Misogyny of the early Church Fathers

By Herbert Vego

THERE was a time when fellow columnist Alex Vidal and I attended a forum on “Defending Our Faith” in Antipolo City, with Dr. Michael L. Tan – then the chancellor of the University of the Philippines-Diliman – as main speaker.

“Do you know why the Church does not fire homosexual priests?” he started with a joke. “If she does, then there would only be half of the priests left.”

He said he used to wonder why the Church seemed tolerant of the gays in the clergy but prejudicial against women, until he learned that a number of “early church fathers” were misogynistic, handing down to succeeding generations their sexist treatment of women.

I still have a transcription of Tan’s speech, which I am summarizing for this column.

Tan cited Tertulian (150-225 AD), a North African theologian, who had called woman “the devil’s gateway who still bears the curse of God on Eve.”

St. Ambrose (339-397 AD), as Bishop of Milan, imputed second-class status on women because “she was only a rib taken out of Adam’s body.”

St. John Chrysostom (347-407 AD), Bishop of Constantinople, called woman “an inescapable punishment, a necessary evil for the man.” He urged men not to marry.

It was St. Augustine (354-450 AD) who originally blamed Eve for the “original sin.” Adam could not have eaten of the forbidden fruit had Eve, the only one who succumbed to the serpent’s deception, not transgressed first. Thus, Augustine hyped his conversion to Christianity as “a vocation of celibacy.”

St. Albertus Magus (1200-1280), Dominican theologian, openly despised women in a sermon: “When a woman has relation with a man, she would like, as much as possible, to be lying with another man at the same time. Woman knows nothing about fidelity.”

To St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), “women symbolize decay, deformity and the weakness of the age.”

Pope Gregory I, who reigned from 590 to 604 AD, is badly remembered for his idea that the woman was fit only for either harlotry or maternity.  Despite that, he was later canonized as St. Gregory the Great.

If the aforementioned pillars of the Catholic faith were to resurface today and repeat what they said in their time, today’s women would probably stone them to death.

The woman’s procreativity role, Dr. Tan opined, had rubbed on the issues of conception and contraception in modern times, albeit with radical modifications, as cited by Pope Pius XI in the 1930 the encyclical Casti Connubi (On Chaste Marriage): “The conjugal act is designed primarily by nature for the begetting of children, but there are secondary ends, such as mutual love and quieting of lust.”

Another speaker in the same forum, a priest (name withheld), stressed that contrary to the early church fathers, he was no woman hater. He added that he had fallen in love with “a luscious young woman who showed signs of reciprocity.”

Probably for fear of being booted out of priesthood, he would not specify the story’s “happy ending.”

-oOo-

TAKING CARE OF CROSS ARMS

WHY are scheduled brownouts necessary?

A cursory look at MORE Power’s Facebook page will occasionally reveal “scheduled brownouts” lasting three hours.  Why is that so?

It’s because an urgent repair or rehab work necessitates “power off” as a safety precaution. A case in point is when linemen of the distribution utility decide to replace rotten cross arms that could collapse and cause fatal accidents. In other words, the aim is zero accident.

A crossarm is a piece of wood mounted on a utility pole at right angle to hold up the conductors and the street lights, as well as the primary and secondary power lines used in the distribution of electricity.

The primary lines on the high voltage side of the distribution transformer have very high voltage, usually in excess of 2,300 volts.

The typical secondary lines in the Philippines carry only around 120 volts.

The electrical cross arm is connected to the utility pole by double arming bolt, pigtail bolt, or U bolt. There are cross arm braces to support the cross arm so that the line will not drop off.

As sole distribution utility in Iloilo City, MORE Power has seen to it that both street poles and cross arms are in tip-top condition to prevent fire and mortal accidents arising from fallen wires.

Its linemen are on 24/7 rotation, hence always on the look-out for facilities that need repair or replacement.