The role and vocation of woman in the Catholic Church
Today the role of woman is often spoken of in the language of the world: either in the tone of flattery and pride, or in the tone of mockery and contempt. The Catholic Church follows another path: the path of truth about creation, the fall, and redemption. This truth begins already at the very source — in the biblical Paradise.
In Paradise, Satan came with temptation not in force, but in deceit. He first seduced the woman, and then the man knowingly accepted sin and followed after that deception. Therefore the blame must not be shifted onto one side only: the sin is the sin of both, and the punishment fell upon the whole human race.
The fall teaches one thing: where there is no humility, obedience to God, and vigilance, there man — both man and woman — becomes easy prey. Therefore woman, having a particular power of influence upon the home and upon morals, also bears a particular responsibility for modesty, quietness, and order.
For Adam was first formed; then Eve. And Adam was not seduced; but the woman being seduced, was in the transgression. Yet she shall be saved through childbearing; if they continue in faith, and love, and sanctification, with sobriety. (1 Tim 2:13-15)
Holy Scripture teaches concerning the creation of man:
God created man male and female; both are His creation and both have an immortal soul, called to salvation.
At the same time, this same revealed truth points to order in the family and to the sign of modesty:
For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. For the man was not created for the woman: but the woman for the man. Therefore ought the woman to have a power over her head, because of the angels. (1 Cor 11:8-10)
The Church does not teach contempt for woman. On the contrary: the Most Blessed Virgin Mary is the highest model of creation, and many holy women shine in the history of the Church. But the Church teaches that grace does not abolish nature: the difference of roles is not an insult, but order. Where this order is trampled upon, confusion, scandal, and the spirit of the world arise.
Therefore woman should cultivate modesty, reserve, discipline of speech and dress — not as a slavery, but as a guard of the heart and a protection of morals. Woman can build the home and its morals, but by lack of modesty and lack of vigilance she can also become an instrument of temptation. This is a grave matter, for it concerns souls.
Pride arising from original sin rebels against the order established by God — also against order in the family.
In this order the husband is to be the head of the household: he is to lead, protect, work, and answer before God. The woman is given as a help: she is to build the home, guard morals, raise children, sustain the faith in daily life, and be the heart of the family. When one wants to cast off duty, and the other wants to seize authority, there arises not peace, but strife.
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to use authority over the man: but to be in silence. (1 Tim 2:12)
To the woman also he said: “I will multiply thy sorrows, and thy conceptions: in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thou shalt be under thy husband’s power, and he shall have dominion over thee.” (Gen 3:16)
In the liturgy of the Catholic Church, acts flowing from Holy Orders and the public office of teaching do not belong to women.
Jesus Christ established the priesthood in the company of the Twelve Apostles. This is not a matter of taste or fashion, but of divine order: the altar and the acts proper to the priesthood are not a place for lay ambition, but for obedience to the Church.
Therefore in the Catholic Church the preaching of the word of God in the official sense (sermon, homily, teaching from the pulpit in the name of the Church) is reserved to bishops and priests, sent to that office by ecclesiastical authority. Thus Benedict XV recalled in the encyclical “Humani Generis Redemptionem”.
This does not mean that woman is to be idle. Her apostolate is different and very broad: prayer, penance, the raising of children, care for the poor, works of mercy, sustaining piety in the home, teaching the faith in the family, modest help in the parish in those things proper to the laity (without intruding into the place of the altar and of the teaching office). The holiness of woman is born not of function, but of grace and fidelity to the duties of her state.
Therefore those arguments which try to equate the role of woman with the priestly office, or to make of her a public teacher of the Church in the liturgy, lead to confusion. A woman can and should bear witness to Christ by her life, by modest speech in a fitting place, and by works of mercy, but she may not usurp to herself what the Church has reserved to ordained shepherds.
According to St. Paul of Tarsus:
Let women keep silence in the churches.
Let women keep silence in the churches.
Silence in church is not humiliation, but a guard of reverence. In the liturgical assembly the point is not to “take the floor”, but to give glory to God and receive the teaching of the Church in humility. The spirit of the world today, fed by false feminism and the ideology of “gender”, teaches rebellion against nature, against the duties of one’s state, and against modesty. Such rebellion is spiritual poison.
Finally, a few quotations from Holy Scripture speaking of how a Catholic woman ought to conduct herself:
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 any thing, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is a shame for a woman to speak in the church. (1 Cor 14:34-35)
But every woman praying or prophesying with her head not covered, disgraceth her head: for it is all one as if she were shaven. For if a woman be not covered, let her be shorn. But if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or made bald, let her cover her head. (1 Cor 11:5-6)
A woman shall not be clothed with man’s apparel, neither shall a man use woman’s apparel: for he that doeth these things is abominable before God. (Deut 22:5)
In summary:
A truly Catholic woman is marked by humility, modesty, and quietness after the example of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. In church she keeps silence and recollection, does not seek a role for herself, does not intrude into the place of the altar nor into the office of teaching. She covers her head as a sign of modesty and submission to the law of God. She guards her dress: without immodest exposure, without tightness, without provocative coloring, and without masculine imitation; most fitting is feminine apparel, modest, covering, and not giving rise to temptation. Where these principles are despised, faith grows weak, and the spirit of the world begins to rule. Amen.
