How misogyny prevents many Catholics from accepting women as leaders.

I didn’t cry until Vice President Kamala Harris turned from the podium where she had given her concession speech and began to walk away, her heels firmly on, her head held high. Her speech exuded the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. This is what a true leader looks like– I told my children through tears.

But they already knew that. They watched some of Donald Trump’s speeches (rare bits suitable for children) and their reaction was one of disgust and confusion: “Why don’t adults stand up to this bully, Mom?”

I have the same question. Pundits may call Trump’s re-election a great political “comeback,” but I have a hard time seeing anyone other than a bully who refused to admit defeat in 2020 and then tried to consolidate his power through lies, disinformation and intimidation—and by bringing in men who resist women’s autonomy. The news has passed, but I’m still processing it.

Trump’s controversial first term (remember kids in cages?) ended with him inciting the January 6 insurrection, and he has since been found responsible for sexual assault and guilty of 34 felonies. He built his campaign on racist lies and xenophobic fearmongering. He promises to fill nonpartisan government agencies with loyalists and treat opponents as “enemies.” He has rejected the idea of ​​man-made climate change and promises to thwart efforts to help our planet thrive as our common home. Our children will suffer from this.

While some critics have complained that Ms Harris is too casual on policy, a YouGov poll found most voters prefer her policies to Mr Trump’s – unless they know who proposed them. And to the extent that her opponent offered anything beyond the “concept of the plan,” most of his policy proposals, including mass deportations and ending efforts to combat climate change, are blatantly immoral.

We had a chance to say enough is enough, to reject chaos and division in favor of building an inclusive democracy. It is a fundamental Christian principle that all people are created in the image of God, so a campaign promoting violence, racism and misogyny should have been automatically rejected by Catholics. However, just over half of all voters ignored this evidence, and white Catholics played a critical role in the success of the Trump campaign.

I will be honest: I believe that misogyny—whether conscious or not—has motivated the silence and moral ambiguity of many Catholic leaders, as well as the willingness of so many Catholics to ignore the common good in the pursuit of political power. To the extent that this is so, the Catholic conscience becomes deformed.

The Roots of Misogyny in the Church

We can see the roots of this misogyny in some of the sayings of our church fathers. Augustine, for example, blamed Eve for the fall of humanity, noting that the serpent targeted her because women were easier to deceive (i.e., less rational) than men. Thomas Aquinas, centuries later, referred to women as “inferior men,” and while there is some debate over his use of the term, it is clear that he viewed women as inferior to men because of their inferior intelligence and “inferior” because of their anatomy. . In Inter Insigniores, a statement by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1976, we read that women cannot be priests because “it would then be difficult to see the image of Christ in the minister.”

In the absence of female authority in the church, and given this theological concept, it is not surprising that female authority is so often feared or despised, and that many Catholics (and women) consider it demeaning to follow a woman’s example. Indeed, this is why misogyny is so insidious: women who assert the status quo tend to receive support from male leaders in the church and civil society, while those who question it are vilified. (Similarly, pointing out misogyny is often derided as playing “identity politics,” while perpetuating the status quo of patriarchy is not.) And we know that associating women with “inferior” abilities and seductive physicality has facilitated exploitation and domination. women for thousands of years – and this is due to the exploitation and domination of the natural world with which women have been identified. This association is even more harmful for women of color.

We have seen the destruction caused by this patriarchal thinking. By excluding women from leadership and codifying power as dominance, Catholics created a paradigm that views the earth and those who are different from us as resources to be plundered rather than beings with gifts to share. This fuels the narrative that prosperity is a zero-sum game, and the notion that empowering historically marginalized people threatens the relevance and relevance of those who have always been in power—a key element of the frustration driving the MAGA “take back America” ​​movement back”. “

I am heartbroken and angry that so many Catholics perpetuate the patriarchal policies that have so distorted the Christian tradition. That Catholics bear so much responsibility for Trump’s re-election despite his moral depravity is yet another moral failure of our church. If we do not learn from women, especially marginalized women, how to reimagine our religious tradition, we will continue to distort its beauty, causing serious harm.

Honestly, I don’t know where this will lead me. As a woman, I often wonder how I can continue to identify with the church at this point. But hope moves one foot in front of the other, and as Ms. Harris acknowledges, it is evident “in the way we live our lives, treating each other with kindness and respect, looking a stranger in the face and seeing a neighbor, always using our strength to inspire people, to fight for the dignity that all people deserve.”

In this moment of hurt and anger, I pray now for the grace to embrace the uncertainty, stay close to myself in the love of God, and not allow anger to overcome my ability to love – although I maintain that anger can be overcome. reflex of compassion. In this moment, I accept and embody the testimony of countless women who have come before me, persevering against all odds, bearing witness to the truth of our dignity and our right to full participation and leadership in the church and the world. At this moment, despite the despair and chaos, when there are no suitable words to express the depth of my moral outrage, I bow to our God who calls the world to the integrity of love.