As a Catholic woman, I have always been exasperated by the cultural assumption that I must be, well, oppressed in some way. ‘The Church hates women- that’s why we hate the Church’ cries the zeitgeist… but I’m a part of the Church. Does that mean you hate me? A woman?

‘The Church sees women as intellectually inferior’ it rages. And yet I choose to be part of it. Does

that mean you see me as… intellectually inferior? That’s a bit patronizing.

In response to the idea that the teachings and traditions of the Church thwart a woman’s dignity, potential and purpose, I can only respond in the words of Bernard Black: “Don’t make me laugh… bitterly”.

I can honestly sum up my experience of the ‘restrictive’ moral code that the Church has commanded me to live by in one word: utterly liberating.

Having said that, my dear sisters of faith… I have a confession to make. Whilst I truly embrace fides quaerens intellectum, which google translate tells me means ‘faith in quest of understanding’, there are a couple of bits of our beautiful tapestry of faith that I really struggle with, like prawns in an otherwise-delicious fried rice.

So what’s the deal with the heavily-misogynistic-sounding bits of the Bible, where women must be subordinate to men, obey their husbands in all things, and have to take the fall for the Fall? You know what I’m talking about. “Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you”. Genesis 3:16. Yay.

I was at a Catholic wedding where the theme of the readings and all the other trimmings seemed to be ‘obey your husband. Submit to your husband. Wives must always do what their husbands tell them to. Always. No questions asked’. I have no doubt that my readers are way more theologically savvy than me, and can effortlessly reconcile this with the Church’s championing of the dignity and equality of all human beings, both male and female, but I admit to you, I struggled.

My problem is this: If one day I marry a Catholic Captain America, who spent most of his life saving orphans from war zones in the Middle East and the rest of it preaching the Gospel whilst raising money for crisis pregnancy centres, and mowing the lawn for a convent of elderly nuns on the weekends, then sure. I can get behind submissive obedience. Lead on, Steve.
But the question that haunts me is this: What if he isn’t?

Am I henceforth bound by religious obligation to a life of marital obedience? What if he wants to put one of those stick-figure families on the back of our car? For crying out loud, nobody cares what our hobbies are!

You see my crisis.

Enter Trent Horn. He wrote a book in 2016 called Hard Sayings: A Catholic Approach to Answering Bible Difficulties. It addresses many of those passages in the bible which up until now I have squeamishly ignored. Should an atheist corner me in regards to one of them, my strategy has been thus: “That’s a really good question. In order to understand this passage we must look at context. Firstly, – oh my gosh, is that a giant wasp? Carrying a spider? That has landed in your hair? Gotta go, bye!”

I highly recommend this book for anybody who may have struggles with those ‘tricky passages’. And, more relevantly to this monologue, it has a chapter entitled (ironically) ‘Anti-Woman?’. It addresses some of the biggest feminist beefs about the bible, the gist of which I will condense and plagiarise below to give you a taste test.

The first little nugget is Genesis 2:18. Prior to this, God created man and woman in His own image. Love it. Off to a great start. Now, woman seems to only come into the picture as man’s helper: “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him”. As Horn observes, “That doesn’t sound very honourable, at least in modern translations that make Eve sound like Adam’s secretary and cook”. However, he goes on to explain:

The Hebrew word often translated [as] “helper”, ezer, more closely represents a combination of the concepts “rescue” and “strength” than it does “domestic servant”. In the Old Testament, the only human ever described as an ezer is Eve. In every other case this word refers to things like armies helping kingdoms or God helping his people. If Genesis 2:18 is offensive because it says Eve is Adam’s helper, then Psalm 115 is offensive because it says God is our helper… (ez-ram)”.

Got it. What about this one? “Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you”.Explanation:

[a]fter Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they were told of the consequences of their disobedience, both for themselves and their descendants… Since this verse is included with the curses associated with the fall [painful labour in the field and painful childbirth], and not with God’s original plan for life in Eden, we can assume it was not something God intended for human beings.

Makes sense. Next: the Fall. Critics say the Bible places the blame on Eve. I’ve personally never encountered this from within the Church, but just in case you were wondering:

When the serpent assures Eve, “You will not die” (Gen 3:6), ‘you’ is in the Hebrew plural form, evidence that Adam was standing right next to her, and both are equally culpable. This is supported by “she also gave some to her husband, and he ate”. Horn goes even further, and observes that the NT primarily blames Adam… “sin came into the world through one man” (Rom 5:12). Paul even says “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived”, which, Horn points out, “morally speaking, was worse”, as God had already told Adam not to eat the fruit (Gen 2:17).

As for the old favourite, “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord”, Horn lets St. JPIItake the floor for this one:

[It is] a ‘mutual subjection out of reverence for Christ’ (cf. Eph 5:21). This is especially true because the husband is called the ‘head’ of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church; he is so in order to give ‘himself up for her’ (Eph 5:25)… in the relationship between husband and wife the ‘subjection’ is not one-sided but mutual.

I can certainly live with that.

This is not to say that we should swing too far the other way and try to read the bible as a kind of condemnation of masculinity, even though it would be very on-trend in our current culture of typecasting men as evil and intellectually inferior. Rather, if you, like me, have had some uncomfortable moments with some of these biblical passages, then I hope this may have helped. There are plenty more gems in Horn’s book as well. Don’t forget to check your local Catholic bookshop to see if they stock the book!

~ Angela Schumann