The Culture of Life and the New Maternity
Abstract
:1. Introduction
Feminists have demanded and gained new attention for the previously ignored problems of motherhood, but they have not arrived at consensus about how to redefine the concept or adjust the system. Many (but by no means all) women wish to refuse motherhood on the old terms without abandoning either the heavy responsibilities or the intense pleasures of bearing and raising children…13
How could the idea have developed that Jesus’s message is narrowly individualistic and aimed only at each person singly? How did we arrive at this interpretation of the “salvation of the soul” as a flight from responsibility for the whole … how did we come to conceive the Christian project as a selfish search for salvation which rejects the idea of serving others?32
2. Cultural and Philosophical Divergences
- (a)
- The dignity and value of maternal work within the familial and domestic sphere and the way this participates with work in other settings;40
- (b)
- The practical ethics (and theology) of women’s fertility and pregnancy along with the dignity of unborn human life, and the importance to motherhood of (just and meaningful) spousal and familial relationship;
- (c)
- The significance of the differences between male and female embodiment and experience in vocational opportunities both in the wider society and within the Church.
The problematic was an inheritance, not of the feminists’ making, in that feminism found itself entangled within philosophical dualistic presuppositions so construed (or misconstrued) as to privilege the male side of every dualism, such as male/female, public/ private, culture/nature, active/passive, and rational/nonrational.49
3. Evangelium Vitae—Advent of a Maternal Ethos
Life, Truth, Love: words full of stimulating suggestions of human efforts in the world… these are rooted in the message of Jesus Christ …. But they are also impressed on the hearts and yearning of every man and woman.62
The Church knows that the Gospel of life, which she has received from her Lord, has a profound and persuasive echo in the heart of every person- believer and non-believer alike-because it marvelously fulfils all the heart’s expectations while infinitely surpassing them…65
4. Adequate Anthropology and a Full/New Feminism
… this demands from everyone the courage to adopt a new life-style, consisting in making at the personal, familial, social and international level- on the basic scale of values: the primacy of being over having, of the person over things...83
Asymmetry consists in the fact that sexual difference, in a significant and immediate way, testifies that the other always remains “other” for me. … to use the great expression of the Judeo-Christian tradition, the “one flesh” comes into being; and even in the one flesh the “other” remains “other” for me.”113
cooperate with God the Creator in conceiving and giving birth to a new human being, we are not speaking merely with reference to the laws of biology. Instead, we wish to emphasize that God himself is present in human fatherhood and motherhood quite differently than he is present in all other instances of begetting on earth.117
4.1. Maternal Prophesy and Pedagogy
4.2. Women as Collaborators in Fullness of Life
Should we not question the very economic models often adopted by States which, also as a result of international pressures and forms of conditioning, cause and aggravate situations of injustice and violence in which the life of whole peoples is degraded and trampled upon?143
eloquent defenders of everyone’s right to life. Through your commitment to life, whether by accepting the birth of other children or by welcoming and caring for those most in need of someone to be close to them, you will become promoters of a new way of looking at human life.147
4.3. Iconic Maternity—Mothers in Solidarity
… challenges Christianity to reclaim its own fundamental notions and to reappropriate their original meaning, for the broader culture has often arrogated those notions to itself and reproposed them in a context totally alien to their native soil.154
For this reason, Mary, “like the Church of which she is the type, is a mother of all who are reborn to life. She is in fact the mother of the Life by which everyone lives, and when she brought it forth from herself she in some way brought to rebirth all those who were to live by that Life”.
5. Conclusions
Funding
Conflicts of Interest
References
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1 | A solemn teaching “letter” promulgated by the Pope to the whole Church and to wider audiences. |
2 | |
3 | Ibid., n. 99. |
4 | The narrative of historical “waves” of feminism from the early 1900s to the present, attempts to describe theoretical and political factors which influence the 1st–4th waves of feminism. This account is disputed, imprecise but often used as a “working handle”. See for example (Chamberlain 2017). |
5 | |
6 | Julia Kristeva (b. 1941-) is a complex figure, she was born in Bulgaria the daughter of a Bulgarian Orthodox family under Communist rule. In her youth she embraced Maoism and this evolved into structuralist and linguistic studies which placed her at the heart of Parisian radicality in the mid-1960s. Since then, she has worked as a psychoanalyst, novelist and as a public intellectual. Some of her ideas spark off resonances (but not agreement) with themes pursued in recent Catholic reflection. |
7 | The study of signs. Kristeva’s work on semiotics proposes a pre-linguistic intentional expression arising from passions, eros and the body. |
8 | Other French women feminists in this “recuperative” trend are French–Belgian post-Lacanian analyst Luce Irigaray (1930–) and Algerian–French Hélène Cixous (1937–). Along with Kristeva, they refer to “sexual difference” not simply “gender assignment” or construction. |
9 | |
10 | Söderbäck offers a complex illustration of what she believes is Butler’s misreading of Kristeva and notes: “What Kristeva does call for, however, is a more integrated and balanced relationship between the two modalities of language: maternal and paternal, semiotic and symbolic. The interdependence between the two is, for her, a fact.” This suggests a critical (she might say playful) but definite recognition of the difference and inter-relationality, at least at the level of primal language if not in embodied existence between the masculine and feminine. |
11 | So fractured are the boundaries about different “feminisms” that classification can only be general. (McCarthy 2014). |
12 | |
13 | (Jeremiah 2006) citing Elaine Tuttle Hansen (Hansen 1997). It is telling that the approach to motherhood is framed as either “refusal” or its opposite. p. 22. |
14 | |
15 | |
16 | |
17 | |
18 | (McCarthy 2014, p. 3). Here McCarthy is describing the “stalemate” in Beauvoir’s thought which opposes body (nature) and person (freedom). |
19 | Beauvoir’s hermeneutic of individualised existential freedom sees the possession and operation of “ovaries” and other procreative organs and cycles as problematic and secondary to the pursuit of authenticity, the face of the “othering” by men. Much of this was bequeathed to the “second wave” of philosophical and political feminism which became part of “women’s liberation”. This itself too often rests on a modernist and opaque form of biologism and essentialist determinism. C.f. (Allen 2004a, Op. cit.). |
20 | (John Paul II 1995c, Letter for the World Day of Peace, n. 4). |
21 | Secular Jewish feminist literary figure Adrienne Rich (1926–2012) wrote that motherhood could be a construction of patriarchal institution and oppression, while active “mothering” was empowered maternity. This distinction gained much traction in subsequent literature. C.f. (Rich 1975). |
22 | Feminist dissenters or questioners of the liberalist maternal paradigm: Cf (Klein et al. 2019; De Marneffe 2009). |
23 | |
24 | Ibid., p. 64. |
25 | Cited in Söderbäck from Julia Kristeva’s ‘Stabat Mater’, in Tales of Love (Kristeva 1987, p. 234). |
26 | |
27 | |
28 | It is interesting that Kristeva does not consider herself a feminist, she has been called an “anti-feminist feminist” but insists that true feminism is a humanism. (Kristeva 2011, no. 3). |
29 | (Kristeva 2011, no. 3) She continues: “This passionate bond between mother and child, through which biology becomes meaning, alterity, and word, is a "reliance" that, different from the paternal function and from religiosity, completes the participation in full in the humanist ethic.” |
30 | On the unresolved narcissism and atomism of secular culture she adds: “On the contrary, by turning all our attention on the biological and social aspects of motherhood as well as on sexual freedom and equality, we have become the first civilization which lacks a discourse on the complexity of motherhood.” (Kristeva 2013). |
31 | Pope Benedict offers his own distinctive evaluations of the cultures of death and life/hope and despair which interact with his predecessor’s thought as discussed below. For more on Benedict’s profound opposition to consumerised, static or individualised view of the person and by corollary, Catholic faith, see Antonio Lopez who observes: “In living out hope and the desires born from certainty of the future (in the) definitive company of Christ, it is not uncommon to set up one’s own idea of what the fulfillment of those desires might look like, instead of keeping the space open for what Christ himself determines. Because one’s own desires carry so much weight, it is also common to cherish one’s own images of their fulfillment above Christ’s presence (Mk 8:33; Mt 26:14–16)” (López 2008). |
32 | (Pope Benedict XVI 2007, Spe Salve (Saved in Hope), no. 16). |
33 | It is very clear that Kristeva is not ready to embrace Christian reliance (connection or participation) but she writes: “Between biology and sense, attachment and expulsion, love and hate, violent influence and generous transmission, maternal reliance is a surprising and necessary version of ethics we might call a herethic.” She thinks that maternal passion understood as “reliance” is perhaps the only passion that is not virtual and subject to spectacular manipulation. “Maternal Eroticism” (Kristeva 2013, p. 112 ff). |
34 | (Kristeva 2013). Some of these ideas have a surprising resonance with Pope John Paul II’s “ethos of care” in Evangelium Vitae discussed below. |
35 | (Kristeva 2013) These terms are discussed throughout this article. |
36 | Coming to mind here is the important work on sacramentality by Reformed theologian, Hans Boersma, and the work on a concrete enfleshed “mysterion” in (Sweeney 2018), in which Sweeney writes on the primordiality of analogy “… while a mother’s smile is not grace, it is nevertheless its important preamble and backdrop within Being.” (p. 229). |
37 | Tracey Rowland provides an insightful overview of some of these “fragile” meeting points: (Rowland 2015). |
38 | Be they liberal, post-structural or eco-feminists. It is therefore legitimate to speak of “feminisms” rather than a unilateral feminism. |
39 | Pew Research polls and dinner conversations reveal how far the Trinitarian Christian and traditional communitarian roots of sexual anthropology have been eclipsed among many, if not a majority of the baptised. As Elizabeth Fox-Genovese points out, many of the apparently progressive Catholic feminist theologians are themselves firmly on the secular feminist arm of these disagreements. “Their demands begin with the sexual liberation of women, grounded in the right to abortion, and extend to women’s ordination to the priesthood,” in (Fox-Genovese 2004, p. 300). |
40 | This is evident in the idioms of the day. Women who work as full-time carers and managers of “the home” often say in conversation that they “stay at home” or “don’t work”. Labour in the home is often completely ignored in terms of communal economic renumeration and “job” recognition. |
41 | |
42 | She seems to mean here Catholic feminism, which is “pro-woman” and also largely in agreement with the mainlines of Catholic sacramental ontology and anthropology. |
43 | |
44 | This acceptance of abortion within certain difficult and highly privatised contexts rather than “abortion on demand” (regardless of the reason) represents a common (and fuzzy) ethical position within the population of many Western societies. This is documented and discussed in the Australian context by Selena Ewing and others in Common Ground? Seeking an Australian Consensus on Abortion and Sex Education (Fleming and Tonti-Filippini 2007). |
45 | (Matthews-Green 1995) citing an article she had published in Policy Review (Matthews-Green 1991, p. 9). |
46 | |
47 | Unlike parenthood for most other creatures, or for the male humans we call “fathers”—“Only in being a mother does one experience in a full way the necessary link between biology and relation”—and this lasts for a woman’s whole life in a way that “engages and disturbs the most profound and inexpressible sentiments and desires,” so writes Italian journalist Eugenia Roccella in “The Dark Side of Maternity” (Roccella 2011, p. 179). |
48 | Some of these dissidents are younger, more articulate and more agile on the platforms of social media, a small number have defected from the “reproductive rights” industry itself. C.f. (British bioethicist, Fiorella Nash 2018), Australian medical ethics researcher, Selena Ewing (2007). |
49 | |
50 | This recognises the psychological and the theological intentionality not only of conscious thought, but of all that is implied by the “heart”- the less predictable, less deductive more evaluative and eruptive world of desires and the orientation of the heart to bodily habituation. This has received notable attention by writers retrieving the Augustinian tradition in theology. |
51 | One reason for this that maternity itself is so fraught and complex down through history, but particularly in contemporary secular contexts since it “… mixes desire and denial, life and death, feelings of omniscience and devastating inadequacies.” (Roccella 2011, p. 178). |
52 | Gerl-Falkovitz (2004) identifies a number of these elements in “Gender Difference: Critical Questions concerning Gender Studies” (p. 3). |
53 | Swiss–American scholar, Michele Schumacher, acknowledges the enormity of the task ahead in the exploration of these themes: (Schumacher 2004a). |
54 | Pope John Paul II opens his more systematic reflection upon the dignity of women (John Paul II 1988, no. 1). Op. cit. using the Second Vatican II’s The Council’s Message to Women (December 8, 1965) “The hour is coming, in fact has come, when the vocation of women is being acknowledged in its fullness, the hour in which women acquire in the world an influence, an effect and a power never hitherto achieved.” |
55 | (John Paul II 1995a, Evangelium Vitae, no.99). |
56 | The Gospel of St Luke (1:29 ff) provides the narrative of “the Annunciation“, the encounter between the angel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary in the form of a dialogue of invitation and response. It is at this encounter that Mary of Nazareth conceives virginally the Child Jesus. The date has a dedicatory significance for John Paul II who consecrated himself and his pontificate to the Blessed Virgin Mary. |
57 | That is papal in the Office of St. Peter the Apostle. |
58 | (John Paul II 1995a, Evangelium Vitae, # 5). At the Extraordinary Consistory of Cardinals in Rome (4–7 April, 1991) “The Cardinals unanimously asked me to reaffirm with the authority of the Successor of Peter, the value of human life and its inviolability.” |
59 | |
60 | Michele Schumacher notes how existential feminists, as well as post-Christian feminists like Mary Daly, reject the idea of receptivity which reeks to them a “self” alienating, false passivity and “surrender” Cf. (Schumacher 2004b, pp. 27–28). |
61 | John Paul II, Pope, “Discourse” in (de Dios Vial Correa and Sgreccia 2001, p. 6). |
62 | Ibid. |
63 | The phrase is used over 50 times in the Encyclical. By it, the Pope intends to integrate three key revelatory sources behind the ethical commitment to the dignity of human life: “The Gospel of God’s love for man, the Gospel of the dignity of the person and the Gospel of life are a single and indivisible Gospel.” EV no. 2. |
64 | In explaining its scope: “The Gospel of life is not simply a reflection, however new and profound, on human life. Nor is it merely a commandment aimed at raising awareness and bringing about significant changes in society. Still less is it an illusory promise of a better future. The Gospel of life is something concrete and personal, for it consists in the proclamation of the very person of Jesus.” EV no. 29. |
65 | Evangelium Vitae no. 2. The Pope italicizes the Gospel of Life in an early footnote. “...it is not found in Scripture. But it does correspond to an essential dimension of the biblical message.” ft. no. 1. |
66 | |
67 | His intended audience includes the whole Church but also everyone “of good will” and concern. |
68 | The Pope notes that the emergence of “bioethics” had encouraged an interfaith and intercommunion of ethical discussion: “… bioethics is promoting more reflection and dialogue -between believers and non-believers, as well as between followers of different religions- on ethical problems, including fundamental issues pertaining to human life”. EV no. 27. |
69 | “In its descriptive, normative and parentic modes, Evangelium Vitae is vigorously christocentric and decidedly evangelical” (Wojda 1996, pp. 54–55). |
70 | (Weigel 1999). |
71 | The interest in ecumenical Christian dialogue and collaboration was also to the fore for the Pope during this time, as his other encyclical of 1995 was Ut Unum Sint (That They May Be One). |
72 | C.f. (Rowland 2003, pp. 41–42). |
73 | Rather than the dualistic “either/or”. |
74 | The traditional creational belief, based on biblical revelation and philosophical reflection, that human beings are “made in God’s image” and therefore possess a spiritual, transcendent and responsive dignity. The Pope links this notion with his ethos of full life: “The Gospel of life, proclaimed in the beginning when man was created in the image of God for a destiny of full and perfect life (cf. Gen 2:7; Wis 9:2–3)” EV no. 7. |
75 | A capacity/receptivity to God. Related to imaging God, the human person is made to know, love and decide to respond to God’s life. In EV, it is Jesus Christ who fully restores this “capacity” EV no. 29. |
76 | A portmanteau term and direction in the thought of Pope John Paul II, not intended to convey, minimalism or the mediocre as “adequate” does at times in English, indeed “adequate” means for the Pope the exact opposite: what is fully apt and fitting. It is described in his Wednesday audiences as a demanding and on-going project to “understand and interpret” the human person in his or her fullness, to get to the core of the human, to understand the human person within Trinitarian and yet embodied origin, call and telos. It is not adequate to describe or evaluate the person in merely naturalistic or reductive terms, still less in over-spiritualised ways (John Paul II 2006. c.f. nos. 13:2 & 55:2.ff). |
77 | From the Glossary prepared by Michael Waldstein in Man and Woman: He Created Them (John Paul II 2006, p. 682). |
78 | John Paul II: “Being a person in the image and likeness of God thus also involves living in relationship, in the relation to the other “I” “(John Paul II 1988, Mulieris Dignitatem, no. 7.) |
79 | |
80 | Evangelium Vitae nos. 13 and 16. |
81 | This sense of a grammar or logic in human embodiment involves “more than mere sexual reactivity.” The Pope likens the sexual language of the person to the ethos and meaning/truth-carry conveying potential of human speech and thus “in the measure of the whole truth of their persons” (as man and woman) (John Paul II 2006, Man and Woman, p. 632). |
82 | The Encyclical is divided into four main Segments, each of these further divided into chapters. |
83 | Ibid #98. Emphasis—the Pope’s. The choice of these words enabled the Pope to recall the words of Vatican II’s Gaudiem et Spes #35 and his predecessor’s, while recapitulating his own personalist insights. |
84 | Theodramatics is apt for a Pope who was actor and playwright; it acknowledges his phenomenological focus upon human life, ethics and social life as “naturally” dramatic rather than static. This is because human beings live enfleshed in time and their lives carry both weight and importance. In an analogous sense, the Trinitarian God is the origin: playwright, director and key actor within this drama. C.f. Major 20th century Swiss theologian Hans Urs Von Balthasar (1905–1988) and his five-volume study Theodramatics. This is explained succinctly in No Bloodless Myth: A Guide through Von Balthasar’s Theodramatics (Nichols 2000). |
85 | The “theology of the body” audiences consist of extended Biblical exegesis and the Encyclical previous to EV, opens with the narrative of the Rich Young Man’s encounter with Jesus. Veritatis Splendour op. cit. #5.3 the same document #28-9 explains the importance of Scriptural texts for John Paul II’s ethical thought. |
86 | In his moral theology Encyclical, Veritatis Splendour, the Pope observes: “In this way, moral theology will acquire an inner spiritual dimension in response to the need to develop fully the imago Dei present in man, and in response to the laws of spiritual development described by Christian ascetical and mystical theology”. VS #111. |
87 | In John Paul II’s theological anthropology, this provides existential texture to the traditional Catholic teaching on original sin with a focus upon the effects of the primordial “rejection of the gift” as the pivotal drama which touches human sexuality, spousality and therefore parenthood. Cf. Man and Woman He Created Them. |
88 | EV no. 8. |
89 | “… but when freedom is made absolute in an individualistic way, it is emptied of its original content, and its very meaning and dignity are contradicted.” EV no. 19. |
90 | EV no. 20. |
91 | |
92 | “Nature itself, from being “mater” (mother), is now reduced to being “matter”, and is subjected to every kind of manipulation.” EV no.22. |
93 | EV no. 7. |
94 | Ibid. |
95 | Ibid. no. 99. |
96 | It is useful to be aware that “new feminism” has also been used to refer to a very different type of movement of feminism, one associated with feminism in its “fourth wave” influenced by the predominately post-modern cultural and academic influences. This can refer to everything from the brashly revolutionary, such as the Pussy Riot movement, to the rise of “new Age” and neo-Pagan women’s movements and theologies. |
97 | One work which brings together the multi-disciplinary and international scope of the response is by Schumacher (2004b). |
98 | A French term probably coined by the Catholic convert theological poet Charles Péguy (1873–1914) which was adopted to describe a current of theological tradition and culture which aimed to return to the Scriptures, Patristics and mystical writings (and their writers) in order to restore and explore “the deeper tradition” of Christianity. Pope John Paul II was very sympathetic to the method and contributions of ressourcement theologians he elevated as Cardinals: Henri De Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar and Jean Danielou. |
99 | This process of re-evangelising is of course closely related to the re-discovery of the “original” blessing and mystery of creation which reveals a “nuptial” form to the creation of humanity as male and female which is considered below. cf. (Scola 2005, pp. 209–12). |
100 | A term adopted by John Paul II as early as the Marian Year 1988 (cf. John Paul II 1988, Mulieris Dignitatem op. cit. no. 30). In EV, John Paul II suggests that while all people and societies should respond lovingly and ethically to the intrinsic worth of living human personas, women have an intuitive and non-deductive “spiritual, ethical and interpersonal” capacity for this. He does not see this as a reductive “instinct” nor as inevitably developed or enacted in every woman, as both culture, experience and human freedom are still at play. Women are clearly in need of redemption and grace as are men. |
101 | There are other aspects of “feminine genius” which interrelate with the maternal according to John Paul II: filiality, mutual nuptiality, care of the personal ecology, etc. See (Krohn 2007). |
102 | In his Letter to Women, John Paul II notes that, despite this essential contribution, women have often been excluded from culture, art, science and educational opportunities. |
103 | EV. no.99. |
104 | |
105 | As Love and Responsibility (Wojyła 1993). |
106 | |
107 | Familiaris Consortio (John Paul II 1982. no. 23) John Paul II places the economic, social and spiritual primacy of the family as central, but lays down no stereotypes. He actively argues against isolating women in the private sector for the sake of the common good: “these roles and professions should be harmoniously combined if we wish the evolution of society and the culture to be truly human”. |
108 | |
109 | For example: “Through gestures and reactions, throughout the whole reciprocally conditioned dynamism of tension and enjoyment whose direct source is the body in its masculinity and femininity, the body in its action and interaction… speaks.” (John Paul II 2006, vol. 123, p. 4). |
110 | Saint Sister Teresa Benedicta Stein (1891–1942), German Philosopher, Carmelite Nun, martyr in Auschwitz) shared with John Paul II phenomenological formation, influences of the metaphysics of St Thomas Aquinas and a Carmelite spirituality. Clearly influential are her papers on the formation, constitution and vocation of women. These are collected in Essays on Woman (Stein 1996). |
111 | Her intellectual and life pilgrimage from agnostic Jewish woman, to personalist philosopher, to Catholic educator, then contemplative nun and mystical theologian and ultimately victim “for her people” in the hell of Auschwitz personifies a concrete, authentic and powerful ethical and spiritual “maternal” figure in contrast to other anti-maternal ideologies. Cf also (Cathey 2018). |
112 | |
113 | |
114 | By “… a history which has conditioned us to a remarkable extent… Women’s dignity has often been unacknowledged and their prerogratives misrepresented…” (John Paul II 1995b, Letter to Women, Op. cit. no. 3). |
115 | “procreation” is used 20 times in EV to emphasise the locus of new human life. Within anti-life cultures: “Procreation then becomes the “enemy” to be avoided in sexual activity: if it is welcomed, this is only because it expresses a desire, or indeed the intention, to have a child “at all costs”, and not because it signifies the complete acceptance of the other and therefore an openness to the richness of life which the child represents.” EV no.23. |
116 | See discussion in (Gawkowska 2012). |
117 | EV no. 43. |
118 | (John Paul II 1987, Redemptoris Mater, no. 22) “…born from the heart of the Paschal Mystery of the Redeemer of the world. It is a motherhood in the order of grace, for it implores the gift of the Spirit, who raises up the new children of God, redeems through the sacrifice of Christ that Spirit whom Mary too, together with the Church, received on the day of Pentecost.” |
119 | EV no.98. |
120 | The Church and the Blessed Mother also share this suffering and hope: “Like the Church, Mary too had to live her motherhood amid suffering: “This child is set … for a sign that is spoken against-and a sword will pierce through your own soul also-that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:34-35). EV no.103. |
121 | EV no. 44. |
122 | EV ibid. |
123 | Directed to giving “honour, praise and glory” to God in response to the Holy Spirit and through Jesus Christ. |
124 | Ibid. |
125 | Mulieris Dignitatem. Ibid. no. 14. |
126 | There is a sense in which this dignity is discovered in recognising difference and even naked “solitude” before God the Creator—as a distinct and unique personal being. This is an important aspect of psychological and moral “identity” and maturity. An important aspect of John Paul II’s exploration of the existential dimension of bodily meaning. It is explored in his “theology of the body” audiences. Ibid. 5:5 and also helpfully discussed in the context of “sacramental presence” by Conor Sweeney. Ibid. 233. |
127 | It is notable that an outstanding example of this type of support is offered by the consecrated women of the Sisters of Life, who spend half their time as contemplative sisters and the other half providing practical, emotional and “contemplative” space for pregnant women in crisis. See (Donovan 2011). |
128 | John Paul II meditates upon this Scriptural moment at length in Redemptoris Mater (John Paul II 1987, #8–11). |
129 | On the “mater” or mother as “witness” (John Paul II 1988, Mulieris Dignitatem, #16). |
130 | |
131 | See a related discussion in (Sweeney 2018, p. 148). |
132 | EV #20. |
133 | This was evident in the “pro-natalist” utilitarianism of National Socialism. |
134 | Ibid. |
135 | Cf. (Schindler 2006). “In liberalism, the self is understood to be originally unbounded by and hence indifferent to others.” (p. 193). |
136 | Term beloved of hardware chains but apt here “Do It Yourself.” |
137 | |
138 | This naming of “mother” is an organic and honorific not merely functional title; it has been used to apply to consecrated, converted “fallen” women and those who were procreational mothers. It has been readily applied to anchoresses, abbesses, missionaries, down to more recent examples such as Mother Teresa. |
139 | David L. Schindler and many others point out the “liberal neutrality” merely allows an incipiently tyrannical thumb on the scales of this type of balancing. |
140 | Many in the media assume that Catholic teaching on “life issues” is based on board-room politics and the voluntaristic issuing of “new” policies. |
141 | EV #2. |
142 | EV no.52. |
143 | EV no.19. |
144 | EV no.86. |
145 | Ibid. |
146 | In MD no.9, the Pope writes: “But there is no doubt that, independent of this “distinction of roles” in the biblical description, that first sin is the sin of man, created by God as male and female. It is also the sin of the “first parents”, to which is connected its hereditary character”. However, he will reject as skewed a reading of Genesis Chapter 3 which portrays women or Eve as the chief cause of sin in humankind; he also rejects that the cursed “suffering of childbirth”, etc., is part of God’s deterministic punishment for women. Whatever suffering and danger which pregnancy, childbirth and child rearing presents, is rather a consequence of the broken covenant that is sin. In the Pope’s thinking it is a marker for renewed solidarity by women and men working in the family of the Church, or within the local family- towards support, healing and promotion of mothers and their children. |
147 | EV no.99. |
148 | MD nos.9 and 10. |
149 | Considered by the classical theologians as an announcement within the lines of Genesis of the coming of Christ and the role of his Mother: the protoevangelium. |
150 | (John Paul II 1988, Mulieris Dignitatem, no. 11). |
151 | (John Paul II 1987, Redemptoris Mater, no. 20). |
152 | Ibid. no.21. |
153 | Referring to the entrusting of his Mother to disciple John at the Cross (Jn 19:27), the Pope continues: “Entrusting himself to Mary in a filial manner, the Christian, like the Apostle John, “welcomes” the Mother of Christ “into his own home” and brings her into everything that makes up his inner life, that is to say into his human and Christian “I”: he “took her to his own home.” Ibid. no. 45. |
154 | |
155 | He makes reference here both in his anthropology and ecclesiology outlined in the first encyclical of his pontificate. (John Paul II 1979) Redemptor Hominis. “…in all the fullness of the mystery in which he has become a sharer in Jesus Christ, the mystery in which each one of the four thousand million human beings living on our planet has become a sharer from the moment he is conceived beneath the heart of his mother.” no. 13. |
156 | This is illustrated in more depth in the Pope’s document (John Paul II 1987) Redemptoris Mater, which he pairs with his first encyclical letter Redemptor Hominis. Here, the Pope gives priority to the baptismal vocation to discipleship mothered for all Christians by the Virgin Mary. |
157 | “Every individual, precisely by reason of the mystery of the Word of God who was made flesh (cf. Jn 1:14), is entrusted to the maternal care of the Church. Therefore every threat to human dignity and life must necessarily be felt in the Church’s very heart…” EV no.3. |
158 | EV no.99. |
159 | Ibid. |
160 | (John Paul II 1979). no. 22. |
161 | |
162 |
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Krohn, A. The Culture of Life and the New Maternity. Religions 2020, 11, 574. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rel11110574
Krohn A. The Culture of Life and the New Maternity. Religions. 2020; 11(11):574. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rel11110574
Chicago/Turabian StyleKrohn, Anna. 2020. "The Culture of Life and the New Maternity" Religions 11, no. 11: 574. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rel11110574