religious gender elitism

[sophiaserpentia]

About 100 men and women gathered outside Atlanta's Roman Catholic cathedral Thursday to protest the archbishop's exclusion of women from the Holy Thursday foot-washing ritual.

Contrary to the order from Archbishop John Donoghue, the protesters said the rite should include everyone. Donoghue did not address the protest during Mass Thursday night. He and his staff have refused to comment on the issue.

... In a letter last month to Atlanta priests, Donoghue said they should select 12 men from each parish to represent the apostles who had their feet washed by Jesus at the Last Supper.

from Faithful Decry Foot-Washing Ban of Women

It takes a special closed-ness of mind, and a special hatred of flesh, to think that the "fact" (disputed by some scholars and some non-canonical accounts) that Jesus' disciples were male sets a precedent that only people with penises deserve to participate in the remembrance of this event.

Jesus' message here was about humility, service, and compassion -- and this archbishop (and many before him) has turned it into something exclusionary.

Any mindset that reads the gospels and sees "people with penises" vs. "people without penises" instead of, just, people, is one that dehumanizes and closes the doors of the heart and soul.

Edit. It's difficult not to contrast the foot-washing scene in John, wherein Jesus washes the disciples' feet, with the foot-washing scene in Luke, where a woman (tradition says Mary Magdalene) washes Jesus' feet. If you restrict the remembrance of the scene in John to only male recipients, you are sending the subliminal message, intentionally or not, that it is fine for priests, who follow in the tradition of Jesus, to be served *by* women, but not to give service *to* women.

Comments

[badsede.livejournal.com]

Yes, since the movement to make women and men the same rather than equal has produced such marvelous fruits.

[azaz-al.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was referring to the massive ingrained misogyny in all brands of Chrisitanity. I have no idea what yiou are talking about. I have yet to visit a Christian church where women are treated either equally or the same. The best of them allow women a little niche of their own to hang out in (as long as they bother the much more important men, of course) so they can talk about babies and things because no good Christian woman(tm) ever would want to talk about anything else - the worst of them tell women to shut up, sit down, submit to whatever horrible treatment they get from their husbands and fathers, and pop out babies until they drop dead.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

badsede can answer for himself, but I think he was being cynical about the changes brought about by feminism.

I can't say that I am entirely without reservation when it comes to assessing the effects of feminism on society. I do wholeheartedly agree with the goals of equal opportunity and equal bodily control and determination. I also firmly believe that what social changes make life better for women will also benefit men. But IMO the jury is out on whether or not society has benefitted from every change brought about in response to feminism.

[azaz-al.livejournal.com]

There has only been a surface change towards feminism - the misogynistic attitudes beneath remain, and I suspect it may be several centuries before they depart for good. Given that, I don't think every societal change - especially every negative societal change - in the last 50 years can be blamed on feminism. We don't even have a national ERA, and the backlash against the few battles we've won is immense.
Given that, what has occured as a drect result of feminism - that is to say, a semblance of compassion beginning to be given to battered wives and rape victims, a few options for women whove been abandoned with children by their husbands, a bit of recourse for women who are treated like dirt in the workplace, the opening of higher education to women - I can't possibly see as a bad thing. The few small excesses have been short-lived and trumpeted totall out of proportion to their effect on society.

[badsede.livejournal.com]

I have yet to visit a Christian church where women are treated either equally or the same.

I have been to churches that do fall short of the goal, but I have never been to one that even approaches being as bad as what you describe as the best of them. But then, I have spent only a limited amount of time in churches outside of my own tradition and none in the part of the country that you are from.