Pope John Paul II yesterday was to call on leaders of the Roman Catholic church to attack feminist ideologies which assert that men and women are fundamentally the same.
The Vatican is concerned that this belief is eroding what it regards as women's maternal vocation. But a paper on the subject which was due to be published yesterday -- the Vatican's third major pronouncement on women's role in the quarter century of John Paul's papacy -- drew scornful criticism from feminists and academics.
PHOTO: AP
According to a leaked extract, the document accuses feminists of "blurring the biological difference between man and woman."
But it is also understood to break new ground by appealing to governments for help to be given to women so they can cope with their broader modern responsibilities.
It emerged on Friday that the Vatican itself had taken a further step towards incorporating women into the previously all-male leadership of the Roman Catholic church. A nun, who was not named in Italian media reports, was said to be working as a high-level aide to the Pope's "foreign minister," Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo.
The statement of doctrine on gender issues represents a first serious attempt by the Vatican to come to grips with a world of working women. But it is clearly intended to prevent any erosion of the church's resolute opposition to gay marriage, the incorporation of women in the priesthood and trends in gender studies the Pope has damned as "misleading conceptions of sexuality."
The Vatican's sights are trained in particular on the view that, while people's sex is anatomically determined, their gender identity and roles are entirely a product of conditioning. In a letter to bishops on the participation of men and women in the church and the world, the Pope's chief theological spokesman, the German cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, stresses, as the pontiff has done on several occasions, that the book of Genesis is unambiguous on this point.
The letter was drawn up inside Cardinal Ratzinger's Vatican "ministry," the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. However, as a statement of doctrine, it would not have been sent for publication without the consent of the Pope.
The Vatican's letter acknowledges that the emancipation of women, which the pontiff applauded in his earliest pronouncements on the subject, has given them a vastly increased presence in the labor market.
Recent decades have seen a plunge in birth and fertility rates, particularly in the Roman Catholic heartland of southern Europe, as women struggle to combine jobs with their traditional roles as mothers, homemakers and caregivers.
Church representatives have argued that this is symptomatic of a breakdown in values, and particularly a greater selfishness among young couples more interested in consumer goods than in creating life.
Feminists have long held it is a result of the reluctance of men to share household tasks and the failure of governments to provide adequate support for families.
Cardinal Ratzinger's document appears to have embraced implicitly the feminist view on this point, though in language unlikely to win over many feminists.
According to a leaked extract in the German tabloid Bild Zeitung, his letter to bishops calls on governments to "create conditions that enable women not to neglect their family duties when they enter into a job."
Helena Cronin, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics, said "It's absolutely true that we are different, in a variety of ways. But I have no reason to expect the Pope to be correct about the way in which men and women are different, given his general grasp of science."
She said that in all mammals, females showed a greater propensity to caring for the young than males did. But she added: "That's not saying that women have no other vocations, or that they should be devoted [to motherhood]."
The feminist author Natasha Walter questioned whether there were essential differences between men and women at all.
"We have centuries and centuries of acculturation towards a `vocation' of maternity, and men have only had a couple of generations of acculturation towards active paternity," she said.
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
China on Monday announced its first ever sanctions against an individual Japanese lawmaker, targeting China-born Hei Seki for “spreading fallacies” on issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and disputed islands, prompting a protest from Tokyo. Beijing has an ongoing spat with Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries, and considers foreign criticism on sensitive political topics to be acts of interference. Seki, a naturalised Japanese citizen, “spread false information, colluded with Japanese anti-China forces, and wantonly attacked and smeared China”, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Monday. “For his own selfish interests, (Seki)
Argentine President Javier Milei on Sunday vowed to “accelerate” his libertarian reforms after a crushing defeat in Buenos Aires provincial elections. The 54-year-old economist has slashed public spending, dismissed tens of thousands of public employees and led a major deregulation drive since taking office in December 2023. He acknowledged his party’s “clear defeat” by the center-left Peronist movement in the elections to the legislature of Buenos Aires province, the country’s economic powerhouse. A deflated-sounding Milei admitted to unspecified “mistakes” which he vowed to “correct,” but said he would not be swayed “one millimeter” from his reform agenda. “We will deepen and accelerate it,” he
Japan yesterday heralded the coming-of-age of Japanese Prince Hisahito with an elaborate ceremony at the Imperial Palace, where a succession crisis is brewing. The nephew of Japanese Emperor Naruhito, Hisahito received a black silk-and-lacquer crown at the ceremony, which marks the beginning of his royal adult life. “Thank you very much for bestowing the crown today at the coming-of-age ceremony,” Hisahito said. “I will fulfill my duties, being aware of my responsibilities as an adult member of the imperial family.” Although the emperor has a daughter — Princess Aiko — the 23-year-old has been sidelined by the royal family’s male-only
RSS