Vatican's Feminism Letter Rich in Insight

The Vatican's Letter on Feminism, written in May 2004, was not approved and officially released until early August.

Its authorship is Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and its sesquipedalian title is, “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World.”

The letter addresses all women because its argument is based on what it holds to be an objective anthropology that is not narrowed or distorted by current trends or fashionable ideologies. Yet it is especially directed to Christian women inasmuch as it is also centered on the biblical understanding of woman created in the image of God as a relational being. In this regard, women and men share a fundamental dignity and equality: “God created man in his image and likeness, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). This biblical understanding “constitutes the immutable basis of all Christian anthropology.”

The sexual differentiation of humanity into male and female characterizes man and woman in an original way, one that is rooted in their specifically distinctive bodies. Yet sexuality permeates their psychological and spiritual, as well as their biological, dimensions.

Man and woman are both whole and unified beings. A woman is a woman because her womanliness is an irremovable mode of her fundamental identity. She is not a woman because of external factors such as historical or cultural conditioning. A woman's femininity, therefore, is an essential aspect of her humanity. As the letter emphasizes, feminine values are “above all” human values.

The fundamental distinctiveness of man and woman does not imply separation or alienation. Indeed, man and woman stand in relationship to each other in a complementary way. Through their fundamental relationship with each other, which is essentially a loving one, they complete and fulfill each other. They do not find this completion and fulfillment in isolation. The letter warns against a “solipsism nourished by a false conception of freedom.”

Much of the letter reflects Pope John Paul II's “Theology of the Body.” Referring to the Pope's extensive treatment of man and woman, the letter reiterates that the human body, marked as it is with the sign of masculinity and femininity, “includes, right from the beginning, the nuptial attribute, that is, the capacity of expressing love, that love in which the person becomes a gift and — by means of this gift — fulfills the meaning of his being and his existence.”

The relationship between the sexes is fundamentally ordered to be harmonious and fulfilling. Yet, as the letter emphasizes, it is only too evident that many view the relationship between the sexes in terms of “competition” or “retaliation.” In this way, the sexes become adversaries instead of friends, enemies instead of collaborators. This adversarial relationship, the letter states in its most strongly worded passage, “has its most immediate and lethal effects in the structure of the family.”

At the same time, many others deny the basic differences between the sexes and “make homosexuality and heterosexuality virtually equivalent, in a new model of polymorphous sexuality.”

The letter, predictably, has been met with a great deal of criticism. But in fairness, one must appreciate its balance and logic, as well as its humanity. For example, it states that, “Women should have access to positions of responsibility which allow them to inspire the policies of nations and to promote innovative solutions to economic and social problems.”

Yet, the letter recognizes that this particular role of women is inseparable from the specific gifts women have — “the genius of women,” the Holy Father writes — which are distinctively relational and caring. In the absence of these womanly gifts, “society as a whole suffers violence and becomes in turn the progenitor of more violence.”

The fact that women can play an important role in the world, however, does not exclude or minimize the importance of their role in the home. Citing the Pope, once again, the letter says, “It will redound to the credit of society to make it possible for a mother — without inhibiting her freedom, without psychological or practical discrimination and without penalizing her as compared with other women — to devote herself to taking care of her children and educating them in accordance with their needs which may vary with age.”

The letter honors women, both in their humanity and in their distinctiveness. It emphasizes their relational responsibilities toward men without ignoring the same responsibilities men have toward women. It recognizes their importance both in the world and in the home. It respects their freedom and their genius. It harmonizes Scripture with anthropology, Christology with history.

The letter will be attacked and criticized, but one will search in vain for a feminist tract that is equal to this Vatican document in balance and comprehensiveness.

Dr. Donald DeMarco is adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College & Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut.