The Good of Patriarchy

[Shin]

God is a patriarch, the priesthood is a patriarchy, and His natural design for human society and the family, is patriarchy. Therefore we can immediately come to the conclusion that patriarchy is fundamentally good.

As a Catholic, and also a simple human being defending natural law, it then becomes necessary to promote, respect, embrace and love this patriarchal design. Any lack of realization, respect, and promotion of this is therefore is a fundamental and serious problem that is quite destructive to the family and society.

For example the virtue and design of family obedience requires obedience to the husband and father, under pain of sin. If this is forgotten the family does not and cannot function fully as it is meant to. And it is an act of virtue, this obedience, and so a good, which sanctifies the father, the wife, and the children, so not simply a negative. The father exercises virtue in his authority, and the wife and the children gain their holiness by the virtue of obedience.

It is natural society and government reflect the family.

When people ask, why not ordain women, and the answer is given 'We don't know, we just don't because Christ didn't.' This is given alone a poor answer that likely shows lack of knowledge, I am thinking, no?

The answer is the good of patriarchy, yes?

Thoughts folks?

[Paul]

Wow, you think up good topics!

I wholeheartedly embrace patriarchy. Not because I'm a man, but because I was once one of those people who hated it. Without going into the details, one of my most cherished sins before my conversion was rebellion against the patriarchy and gender in general. To justify that, I bought into all the errors of feminism.

In the year before my conversion, I started to question feminism. If a woman wants to do something masculine, she is encouraged. If a man wants to do something feminine, he is mocked. People say this is because men have higher status than women. But if feminism could accomplish its stated goal of gender equality, this difference in status would disappear. I came to the conclusion that feminism is really all about turning women into men. Since I got along better with women, I didn't want them to turn into men.

Furthermore, feminism is causing a massive decline in birth rates all over the world, but especially in Western countries. The countries with the highest birth rates are the ones that reject feminism. The birth rates are low enough to cause a severe depopulation, and if that happens, people from anti-feminist countries will move in. In the name of choices for women, the West is in danger of declining into irrelevance and being replaced by cultures that don't give women all these choices. By the same reasoning, I figured out that contraception and abortion are wrong. From there, I reasoned that the purpose of marriage is procreation.

Plus, men want women who will submit to them. (Since I am celibate, I am basing this on observations of other men.) That's just how it is. Therefore the rule "Wives, submit to your husbands" stands whether or not people observe it.

And once we do away with some gender roles, what keeps us from doing away with the rest? We now live in a culture where a person can be ostracized, fired, and blacklisted for believing that same-sex impurity is a sin. Now we have people who believe that they are the opposite sex in spite of being their biological sex by any measurable test, the way we Catholics believe that the Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ in spite of being bread and wine by any measurable test. Soon we will be forced to accept their wild claims as well. Where will it end? The only answer is total anarchy.

I reasoned out all this before I converted. This realization that modernism is a total failure was one of the things that led me to start seeking. Therefore no one can fool me into thinking this is not natural law. If a hardcore atheist could reason out all this, then everyone is without excuse.

So when I learned that "the head of woman is man," I had no trouble believing it.

On the issue of women priests, I just point people to the words of St. Paul: "Let the women keep silent in the churches." This, as he explains, is because Eve came from Adam and was created for him rather than the other way around.

But it seems that feminist thought has so thoroughly infected modern culture that even the holiest of people fall prey to it. St. Josemaria Escriva said that "woman is stronger than man" on the grounds that it was women who stayed with Jesus during His crucifixion. Not only was John there as well, which contradicts his premise, but the conclusion contradicts Peter referring to women as "the weaker vessel." (You can see why I have trouble trusting something just because a saint says it. I look more at what they did than what they said.)

I think another issue behind this is that our culture hates submission, hierarchy, and obedience. And we're teaching this evil way to the world. No wonder Muslims call us the Great Satan.

Mostly, I just say God set up the patriarchy at creation and leave it at that.

[Shin]

I looked up that quote you mentioned and fwliw (for what little it's worth) I could see it as just possibly read as applying just to that particular situation Paul, rather than an all encompassing statement, or hmm, I wonder what other way, though it's not something I have seen before and I don't know -- I haven't read from his books in a long time. I tend to prefer older works. . .

( If there's a doubtful or troublesome quote in one, put it in the context of the other saints. The consensus of the saints will take care of any odd statements. )

[Shin]

I remember hearing, I believe it was a priest, speaking about how boys are being crushed from a young age and unable to express themselves as they naturally would.

And also another priest or perhaps the same one, placing the ultimate responsibility on the failings of men to allow this to happen.

I think of this going back to Genesis and Adam's particular weaknesses revealed in the first sin, just as Eve's were revealed back then, and these then of course became hereditary weaknesses to overcome for each gender.

Fr. Ripperger has spoken on some of these issues I recall, in his online sermons on men and women.

Some of what is going on today is unmentionable and unspeakable by a good Christian, normally. It is already naturally and spiritually understood to be so bad, it hardly bears it, it is so bad.

But then I think of the comfortable family home of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

And a lot of my thoughts and meditations on what when there was widespread Christendom, what holy Christian society and families truly lived like.

It's really good to hear about people coming to some of these conclusions even before conversion.

It makes me think of how when I was only baptized and not educated as a child in the Faith, though my parents and relatives were all of it, I always felt that call in my heart to be fully Catholic, along with all those other pieces of knowledge and belief that I simply knew, somehow.

[Shin]

Geocentrism, patriarchy, giving up things and living the simpler life, the topics may be fewer than some places but quality over quantity, no? 

Then it's something you can think about on and off again for awhile and come back to, rather than something that sizzles with controversy and fighting and is gone, often leaving an unpleasant odor.

 

[susanna]

I was the annoying little sister to 3 older brothers who did not seem crushed at an early age this way.  In my family I learned that they were always favored, more important.  (I'm not sure my dad was the boss though when it came to my mother!  )  Anyway, it hurt back then, but I do fundamentally agree with you Mr. Shin.  I also blame men for not being men.  I'll have to listen to Fr. Ripperger on this.  Thanks. 

[Paul]

And a lot of my thoughts and meditations on what when there was widespread Christendom, what holy Christian society and families truly lived like.

It is tempting to think about such things. I know I've done a lot of that. But I find that this leads to discontent with reality, at least for me. "Lift not up thy eyes to riches which thou canst not have." "Say not: what is the cause that former times were better than they are now? For this manner of question is foolish." "Let your manners be without covetousness, contented with such things as you have; for He hath said: I will neither leave thee nor forsake thee." I tell myself that God has decided that I should live in a culture where Christianity is almost dead, and His will for my life is what is best for me, whether or not I know why this particular situation is best.

Plus, in any culture, "many are called, but few are saved."

[Shin]

Ah, it's different for me Paul. I find a great comfort in considering that ideal state, and think of myself as if I were living in it happily, and the more I learn about it the more I can correct my own life and tell others about it. It becomes a guiding light for me.

I don't have any of that longing or discontent for it. When I was younger, longing bit me hard for one thing and another, and then broke destructively, and so I don't have a problem with it anymore, and I recognize longing as a temptation yes, definitely, you're right to avoid that feeling. Longing, loneliness, frustration these can be deadly feelings and temptations that are completely destructive. They have to be destroyed and never become a self-indulgence, for they separate us from interior consolation, they are self-fulfilling destructive prophecies of sorts.

I just don't associate it with thinking of that. It gives me great comfort, and happiness the more I learn of what that beautiful life is like to live. I think of that as what Heaven would be like. And I suppose the Heaven on earth of little fully Christian families separated from the world.

I indulge in thinking of that beautiful place and it leaves me happy thereafter, rather than frustrated with what I have here.

 

God keep you and console you my friend and brother in Christ!

[Shin]

I was the annoying little sister to 3 older brothers who did not seem crushed at an early age this way.  In my family I learned that they were always favored, more important.  (I'm not sure my dad was the boss though when it came to my mother!  )  Anyway, it hurt back then, but I do fundamentally agree with you Mr. Shin.  I also blame men for not being men.  I'll have to listen to Fr. Ripperger on this.  Thanks. 

May God keep you Susanna, and keep you happy!

I think it was Fr. R. who said that it's men's fault everything became this way, they failed morally first, and then came feminism, with if not for their failure could not have come about. But I don't really think the blame thing is helpful. I think we need to focus on setting things right and the good behind the old ways things always were done.

I was thinking about how one priest said, it may have been Fr. R. again, I do not recall, how the father has a responsibility for his daughter, as do the brothers to protect her. They naturally should feel this responsibility, and keep for example, sweet talking good-for-nothings away, put folks who come to the test of virtue. The priest was talking about Genesis and what men and women were differently more vulnerable too, and for the women, it was the ears and sweet talk, for the men, it was the eyes. That was a good and interesting sermon.

Back in the old days folks didn't leave the home so quickly. The father's direct responsibility for his daughters lasts as long as they are not married, or married to the church, so there was no question of people 'going out on their own' at a certain age, all alone. The family stays together. They stay at the homestead. That responsibility still applies, that old way of doing things is still the way it should be. Even if society's customs try to erase it, it's still written into the way we should live.

Food for thought no?

God bless us and keep us and help us to live the good old ways that never change.

 

[Paul]

Ah, it's different for me Paul. I find a great comfort in considering that ideal state, and think of myself as if I were living in it happily, and the more I learn about it the more I can correct my own life and tell others about it. It becomes a guiding light for me...

I just don't associate it with thinking of that. It gives me great comfort, and happiness the more I learn of what that beautiful life is like to live. I think of that as what Heaven would be like. And I suppose the Heaven on earth of little fully Christian families separated from the world.

I indulge in thinking of that beautiful place and it leaves me happy thereafter, rather than frustrated with what I have here.

I see. For myself, I don't even like to think about what Heaven must be like, because it leads me to discontent. Instead, I focus on what I have to do to get there.

[Shin]

What do you use for positive motivation in the fight Paul?   

[Paul]

What do you use for positive motivation in the fight Paul?   

Love of God. I have found that contemplating any kind of personal reward for my works leads me to a kind of "what's in it for me?" attitude. This is not to say I'm so holy I'm above thinking about a reward--far from it. Rather, it's bad for me, so I don't do it.

Back to the original topic, the more I learn, the more I see that if we assume that everything modern culture believes is wrong, we are almost always right. Every tenet of modern culture is designed to reject God in one way or another. Not just feminism, but also science, democracy, religious "freedom," multiculturalism, sexual "freedom," entertainment, romantic "love" (which I am told had not always existed in its modern form), and pretty much everything else they believe.

[Shin]

What do you use for positive motivation in the fight Paul?   

Love of God.

 

Back to the original topic, the more I learn, the more I see that if we assume that everything modern culture believes is wrong, we are almost always right.

I had the exact same thought not too long ago Paul!