DENVER, October 24, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In an address to the Catholic Daughters of the Americas last week, Denver Archbishop Charles Caput argued for the equality of men and women but noted the unhealthy result of seeking uniformity.
The archbishop said that secular feminists take the wrong approach in seeking a “false equality” denying femininity and trying to be like men in everything. They deny the “feminine genius” he said, and he discussed the great cost to society that that denial entails. “The price tag of this kind of ‘equality’ too often means denying the differences between women and men. It can mean being just as competitive and aggressive as men. It can mean putting career first. It can mean fearing the things that make up the feminine genius—the acts that make women, women,” he said.
He continued, “That’s why so much of today’s secular feminism hates fertility. That’s why abortion and contraception are such important secular icons, even though they attack human sexuality at its roots. Fertility is seen as a weakness. Children mean taking responsibility for somebody else. Children mean—or should mean – that a woman will depend on the love of a husband. And that’s frightening, because too many men today never learned how to be men.” Archbishop Chaput stressed, “First, no movement, ideology, political party or institution anywhere, in any country, can match the Christian faith in promoting the dignity of women. And second, women should always turn to the Church as their mother and defender, because in her arms, in her strength, they can begin to re-humanize the world.” The full text of the Archbishop’s outstanding talk is available at: https://www.archden.org/archbishop/docs/10_19_03_role_of_women.htm