I appreciate this summary of quotes from the Fathers of the Church by John Chuchman.
Pope Francis and the Vatican could take a major step forward by renouncing this false teaching and affirming women as spiritual equals in every area of the Roman Catholic Church's ministry including an inclusive priesthood in a renewed community of spiritual equals!
Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP, www.arcwp.org
Against Women
Following Emperor
Constantine's acceptance of Christianity,
Hellenistic attempts to insulate women from
the priesthood increased.
St. Gregory of
Nazianzum, 389AD, wrote
Fierce
is the dragon and cunning the asp;
but
women have the malice of both.
St. Ambrose from
Milan wrote:
Remember,
God took the rib out of Adam's body,
not a
part of his soul, to make her.
She
was not made in the image of God, like man.
The
Ministerial Office must be pure and unspoiled
and
must not be defiled by coitus.
St. John
Chrysostom, c.407AD, Bishop of Constantinople,
was classically
misogynistic.
It does not profit a man to marry.
For
what is a woman but an enemy of friendship,
an
inescapable punishment,
a
necessary evil,
a
natural temptation,
a
domestic danger,
delectable mischief,
a
fault in nature,
painted
with beautiful colors?
Today this man is
considered both a Saint and Doctor of the Church.
The whole of her body
is
nothing less than phlegm, blood, bile, rheum and the fluid of digested food.
If
you consider what is stored up behind those lovely eyes,
the angle of the nose,
the mouth and the cheeks
you
will agree that the well-proportioned body
is only a whitened sepulcher.
St. Jerome, 419AD,
the most ardent advocate of celibacy
regarded St. Peter
as a lesser saint than St. John
because Peter was
married and John wasn't.
St. Jerome
considered marriage an invention of Satan
and encouraged
married couples who converted to Christianity
to renounce their
marriage vows:
How many there are who,
by
consent between themselves,
cancel
the debt of their marriage,
eunuchs
of their own accord
through
the desire of the kingdom of heaven.
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