How to fight feminism – Part II

Catholic Candle note: Previously, we saw how the program of feminism is, at its core, the same as the program of Satan and the Marxists.  https://catholiccandle.org/2022/08/26/the-feminist-program-is-the-same-as-that-of-satan-and-marx-part-vii/

Because we are Soldiers of Christ, we must fight feminism because it attacks Christ the King and His Reign.  Below, is part 2 of the article explaining how to fight feminism.  The first part of this article was published in the November 2022 issue of Catholic Candle and is available here: https://catholiccandle.org/2022/11/28/1917/

How to Fight Feminism – Part 1

Defense of Patriarchy (continued)

We pick up in part 2 of this article discussing a topic we did not finish in part 1 – viz., feminism’s attack on patriarchy.  We saw that Satan, the Marxists, and the feminists especially attack God’s order by attacking patriarchy.  God is a patriarch – in fact He is THE Patriarch.  Just as the goodness of creatures is a participation in His Goodness, similarly, the patriarchy of creatures is a participation in His Patriarchy.  As shown in previous articles[1], feminism is inherently anti-God and its attack on the patriarchy of men flows from the hatred of God and of God’s Patriarchy.

Here is the beautiful way these truths about patriarchy are set forth by Mrs. Donna Steichen, the anti-feminist author of the exposé, Ungodly Rage, The Hidden Face of Catholic Feminism:

Under the feminist assault, patriarchy has come to be regarded as odious, even by patriarchs [such as the Catholic Church’s hierarchy].  Feminists denounce it as atavistic,[2] inherently inequitable, irredeemably oppressive. But they misunderstand the nature of women’s rights.  Recovering those rights will require that patriarchy be reclaimed.  Selfishness, like pride, is gender neutral.  So, patriarchy has sometimes been abused by sinners to justify their selfishness.  But the present agonies of the family, of secular society and of the Church all result from failure to meet patriarchal responsibilities, understood and lived as St. Paul outlined them.  …

 

The term patriarchy refers to the male-headed family form and social system expressed in Scripture and existing everywhere in human society.  In the Church, it is a title referring to bishops who rank just below the Pope in jurisdiction, though Catholic feminists use the word to mean the male priesthood and the entire male hierarchy.  In all cases, it is properly an office, not a declaration of qualitative superiority.  …

 

Feminist mythology to the contrary, the Church did not inflict inequality on women.  Catholicism in fact elevated women to a status they had never enjoyed in pre-Christian societies by venerating the Blessed Virgin Mary as the perfect model of human response to God, by consecrating marriage as a sacrament, by recognizing the family as the basic unit of society and by constantly teaching that [certain intimate] acts are the unique privilege of the married state.[3]

 

Mrs. Steichen then beautifully explains the roles of men and women, as God intends them:

 

The Church teaches that creation exists to raise up souls to God.  Woman’s natural vocation is irreplaceably at the heart of that purpose, where human nature is most plainly seen to be neither simply animal nor purely spiritual but a mysterious combination of both.  …  In the “domestic Church” of the family, where the future Church is born, they are the ones most immediately responsible for the physical and spiritual formation of the new generation through the transmission of faith and culture.  Their wisdom and generosity are essential in shaping the family as a holy and enduring center where each member is cherished not for what he does but because his immortal soul is of incalculable value.  It is in the family that all mankind’s labor is transmuted by love into the human and the personal.

 

Parenthood is a work of eternal significance in which both parents share, but by nature woman is the one most deeply engrossed.  Her vocation is so much a part of herself that she becomes submerged in it; she is compelled by its demands always to be centered outside herself.  Certainly, motherhood is a demanding work, and it sometimes brings anguish as well as joy.  When a woman’s husband and children rise up and call her blessed, [Prov.31:28] she doubtless deserves their praise.  Some who deserve it never receive it; there are heroines of holiness struggling at the brutally difficult task of raising and supporting their children alone.  But even in the most painful circumstances, a mother usually finds that her baby awakens in her a previously unknown passion of protective love.  To have a life work so absorbing that it makes us forget ourselves is a great human privilege.

 

Fathers are called by that name because they reflect God’s capacity to generate life outside Himself, a high honor and an awesome responsibility.  A father’s role is of great importance; many women have lately discovered from painful experience how vital it is to family stability and the healthy psychological and moral development of children.  But normally he must be engaged elsewhere much of the time, dealing with the world, providing for his family’s material needs.  Only a fortunate minority of men find a work significant in itself.  For most, the knowledge that they are supporting their families is all that gives their labor meaning. 

 

Patriarchy, properly interpreted, means men meeting their vocational obligations.  When a husband fulfills his responsibilities as St. Paul prescribes, his role is not one of domination but of service. 

 

This is true and is like the pope, who has true, supreme, universal authority, but is called, as one of the titles which is uniquely his, the “servus servorum Dei” (meaning, the servant of the servants of God). This is because God gave him his authority to be used for the good of his flock, not for his own selfish advantage.  Similarly, a father’s authority and all other authority (all of which authority comes from God) must be used for the good of those under that authority.

 

Mrs. Steichen continues:

 

As husband and father, he is to negotiate with the outside world, provide for and protect his family, guide and direct it in consultation with his wife.  In normal human relationships, such consultation is broad ….[4]

 

 

The Marxists and the Feminists are destroyers, following Satan their leader, Who is the Greatest Destroyer of All Time

Like all revolutionaries, the Marxists and feminists are intent on destruction – following the lead of their father, Satan.  Satan is the world’s chief destroyer.  God is Goodness Itself and always creates good.  Satan always destroys good that God had created.  Satan promotes sin because it is the destruction of the good that God created. 

As shown earlier in this article[5], Kate Millett and her co-founders of the National Organization of Women (NOW) planned to wage cultural revolution by:

  Destroying the family, through

 

  Destroying the father, through

  Destroying his power (authority), through

  Destroying monogamy.[6]

Later in this article, we discuss the Marxists’ and feminists’ intent to destroy monogamy.  For now, we look at the Marxists’ and feminists’ intent to destroy the father through destroying his power/authority.  Here is how Kate Millett and her feminist co-conspirators phrased their plan to destroy a father’s authority:

“And how do we destroy the American Patriarch?”

“By taking away his power!”

This is a Marxist/feminist attempt to destroy the social hierarchy, i.e., patriarchal authority/power.  But it is clear that God created hierarchy in everything, not only in the family and in the state, but in everything else, including in all living things.  For example, there are higher and lower animals; there is order among wolves in a pack, etc.  God created order in the human soul, e.g., with the passions subordinate to the will.  And likewise with the rest of creatures.  God beautifully orders them.  Satan does the opposite – viz., he throws them into disorder. 

So, we must foster the order God created and directly fight the attempts by God’s enemies to destroy that order, especially in the family and society.  We must take as a fundamental principle what St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest Doctor of the Catholic Church, explains – that it is a complete disaster for a father not to be in charge of his home and family.  Quoting St. Augustine, St. Thomas teaches:

What could be worse in a home than where a woman has rule over her husband?[7]

This complete disaster (for society and for the family) of destroying the father’s authority in the family, is exactly what the feminists and communists seek.  Simone de Beauvoir, perhaps the best-known feminist of the twentieth century, admitted that they seek destruction of the father’s authority, using these words:

A world where men and women would be equal is easy to visualize, for that precisely is what the Soviet Revolution promised.[8]

Sixty years ago, President Lyndon Johnson declared a “war on poverty” – but it was really a war on families and fathers.  Those “social programs” (welfare programs) only increased poverty and misery over the decades.  Thinking people who were alive at the time, could see that this would happen.  But it is obvious now, in hindsight, even to unthinking people.  Those welfare-type handouts were remarkably successful in destroying the family, by enabling out-of-wedlock births and irresponsible fathers.  This destruction of the family is all around us.

One of countless ways we see this destruction is in the young men who are so troubled, depressed, and often suicidal, that they irrationally resort to shooting-up schools.  They grow up without a father at home.  In other words, they are Dad-deprived.[9]  Of course, boys need their mothers too.  But the common thread in the lives of the young men who commit these “mass-shootings” is that they lacked a father at home.

Those boys and young men need a firm, serious and attentive father, who is present every day providing for his family.  They need the type of father described in the Book of Proverbs:

Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend that you may know prudence.  I will give you a good gift, forsake not my law.  For I also was my father’s son, tender and as an only son in the sight of my mother: And he taught me, and said:  Let thy heart receive my words, keep my commandments, and thou shalt live.  Get wisdom, get prudence: forget not, neither decline from the words of my mouth.

Book of Proverbs, 4:1-5.

These are the natural order and the supernatural order which God created.  How different from this is the Marxist/feminist plan for revolution!  God made men to be leaders and to be the counselors of their wives and children, as the Book of Proverbs sets out.

Because God’s enemies are in charge of the entertainment industry, another way they effectively destroy paternal authority is by completely emptying out the concept of fatherhood and intentionally mocking it.  Especially beginning forty years ago, fathers (and men in general) were portrayed as flawed, weak, selfish, and foolish.  The mothers, often single, were in charge and provided wisdom, maturity, and strength.  Not many years after that, children’s shows cast the children in adult situations acting with maturity, cleverness, and success.  If a Dad were portrayed at all in such shows, he was clumsy, selfish, boorish, and played the role of comic relief.  The kids solved their own problems because the parents (especially the fathers) were too bigoted, incompetent, and narrow-minded to help or to contribute to modern society.

Pope Francis, who promotes the entire leftist/globalist agenda, also does his part to destroy paternal authority, especially his own universal patriarchy.  In the same way that the entertainment industry erodes fatherly authority and fathers, so does Pope Francis, by, for example:

  Wearing a clown nose in public, mocking his solemn office:

eBuffoon Pope 1

  And wearing a balloon “miter”:

Pope Francis new tiara

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                        

 

 

Pope Francis not only mocks his own authority but he promotes feminism, e.g., claiming that feminism originates from the Holy Ghost.  Here are his words:

If certain forms of feminism have arisen which we must consider inadequate, we must nonetheless see in the women’s movement the working of the Spirit for a clearer recognition of the dignity and rights of women.

Amoris Laetitia, Section 54 (emphasis added).

 

Summary so far, regarding this Section on Patriarchy

The above analysis helps us to focus our minds and our efforts upon the best ways for us to defend (and to counterattack) against the feminists’ cultural revolution.  For the honor of God and for the good of society, we must especially fight to defend what Satan’s tools are especially attacking. 

Because this attack on our civilization is especially an attack on patriarchy, we must support and emphasize the importance of the husband and father in the role God gave to him in both the natural and supernatural orders.  That is, we must strongly support patriarchy as an institution.  We must emphasize its importance, praise it, and lead others to esteem it greatly.  Of course, we must condemn and oppose selfish patriarchs who rule for their own private pleasure, just as we must oppose all sin.

We should emphasize that the patriarch is the head of his family.  He should be the sole “breadwinner” supporting his family.[10]  If he cannot support his family in the job he has, then he has the wrong job, or he needs a second job, or he needs to implement a family budget with lower expenditures.  An austere economic life is not shameful for a family but the wife and mother working outside the home is shameful.[11]  How blamable is the man who pushes his wife to abandon her crucial role in the home in order to bring in money!

 

The Marxists and Feminists Attempt to Destroy Patriarchy by Destroying Monogamy

We see above the Marxist/feminist plan to destroy the family by destroying patriarchy.  Those enemies of Christ the King planned to destroy patriarchy by destroying monogamy. 

As a reminder to the reader, here is a portion of that plan in context.  Radical feminist leader, Kate Millett, and her co-founders of the National Organization of Women (NOW) were plotting how they would wage cultural revolution.  Here are their words:

“And how do we make Cultural Revolution?”

“By destroying the American family!”

“How do we destroy the family?”

“By destroying the American Patriarch.”

“And how do we destroy the American Patriarch?”

“By taking away his power!”

“How do we do that?”

By destroying monogamy![12]

This feminist attack on monogamy is merely following the plan of Satan and the Marxists.  Marx’s colleague and co-author, Frederick Engels, identified monogamy as a key obstacle which must be removed in order to achieve the communist cultural revolution.  Here is one way in which Engels expressed the communist’s war on monogamy:

The first class opposition that appears in history coincides with the development of the antagonism between man and woman in monogamous marriage, and the first class oppression coincides with that of the female sex by the male.[13]

Thus, we see the typical Marxist tactic: set one group in society against some other group.  Again, as we have seen, Marxism is all about dividing people into groups and setting them at war with each other, to weaken society and conquer it.[14]

Engels continues:

Then it will be plain that the first condition for the liberation of the wife is to bring the whole female sex back into public industry, and that this in turn demands the abolition of the monogamous family as the economic unit of society.[15]

We see here, as always, that the program of the feminists is the same as the Marxists (here, it is a war on monogamy).  Further, as always, we discern the unmistakable reek of Satan’s work (in this attack on monogamy), just like the remainder of the feminist and Marxist program.

Satan, the Marxists, and the feminists hate monogamy because they hate the Natural Law.[16]  They hate the Natural Law because they hate God, the Creator of the Natural Law as well as of the revealed law.

Monogamy and the indissolubility of marriage are tenets of the Natural Law[17] (and reason) as well as of the revealed law.  Our Lord commanded:

What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.

St. Matthew’s Gospel, 19:6.

Our Lord noted that Moses allowed divorce because, as the Doctors of the Church explain, the evil Israelite husbands would have otherwise murdered their wives to be rid of them.[18]  Thus, Moses allowed one Natural Law (marriage) to be broken in order avoid the breaking of an even greater Natural Law, viz., “Do not murder.”

However, Our Lord says (about Moses allowing divorce): “but from the beginning it was not so.”[19]  In other words, divorce was not allowed starting in the beginning of creation, showing that marriage is indissoluble under the Natural Law.[20]

Thus, we see that “serial polygamy” is evil, i.e., divorcing one person to “marry” another.  Monogamy is required by God both under the Natural Law (and reason) and under the revealed law.

Even more obviously, God and Nature require monogamy to the exclusion of having multiple wives (or multiple husbands, or multiple “partners”) at the same time.  Our Lord taught:

[A] man leaves father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh.  Therefore, now they are not two, but one flesh.

St. Matthew’s Gospel, 19:5-6 (emphasis added).

Further, we see that monogamy is part of the Natural Law, in that the acts which are proper to marriage are between two, a husband and his wife, not more than two.

St. Paul made clear that marriage involves an exclusivity of rights in marriage which requires monogamy and is incompatible with polygamy.  St. Paul teaches: 

The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband.  And in like manner the husband also hath not power of his own body, but the wife.

1 Corinthians, 7:4.

A lack of monogamy inherently destroys the unique fidelity which the spouses owe to each other in marriage.

Further, God intended that a man and his wife should be the very best lifelong friends.  Here is one way St. Thomas explains this truth:

The greater the friendship, the firmer and the more lasting it is.  Now, between husband and wife there seems to be the greatest friendship; for they join … for the sharing of all of home life; hence a sign of this is that man leaves even his father and mother for the sake of his wife.[21]

But the greatest of friendship cannot be between more than two.  Because a person cannot have two best friends, when there are more than two friends and when there is a dispute, “either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other.”  St. Matthew’s Gospel, 6:24.

So, with more than two spouses (if it could be), there would not be such a best friendship, and they would not signify Christ and His Church, as spouses should.  Ephesians, 5:31-32.

In part 3 of this article, we will see how the Marxist and feminist attack on monogamy is an attack on the virtue of purity.

To be Continued

 

 

 

 



[2]           Atavism is: recurrence of or reversion to a past style, manner, outlook, approach, or activityhttps://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atavism

 

[3]           Ungodly Rage, The Hidden Face of Catholic Feminism, By Mrs. Donna Steichen, Ignatius Press, San Francisco ©1991, page 226 (bracketed euphemistic words used for delicacy).

[4]           Ungodly Rage, The Hidden Face of Catholic Feminism, By Mrs. Donna Steichen, Ignatius Press, San Francisco ©1991, page 227 (bracketed euphemistic words used for delicacy).

 

[6]           Quoted from the eye witness account of her sister, Mallory Millett, recounted here: https://mallorymillett.com/?p=37

[7]           The Latin is: “Quid enim pejus est domo ubi femina habet imperium super virum?”  Catena Aurea on St. John’s Gospel, ch. 1, #13.

[8]           Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, New York, Random House, ©1952, p.806.

[10]             Here is how Pope Pius XII taught this truth, addressing wives in an allocution to newlyweds:

it is the duty of your husband to work to provide the necessities for the home ….

Pius XII, Allocution to newly-weds of March 11, 1942, quoted in The Woman in the Modern World, arranged by The Monks of Solesmes, Boston: St. Paul Editions, 1958, pp. 83-85

 

[11]         Here is one way that Pope Benedict XV taught this truth:

 

It is in fact amazing what the woman can do for the good of the human race, or for its ruin; if she should leave the common – [i.e., traditional] – road, both the civil and domestic orders are easily upset.

 

With the decline in religion, cultured women have lost their piety, also their sense of shame; many, in order to take up occupations ill-befitting their sex, took to imitating men; others abandoned the duties of the house-wife, for which they were fashioned, to cast themselves recklessly into the current of life.

 

Pope Benedict XV, Encyclical Natalis trecentesimi, (Woman in the Modern World), December, 27 1917 (bracketed word added to show the context).

 

The feminists hate the role God gave to women.  As reason, the Natural Law, and our Catholic Faith show us, women’s role is exceedingly important but that role is not to be patriarchs – the heads of the family or of public society.  The sublime role of women is outlined here: https://catholiccandle.org/2019/12/02/the-role-and-work-that-god-gave-to-woman/

 

We are, of course, aware that there are dire situations in which women simply must work outside the home – even women who are mothers of children.  This would usually be the case when the father is not present or is dead.  Our point here is that such situations are an objective evil (that is, a lack of a due good) and are a deviation from God’s plan.  This is the case even if on her part, her intentions were perfect, she has no sin, and is making even heroic efforts.  But we should be very wary of a “slippery slope” mentality.  Her decision to work should only be made after consultation with a strict, no-nonsense advisor, during which it becomes clear that there is no other way to support the children, and that she has absolutely no impure motives of “an easier life”, “more spending money”, etc.

[12]         Quoted from the eye witness account of her sister, Mallory Millett, recounted here: https://mallorymillett.com/?p=37 (emphasis added).

 

[13]         Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State, Frederick Engels, 1884 (emphasis added), which can be found here: Downloaded from https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch02d.htm

[15]         Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State, Frederick Engels, 1884 (emphasis added), which can be found here: Downloaded from https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch02d.htm

[16]         The Natural Law is what we know we must do by the light of the natural reason God gave us.  One example of the Natural Law is that we must never tell a lie.  We naturally know this because we know that the purpose of speech is to convey the truth and so we naturally know that telling a lie is abusing the purpose of speech. 

 

Here is how St. Thomas explains what the Natural Law is:

 

[L]aw, being a rule and measure, can be in a person in two ways: in one way, as in him that rules and measures; in another way, as in that which is ruled and measured, since a thing is ruled and measured, in so far as it partakes of the rule or measure.  Wherefore, since all things subject to Divine providence are ruled and measured by the eternal law, as was stated above [in Summa, Ia IIae, Q.91, a.1]; it is evident that all things partake somewhat of the eternal law, in so far as, namely, from its being imprinted on them, they derive their respective inclinations to their proper acts and ends.  Now among all others, the rational creature is subject to Divine providence in the most excellent way, in so far as it partakes of a share of providence, by being provident both for itself and for others.  Wherefore it has a share of the Eternal Reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end: and this participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law.  Hence the Psalmist after saying (Psalm 4:6): "Offer up the sacrifice of justice," as though someone asked what the works of justice are, adds: "Many say, Who showeth us good things?" in answer to which question he says: "The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us": thus implying that the light of natural reason, whereby we discern what is good and what is evil, which is the function of the natural law, is nothing else than an imprint on us of the Divine light. It is therefore evident that the natural law is nothing else than the rational creature’s participation of the eternal law.

 

Summa, Ia IIae, Q.91, a.2, respondeo.

[17]         Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, Suppl., Q.67, a.1.


[18]         See, e.g., Catena Aurea on St. Matthew’s Gospel, 5:31-32, St. Thomas Aquinas quoting St. John Chrysostom.

[19]         St. Matthew’s Gospel, 19:7-8.  Here is the longer quote:

 

They say to him:  Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorce, and to put away?  He saith to them:  Because Moses by reason of the hardness of your heart permitted you to put away your wives:  but from the beginning it was not so.

Emphasis added.

[20]         Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, Suppl., Q.67, a.1.

[21]         Summa Contra Gentiles, St. Thomas Aquinas, ch.123, §6 (emphasis added).