Machismo or Male Chauvinism?

Linda Nyquist, who was brought up by nuns, is not arch-clerical. She asks: "Doesn't all this nagging business, with other evil and viperous behaviors attributed to women, stem from the medieval church's official position on women and their responsibility for the occasion of sin for men? Old nag, old hag....It is a relief that membership in WAIS keeps the male sector from abusing women! "

My response: The Adam and Eve story is the prime example of male chauvinism, indeed anti-species chauvinism. The man blames the woman, who in turn blames the snake. This is complemented by the Virgin Mary story, with stress on the divine conception, which has carried further with the proclamation of the Immaculate Cnception, which sorely divided the Catholic world. The Catholic Church is considering going one step further: placing the Virgin Mary on a level with Christ as a redeemer, which might please some feminists.

The whole problem of sex has created a crisis in the Catholic Church, a crisis about which the Vatican is mum. It came out in the tortuous reaction of the Mexican hierarchy, notably Cardinal Norberto Rivera and the Bishop of Acapulco, to the marriage of President Vicente Fox, a divorcee, to a divorcee. On his election a year ago, Fox made a point of very publicly taking communion with television cameras present. The Church does not want to lose his support, so Cardinal Rivera excused his human frailty ("we are all humans") and then said Fox could take communion, but...at this embarrassing point I lost the thread of his argument.

Ronald Hilton - 7/4/01