Against The Grain

Sunday, August 15, 2004

Refreshing surprise from The Washington Post

Several weeks ago I'd posted on the knee-jerk hostility of much of the press to Cardinal Ratzinger's latest release ("On the Collaboration of Men & Women in the World"), denouncing it simply as an attack on feminism without giving the slightest indication that they had actually bothered to read it.

Fr. Jim Tucker (Dappled Things) recently discovered this little surprise: -- an intelligent, critical reading of the actual text -- from M. Cathleen Kaveny, professor of law and professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, and published in The Washington Post (8/15/04), no less:

". . . One could easily conclude that this was to be yet another papal skirmish with an ill-defined strand of Western-style feminism -- which is how the document was characterized in many news accounts. (A typical headline: "Letter Denounces 'Lethal Effects' of Feminism.")

Yet the opposite is true: Read in full and in context, the document clearly suggests that the church's developing teaching on women is closer to mainstream feminist insights than some Catholic conservatives want to allow. . . ."

Source: What Is the Vatican Saying About Women? by M. Cathleen Kaveny.
Washington Post August 15, 2004.

Interesting read.