Reflections on Mary and the Church

Here is a question to my last blog post, that instead of responding to in the previous blog, I would like to respond to here and continue the conversation hopefully into next week:

That makes me wonder. The Catholic church places great emphasis on Mary, even endowing her birth with "supernatural" qualities (eg the Immaculate Conception). We learn that a person born of a virgin birth means they hold great importance. As you have pointed out, women were a marginalized group for a very long time. Why is Mary so special for the Catholic church in particular? Are they more inclusive that Protestant churches that focus on Jesus, a male figure? I know it's not exactly related to the story, but it made me wonder... (Micaela)

Micaela,

Thank you for your question. I’m glad my wonderings have sparked a wonder in you.

I will answer your historical question concerning Protestants and Catholics next week. This week let’s look at your question concerning whether one denomination is more inclusive than another.

Sadly, trying to answer that question is like trying to argue whether McDonalds Super Sized Meal is better for your heart than Jack in the Boxes Up Sized version.

Look at the world we live in. Throughout the world, a quick survey will reveal that the more religiously oriented a nation is, the lower the status of women is in that country.

In Europe one can document a direct correlation between those countries where people still largely honor the Virgin Mary and the entrenched second-class status of women in those nations. In most religious systems women are regarded either as less than complete or as actually flawed human beings.

In the United States, during the struggle in the early part of the 20th century to amend the constitution to enable women to vote, the primary opposition came from the Christian Church, with the suffrage movement being condemned regularly from most Christian pulpits. The defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1982 was brought about by the combination of religious forces together with a right wing Republican administration. And it’s worth noting that the impetus toward equality for women in the Christian West did not seriously begin until secularism's rise signaled the decline of religious power.

In the Islamic Middle-East (no not in Kansas) the impact of Shariah law says that girls can be married at the onset of puberty and that a man may divorce one of his multiple wives by simply saying: "I divorce you," in the presence of two male witnesses. The Taliban in Afghanistan acted out these laws with a terrifying severity producing a "Catch 22" situation for women in that women could not become doctors and no male doctor was allowed to treat Islamic women.

In China, where the principal religions were Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, binding the feet of girls and women developed in response to cultural pressure informed by religious rules. This practice kept women weak, out of power and under male domination.

In India, a land shaped primarily by Hinduism the religious custom for centuries called for the widow to throw herself on her husband's funeral pyre, since the loss of a husband was deemed to be tantamount to a proclamation of the surviving widow's worthlessness.

How did this universal human negativity toward women develop?

Why was it endorsed and thus blessed by almost every human religious system the world over? What is there about women in general and women's bodies in particular that appears to be so threatening to males that they have to employ religion to help in the process of female suppression?

No Micaela, honoring Mary has not made one part of the church more inclusive than another, I wish it were true. I wish there was a church that could honestly honor a feminine face for God and see it within every woman.

This Sunday's sermon will be a reflection on Mary and the feminine face of God.