The Catholic faith has nothing whatsoever to do with feminism and Our Lady was no women’s libber. The Pontifical Council for Culture’s new outreach to women is awkward to say that least. What they produce is telling since it’s decidedly un-manly, appealing neither to men nor women.
The Vatican has removed the controversial Venus Restored (1936) by Surrealist artist Man Ray from the website of its Pontifical Council for Culture. The image, a plaster cast of a nude torso – with no head or face, no arms and no legs – tightly bound with rope, was intended to draw attention to its annual plenary assembly on Women’s Culture: Equality and Difference. It succeeded more than expected.
The assembly took place last month, between February 4th and 7th.
The image provoked international outrage from Catholic women’s groups in particular, who saw it as reflecting what Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan of the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests says is “the Vatican’s patriarchal, dysfunctional view that holds women in spiritual bondage”.
This response is the true essence of our Church in the age of FrancisMercy. Moving ‘Forward’ as Pope Francis famously counseled on the anniversary of the Paul VI Vernacular Mass, is simply capitulation and submission. In the end it brings neither respect nor mercy from the enemies of the Faith.