A Day to Truly Honour Women
March 8th is International Women’s Day – which I am at least glad to read they have not (yet?) modified to ‘Womxn’s’ Day – is an international disaster. Born at the dawn of the twentieth century, the day has its roots in the atheistic philosophy of Communism, which has amongst its many evil intents not just the destruction of the Catholic Church – and any religion that opposes complete subjugation of man to the state – but also the annihilation of the family. Hence, as Pope Pius XI pointed out in his 1937 encyclical Divini Redemptoris, the Communists also wanted to ensure that women were ‘emancipated’ from the home – from that noble task of raising and educating children – so they could join the ‘workforce’, thus atomizing the family. Of course, in the Communist ideology, the bereft children would then all be raised by the State, and sexualized and corrupted early, so they could never return to any semblance of stable family – to say nothing of Christian – life, nor ever begin and raise their own families. The destruction would be complete at the very root.
Here is the Pope’s summary:
Communism, moreover, strips man of his liberty, robs human personality of all its dignity, and removes all the moral restraints that check the eruptions of blind impulse. There is no recognition of any right of the individual in his relations to the collectivity; no natural right is accorded to human personality, which is a mere cog-wheel in the Communist system. In man’s relations with other individuals, besides, Communists hold the principle of absolute equality, rejecting all hierarchy and divinely-constituted authority, including the authority of parents. What men call authority and subordination is derived from the community as its first and only font. Nor is the individual granted any property rights over material goods or the means of production, for inasmuch as these are the source of further wealth, their possession would give one man power over another. Precisely on this score, all forms of private property must be eradicated, for they are at the origin of all economic enslavement.
Refusing to human life any sacred or spiritual character, such a doctrine logically makes of marriage and the family a purely artificial and civil institution, the outcome of a specific economic system. There exists no matrimonial bond of a juridico-moral nature that is not subject to the whim of the individual or of the collectivity. Naturally, therefore, the notion of an indissoluble marriage-tie is scouted. Communism is particularly characterized by the rejection of any link that binds woman to the family and the home, and her emancipation is proclaimed as a basic principle. She is withdrawn from the family and the care of her children, to be thrust instead into public life and collective production under the same conditions as man. The care of home and children then devolves upon the collectivity. Finally, the right of education is denied to parents, for it is conceived as the exclusive prerogative of the community, in whose name and by whose mandate alone parents may exercise this right.
Well, they’ve mostly succeeded in that. But we may hope not irrevocably, for the tide is slowly turning.
The first official women’s day was celebrated at the instigation of the Socialist Party in New York, in 1909, and Vladimir Lenin, after the revolution a decade later, made it an official holiday in Soviet Russia. Is it a coincidence that the same Russia soon had the highest abortion rates in the world, for every baby fortunate enough to be born, two were cut to pieces in the womb. Russia, like most other nations, continues in its downward demographic spiral, as most women, infected with the communistic spiritual virus to some degree, now see motherhood and ‘homemaking’ as sheer drudgery.
And this, before we get to the transvaluing evils of transgenderism, which distorts the very idea of what it means to be a ‘woman’ – or a ‘man’.
There are far better ways to honour the fairer half of the human race than banging drums, hollering and protesting and berating the bête noir of ‘patriarchy’. All women, created in God’s image, in whatever path they follow – whether to bear children of their own or not – are called to be ‘mothers’ in some way; and the same with men, who are meant to fulfil a fatherly role, in their own way. For it is the family – not individual men and women – that is the foundational and primordial cell of society, from which all other societies derive, and which they are called to support. In the family, happiness, freedom and fulfilment are truly found, without which the rest of society quite simply falls to pieces. We need to rediscover the beauty and allure of romance, chivalry and the love of home, hearth and children.
Providential, that Our Lady appeared at Fatima just after the onset of the Bolshevik revolution, warning that Russia would spread the errors of Communism throughout the world, not least her errors about women and the family.
Pope Saint John Paul’s masterly Mulieris Dignitatem offers a true glimpse into the dignity of women, and perhaps a women’s day could be held to celebrate its promulgation on the solemnity of the Assumption in the Marian year of 1987. As he put it, as the family goes – which in a very deep sense means as women go – so goes society. And all too many women – and I don’t exclude the men – are sadly going the wrong way.
May the truth truly set them, and all of us, free.
Carney’s Amoral Majority
After five defections – euphemistically described as ‘crossing the floor’ – and three by-elections, Mark Carney and his Liberals how have their coveted majority. One wonders what bowls of pottage were offered in back-room deals. In the archaic monarchical system that is the Dominion of Canada, this majority allows the newly-minted Prime Minister to rule[…]Continue reading→
Saint Kateri , Canada’s Protectress
This was the title given to Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, by Pope Benedict XVI, when he canonized her on October 28th, 2012, along with six others, in Saint Peter’ Square (she had been beatified by Pope John Paul II back in 1980). With Saint Joseph as our protector, along with the Canadian martyrs, we seem to[…]Continue reading→
A Tale of Two Benedicts
A grace-filled Holy Week to all our readers! As we await and prepare for the Resurrection about to dawn upon us, we might keep in mind two Benedicts: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, requiescat in pace, elected on this day in 2005; and today’s commemoration of the mystic pilgrim, Benedict Joseph Labre, who died on this[…]Continue reading→
My Name is Bernadette
April 16th is a propitious day, for besides the anniversary of Father de Valk’s death, who founded Catholic Insight in its print form decades ago, and the commemoration of the ‘two Benedicts’, mentioned in accompanying posts, today we also recall Saint Bernadette Soubirous, the young visionary to whom the Virgin Mary appeared numerous times at[…]Continue reading→
Saint Lydwina of Schiedam and Suffering Joyfully
Saint Lydwina of Schiedam (1380 – 1433) was one of the countless and glorious ‘victim souls’ in the history of the Church, those whose lives are filled with suffering, often of an unimaginable intensity, but who suffer joyfully. She was a fifteen-year old Dutch girl, out skating one day, when she fell and broke one[…]Continue reading→
The Glorious Martyrdoms of Martin and Maximus
As we enter into Eastertide, we recall on this 13th of April Pope Saint Martin I (+655), one of the noblest, if most tragic, of the successors of Saint Peter. Born in Umbria, Italy, he was of noble lineage, with great intelligence combined with charity and love of the poor and the Church. While still[…]Continue reading→
Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów
We celebrate Saint Stanislaus today (+ April 11, 1079), in light of this Easter Octave, a bishop and martyr who accepted the episcopacy only at the direct order of Pope Alexander II. He proved a wise and courageous leader of his flock, put to death by his own king, Boleslaus, for rebuking the monarch’s ‘immoral[…]Continue reading→
Saint Gemma Galgani
On this April 11th, in 1903 – the same year that the Italian Guiseppe Sarto was elected Pope later that summer as Pius X – a lovely, young Italian woman died, by the name of Gemma Galgani. She lived a brief life of 24 years, as did a number of other young saints, including Pier[…]Continue reading→
An Ideological and Improper Translation
I noticed something odd with the psalm reading at Mass the other day. Our bishops’ conference here in Canada has decreed that the Mass in English – Novus Ordo – use the ‘NRSV’, the ‘New Revised Standard Version’, an ‘updated’ translation of the original RSV, first published in 1952. This ‘new translation’ has the tendency[…]Continue reading→
Saint Jean-Baptiste de la Salle: A Teacher for Teachers
Jean-Baptiste de la Salle (1651 – 1719), a French nobleman, ordained a priest, founded the first order in the Church’s history entirely without priests, and this came about almost by accident. I say ‘almost’, for, of course, there are no accidents with God. Destined for ordination from an early age, Jean-Baptiste never looked back, even[…]Continue reading→