{"id":3445,"date":"2007-11-10T11:44:31","date_gmt":"2007-11-10T16:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/2007\/11\/10\/suppressing-women-for-3000-years\/"},"modified":"2007-11-10T11:44:31","modified_gmt":"2007-11-10T16:44:31","slug":"suppressing-women-for-3000-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/2007\/11\/suppressing-women-for-3000-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Suppressing women for 3,000 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is the Catholic church a puppet of the
\nright? Has it been suppressing women and the sexuality of its own
\nmembers for over 3,000 years?  brought up
\nthese thought-provoking questions in her seminar last night titled,
\n“Failing America’s Faithful,” sponsored by the Boisi Center for
\nReligion and American Public Life as a part of their annual Prophetic
\nVoices of the Church lecture series.\n<\/p>\n

A reader (and blogger<\/a>) sent me this which is from the BC Heights<\/a>
\nwhich is an
\nindependent student newspaper for Boston College.  I guess the
\n3,000 years could just be a simple typo since I doubt if the author is
\nintending to see Catholicism as a fulfillment of Judaism – though even
\nthen the number would be off.<\/p>\n

The Boisi Center is an organization
\nsupported by Boston College that aims to bring up questions of politics
\nand religion and create a dialogue in order to help our community move
\ncloser to truth. Although, the Center tries to remain unbiased in its
\nportrayal, while acknowledging that it does exist within the context of
\na Catholic university. Eric Owens, assistant director of the Boisi
\nCenter, said, “Religion is a crucial part of American public life and
\nneeds to be understood in the most rigorous way possible.” Due to this
\nfact, the Boisi Center works to promote the understanding of religion
\nand the way it functions in society. The Prophetic Voices of the Church
\nlecture series is an annual series that focuses on the Catholic church
\nand where it is moving by bringing in speakers that are knowledgeable
\nin a certain aspect of the church.
\nTownsend was the first lay speaker
\nin the series.<\/span><\/p>\n



\nWhen it comes to progressives I think
\nyou could easily substitute the
\nword prophetic with pathetic and have it to be more correct.
\n The Bible doesn’t exactly mince words when it comes to false
\nprophets and I don’t see exactly why I should either.  Calling
\npeople to go along with the culture is anything but prophetic.
\n Can you see Isiah or Jeremiah calling people to live out the
\nmodern times of their times?<\/span>

\n

\nI also wonder calling the Catholic
\nChurch a suppressor of women a
\ndialogue and a promotion of understanding of religion.<\/span><\/p>\n

…She said that the Catholic Church
\nhas lost its way in the latter half of the 20th century, following the
\n“moral majority” mindset and focusing on only three issues.<\/p>\n

“The churches have been hijacked by stem cell research, same-sex
\nmarriage, and abortion,” she said. By only focusing on these issues,
\nTownsend argued that the church has lost sight of the issues on which
\nit was founded, such as “loving your neighbor, not torturing people,
\nand not discriminating against women.”<\/p>\n

So which is it.  Has the Church
\nbeen suppressing women for 3,000 years or has she only lost her way in
\nthe last 50 years.  The funny thing is that I thought that
\nprotecting the innocent child in the womb and going against
\nexperimentation on human life via embryonic stem-cell research was
\n“loving your neighbor.”  I think that Kathleen Kennedy
\nTownsend might need to hear Jesus’ parable about who is your neighbor.
\n I do wonder about her definition of torturing people. I
\nwonder if it means calling people to live lives of genuine holiness, to be perfect as our Father is perfect?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is the Catholic church a puppet of the right? Has it been suppressing women and the sexuality of its own members for over 3,000 years?  brought up these thought-provoking questions…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-punditry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}