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To: Drawsing
I think you may be confused by his used of "moral".

It was indeed "moral" for Christ to recognize the dignity not only of women but also of children, the poor, the dying. (A good post in that respect is this one: What are We ... Spouse, Child, Citizen ... to Make of Christ?).

But he refers, I believe, to the fact women are -- generally speaking -- more forgiving, more tolerant, more compassionate, more Christ-like than men. Prior to their being massaged by post-war Madison Avenue into becoming Shop-a-holics bent on obtaining every possible Labor-Saving Gadget to make their lives easier, it's true they were more often fixed on things not of this world.

Their unique opportunity for utter selflessness that is motherhood is a primary reason for this, IMHO. It is their inheritance as part of the natural division of labor between men and women as written in the very first cell of every human being. It is for the male to compete in the world and provide shelter, income, defense for the family while women must organize the home AND the children ... through the practice of ritual, instilling of discipline and formation of virtues and principles, among them belief in God, respect for the father's authority, feminine modesty, male respect for women and so forth.

13 posted on 01/24/2003 8:50:02 AM PST by Askel5
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To: Askel5; Drawsing
I think you may be confused by his used of "moral"

Just as forgiveness and compassion are more commonly perceived as feminine, there's a parallel and not inferior morality in courage, endurance, and self-discipline. It's useless to speak of either sex's moral superiority. As neither sex exists independent of the other, to speak of one without reference to the other's contribution to its formation and completion is to overlook John Paul II's penetrating insight in Mulieris Dignitatem ("Womanly Dignity"), that man and woman are completed and realised in each other.

...he refers, I believe, to the fact women are -- generally speaking -- more forgiving, more tolerant, more compassionate, more Christ-like than men.

Let's not forget that there's no one more Christ-like than Christ -- indisputably male, and self-giving ("emptying himself" is how Paul puts it -- a bloody image, but also a spousal one), whose maleness is definitively revealed in a stripped crucifixion that's not about wrath-appeasement but self-revelation.

31 posted on 01/24/2003 9:02:00 PM PST by Romulus
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