…at least, they would be if you’re the Pope. His Holiness has recently given the nod to an encyclical issued by Cardinal Ratzinger. That makes it official doctrine. Among other points, it states that women should be present in the world of work because they have something unique to contribute — how very generous of the church to say so!
Predictably, more or less every woman who’s not Catholic (and quite a few who are) have gone very red in the face, and not just from the exertion of scrubbing the family crucifix, either. One of them is the redoubtable Germaine Greer, who delivered this withering attack in today’s Guardian:
When it comes to excoriating feminism, tight–lipped Ratzinger, head of the Vatican Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, once known as the Inquisition, allows himself to babble like an advertising copywriter. The church, run by celibates and pseudo–celibates in their own interest, is declared to be “expert in humanity”, a claim that those of us who endured Catholic schools from the ages of four to 17 would find ludicrous.
Women of reproductive age, aware that in practising contraception they are considered to be living in sin and unfit to receive the blessed sacrament, are staying away from mass. Their children will stay away, too. […]
In June this year, Ratzinger issued “Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion. General Principles”, arguing that support for abortion rights and euthanasia would render a Catholic unworthy of receiving the sacrament. The purpose of this paper, which was originally written in English, was to pressure American bishops into refusing to allow John Kerry to receive communion, thus effectively excommunicating him, and frightening Catholics away from voting for him. […]
Catholic feminists who snatch at the straw of the Pope’s statement that housework should be paid for should remember that Wojtyla cannot imagine a world in which housework is done by anyone but women. His Holiness’s lavatory is cleaned by nuns.
Remember all those games you played when you were a kid, where either you or your friends had to do something you didn’t really want to, to fit into your role for the game? For a while, it was kinda fun, you had a job to do, you were part of what was going on. And then you realised that all you were really doing was being a willing accomplice to being dicked around. I can only hope that the Catholic women who take this seriously at first will very soon feel the same way.
(I wonder if it’s nuns who lift the Pope onto the toilet every night? Oh, the irony. He can’t shit without women to help him. To quote Hamlet: ‘What a falling–off was there!’ Well, we can but hope…)
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