saddens me greatly. Of course my friend and I tried to answer this question with as much clarity as we could but it is not easy to answer when the world has developed an idea of equality which is flawed on many levels.
At times in my own life I have lacked the humility sometimes necessary to understand what the Church reveals about the dignity of women. At times I still lack it. However, I do understand that the Church is the greatest defender of the dignity of the human person in the full understanding of what it is to be a human person. It is therefore the case that the Church is the greatest defender of women.
Paul VI stated that "Within Christianity, more than in any other religion, and since its very beginning, women have had a special dignity, of which the New Testament shows us many important aspects...; it is evident that women are meant to form part of the living and working structure of Christianity in so prominent a manner that perhaps not all their potentialities have yet been made clear"
What a powerfully open statement about the role of women. I am not aware of an other institution, secular or otherwise that has made placed such importance on what it is to be a woman.
Of course the reality of living that truth is often challenging. Sometimes in the past I have looked at the altar full of priests and, if I was utterly honest, I felt that it was a little unjust that such a form of life could be barred to me. Equally, in my late teens I sometimes found confession difficult as I felt it was hard to speak with a man, even one who represents Christ, about the pressures upon girls of that age. We are all human and sometimes mystery is hard to grasp, particularly when we want to fold it neatly into our twentieth century view of the world. These were my misunderstandings of something much greater than myself.
Nevertheless, in the Church I have found myself to be recognised as a person of value in all my relationships, these include those with family, friends and those I made while discerning religious life. This recognition of value in body and soul is something that supposedly "liberated" friends of mine are still seeking. I have watched over the years as friends of mine have entered particular kinds of personal relationships, taken the pill and lived the life which our society claims can make you fulfilled. However, what I have seen most of all is their yearning to be really loved, for stability and often for the person they are in a relationship with to marry them. Yet this is often not the plan for the "liberated" and often I have seen them rejected and hurt. I have also seen the reverse of this where close male friends have been devastated by such rejection.
I am certainly not claiming that all Catholic relationships are perfect or that people are not hurt, abused and rejected within them. We are all human and equal in our state. However, the Church always argues that love cannot come without responsibility and recognition of the full dignity of the other person. This means that when we try to use or objectify another and reject emotional or physical responsibility for the actions that we take, we must recognise ourselves NOT as liberated but as imprisoned by our own selfishness, desire and projection. Therein lies the difference.
The Church does not want to see women (or men) used by others, to cause harm to others through processes like abortion which damage the innocent and often damage the physical and psychological state of the mother. The Church wants to truly liberate women to be as God made them and to ask them to allow themselves to revel in the beauty of being woman. To be loved, with responsibility and to love with responsibility. Throughout the centuries, at a time when many religions forced women into marriage the Church also offered women who felt called to a different way of life the safety of religious communities in which they often became highly educated and truly liberated individuals. It respected their desire to remain chaste and, more than this, it praised and commended this choice. The Church wants to see the bodies of women protected and held as a remarkable creation of God, not objectified, over sexualised, starved, used, and then discarded in age when they are no longer deemed pleasurable to look at. The Church wants to see women recognised in their full dignity as mothers, not scarred and harmed by a supposed "choice" which often does not reveal to its victims what the long term damage may be to them.
I have not hidden away from the modern world, I have not shut my eyes to it. I have many friends who I love very much who live the supposedly "liberated" life of the secular woman. I am an educated woman, a modern, working woman. Yet I truly believe that no institution loves and respects woman in her fullness as the Catholic Church does.
I close with words from John Paul II (Muilieris Dignitatem):
The Church gives thanks for all the manifestations of the feminine "genius" which have appeared in the course of human history, in the midst of all peoples and nations; she gives thanks for all the charisms which the Holy Spirit distributes to women in the history of the People of God, for all the victories which she owes to their faith, hope and charity: she gives thanks for all the fruits of feminine holiness
