pope condemns income gap, ignores gender inequality

[niyad]

Pope Condemns Income Gap, Ignores Gender Inequality

Not long after the white puffs of smoke blew through St. Peter’s Square in March to announce his election as head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis set many a progressive heart aflutter, especially with regard to his oft-stated concern for the poor of the world.

The recent release of Evangelii Gaudium, the pope’s manifesto for the renewal of the church, has set off a pandemic of swooning among liberals, particularly because of the pope’s welcome critique of so-called “free market” ideology and the gaping income inequality it creates. Overlooked is the internal inconsistency of the document, in which exclusion of the poor from full participation in society is rightly portrayed as an evil, while exclusion of women from full participation in the church is defended as necessary.

When it comes to inequality of the sexes, Pope Francis enthusiastically embraces Rome’s status quo, using his great treatise on his dream of a kinder, gentler church to sanction the exclusion of women not just from leadership, but from performing the most holy of its rites: celebration of the Mass.
“The reservation of the priesthood to males … is not a question open to discussion,” Francis writes.

While, in the same document, the pope also reiterates the church’s rejection of abortion as a moral choice and implicitly condones the marginalization of LGBTQ people, it is his blessing of a male-only priesthood that is arguably the most damaging, for it renders the church as a model justification for the view of women as subhuman—a view that lends cover to the rapist, the pimp, the bigot and the chauvinist, whose works the pope decries even as he advances stereotypes about the “feminine genius” that women have to offer in acts of compassion and intuition.

As Sister Maureen Fiedler observes, Pope Francis “seems to think of women as a different species of human.” And it is from this “othering” of women from rest of humanity, I believe, that the church’s cruel and sometimes murderous denial of women’s reproductive prerogatives stems.

. . . .

http://msmagazine.com/blog/2013/12/09/pope-condemns-income-gap-ignores-gender-inequality/

[eqfan592]

1. SILENCE! ONE MAY NOT QUESTION THE PURE AWESOMENESS OF THE CURRENT POPE!

Any attempt to point out the obvious and glaring flaws of this pope is simply progressives trying to be too "pure!" Women and Gays simply need to sit in silence as we shovel loads of praise on this man!!!

[niyad]

4. well, I never was very good at doing what I was told.

[Vashta Nerada]

2. Who cares?

He's anti-capitalism and drives a Renault with 38975304758973984 miles on it and acts like Batman at night to help the less fortunate!!!!!!111111ELEVENS

[niyad]

5. I know, I should be grateful for the crumbs

[Cerridwen]

3. Appropriating populist economic issues while ignoring gender based structural biases

that contribute to populist economic issues of economic inequalities.

"Gender based structural biases" as I've used here means anti-woman and anti-gay biases and policies.

Sounds like a log cabin republican. It's all about the money.

[niyad]

6. funny how so many are overlooking that little detail.

[TBF]

7. It's ALWAYS about the money. nt

[sheshe2]

8. I lost my faith in the church long ago.

I am not Catholic. Yet I questioned some of the teachings of the Episcopal Church. Today I pray in my own way. There is something there yet I do not believe that it is housed in the confines of what a man or a "church" believes.

Yet, in his defense of the faceless poor, Francis seems to miss the fact that women are more likely than men to be in poverty, and that is because of the very kind of structural inequality that his church models for the world as an image of holiness.

It is not holy to treat some people inequitably.

Great post, niyad. Thank you.

[niyad]

10. you are most welcome. Decades ago, the church and I parted company precisely over the

treatment of women. nothing has changed, sadly.

[Go Vols]

9. Starting out to be

the best Pope thread yet.

[niyad]

11. . . . .

[theHandpuppet]

12. Compartmentalization

In order to praise Francis for his speeches against poverty and income inequality one must also be able to ignore or deny that the church's very own policies contribute to the abysmal state of the world's poor, some 70% of whom are women and children. Here's one of the articles that puts it best....

http://ncronline.org/blogs/grace-margins/contraception-philippines-and-pope-francis-passion-poor
"Pope Francis has been highly touted for his criticism of institutional evils that create poverty. But there is something deeply troubling about a church leadership that rails against poverty and institutional sin while using its resources to defeat civil laws aimed at alleviating the suffering of the poorest.
"If the pope and his brother bishops are to be fully honest about roots of poverty, they must take an honest look at the ways in which the policies and agenda of their institutional church contribute to inadequate medical care for mothers, the starvation of families, the swelling of the slum population, the spread of HIV/AIDS, and environmental degradation.
"I realize Pope Francis cannot change the contraception teaching overnight, but he could call the bishops of the Philippines to cease this relentless, well-funded campaign. The institutional church now stands as the lone impediment between poor Philippine mothers and adequate maternal health care. The hierarchy's lobbying has kept mothers and fathers from raising families they can afford, families small enough to allow children to be fed and educated...."

The issues of income gap and poverty simply cannot be seriously addressed without tackling some of the major impediments to a solution, including gender inequality...

[url]http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/lets_face_it_pope_francis_still_aint_that_great_20130921?ln [/url]
"In April, Francis reaffirmed his predecessor’s censure of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an umbrella organization that represents 80 percent of Catholic nuns in the United States. These nuns were penalized by the Vatican, and continue to be penalized, for focusing on poverty instead of stoking moral panic about the existence of gay people or sexually active teenagers — exactly the kind of community-centered work that Francis just declared sorely missing from the church.
"In the report admonishing the sisters, and stripping them of the independent authority to develop their own charter and conduct their own business, the Vatican said they were undermining “issues of crucial importance to the life of Church and society, such as the Church’s Biblical view of family life and human sexuality” and promoting “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”
Francis’ censure places these women under the full authority of the Vatican and its “program of reform,” which includes the appointment of three male bishops to manage the rewriting of the nuns’ conference statutes, review its community-based programs and otherwise ensure the group “properly” follows Catholic teaching."

Unless and until the church (and Francis) show "good faith" in tackling poverty and the income gap by promoting the full equality of women -- including reproduction rights -- all the speeches in the world add up to little more than hot air.

[niyad]

13. thank for for the additional information.

[theHandpuppet]

16. You're very welcome

I simply reposted two links from many I had provided in a thread that got locked as "off-topic". But if you want additional links & info you can find them here in my journal, where I saved the OP:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024009872

[niyad]

17. wish I could rec it-but, have it bookmarked for later reading.

[eqfan592]

14. Great post, thanks. nt

[Demo_Chris]

15. Silence, he has tens of thousands of child rapists to shelter! nt

[niyad]

18. I know, so inconsiderate of us to discuss these things.

[niyad]

19. . . .