[narses]

Ping.

[polemikos]

"The spirit of lawlessness came in with the Reformation, and Liberalism is its offspring."
- John Henry Cardinal Newman

[AMDG&BVMH]

"fertile ground for growth, and particularly in the Protestant countries. It was in part a reaction to a distorted view of women, quite different from the view of the Middle Ages, in a Catholic society where there were many outlets for a woman to exercise her influence and capacities."

This is what I have been teaching my daughter, tho I reached that conclusion based upon my own knowledge of history. Her current heroine is Eleanor of Aquitane.

There is an excellent book about Women in the Middle Ages, which supports this view.

[Wrigley]

ping

[independentmind]

In my opinion, the greatest loss to the high status women had gained by the end of the Middle Ages was doing away with the cult and devotion to Our Lady.

There's much to be said for this view.

[Tax-chick]

Later

[ahadams2]

I'm sorry but I have to admit I giggled my way through most of this article. Dr. Horvat, for all of her education seems to grasp little more than a cliche'd view of Protestant theology generally; and her understanding of such concepts as sola Scriptura and sola Fides in particular are insufficient for her to pass even a 10th grade Religion exam in a conservative Protestant Lutheran or Anglican parochial school.

Please tell me this isn't an honest representation of how little Roman Catholic scholars understand of Protestant theology...please?

[drstevej]

This is a vapid hit piece.

[Cicero]

I won't get into the theology.

I will say, independently, that my historical studies suggest that women had it better in the Middle Ages than they did after the Reformation.

For one thing, the religious orders made it possible for women to be educated and to hold influential positions as nuns. After the monasteries were abolished, there was no similar role for women in Protestant religious life.

For another, women seem to have been treated better in matters such as owning their own property. Widows could continue to run their husbands' businesses. Women could hold castles when their husbands were off fighting somewhere else. And so forth.

So, I won't get into the reasons, but it's generally true that womens' rights decreased in the Renaissance and Reformation.

[HarleyD]

"In Protestantism, what replaced virginity and poverty as the essential female virtue that signal holiness?... Rather, the essential virtue for women became obedience"

I can't believe this article would argue that it is better to keep a woman a virgin and in poverty than just simply be obedient to her husband. And the author feels this is what started women's lib?!? Is this the National Equirer of the Catholic Press?

But what's worse, judging from some of these posts is that some of you believe it!!! This is prove positive that you Catholics are so gullible and will believe anything that comes out of some Catholic approved printing plant.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Dr. Horvat is sounding a little feminist herself in all her outrage here. I have to wonder, if she lived in her beloved middle ages, I very much doubt she'd be allowed to write publicly, let alone go out to speak in public.

This: "The saintly women desire nothing else than the natural fruit of their bodies. For by nature woman has been created for the purpose of bearing children. Therefore she has breasts. She has arms for the purpose of nourishing, cherishing and carrying her offspring." Again, the purely natural view of woman. Nothing of the supernatural.

Compare to:

"... the woman, being seduced, was in the transgression. Yet she shall be saved through child bearing; if she continue in faith and love and sanctification with sobriety." (1 St. Timothy 2.14-15).

I can't say Luther is far off from St. Paul.

Rather, the essential virtue for women became obedience, but it was an exaggerated obedience with no rule or intermediary, the Catholic Church, to govern its practice.

Compare to:

"Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection." (1 St. Timothy 2.11)

"Let women be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord: Because the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church. He is the saviour of his body. Therefore as the church is subject to Christ: so also let the wives be to their husbands in all things. ... let the wife fear her husband." (Ephesians 5.22-24, 32)

"In like manner also, let wives be subject to their husbands: that, if any believe not the word, they may be won without the word, by the conversation of the wives, ... For after this manner heretofore, the holy women also who trusted in God adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands: As Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters you are, doing well and not fearing any disturbance." (1 St. Peter 1.1, 5-6)

"On the other hand, the duties of a wife are thus summed up ... To train their children in the practice of virtue and to pay particular attention to their domestic concerns should also be especial objects of their attention. The wife should love to remain at home, unless compelled by necessity to go out; and she should never presume to leave home without her husband's consent." (Catechism of the Council of Trent, "On Matrimony")
http://www.cin.org/users/james/ebooks/master/trent/tsacr-m.htm)

My fellows! Does your wife actually follow this, or does she "run free" without consulting you? Where is this sort of sensible direction in Dr. Horvat's article?

Instead, Dr. Horvat is replacing the husband with the Church as the intermediary! Clearly, she missed this command of the Apostle:

"Let women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted them to speak but to be subject, as also the law saith. But if they would learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is a shame for a woman to speak in the church." (1 Corinthians 14.34-35)

Let me reemphasize that. "But if they would learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home." Not the Church, not other women, but "their husbands" "at home." Dr. Horvat contradicting St. Paul is an excellent example of the very point St. Paul was making.

I have never trusted this lady, and do so even less now.

[aimhigh]

Marian Therese Horvat, Ph.D.

Interesting that a CATHOLIC woman is teaching here, contrary to 1 Timothy 2. Apparently she isn't willing to return to 13th century womanhood herself.