A Commentary on Pope Francis's Brief Remarks on Women

Which were reported here. ‘Theology of Women in the Church’ Only Beginning to Be Revealed by Pia de Solenni

In which she regurgitates egalitarianism and girl power:

As I progressed in my research, I realized just how visionary Pope John Paul II had been. He wasn’t offering a Catholic version of a fascist salute to motherhood. He was taking the concept of motherhood in a wholly different direction. After all, by the time he was writing, the developed world knew that women could match, and even surpass, men in most things. Instead of answering a question that had long sought an answer by defining women in terms of what men do, he focused on who a woman is, a much more elusive topic.

Some shoddy metaphysics, echoing the claim made by others (such as Fr. Corapi) about women and receptivity - women are more "spiritual" because they are more "receptive" than men, which is wrong. To be "spiritual" implies some sort of act or habit, while receptivity is a potency. One cannot be "more" with respect to a act or habit merely because of some potency, and especially if the potency is the same. Being "spiritual" is something that must be cultivated in both men and women. (As the theological virtues are seated in the intellect or will, there is no difference between men and women in the obediential potency to them as the intellect and will are spiritual faculties.)

The shift to Mary emphasizes the change in emphasis from doing to being. We actually know very little about what Mary did. But we know who she is: the Mother of God. Her ability to become a mother fundamentally enabled her to be open to God in a relationship that only a woman could have. Her response, uniquely feminine, paradoxically, became the model for all humanity.

Both men and women are "receptive" in relation to God, but women are "receptive" also in relation to men, because of the "complementary" roles. Claims about "being" as characteristic of women while "acting" is characteristic of men, again, need to be understood with respect to how men and women relate to one another, and how they develop and mature, psychologically.

Mary's response as a woman is different from a man in its particulars, but at the root of this is the exercise of the theological virtues, which is not uniquely feminine.

If we follow the example of Mary, that means working from within, wherever we happen to be, whether as chancellor of a major archdiocese, a mother home with small children, in business, politics or countless other places. It means recognizing that women bring something to the table by virtue of who they are rather than simply by what they do.

So men do not bring something to the table by virtue of who they are? Many contemporary Western women are upset by the claim that men are suited to be leaders by virtue of who they are. And yet, that is true.
Though it is no longer run by the LCs, the National Catholic Register continues to disappoint.

Why Study Aristotle's Metaphysics?

From the TMC newsletter: What We are Reading: Aristotle's Metaphysics by Christopher O. Blum, Fellow and Dean

Metaphysics has never been as widely understood or as greatly loved as philosophers think it ought to be, but today, it seems, there are some particularly stiff cultural winds blowing in the face of its pursuit. In the first place, metaphysics is a kind of knowledge, and reasoned-out knowledge at that. In that regard, it is a subject more like chemistry or Euclidean geometry than it is like the study of literature or the sifting of political platforms. When we seek to answer questions such as “what is God?,” we are not looking for a moral or an aesthetic judgment, we are seeking understanding. Second, although metaphysics seeks the knowledge of the highest causes, it does so from common experience and human reasoning alone, and so it is different than the kind of knowledge of God that we have thanks to our faith and on the basis of what God has revealed about himself in Sacred Scripture. Metaphysics provides the tools to make our theological reflections more accurate and more fruitful, but, by itself—that is, without the assistance of revelation—it speaks only in the most general terms about the Divine. For these two reasons, then, it can be hard to muster up the patience that metaphysics demands of those who pursue it. After all, our political and cultural woes are so very pressing, and our faith certainly does offer more ready and more powerful answers to our most pressing questions. Why, then, do we labor through the difficulty of Aristotle’s Metaphysics? The reason is simple: in imitation of St. Thomas Aquinas, we thereby propose to measure our own intellectual grasp of reality against the one Dante called the master of those who know.


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