By L. H. Lehmann

This article is from the 1944 edition of the Converted Catholic Magazine of which former Roman Catholic priest, Leo Herbert Lehmann (also known as L.H. Lehmann) is the editor. It was first put online in PDF format by the LutheranLibrary.org.

[This is the fifth of a series of articles on “The True Nature and Structure of Roman Catholicism.” It will he followed next month by an article on “The Catholic Church and Science.”]

ALL RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS ruled by priestcraft have subordinated women to a state inferior to that of men and used them as a means to power. Woman, in their teachings, had no true soul, and was regarded as the mere material counterpart of man who alone was believed to ascend to the higher mental and spiritual planes. Man represented mind, woman the matter of the universe.

This pagan philosophy of the relationship of the sexes considered woman as evil, since all matter was taught as coming from the ‘world of darkness.’ It thus can easily be seen how this denial of spiritual rights to women served the double purpose of making women the mere plaything of men in sexual matters and labor slaves of them for economic ends.

Had the true teaching of Christ been persevered in, it would have put an end to this slave relationship of woman to man. But it was not, with the result that much of the pagan philosophy and practice of pre-Christian religions was carried over into the Christian church almost from the beginning. How much of it persists to this day in the Roman Catholic church, even in democratic America, may be judged from the following:

1. There is at present in the United States a vast unpaid army of more than 138,000 women in Roman Catholic convents. These, by the rules of the church, are denied the right of motherhood, are bound by unquestioning, “corpse” obedience to the dictates of superiors, are not allowed to possess money or property of their own, must dress in medieval garments, are known only by names different from that of their families, and the profit of their labor and learning goes exclusively to the up-building of the church’s organization.
2. No woman in the Roman Catholic church is permitted to become a preacher or a priest, the first requisite of which is the ‘male sex.’ Women are thus deprived of the special benefits that are believed to accompany the priesthood.
3. No woman, not even a nun, is allowed to take part in the rites and ceremonies within the sanctuary, or altar rails, of any Roman Catholic church.
4. After childbirth a woman is regarded as unclean by the Roman Catholic church, and is forbidden entrance into a church until she is purified, or “churched,” by a priest in the vestibule.¹
5. The state of virginity is decreed in Roman Catholic theology as being superior to that of marriage. But virginity in a woman is never taken for granted and must always be proved. A man, on the other hand, is always presumed to be a virgin until he gets married.

Early Monastic Ideas Of Women

This Manichean teaching, that woman belongs to matter and the world of darkness, and man to the world of mind and light, was fostered to a fantastic extent by the early “Fathers” of the Christian church. Obsessed with sexual desire and yet determined to live a sexless life, they made hatred of woman almost a dogma. “The touch of a woman,” St. Jerome wrote, “is as much to he dreaded as the bite of a mad dog.” Yet he confesses, in his letter To Eustochium:²

Tertullian (De Cultu Feminarum, I, 1) writes:

St. Clement of Alexandria (Paedagogica, II) expresses a like opinion of women:

St. Gregory Thaumaturgus (Metaphrases in Ecclesiasten, VII, 28), honored as “the miracle worker” by the Catholic church today, expresses his venom against women as follows:

These early “Fathers” have contributed largely to the basic teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic church today. What they taught about women differs very little from what is preached by priests in twentieth-century America. The N. Y. Times of July 2, 1945, quoted a condemnation of women by Msgr. Flannelly of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, that equals anything from St. Jerome or Tertullian. Headlining its column: “Priest Bids Women Mend ‘Evil Ways;’ Wives Sharply Scolded; Lack ‘Slightest Conception of Sanctity of Married State,’ Churchman Declares,” the Times went on to say:

Condemning democracy and woman suffrage, an article on “Feminism” by Father Lucian Johnston in The Ecclesiastical Review, a monthly magazine for priests published by the Catholic University of Washington, D. C., in its issue for December, 1916, rants as follows against democracy for giving women the right to vote:

Woman In The “Ages Of Faith”

The Catholic talent for rewriting history to suit its purpose is at its best in depicting medieval life as the golden age of human existence, when everyone was religious, virtuous and gaily carefree. The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries, by James J. Walsh, has achieved sensational success, but is one of the greatest travesties of truth ever written. Thus it is taken for granted that the glorification of Mary and the development of chivalry raised womanhood to a pinnacle never before or since reached. An occasional educated woman of the wealthy class is made to represent all women in the Middle Ages. A flattering phrase by a far-seeing monk to a wealthy benefactress of the church is made to appear as proof of the church’s glorification of all women.

Historical truth paints the picture otherwise; and shows that contempt for women by a celibate priesthood increased in proportion to the growing dominance of the church of Rome. Lecky, in his History of European Morals (II, 49), tells us:

This pathological attitude toward woman, borrowed from paganism and cultivated in the cloister, grew stronger with age. The celebrated historian, G. G. Coulton, in his work, Ten Medieval Studies (p. 51), puts it as follows:

Joseph McCabe, in his book, The Religion of Women, explains how the Catholic church withdrew the few privileges formerly granted to women:

Resentment against the female sex went so far as to exclude women from singing in the choirs of the principal churches. Eunuchs were provided instead, and till recent times boys were castrated to supply soprano voices for the Sistine choir in the’ Vatican.3 No women are allowed to sing in choirs in St. Peter’s or other Roman Catholic cathedrals to this day.

Most degrading of medieval carriage customs was the “right of the first night” (jus primae noctis), by which a feudal lord was entitled to spend the first night with every newly married woman among his serfs. The sexual license enjoyed by the higher clergy, who were also feudal lords and therefore entitled to the “right of the first night,” was paralleled in the lower clergy by universal concubinage. These conditions are a frightful commentary of the claim of the Catholic church to have raised the standing of women in medieval Europe. Cambridge Medieval History (V.12) says: “By about the beginning of the 11th century, celibacy of the clergy was uncommon, and the laws enforcing it obsolete.” And Lecky (Democracy and Liberty, II, 179) observes that, “There was a time when clerical marriage was forbidden but when connections not formally legitimate were generally tolerated and recognized, and were sometimes even enforced by parishioners in the interests of public morals.”

The effect of clerical concubinage was to lessen the regard of laymen for the married state. Dr. James Donaldson, in his book on Woman, (p. 190) has this to say on the point:

Added to this was widespread and legalized prostitution, in which church organizations had a controlling interest.

Woman in Catholic Europe of the Middle Ages was a direct or indirect victim of church law. Her condition was degraded and far inferior to what it had been in pagan times. The Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (XV, 444) states:

Encyclopaedia Britannica (XXVIII, 783) has this to say:

Lecky in his History of European Morals (II, 339) points out that, “Wherever Canon Law was made the basis of legislation, we find ‘laws of succession’ sacrificing the interests of daughters and wives, and a state of public opinion which has been formed and regulated by, these laws.”

The Virgin Mary And Chivalry

Catholic propagandists, have so ceaselessly repeated their contention that the veneration shown to Mary elevated woman to a new dignity, that it is now generally accepted as true. Overlooked is the fact that the virtual deification of the Virgin Mary in the Middle Ages made her a sexless being, utterly removed from earthly things, and left her nothing in common with ordinary women. To this day, she is prayed to for redemption and salvation, and there her practical relationship with ordinary women ends.

In fact, the cult of Mary has never been an obstacle in the Catholic church to contempt for women in general, and cruelty to wives in particular. In volume I, p. 174, of his Five Centuries of Religion, G. G. Coulton reports his findings on this topic as follows:

After all, Madonna-Worship is not confined to Roman Catholicism. There was Maya, the virgin-mother of Buddha; and Isis, mother of the Egyptian god Horus, who was called “Our Lady” and “Queen of Heaven” the same as Mary is today in the Roman Catholic church. In Babylon there was Ishtar, described as “The Lady of the Heavenly Crown, the Mother of the Gods.” These cults produced no betterment in the status of women. Why therefore expect any revolutionary changes because of a like cult in Roman Catholicism!

Likewise medieval chivalry is largely a lot of romantic nonsense. It is no proof, as Catholic propagandists would have us believe, of the dignity acquired by women under Catholic church control. No, army in history has a worse reputation for raping women than the Mary-worshiping knights who led the later crusades. In the third volume (p. 399) of his work on Europe During the Middle Ages, Prof. Hallam says:

The Church And Women Today

Has the Catholic church in modern times changed its attitude toward women? In democratic countries, where the Catholic church is forced to compete with Protestant progress, it is obliged to tolerate the education of women, and their newly-won rights to vote and even administer high positions in government. Not so in countries where the Catholic church is dominant. As regards the education of women in the typically Catholic countries of Spain and Portugal, a report of the United States Education Bureau states:⁴

In Catholic countries of Eastern Europe conditions have been worse. In Latin America women not only lack higher education and the right to vote, but live in passive submission to the absolute rule of their husbands. The double standard of morality — one for men and one for women — is taken for granted, and prostitution is rampant. In the January 27 issue, of the Wilmington, Delaware, Sunday Star of this year, Mother Agatha, an Urseline nun who writes a regular column in that newspaper, glamorizes the present status of woman in Latin-American countries as follows:

This paraphrases the dictum of the late Cardinal Verdier of Paris on the status of women in the Catholic church:

In Catholic Quebec, Canada, much of the old French Civic Code on marriage remains. When a French-Canadian woman marries, she loses all legal status. Her property is placed at the arbitrary disposal of her husband; she cannot even collect on her own insurance policy without her husband’s consent. Her husband, under the guidance of the church, has the sole right to say whether or not his wife shall undergo any surgical operation.

The coming of Fascism gave hope to the Roman Catholic church for the restoration of its traditional attitude toward women and its enforcement on society by dictatorial decrees. Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical “On Christian Marriage,” (1930), enthusiastically refers to and quotes from his recent Lateran Pact with Mussolini (in 1929) that, “in consonance with right order and entirely according to the law of Christ, in the solemn Concordat happily entered into between the Holy See and the Kingdom of Italy, also in matrimonial affairs a peaceful settlement and friendly cooperation has been obtained, such as befitted the glorious history of the Italian people, and its ancient and sacred traditions. These decrees are to be found in the Lateran Pact.”

In this same encyclical Pius XI quotes and endorses Pope Leo XIII on the subservience of woman to man, as follows: “The man is the ruler of the family, and the head of the woman; but because she is flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, let her be subject and obedient to the man.”

Outstanding Catholic leaders, even those reputed as pro-democratic, such as the late English Cardinal Hinsley, praised Fascism for its “manly virtues” and its decrees relegating women again to the duties of “children, church and kitchen.”

It should surprise no one therefore, that the Catholic church in America is adamantly opposed to equal rights for women, and makes every effort in Washington to defeat the proposed “Equal Rights Amendment” to the Constitution. Following is a sample of the pressure exerted on Congress in this matter. It was written to Representative William T. Byrne by Charles J. Tobin, secretary of the New York State Catholic Welfare Committee, on October 2, 1943, from its offices at 162 State Street, Albany, N. Y.:

"Dear Bill:

The National Catholic Welfare Council, speaking for the Catholic Bishops of the country, have protested the passage by Congress of the so-called ‘Equal Rights for Women Proposal,’ now before the Judiciary Committee, of the House.

His Excellency, Bishop Gibbons of this Diocese, asks your good offices to aid the National Catholic Welfare Council in their protest.

Very sincerely,

(Signed) Charles J. Tobin, Secretary."

This letter caused the recipient and two other Catholic members of Congress to change their pledged votes in order to conform to the instructions of Bishop Gibbons.

Equal rights in the spiritual order, regardless of sex or condition, is a fundamental principle of true Christian teaching, and was re-introduced to the world at the time of the Protestant Reformation, according to Paul in Gal. 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”

God is no respecter of persons or sex differences. To each and all He offers His gift of salvation — free and full. From this spiritual principle of equality, as taught by all Protestant churches, flow equal rights in the social order for women and men alike, as is evidenced in countries where the Gospel of Christ has been freely preached.

Such equality, in spiritual and social matters, however, does not tend to sustain an ecclesiastical organization like the Roman Catholic church, whose hierarchical structure is essential for its maintenance, and whose choice privileges are reserved only for those of its administrative personnel — all of whom are men.

1. In the U. S. this ceremony is generally allowed inside the church proper.↩
2. See Letter XXII in Select Letters of Saint Jerome, p. 67, In the Loeb Classical Library.↩
3. Cf. Christianity and Morals, p. 339, by Prof. Edward ’A, Westermarck.↩ 4. Report of the Commissioner of Education tor 1894-95, Vol. I, Part I, p. 940.↩

More in this series about the True Nature and Structure of Roman Catholicism

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