BlogHer - Vatican says men and women even sin differently - Comments

The vehemence is solely for

MLOKnitting — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:28:53 -0600

The vehemence is solely for the benefit of the Roman See. I happen to have studied their less than stellar history which only confirmed everything I thought before.

Quakers are not an "organized religion" as most people think of them. They are much more of a spiritual movement than a hierarchical Dark Ages throwback.

MLO / Melissa

Hi Melissa

Mata H — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 10:43:52 -0600

It sounds as though you've experienced some very real hurt at the hands of the church that operated your school. I am sorry that happened to you, especially at such a young age.

Just remember that there are churches that are very different -- the Quakers, for example -- a group devoted to all things peaceful. There are other "peace churches" as well.

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs right along at Time's Fool

Catholicism = Misogyny

MLOKnitting — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 20:02:29 -0600

I was never Catholic but went to Catholic School. The main thing I learned was that the Institution itself is the single most evil misogynistic organization ever to masquerade as a follower of Christ.

The only group that competes for creating more atheists is the extremely conservative evangelical "Christian" churches.

I know that there has been good done it evil's name, but I think it is as C.S. Lewis stated in The Chronicles of Narnia - they are serving God even if they are within an institution serving Satan.

I consider organized religion to be the root of evil in the world.

MLO / Melissa

Yes, Wilma --

Mata H — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 10:01:00 -0600

I hear you loud and clearly. It is so important to distinguish between an institution and faith or belief.

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs right along at Time's Fool

Seperate the wheat from the chaff

Wilma Ham — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:24:13 -0600

Hi Mata

As an ex Catholic I will take on board what you say, for years I refused to even consider that the bible had a sensible word in it.
It is all a matter of, as you say, being careful and using your own discretion about what to take on board and not being so reactive, but still . . . sometimes that church does get under my skin :)

Wilma Ham

www.wilmasblog.com

Hi Wilma

Mata H — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 23:50:20 -0600

Well, tho I have a quarrel with organized religion, it is a lover's quarrel. I would never underestimate the power of religion to provide spiritual inspiration and solace.

Those of us who are "ex"-(fill in the denominational blank) have to be careful to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are important spiritual lessons that can be taken from all religious traditions.

That having been said, spirituality is a big tent -- lots of room for voices from within and outside of the traditional places.

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs right along at Time's Fool

Reading this makes me want to sin.

Wilma Ham — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 17:50:28 -0600

How come the church can come up with such nonsense, again and again.
It is hard to stay calm and collected and NOT become violently emotional and sin . . .
It shows for me religion is NOT the way to go to explore the spiritual side of life.
And yes, like so many cultures, once brought up in the Catholic culture you have to live with its residue in your thinking and feeling, until you recognize it and can delete it from your unconsciousness.
Thanks goodness there are now lots of other explanations about life and spirituality from other than religious sources that make far more sense, like the book Nelle mentioned.

Wilma Ham

www.wilmasblog.com

thx Nelle

Mata H — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 17:16:30 -0600

I just ordered a used copy from Amazon :-)

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs right along at Time's Fool

If you have even remote interest...

nelle2nelle — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 09:05:08 -0600

in Dance of the Dissident Daughter, usually what happens is that you start feeling goosebumps about every other chapter.

I wavered for years, took my beliefs private. Someone on iVillage used to do a Goddess hour every week, and it inevitably left me feeling skittish - and soon enough I realised why: my Catholic roots were haunting me, big time.

I started to go after those boundaries, and in 2005, on the recommendation of another, I read Sue's book. There are experiences in there that are shared, and when you realise another felt what you felt, dealt with what you dealt with, here come the goose bumps.

And she is so articulate in forming it all up. I have an area here that is set aside for spirituality, mostly reiki, but Sue's book is right there on it, sort of an altar to my beliefs.

My original copy is now in Finland. Someone there wished to read it, and could not track it down, so I mailed her mine, and bought another copy here later.

Her reaction:

I've now read the book twice(lots of difficult words for poor foreigner - thank goodness for thick dictionary). And I had to take lot of breaks to think, very thought provoking things almost at every page.

All I can say is WAU. IMO this book should be mandatory read for every girl and woman.

Even though I have worked long time with human rights issues I have never concidered myself a feminist. Why would I? After all I am supposedly living in a country/area where equality between genders is one of the best in the world.
Even our language does not have different words for genders - like in english you have he or she, Swedish hon or han. We only have one word - hän.

Looks good? Not anymore. Not after reading this book. Veil has been ripped off from my eyes and I look at my culture,religion,society with new, sharper eyes. Yes, I am lucky, my daughter is lucky to be here compared to so many other places in the world but it could be better - it should be better.

The one thing I really liked about the writer is this;

"Men need to become aware, but blaming them doesn’t help. It only polarizes."

I am very happy that she did not take the path of 'hate all men' path.

I owe you a big one Nelle.

And rest of you on the board - no matter what your faith is, read this book.

BTW, I've seen that on Sue's site before, it is interesting reading.

nelle

llhaesa

Thank you Nelle

Mata H — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 08:40:24 -0600

I hear you. I've done my share of ranting, too. We rant because there *is* something of value there that is being denied to so many. Ex-Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict) has long been known to be even more conservative than his predecessor. I think we can reasonably expect to see more of the same.

I had not heard of Sue Monk Kidd, though I loved "Secret Life of Bees" as a movie. But when I saw this excerpt I became convinced that I need to buy the book that you mentioned! Thanks for mentioning it.

Mata

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs right along at Time's Fool

Oh just flipping wonderful!

nelle2nelle — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 22:59:03 -0600

What a way to end my day, and drift into night on a wave of Vatican love.

As with you, I'm ex-Catholic, born and raised and semi-educated via a Catholic school, eight years worth, though that mercifully ended 41 years ago.

We have them aiming at gays with all kind of inane comments, such a dastardly, evil group we are!

Came the claim of shame for Pelosi, how dare she call herself Catholic and a choicer?

There is a pattern here: women need not apply, excepting to dutifully fill the pews with themselves and kidlets and by the way, did you see that basket on the end of the long pole?

Four years ago or so, an Atlanta Bishop refused to wash the feet of women in a foot cleansing ceremony.

The Church goes collectively nuts at the very mention of women as priests. Hell (no pun intended) it tosses out via the ex-communication pathway any who has the audacity to accept an ordination. Ex-communicate for wishing to do the Lords work?

What am I missing here? Ah... though shalt not challenge patriarchy.

Well, if women were priests, I can pretty much guarantee that paedophilia outbreak would never have seen such pervasiveness through the priesthood, there would have been priestly bodies flying out windows first.

Add in married women as priests, and well... think Meryl Streep in Doubt X whatever.

Lets face it, women and gays are the dogshit of the Vatican management world.

Thank goodness for Sue Monk Kidd and Dance of the Dissident Daughter. Sue, soothe my restless soul.

nelle

llhaesa

Vatican says men and women even sin differently

Mata H — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 23:01:49 -0600

The Vatican hit a Trifecta this week, after a rough month, with the affirmation of a survey done by a 97 year old priest that men and women sin differently. Men are more lustful. Women are more prideful. NB: Pride is considered the worst of the Seven Deadly Sins

lifting the excommunication of a priest who had been being too conservative on liturgical issues. (The British-born Richard Williamson, is the same bishop who has also made many denials of the Nazi Holocaust, even saying that "there were no gas chambers.") Even the German government cried out at that.

Next, our Speaker of the House, Pelosi visits the Pope, and the Vatican said that they raised the issue of Catholic politicians and abortion again. Pelosi said they talked about other things.

So the blogosphere was well tuned up to be humming about this most recent issue, the survey.

First, who is this priest that did the study? And who is affirming it?

The priest is Fr Roberto Busa, a 95-year-old Jesuit scholar, and one of the pioneers in the usage of computers for linguistic and literary analysis, especially of St Thomas Aquinas. The affirming priest is Dominican Father Wojciech Giertych, the personal theologian to the Pope, and an Aquinas scholar.

No less than The Catholic News reports Giertych as saying:

The priest said personal experience seemed to confirm these theories.

"In convents, women religious are often envious of each other over little things, but when the church bell rings, everyone goes to the chapel to sing vespers," he said.

"Monks, however, aren't often interested in each other and, therefore, aren't jealous, but when the church bell rings, few take part in common prayer," he said.

He said St. Thomas Aquinas taught that pride is humanity's greatest enemy because it leads a person to believe he or she is self-sufficient and "hinders a person from having a relationship with God."

Lust and "the sins against chastity are less dangerous because they are accompanied by a strong sense of humiliation and, as such, can be an occasion to return to God," said Father Giertych.

OK, by now we all need to take a deep breath, pause and review.

Breathe.

Pause.

Review.

We don't know much about the actual survey. We do know that the Bible never mentions the Seven Deadly Sins, but they were listed by Pope Gregory I in 590AD.

The Vatican affirms that, according to this survey, women are prone to worse sins than men.

They do not say how big the study was, under what conditions it was made. They do not say if the study was of laypeople or of priests and nuns, or of all mixed. They do not say what they classified as a "sin of pride" and a "sin of lust". (For those of you who may not have experienced a Catholic confessional, people do not generally say "I committed the sin of pride." They are more likely to say that they got angry, or took God's name in vain, or had impure thoughts, etc.")

There is no suggestion of how they collected the data. Was it confession-specific? (i.e. Did a variety of confessors fill out data forms while the confession was happening or soon after that listed everything confessed?)

Or, was the data collected as anecdotal? (i.e. Did they ask priests how they would rank the Seven Deadly Sins by sex? Were they asking impressions or getting facts?)

Oh, and did any women have a chance to analyze the results of whatever data was at hand?

The Vatican has said that they affirm the results.

But what does that mean? Is there some recently surfaced need to affirm the differences between men and women? Is this heralding a return to more Aquinian theology?

Aquinas is often credited for establishing the groundwork philosophically for the forbidding of female ordination in the Catholic Church. Will this be another brick in that wall?

It puzzles me. Why would the Roman Catholic church want to make these points now?

(Lest anyone think I am aiming at the RCC, it was my birth-church, and I am thankful for that, although I have departed its ranks. I am equally capable of being mystified by the official statements of any church body. Organized religion, despite its charm, often has me shaking my head. THIS study, however, is one step short of turning me into a bobble-headed doll.)

So, folks, I turn to you. What do YOU think of this?

The official breakdown of the 7 by sex is as follows:

For men: lust, gluttony, sloth, anger, pride, envy and greed.

For women: pride, envy, anger, lust, gluttony, greed and sloth.

Now, does it do the world any good to know this? What if it is true (although I cannot imagine how one might know this). Isn't it just confirming old stereotypes to say that men are lusty and women are vain?

I found a lot in various blogs about this. Some merely report it. Some say it is mildly interesting. Some make sport. Some are outraged. But no one yet has pointed out how the study may be useful. It is not that I ignored such posts about usefulness. I just couldn't find any!

Teleri says

Look for revision in another 500-700 years.
What I find amusing is that, in the Middle Ages, lust was considered pre-eminently a female sin. Yep, all women were positively on fire, just waiting to tempt those poor celibate monks and priests into damnation. In anthropomorphizations of the Seven Deadlies, Lust is often female when the others are all male.
Today? It's the guys who have the lust problem, and pride is the chief female sin.

In the UK, Pearly Jones says:

And as for the boy's top three? Lust, Gluttony and Sloth? Turn them the other way round and you might have a point.

The only way to entice the lovely, but eternally sleepy Mr PJones out of his slothful pit, is to waft a full English breakfast under his nose, (therefore appealing to the glutton), while whispering, temptingly, in his ear sweet nothings such as "Darling...the cricket is on TV and England are winning by 10 wickets...

Dianakat has plenty to say:

Do we really observe more anger and prideful behavior in women than in men?

I do not doubt that Giertych's and Busa's reports of their own little samples may be accurate. Particularly in conservative, authoritarian institutions but even in society in general, it is far less acceptable for women to act in such ways. While men are regarded as self-confident and strong when they show pride and anger, women exhibiting comparable behavior may be seen as pretentious and bitchy. While such men are showing leadership and representing God as a priestly class, women are uppity sinners.

And this is what each group is taught. Is it surprising that the adherents to the very traditional practice of "confession" in a very conservative, doctrinal church reflect this sexist teaching?

Butterflies and Wheels is enraged.

Oh for godsake, who cares. Gluttony, sloth, lust, pride - mind your own business, why don't you, and while you're at it, why don't you worry about moral failings that actually matter? How's that for an idea? Why don't you leave sloth and gluttony up to everybody's mummy and daddy and turn your attention to cruelty and oppression and exploitation instead? Why don't you stop straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel? Eh? Eh? Why don't you work on your priorities? Why don't you improve your moral sensitivities?

Ann Althouse says:

"Men and women sin in different ways," says the Pope's personal theologian.
Oh, you mean like the way we love too much?

Mata H, CE for Religion and Spirituality, blogs til her head spins at Time's Fool