Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Fall 2006
Publisher
Lane Center for Catholic Studies and Social Thought
Abstract
One of the earliest arguments against women's ordination the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops articulated in 1972 was that, since the incarnation of God was in a male, this culminates in a male priesthood. This reflects a hierarchical anthropology well-known from Christianity's earliest encounters with the Greco-Roman world, whereby the male was associated with the mind, reason, and the spirit, while the female was associated with the body, passion, and the material world.1 In fact, some Greek doctors and philosophers thought that every fetus began as a male, but those that didn't develop fully became female.2 Thomas Laqueur calls this the "one- sex body" theory-there is one normative body, the male, and the female body is just an underdeveloped version of it. 3 Several of the early Church fathers were well aware of these notions, and added to them a scriptural layer that read Eve's secondary creation from Adam's rib as evidence of woman's subordination and incompleteness compared to man. Eve's susceptibility to temptation later in the story only proved that she should be carefully managed by a man. This gendered anthropology was used to legitimate male control of women on the grounds of female incapacity and male superiority throughout much of western history, so that only recently have women, rather than their fathers , husbands or the state, been legally allowed Lo make decisions affecting their bodies, their children and their property.
Recommended Citation
Murphy, C. M. (2006). Alienated Catholics: Establishing the Groundwork for Dialogue. Urbi et Orbi: Newsletter for the Lane Center for Catholic Studies and Social Thought 1(2), 4-5, 12.
