More On Bishop Williamson, Anti Semitism and Misogyny

SSPX Bishop Williamson being inspired by Holy Conspirators.

I see where the Vatican is now in full spin control regarding the lifting of the excommunications of the four SSPX bishops. Not very successfully either. This is too reminiscent of Regensburg and seems to imply that the learning curve in the Vatican is not just slow, it's glacial. Orrrr, Benedict is bound and determined to say and do what he wants. He wants SSPX in the fold and damn the consequences, SSPX will be in the fold.

The blatant anti semitism of SSPX is well chronicled, and usually the official spin is that they are concerned for the soul's of their Jewish brethren. Jews must be evangelized into the one true Church in order to be saved. Jesus says so. Nostra Aetate , promulgated by Paul IV in 1965, says something different, and this line in particular causes difficulties:

"Indeed, the Church believes that by His cross Christ, Our Peace, reconciled Jews and Gentiles. making both one in Himself."

In my research on this story, SSPX leadership is quick to point out that there is room for discussion on this and other issues because Vatican II is a "pastoral" council and therefore exempt from notions of infallible teaching. I'm sure they are right and this is the kind of Canonical thinking which will rule the day. It is about the letter of Canon Law, and not the 'Spirit of Vatican II'.

My issue with SSPX is not just confined to anti semitism, it's includes the over the top misogyny which is receiving very little press coverage. Here is a pastoral letter from Bishop Williamson on why women should not attend universities.

The deep-down reason is the same as for the wrongness of women's trousers: the unwomaning of woman. The deep-down cause in both cases is that Revolutionary man has betrayed modem woman; since she is not respected and loved for being a woman, she tries to make herself a man. Since modern man does not want her to do what God meant her to do, namely to have children, she takes her revenge by invading all kinds of things that man is meant to do. What else was to be expected? Modem man has only himself to blame. (revenge? invading? words of a true male warrior.)

In fact, only in modern times have women dreamt of going to university, but the idea has now become so normal that even Catholics, whose Faith guards Nature, may have difficulty in seeing the problem. However, here is a pointer in the direction of normalcy: any Catholic with the least respect for Tradition recognizes that women should not be priests - can he deny that if few women went to university, almost none would wish to be priests? Alas, women going to university is part of the whole massive onslaught on God's Nature which characterizes our times. That girls should not be in universities flows from the nature of universities and from the nature of girls: true universities are for ideas, ideas are not for true girls, so true universities are not for true girls. (Hang on, it's gets even stranger. I skipped the part on the nature of universities, but it is worth reading. I guess.)

NATURE OF GIRLS
For a sane grasp of woman's nature, let me appeal to the Church's Common Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, distant now by three-quarters of a millennium from our own disturbed times. The three reasons he gives in his Summa Theologiae (2a, 2ae, 177,2) why woman should not teach in Church in public can all be applied to why she should not teach or learn in a public university.

Firstly, he says, teaching is for superiors, and women are- not to be superior, but subject, to their men (Gen III,16). Secondly, women stepping up to teach in public can easily inflame men's lust (Ecclus IX,11). Thirdly, "Women are not usually ("communiter") perfect in wisdom".

To grasp these three reasons, let us back up another five millennia, to Adam and Eve. Since the word "nature" comes from the Latin word for "being born", then to study a thing's nature one goes back to its birth. Eve was created by God to be a "help" to Adam (Gen. 11,18). She was to help him, says St Thomas Aquinas elsewhere (1a,92,1), not for any other work than that of generation (or reproduction), because for any other work man could be more suitably helped by another man. It follows that woman's nature is intrinsically geared to motherhood, so that in all things pertaining to motherhood she is man's superior, in all else she is his inferior, and in none of all the things in which the two sexes are complementary are they equal. (I'll give Williamson some credit here, he at least states the true underlying philosophy behind this whole notion of sexual complementarity.)

Now to attract a man so as to marry and become a mother, to nurture and rear children and to retain their father, she needs superior gifts of feeling and instinct, e.g. sensitivity, delicacy, tact, perspicacity, tenderness, etc. by which her mind will correspondingly be swayed, which is why no husband can understand how the mind of his wife works!

For to do the work of generation, i.e. to ensure nothing less than the survival and continuation of mankind, God designed her mind to run on a complementary and different basis from her man's. His mind is designed not to be swayed by feelings but on the contrary to control them, so that while his feelings may be inferior to hers, his reason is superior. And reason being meant to rule in rational beings, then he is natured to rule over her (Gen. III, 16), as can be seen for example whenever she needs to resort to him for her feelings not to get out of control. (I must apologize and appeal to some man to save me from my feelings as this is making them get out of control.)

Correspondingly, while she senses family (and loves to talk about it), he responds to the world around and wants to master it (Gen II,15,19,20). While she is people-oriented, he is reality-oriented. (How often will a woman pull an idea or a question of reality back to family! - "You're against drink? You're attacking my husband!" This is in woman's nature. One does not mock her for it.) So while she is queen of feeling within the home, he must be king of reason over the home. So while he must love her and listen to her, at the end of the day she must obey him, because he is natured to take the broader view and to be the more reasonable. (Lest we forget, this is faith shaped by reason!)

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I'm not going to comment on Bishop Williamson's thinking directly, but I do want to reitterate a point I made in a posting two days ago. I think a real case can be made for anti semitism being directly linked to mysoginy. Judaism has historically been a feminine religion concentrating on relationship. Here again is Rabbi Boteach's response to the question, Is Judaism sexist:

"No, Judaism is a deeply feminist religion. It believes that the feminine nurturing model is the way all people should live. Our great men throughout the ages were feminine figures, teachers, scholars, rather than warriors."

Virtually every single hot topic in the Church today is some form of male projection regarding the role of the feminine in the world. It doesn't really matter what side of the political spectrum one is on as evidenced by Barack Obama reaching out to Republicans by his invitation to Rick Warren and his excluding the proposed medicaid funding for birth control from his recovery package. It's almost like he's saying, "Hey, trust me, I'm really one of you real GUYS."

Benedict's rapprochement with SSPX is just another example of the Vatican championing yet another right wing group which espouses Bishop Williamson's definition of sexual complementarity. I guess we women will just have to face it, until we get out of colleges and back into the nursery and kitchen, the world will continue to circle the drain.

That very same world created almost exclusively by those men ruled by reason. Men who are represented at their best by Wall Street and the Taliban. Speaking of the Taliban, their latest crusade in Pakistan is bombing girls schools. Apparently these are the kind of men Bishop Williamson would approve. Real men protecting the real world of reasonable men from revengeful and invading and excessively emotional women--and gays--and Jews. It's their male God's will, don't we know.

Actually it's not.