Cherie Blair Says Catholic Church Sexist, Credits Personal Success to Contraception(Catholic Caucus)

LifeSiteNews.com ^ | 2 March 2009 | Hilary White and John Jalsevac

[A.A. Cunningham]

Monday March 2, 2009

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Cherie Blair Says Catholic Church Sexist, Credits Personal Success to Contraception

By Hilary White and John Jalsevac

LONDON, March 2, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Church "marginalizes" women and keeps them "virtually invisible" in its public face, says Cherie Blair. Speaking on a BBC television program, the wife of former Prime Minister Tony Blair said that "ambivalence" towards women is a "fundamental weakness" of Christianity and of Catholicism in particular.

The controversial remarks were made during the final installment of a documentary, Christianity, that was aired on BBC's Channel 4 on Sunday night.

During a section of the program that dealt with the Catholic Church's teaching on contraception, Blair credited her use of contraception for her personal success. Blair said that every time she didn't use contraception, "I seemed to have a baby."

"I'm a feminist…How could I have done all the things I have done if I hadn't used contraception?" she asked.

Despite being a self-professed devout Catholic, Blair has been an outspoken advocate of artificial contraception, which the Catholic Church teaches is an intrinsic evil. In her recently published autobiography, "Speaking for Myself," Blair infamously admitted that at least one of her children was conceived when she had "forgotten her contraceptive equipment" when on holiday.

During the program Blair also appeared to insinuate that it is only with the ordination of women to the priesthood that the situation of the "invisibility" of women in Christianity could be remedied.

In an interview with Cormac Cardinal Murphy O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster and the head of the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, Blair rebuked the cardinal, saying, "If you actually look at the formal structures of the Catholic Church, you don't see a woman's face when you see people speaking for the Catholic Church. Can we change that?"

The cardinal responded, "I don't think that [the Church] will develop towards priesthood or episcopacy [for women] because of the tradition of the Church in that role." But Mrs. Blair objected, saying, "Until the traditional churches fully resolve their relationship with the female half of the population, how can they expect Christianity to have a future in the modern world?"

Blair, a long-time feminist and activist for "progressive" causes, said, "I firmly believe the traditional churches in Western Europe can be saved but there are a number of urgent steps that need to be taken.

"Today, while women remain marginalised, Christianity cannot flourish. Women and men must be equal partners in 21st-century Christianity."

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

No Comment from Bishops as Cherie, wife of Former PM Blair, Touts Catholicism While Extolling Contraception
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/may/08052104.html

URL: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09030209.html

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[A.A. Cunningham]

Teresa, no "h".

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

[A.A. Cunningham]

This a Catholic Caucus thread. Do you know what that means?

[rbmillerjr]

The funny thing about this is that there is a religion known as Islam, not radical Islam, that terrorizes and dehumanizes women.

Where is NOW, and the elite women of the world campaign to franchise Islamic women??

[Moonman62]

Blair said that every time she didn't use contraception, "I seemed to have a baby."

Tony the tiger.

[Lizavetta]

That’s what we did. It’s not rocket science to find out when you’re ovulating and then avoid that period of time. I think the ‘failures’ of NFP are when people are too embarrassed to admit they had sex when they weren’t supposed to.

[Varda]

Yes everything is fine with the way the Church treats women. Cherie Blair doesn’t have a point because she’s limited her viewpoint to the level of the mundane. That mundane level is fixated on status: worldly status. That’s why her objection revolves around the idea that women should be priests. She see priests as leaders and covets the ability to attain group status in the position. Notice she’s not interested in the status that Christ talks about explicitly, “he that is first shall be last”. She’s not asking for men to become nuns because the worldly status of a nun is lower than that of a priest. In the mundane world of ambition, access to top job opportunities is the greatest good.

[Mad Dawg]

So are you saying that Catholicism has no fundamental weakness when it comes to women?

"No FUNDAMENTAL weakness." Yes. I would say that.

That everything is A OK within the Church and how it treats women?

That's a different question. Are we talking the fundamentals or are we talking about what sinful folk do to good things? The hell-for-leather rush to judgement without pausing to look around at see what's up is responsible for more crappy thinking and unreliable conclusions than any other human activity. Fundamentals are one thing. Events, especially those carefully selected to make a point, are quite another

WE all know how well the Church has treated kids and pedophile/rapist priests.

Do we? We know what a totally crappy job it has done with SOME kids, and SOME pedophile/rapist priests. But it's a skewed data set. People who are content don't make us much noise as people who are unhappy, and who think they have an unaddressed or unsatisfied grievance. And the sexual scandals with which I am familiar in the Episcopal church of almost 30 years ago NEVER made the press and we're covered up as effectively, if not more so, than any RC scandals.

Also, from time to time it's good to ask "compared to what?" We always hear about women who have, maybe unjustly, had their marriages ruled null while their husbands go after some cutie-pie. We do not hear how many marriages are clung to and worked on and prayed about and finally healed while husband and wife struggle through a crisis which would break a marriage in a denomination which had little problem with divorce. We have forgotten to consider how women are treated in non-Catholic cultures or before Christianity. We tolerate the rising numbers of women of a certain age whose husbands have left them as their youthful charms did and do not relate those rising numbers to a culture in which such behavior is not considered shameful. No longer are women outside t he Curch protected from being exploited and abandoned. In fact the rise of feminism is in part a response to the abandonment of wives, I'd guess. Certainly that argument wass used 30 some years ago. "You can't trust the men, you have to learn to take care of yourself."

And besides all that, anybody who is involved with a parish and doesn't see that women have a firm grasp on the reins of power is willfully blind or terminally unobservant.

[Alex Murphy]

To quote an earlier post, “This a Catholic Caucus thread. Do you know what that means?”

[joe fonebone]

ummmmm...i am Catholic, and was having a spirited discussion with someone over an issue that is always one sided against Catholics...and not only was i fighting it calmly and cooly, but was presenting facts to attempt to dispell a common Catholic bashing item...If as a Catholic I am not welcome on this thread, and as a Catholic I am not allowed to counter Catholic bashing........then the moderators should ban me......

[Straight Vermonter]

Before Europe converted to Christianity, marriage was by raptus, by “taking.”

A lot of people don't realize that this is where the tradition of carrying a bride across the threshold comes from.

[Straight Vermonter]

LOL!

[Religion Moderator]

This thread is tagged a "Catholic caucus" in the Religion Forum.

That means only Catholics are to post here. So if you are not Catholic, leave the thread.

Also, neither the article nor the reply posts are to speak about other beliefs. So stop making comparisons to non-Catholic beliefs.

For more on the guidelines pertaining to the Religion Forum, click on my profile page.