Women, Sex, and the Church: A Case for Catholic Teaching
Overview
The contributors to Women, Sex, and the Church challenge the common misconception that Catholic teachings are anti-women and anti-sex. Instead, these women explore precisely how controversial teachings on abortion, sex, marriage, contraception, and reproductive technologies evidence the Church’s love of women. The timely issues of the priesthood, balancing work and family, and the intersection of Catholic sexual and social ethics are also discussed. The contributors to this text rely on biological, sociological, and medical evidence, combined with personal anecdotes and experience, to defend difficult Church teaching—all from a pro-woman perspective.
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- Challenges misconceptions about the Church’s views on women and sex
- Covers a wide variety of topics important to women
- Offers a selection of essays written by and for Catholic women
- Foundations
- “Authentic Freedom and Equality in Difference,” by Laura L. Garcia
- Love, Sex, and Reproduction
- “The Uniqueness of Woman: Church Teaching on Abortion,” by Erika Bachiochi
- “The Fullness of Sexuality: Church Teaching on Premarital Sex,” by Cassandra Hough
- “The Liberation of Lifelong Love: Church Teaching on Marriage,” by Jennifer Roback Morse
- “The Gift of Female Fertility: Church Teaching on Contraception,” by Angela Franks
- “The Church’s Best Kept Secret: Church Teaching on Infertility Treatment,” by Katie Elrod with Paul Carpentier
- Women in the Church, the Home, and the World
- “Embodied Ecclesiology: Church Teaching on the Priesthood,” by Sister Sara Butler
- “Dueling Vocations: Managing the Tensions between Our Private and Public Callings,” by Elizabeth R. Schiltz
- “Reflections on the Kinship between Catholic Sexual and Social Teaching,” by Erika Bachiochi
Top Highlights
“John Paul II’s approach is just the opposite—he acknowledges, even glories in, the differences between the sexes, finding in this very fact the basis for the equal dignity of each and their equal need for each other. This view is captured by the term ‘complementarity,’ a word that speaks of differences to be sure, but of differences that enrich each partner in the relationship, so that the resulting combination is greater than the sum of its parts.” (Pages 16–17)
“The crucial equality that must be recognized here is a moral one, that women have the same personal dignity and rights as men. They are, therefore, equally entitled to others’ respect and goodwill, as well as to the legal and political privileges that flow from this deeper respect for persons.” (Page 17)
“Any attempt to nonarbitrarily determine an alternative moment when a human being, present at fertilization, becomes a human person, worthy of protection under the law, is rationally impossible.” (Page 39)
“I simply recognized original and personal sin, not the patriarchy, as my adversary, and self-sacrificing, redemptive love, rather than legal commands, as the primary vehicle for cultural transformation.” (Page 2)
“You choose: either your baby or yourself, your baby or your future, your baby or your success. This is a man’s world, and you had better become like a man—that is, not pregnant—if you want to succeed.” (Page 42)
This book takes on both the thorniest dilemmas and the best kept secrets of the Catholic Church’s teachings concerning women, with thoroughness, intelligence, and honesty.
—Helen Alvaré, associate professor of law, George Mason University
It should be required reading for every son, brother, fiancée, husband, father, seminarian, and priest. These women know something about life, and in listening to them you come away wanting to become a better man.
—Paul McNellis, philosophy faculty, Boston College
As a highly readable, provocative exposition of the case for the Church’s vision of sex, marriage, and sexual difference, it could not be more timely.
—Mary Shivanandan, professor of theology, John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family
- Title: Women, Sex, and the Church
- Author: Erika Bachiochi
- Publisher: Pauline Books & Media
- Publication Date: 2010
- Pages: 272
- Christian Group: Catholic
- Resource Type: Monographs
- Topic: Theology