Thank you so much for your kind words and subscribing. I wish I could offer everything here for free, but especially with Beautycounter on hiatus, my family really depends on Substack income. We literally can't afford not to have a paywall right now.
I am incredibly grateful for every subscriber, but really, nothing I write is a need or essential for anyone, so please take care of yourself first! We will be praying for you!
It’s too important for someone not to pay $5 for it. It’s super important that good writers be paid for their work. Maybe those publications can offer some compensation for her time and insight 🤞
"The Church doesn’t deny the husband’s headship. She recognizes that the husband is the head of the family as Christ is the head of the Church. But she also recognizes the husband, is not Christ. " - So true. But such a tricky paradox to live out during moments when it's clear as day that my husband's preferences are all too human, and not in the holy sense of human. How do you deal with moments like these? All I've figured out so far is to engage him in as friendly a conversation as I'm able as a means of "pilgriming" with him towards Christ. But such attempts can easily become "I can see the truth better than you right now" which makes me feel like I'm violating the "husband is head" precept.
That makes a lot of sense! Thank you! Would the CCC also have an explanation of this? I’ve sometimes found its index/glossary convoluted, so I’d love a push in the right direction!
Always a delight to read your writing, Emily!! I have a question though. I’m not super clear on the magisterial weight of encyclicals and Apostolic Letters. Are you able to explain that? Would an encyclical have more magisterial weight than a Letter? Or am I thinking about this incorrectly?? Just trying to wrap my head around this!
An encyclical does have more weight than an apostolic letter. And an encyclical letter that directly and specifically addresses a topic has more weight on that topic than an encyclical that is focused on another topic. So, for example, when it comes to women, Mulieris Dignitatem is more authorative than Letter to Women and carries more weight than Quadragesimo Anno. Likewise, given all the development that happened in the 20th century regarding how the Church speaks of human dignity, I would say Familiaris Consortio is a fuller expression of Church teaching on marriage and family than Casti Connubi.
I love reading your essays—especially the deep ones like this. They always get me contemplating and drawing closer to God through such contemplation. I’m not sure that I agree with one of your conclusions about women and work though.
You write: “She recognized that, like countless other questions of the Christian life, the question of whether mothers work inside or outside the home, what kind of work we do, and how much we do it, is not a question of doctrine. It’s a question of prudence. It’s something for each family to determine, in light of both faith and reason.”
But as you pointed out earlier in the article, some popes and church documents directly spoke of topics such as women working outside the home, so I don’t think it’s necessarily the case that the Church has always recognized that it’s a question of prudence. If doctrine is defined as “Church teaching in matters of faith and morals,” then the question of whether women should work outside the home is/should be doctrinal and changing the answer from “no” to “maybe” isn’t merely doctrine “developing” but closer to the impermissible “black-to-white” change. Personally, I would be okay with the Church saying “it turns out that we were wrong,” but I understand why they can’t do that. Failing to call a spade a spade though creates confusion and allows people to use old quotes as ammunition to support their agenda.
I struggled a bit with this too, but it helps to remember that women really had worked for all of Christian history. They worked in shops and farms and homes and family businesses, though, because factories and office buildings had never existed. The popes in the 19th and 20th centuries were dealing with a whole new world of work and relationships and nobody wrote an encyclical to deal with the woman question until JPII with Mulieris Dignitatem. Women and work got mentions in the context of social teaching encyclicals, but it wasn't the point of the encyclicals. No one was trying to establish doctrine on women and work. When it actually got considered in a real, focused way, after a century of deepening thought on human dignity and women, JPII made clear what was immoral (forcing women to work outside the home, diminishing the importance of motherhood and mothers in the home, not prioritizing family over work), but relegated the rest to questions of prudence. So, I would say it never was an established doctrine that women couldn't work, especially since we had been working throughout much of history. Regine Pernoud's "Women in the Days of the Cathedrals" is great on this. I also think it's a mistake to give remarks in encyclicals that are not about women the same weight as the one encyclical that is indeed focused exclusively on women.
This was worth subscribing for, Emily!
But it’s too important for a paywall!
You need to write this up for NCR and for Crisis Magazine, please!!
Thank you so much for your kind words and subscribing. I wish I could offer everything here for free, but especially with Beautycounter on hiatus, my family really depends on Substack income. We literally can't afford not to have a paywall right now.
I am incredibly grateful for every subscriber, but really, nothing I write is a need or essential for anyone, so please take care of yourself first! We will be praying for you!
It’s too important for someone not to pay $5 for it. It’s super important that good writers be paid for their work. Maybe those publications can offer some compensation for her time and insight 🤞
I can't imagine this is the kind of thing 2020s-version Crisis would be interested in publishing. Their loss!
Sammons is an ideologue. He only publishes Catholic ideology not Catholic truth.
I'm really appreciating reading this series, thank you!
Thank you for this!
Superb
"The Church doesn’t deny the husband’s headship. She recognizes that the husband is the head of the family as Christ is the head of the Church. But she also recognizes the husband, is not Christ. " - So true. But such a tricky paradox to live out during moments when it's clear as day that my husband's preferences are all too human, and not in the holy sense of human. How do you deal with moments like these? All I've figured out so far is to engage him in as friendly a conversation as I'm able as a means of "pilgriming" with him towards Christ. But such attempts can easily become "I can see the truth better than you right now" which makes me feel like I'm violating the "husband is head" precept.
That makes a lot of sense! Thank you! Would the CCC also have an explanation of this? I’ve sometimes found its index/glossary convoluted, so I’d love a push in the right direction!
Always a delight to read your writing, Emily!! I have a question though. I’m not super clear on the magisterial weight of encyclicals and Apostolic Letters. Are you able to explain that? Would an encyclical have more magisterial weight than a Letter? Or am I thinking about this incorrectly?? Just trying to wrap my head around this!
An encyclical does have more weight than an apostolic letter. And an encyclical letter that directly and specifically addresses a topic has more weight on that topic than an encyclical that is focused on another topic. So, for example, when it comes to women, Mulieris Dignitatem is more authorative than Letter to Women and carries more weight than Quadragesimo Anno. Likewise, given all the development that happened in the 20th century regarding how the Church speaks of human dignity, I would say Familiaris Consortio is a fuller expression of Church teaching on marriage and family than Casti Connubi.
I love reading your essays—especially the deep ones like this. They always get me contemplating and drawing closer to God through such contemplation. I’m not sure that I agree with one of your conclusions about women and work though.
You write: “She recognized that, like countless other questions of the Christian life, the question of whether mothers work inside or outside the home, what kind of work we do, and how much we do it, is not a question of doctrine. It’s a question of prudence. It’s something for each family to determine, in light of both faith and reason.”
But as you pointed out earlier in the article, some popes and church documents directly spoke of topics such as women working outside the home, so I don’t think it’s necessarily the case that the Church has always recognized that it’s a question of prudence. If doctrine is defined as “Church teaching in matters of faith and morals,” then the question of whether women should work outside the home is/should be doctrinal and changing the answer from “no” to “maybe” isn’t merely doctrine “developing” but closer to the impermissible “black-to-white” change. Personally, I would be okay with the Church saying “it turns out that we were wrong,” but I understand why they can’t do that. Failing to call a spade a spade though creates confusion and allows people to use old quotes as ammunition to support their agenda.
I struggled a bit with this too, but it helps to remember that women really had worked for all of Christian history. They worked in shops and farms and homes and family businesses, though, because factories and office buildings had never existed. The popes in the 19th and 20th centuries were dealing with a whole new world of work and relationships and nobody wrote an encyclical to deal with the woman question until JPII with Mulieris Dignitatem. Women and work got mentions in the context of social teaching encyclicals, but it wasn't the point of the encyclicals. No one was trying to establish doctrine on women and work. When it actually got considered in a real, focused way, after a century of deepening thought on human dignity and women, JPII made clear what was immoral (forcing women to work outside the home, diminishing the importance of motherhood and mothers in the home, not prioritizing family over work), but relegated the rest to questions of prudence. So, I would say it never was an established doctrine that women couldn't work, especially since we had been working throughout much of history. Regine Pernoud's "Women in the Days of the Cathedrals" is great on this. I also think it's a mistake to give remarks in encyclicals that are not about women the same weight as the one encyclical that is indeed focused exclusively on women.
Good point! And thanks for the book recommendation.