To think that one cannot be both a Catholic and a Feminist?

[applesauce1]

Inspired by another thread on here, my husband and I had a lively debate about this earlier. I think that a Catholic person cannot also be a Feminist for many reasons, but among these reasons, that an anti-abortion stance is an anti-woman stance.
My husband thinks that a Catholic could be pro-choice and therefore be a feminist, or that a feminist might also disagree with abortion.
He is a cultural Catholic (now atheist), and probably took this stance because he'd like to think that his mum is a feminist. In the end, we agreed to disagree. I think it is a black and white issue and he would like to think there are grey areas.
Do you think there's a way that someone can be a Catholic and also a feminist?

@Sarahpaula - seriously, if you don't stop posting ridiculous nonsense I am going to have to become a Catholic, and it will all be your fault. If you are so concerned about Catholics and Ireland why not take it up with them and leave the rest of us alone. You seem to have some deep seated issues, but this is not the place to air them.

@eaglejulesk I think that you wrote an idiotic post. I have no idea what you are even talking about. Think before you write next time, as you make no sense.

@eaglejulesk what exactly of what I wrote is nonsense? Pick one thing, and we will debate it.

Don't just write unintelligent drivel, like you just did.

@Vagaries I had made an assumption that, to be a Catholic, one would have to subscribe to all of the teachings. It's interesting to hear that it can be a freer interpretation. My mind is changed!

The thing is with RCs, it's difficult to leave. In the words of Dara O'Briain, "You could join the Taliban and you would still be Catholic, just not a very good one.

I also think that for anything to change you need people inside that organisation pushing for change.

Having said that I don't know why you need a penis to say magic words over bread and wine.

@sashh I don't think it is hard to leave though.

Lots of people in Ireland have completely left the Catholic church. If you ever go into a catholic church in Ireland now, it is usually just people over 65 there. The younger generation have left the catholic church

@sashh "Having said that I don't know why you need a penis to say magic words over bread and wine"

Because the Catholic church was made by men, for men to have power over women.

Sarahpaula

I'm atheist and have been for decades, when I have attended churches for christenings or funerals I've often felt the hard jab of an elbow as I walk past the benitier and don't cross myself.

I agree with it being made up by men, I think most religions are made up by men to control women.

@sashh we definitely agree on that point. :)

@Sarahpaula my dad was also abused in a Catholic institution. I think unless it's happened within your own family it's hard to comprehend the effects.

We as children knew nothing about it, just that he was fucked up, but we still had to go to church, get communion, be confirmed etc. It makes me actually feel a little nauseous to think of that now, that he was so indoctrinated that he brought us up with the whole thing even though he had a wretched childhood at their hands. Of course I wouldn't knowingly support an organisation that abused my daddy, but I did unwittingly for years. It's a horrible position to be in.

On a wider level outside of family, the town along from where I was born there are babies dumped on top of each other in unmarked graves, deaths unrecorded, that happened in my parents' lifetimes. I suppose at least I'm lucky my daddy survived. All of this was routine, but when the questions started they shut up until people had died, headed the enquiries off at every turn. When you look into it more it seems likely there are multiple sites of dead babies around Ireland and Scotland but the church is still blocking investigations.

The Catholic church has blood on its hands, recent blood, the effects are still felt and as far as I'm concerned the priests and the Pope and all the rest can get in the fucking sea.

So actually the whole can you be a feminist argument is for me secondary to can you believe in human rights at all and be a Catholic.

Thank you so much for that post @kissm

I absolutely agree.

The question shouldn't be "can you be feminist and be Catholic".

It should be, "Can you believe in human rights and be Catholic"

I don’t think feminism and Catholicism are compatible. Firstly, not allowing women to be ordained, for verses such as 1 Corinthians states “ the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says”.
Other passages, talk about women submitting to men, such as Ephesians 5:22-24 “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands”. As most catholic’s are fundamentalists and take the word if the bible as factual and thus be believed there’s no way a practising catholic can be a feminist... IMO

As most catholic’s are fundamentalists and take the word if the bible as factual

🤦‍♀️

@Sarahpaula I do feel for where you're coming from. The frustrating thing is that none of this is news really. Everyone has seen the Magdalene Laundries film for eg and tutted over it, but somehow they turn a blind eye to other utterly horrendous events that took place in Ireland and Scotland and indeed in England just 50 or so years ago, and it all becomes about "ah well now they've said sorry" and they fucking haven't. I can't even count the number of enquiries and investigations that have been blocked in my own lifetime, the history of tiny bodies hidden in fields sold to developers that the church has gone laughing to the bank with. It is horrendous on a scale that people don't want to address and if you raise it in public you're crazy but actually you're only raising it because you've found that information out. You'd drive yourself mad very easily going too far into it. But if it's in your family you're already into it.

And yes, what happened is human rights abuse, and what continues is a cover up of human rights abuses.

The abortion question for me is a no brainer in comparison. What I'm really done in by is the concept of anyone supporting an institution that actively and within living memory abused human rights and that continues to suppress investigation into that.

@GoldenOmber

What’s wrong with that statement?

I went to Catholic school and our RE GCSE focused predominantly on the importance of women in the New Testament, with discussion around how and why different gospels do or don't include women in the stories. It was a very feminist critique of the NT, with consideration of its cultural settings at the time. There was definitely appreciation that it's a book written two thousand years ago and we taught flexibility/adaption in its interpretation with respect to society currently. I have no doubt other Catholic schools may have been more rigid but maybe that was down to an enlightened teacher.

There's constantly debate within and without the church on many feminist issues and Catholicism does (slowly) evolve.

@KissM I agree, I don't know how anyone can support the Carholic church after what they have done.

They were an evil cult, for the most part.

Lets go sit in a church and worship a bunch of paedophile. No.

But to get people out of being brainwashed by a cult takes time.

I was watching a documentary about thte Jonestown cult. In the documentary one woman said , when people in the church started beating her child, and telling her it was for the child's good, she finallly fo to her senses and left that church (cult).

People do not want to hear that the Catholic church is an evil cult full of paedophiles. They would rather ignore what happened as it is easier for them. but it is the truth.

[quote Sarahpaula]@maras2 how can you be feminist and be a Catholic. If it were a job that only hired men in the top roles, what would you say?[/quote]
I think from catching up with the overnight posts on this thread, you're the one on it who knows the least about either Catholics, religion in general or feminism.
Maybe YOU went to some cult-ish branch of Catholicism, and maybe YOU were told women are inferior, but simply barking "how can any woman be a Catholic" and "it is known that..." (By whom? The old "everybody knows" trope is the vestige used on here by those who have no real argument to put forward) shows your ignorance of the Catholic church and your unwillingness to give women on this thread who disagree with you, a voice.
Not much of a feminist, are you?

In case you missed it, I'm not a Catholic.

And the idea that @DioneTheDiabolist knows nothing about religion is so absurd as to be literally laughable. You must be very new to Mumsnet. @Sarahpaula.

I was bought up Catholic and left the church as an adult. I was educated in a Convent for several years and had met some very inspiring nuns (and some uninspiring ones too).

The reason I left the church (although, as pointed out above you can never truly leave), was related to my growing agency in my life and my feminism.

My definition of feminism is : 'women matter as much as men' . My experience of Catholicism is that within the church this is not so.

My brother (who was very indifferent to religion from an early age) got to be an altar boy, I (who was much more fervently Catholic) did not. ( I know that this has now changed). To me at the time, i didn't understand this inequality.

Then our local parish priest spent a lot of time sucking up to rich widows and got himself several mentions in wills, so had a rather nice car. It was a parish joke. This oppotunism also didn't sit well with me.

At school I had an incredibly intelligent and wise nun as a headmistress. She was amazing, but it occurred to me that this is as far as a woman could get in the church even with her intellect. And just limited to girls schools and shaping girls minds. She was worth 10 of the fancy car owning priest, but he was her senior.

Then there was an acceptance into the church of married Anglican priests, who left as they didn't want women priests in the C of E. One became our parish priest. I find myself looking at his wedding ring during his sermon thinking 'why do you disagree with a women being able to do what you are doing now. '

Then I got involved in my career and was dealing with male heavy hierarchies at work, which I found limiting to me and set a mysoginistic environment generally. One of my job search criteria was some women in senior positions and not just the inevitable one in HR. Then I had a sort of revelation that the Catholic church was such an institution, with my headmistress the equivalent of the senior woman, but only in HR.

Then there were all the child abuse scandal and the way that they were hushed up. One of my friends parish priests was one of these men. When the church found out, he was simply moved to another parish and it was hushed up. This was how abuse was dealt with. Appalling.

I have always disagreed with the stance on contraception and abortion and don't know anyone under 60 who had ever paid attention to it, yet it is part of the rules. Why have the rules if you know they are unworkable and not followed? And of course these rules primarily affect women.

So all of the above(and several other small but significant things) gradually built up a picture over time that women and girls (and children) simply do not matter as much as the men. And it doesn't make for a good environment and breeds bad behaviour.

I know that there are changes (eg girls can be Altar girls) but it has been small irrelevant gestures and as the church ages and weakens.

I actually admire those feminists who care enough about the church to try to change it from the inside, but my experiences mean that I simply don't care enough about the church to want to try.

I'm Irish background and we nearly all left because of WW2.

@Sarahpaula your view point about the power, control and abuse in Catholic Church in Ireland is actually very limited.

The abuse didn't happen in a vacuum and it didn't happen with out State involvement and assistance. Or members of society for that matter.

Nor is the Catholic Church the only institution that has allowed monsters to hide in their midst to abuse children in Ireland or other countries around the world.
In Ireland in the past abuse of children was not only undertaken by the catholic church.

My grandmother was in a laundry, my auntie was actually born in one. She wasn't there because a nun came and dragged her there kicking and screaming. She was there because her father did. Despite being fully aware of what happened to girls who were left there, he was happy to do that.
Protection of children starts at home. There was little of that in Irish society in the early 1900s.

What about scouts? Do you think that people who allow their children to attend now are brain washed by a "cult"? When it has been proven that there was abuse of children that was covered up by the institution?

Schools? Sports clubs? Abuse has happened at every level of society. Do you suggest that we dont send our children to those because they are also full of paedophiles?

The Catholic Church absolutely has a responsibility for acknowledging the horrors of the past, and ensuring as much as is possible that those mistakes can not be repeated.

They aren't the only ones though and its why child protection rules apply to all organisations that come into contact with children.

Can you be a Catholic and feminist. Yes I think you can. I would consider myself both.

[quote OverTheRainbow88]@GoldenOmber

What’s wrong with that statement?[/quote]
Catholics aren’t ‘fundamentalists’. Fundamentalism, in the sense of Biblical literalism etc, is a Protestant approach that dates from the US in the 1920s. Catholics aren’t supposed to be Biblical literalists, it’s not what the Church teaches, and putting the Bible as the sole source of authority is actually classed as a heresy.

You're not making much sense OP.

Not OP sorry I meant @Sarahpaula.