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Women only 'liberated' when 'free to be feminine'
To the Editor:
I write regarding Robert Franz's letter of Jan. 20, "Female traits deserve society's recognition." If his only point was that women are of equal dignity as men, and should be treated as such, I'd be in 100 percent agreement with him. However, he undermines the foundation for the very equality that he advocates by maligning the Christian faith.
It would appear that Mr. Franz learned about church history from "The DaVinci Code." Numerous books could be written (and indeed have been written, such as "Cracking the DaVinci Code") debunking the lies and errors in that piece of pulp nonsense. One only needs to look at the New Testament to find that Jesus selected twelve men to lead His church. Yes, women played major roles in the early Christian movement. Jesus' own mother Mary is a prime example, as is Mary Magdalene. Yet despite how close these women were to Our Lord, He did not select them to be in positions of authority in the church.
"Jesus Christ our teacher sent us, the 12, out to teach the people... But there were female disciples among us… He did not, however, send them out with us to teach the people. For, if it had been necessary that women should teach, then our teacher would have directed them to instruct along with us." Is this a modern polemic? No, these are the words of the Didascalia, a Christian document written in 225, nearly a hundred years before Christianity was legalized in Rome, the event in which Mr. Franz claims that "men took over and marginalized the role of women."
The fact of the matter is that every priest, every bishop, every pope in the early church was a man. You won't find a female name among them. Historical facts trump pulp fiction, or should, anyway, for reasonable people. The mythical "feminine" church Mr. Franz imagines simply never existed.
So is it true, then, that Christianity teaches women are of lesser value than men? Hardly. Christianity is the only thing in human history that has liberated women, and indeed taught men to respect and even exalt them. Cast your eyes over the globe. What non-Christian culture would women want to live in? Tribal Africa, where young girls have their sexual organs mutilated? Muslim countries where women cannot show their face in public? Or perhaps communist China where, should a woman have the gall to have more than one child, her baby is surgically removed from her womb and killed before she is sterilized against her will?
The Church has legitimate theological reasons for requiring priests to be male that would take too much space to express in this letter, but they have nothing to do with gender inequality. The Church teaches us that men and women were together created in God's image, and therefore possessors of a divine and inalienable dignity. Were the differences in the sexes the manufacture of biological chance, then one could well make an argument that one sex is "superior to" the other. But our Christian heritage tells us that we are more than that.
"Man and woman have willed by God … in perfect equality as human persons …. Man and woman are both with one and the same dignity in the image of God." This is taught clearly in the catechism of the Catholic Church, and it echoes what the church has taught for two millennia. The fact that it took western society a while to put this into practice is evidence only of the barbarity from which the church rescued us.
The wise continue to recognize the importance of the church's teachings. Men should be masculine and women should be feminine. It is our nature, and we can only be happy if we recognize that. Women are not liberated when they are like men. They are only liberated when they are free to truly be feminine. Likewise men are not enlightened when they try to be like women; they are living in self-delusion. This is basic human nature. That we need to remind ourselves of the obvious is a symptom of a serious illness in society. That "The DaVinci Code" was the No. 1 best seller for so long may well be another.
Matthew Newsome
Sylva
Reader agreement
To the Editor:
My hat goes off to Mr. Robert Franz for his excellent and informative letter to the editor published Jan. 20, "Female traits deserve society's recognition."
He addressed many issues that most people prefer to remain ignorant to. Some of these issues can and have caused emotional and sometimes disastrous damage if not understood, many times in one's own family.
Mr. Franz, I will certainly read "The X in Sex," as I hope others do.
Marion Milano
Cullowhee
Safety issues should be addressed
To the Editor:
I do credit Sylva Police Chief Jeff Jamison for looking at the road in front of Mark Watson Park. In my opinon, it is not all the drivers' fault. I am a friend of Brandon Wilson, and it hurt me to see the comment in the paper about how irresponsible those drivers were. I do agree that drivers should pay attention to the road. But no one knows waht happend to cause those people to cross the center line.
Amber London
Sylva
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