Feminism, Part I

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Satan has fixed his gaze on the family. Feminism, the social and political movement seeking to extirpate the gender roles and hierarchy within society and the family, has become the most devastating and effective tool of the diabolical.

Sister Lúcia, the eldest of the three children of Fatima, had this to say in the early 1980s: "A time will come when the decisive battle between the Kingdom of Christ and Satan will be over marriage and the family." Likewise, in a homily in November of 1986, Pope St. John Paul II said, "As the family goes, so goes the nation, and so goes the whole world in which we live."

The state of the family depicts the state of society, our country and the world. You can measure the health of a nation by the health of its families. Pope Pius XII knew this and once remarked, "The nation ... has always drawn its strength, its increase, its honor from the healthy and virtuous family. If this is attacked in its religious and moral foundation, the way is open to the worst possible harm to social institutions, and to the nation itself."

It should be evident, then, that the family is absolutely crucial to the Church and the world. And feminism is one of Satan's favorite weapons for attacking it.

In their book Rules for Retrogrades, Tim and Dave Gordon call feminism the "root of our world's cultural decay" because it aims to (1) abolish the divinely established hierarchy, and (2) push women to leave the home. Over the last couple of years, I've come across a number of otherwise-faithful Catholics who either explicitly or implicitly espouse some form of feminist ideology. Personally, I think they are well-intentioned, but a faithful Catholic cannot also be a feminist — unless one's definition of feminism is something like upholding the dignity of women.

In Part II, we'll discuss feminism's attempted overthrow of the divinely established patriarchy, the headship of men in society and the family, and we'll see how the Catholic Church teaches against it rather firmly and clearly.

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