Families of Choice: On the Shakers and Catholics in Early America
laphamsquarterly.org
laphamsquarterly.org
Almost every person who has ever existed, exists because of sex. That is literally what causes people to happen. That's not merely a social convention.
I say "almost" because artificial insemination and in-vitro fertilization are possible. Whether those "are" some intermediated kind of sex becomes debatable. The man who masterbates to fill the cup -- is he having sex? The woman who undergoes the procedure -- is that sex? You can worry about the boundaries of concepts and try to shift them around. Certainly I've done this. And very topically you can do that for very basic concepts, like "man" or "woman". So, obviously, the word "sex" is somehow a social convention. Trivially, you at least say it differently in different languages.
But there is one act that everyone, everywhere, will agree is sex, and that is penile-vaginal sex between a male and a female. The thing that creates babies. That is central to the concept. And though I'm sure efforts are underway to "de-center" that, and to shift the meaning of the word...
...the thing that underlies it is fundamental to your existence. At most, by altering your internal representations, you can cut away from yourself some ability to think or sense or communicate productively about this aspect of reality. But this aspect of reality won't go away.
Granted, this is an aspect of reality whose time dynamics are slow, on the order of generations, so it's possible in the short term to make it seem unimportant. But slow dynamics -- like climate -- are actually very important...
This may be a straw man against Catholic culture, and it might have been true in early American Protestant culture, but Catholics have had a theology on vocations of life for over a millennia…
This is one of the reasons for the evisceration of convents following vatican II. Whereas before women who entered the convent were seen as holy, and in a superior vocation to the laity, Vatican II 'laicized' them and made them like everyone else. Without the special status, the women left.
It's quite far reaching. For example, Mother Abbesses would be considered on par with bishops in terms of their 'position' in the hierarchy, and could even hear confessions from her subjects, even if she could not impart the sacraments.
People think Vatican II elevated the position of women in the church, but it didn't. It elevated the position of married women, in the same way it elevated the position of married men, who were heretofore considered to be in an inferior vocation to both priests and nuns and brothers.
Note the inferiority/superiority is of the vocation, not of the person. All persons are equally unworthy of God's grace, but he gives it anyway.
> celibate in the priesthood or in religious life is superior.
This is still the case. JPII even repeats this in one of his books (possibly "Love and Responsibility", can't remember atm).
> Without the special status, the women left.
I don't think this is the reason. In any case, celibacy is not the abdication of motherhood or fatherhood. We are all called to motherhood and fatherhood. In the case of the celibate religious, those are expressed in a spiritual way. One becomes a spiritual mother or father.
> Mother Abbesses [...] could even hear confessions from her subjects, even if she could not impart the sacraments.
This is certainly not the case[0]. I mean, you can tell anyone anything you like (though obviously prudence is needed here), but only priests can confer the sacrament of penance. So what would be the point of hearing a confession if you could not offer absolution?
The actual confession is not a requirement to receive absolution. One receives absolution during last rites as well without a confession. The sacrament of reconciliation can also be celebrated communally with absolution offered to all gathered with no confession.
I said mother abbesses could hear confession, I never said they could confer absolution which is sacramental. I believe all religious communities, even male ones, confess to one another as the new testament command. Confession to others, not just a priest, is a good spiritual practice.
> This is still the case
I am of the opinion that the emphasis is such a material break from reality that the original teaching is not kept.
From Wikipedia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbess)
Abbesses are, like abbots, major superiors according to canon law, the equivalents of abbots or bishops (the ordained male members of the church hierarchy who have, by right of their own office, executive jurisdiction over a building, diocesan territory, or a communal or non-communal group of persons—juridical entities under church law).
The author seems to be trying to use monastic life and whatever fraternal friendships might arise between members of monastic orders as an vaguely salacious instrument to attack the sole legitimacy of marriage understood as heterosexual union naturally ordered toward procreation and raising of children, and she seems to do this by manufacturing precedent. According to a Catholic understanding, monastic life in no way undermines these notions.
Strange article.
> Strange article.
since it's actually a completely predictable article within the genre of "poorly formulated revisionist history used to spin supporting arguments for my particular 'modern' outlook" ...
The core idea in Philo is that god is conceived as an ineffable Oneness — from which emanates the Logos (translated poorly in English as "word", but is much more complicated than that— see Plato). Philo describes the Logos as "the son of god". This is all very esoteric though; it is definitely not referring to personality gods or large persons living in the sky. Seeing this as the root of Christianity may help make sense of why it resonated with some of the philosophical intelligensia of the time. (Because otherwise, Christianity makes is really incomprehensible). See what you think.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JATMRSh4b6wlFlYWw8t1FdrG...
When I say esoteric, I mean having hidden layers of meaning. See www.shwep.net for the best podcast on esotericism in Christianity
But Christianity was also very syncretic in the way it spread, and it took on pagan influences, and my feeling is that those practices helped reconcile the meme a little more to biological reality. Maypoles and marriages worked their way back in...
It seems to me that the Word (or the meme) and the Flesh have to be in harmony, each serving the other. Left unchecked, the Word always seems to want to mutilate the flesh. (Maybe because irreversibility is good for anything that's desperate for an absorbing state.) And I have a real problem with that.
Did you know that "Dao" or "Tao" is translated as "Logos?" What's interesting in Lao Tzu is that he claims the Dao comes before the One, whereas in Christianity they occur at the same time, whereas in the Arian Heresy, the One came before the Logos.
> Breaking away from families of origin and remaking them into families of choice were not incidental for ... Catholic men and women, but should be understood as a deeply political act. The alternative structures of ... monastic family life and the intimacies they created without sex built an explicit, nonnormative sexual culture in a society that rigidly presented heterosexual love and family as the only legitimate and legal option.
Catholic religious will be happy to tell you that "heterosexual love and family" is the only moral option.
The Catholic heirarchy will be happy to tell you that consistently.
Catholic religious are…not the same thing, and substantially more diverse.
(Source: been Catholic approximately my whole life, and known quite a few religious, having spent a long time in a parish run by an order, and some more time regularly attending and volunteering in a retreat center run by a different order.)
This is a straw man assertion…
The Catholic position is grounded in natural law theory. The telos of the sexual organs is essentially procreative; deny the procreative end and sex becomes incomprehensible. To use sexual organs in a manner that _intentionally_ works against their end is to intentionally frustrate their end. To intentionally thwart the operation of your faculties and misuse them is immoral and therefore contradicts one's fulfillment and actualization as a human being.
Calling people cattle for living in accordance with the procreative end of sexual intercourse, which is the ultimate end of sexual intercourse, is nasty, if not irrational. Before you do so, I suggest you acquaint yourself[0] with the actual position held and defended by the Catholic Church.
[0] https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/lets-think-a...
The church is perfectly fine with promiscuity, artificial insemination, sterilization etc. among cattle or pets.
The same behaviors they tell humans are immoral, because they think humans aren’t just cattle.
To correct myself, actually, relevant to the instant article, no, even they won't. Because choosing neither heterosexual love nor family in the usual sense (or, for that matter, even the sense that religious communities are a kind of family, as both lay committed celibacy and eremetic life, both private and consecrated, are recognized vocations) is very much an option, even to the heirarchy.
They hierarchy is fairly certain to say romantic love and family are a moral option only within a committed, exclusive, heterosexual context, though.
That being said, marriage is still the only appropriate place for sex, and then only heterosexual sex, by church teaching. So both you and the one you replied to are correct.
[0] https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-permanence-of-matrimony
If you read his letters in chronological order (not bible order) you can see the wind come out those sails. :)