On the 25th anniversary of the Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem (August 15th, 1988), the Pontifical Council for the Laity has organized an International Study Seminar, in Rome, on the topic “God entrusts the human being to the woman” (10-12 October 2013). The work was introduced by Card. Stanislaw Ryłko, President of the Dicastery.
This document—the cardinal said—«
with a deeper scriptural itinerary, lays the solid foundation for formulating the specific and irreplaceable character of what is called the ‘feminine genius,’ an attitude inherent to every woman, which radiates in a special way in the Lord’s Mother, and is essential and decisive for both the Church and human society».
«Woman, behold your son!” (Jn 19:26). The word that Jesus, dying on the Cross, said to his Mother, thus entrusting to her the beloved disciple, John, and in him all the entire nascent Church, is certainly the backdrop of great anthropological intuition that the Blessed John Paul II placed at the center of the Apostolic Letter on the dignity and vocation of women Mulieris Dignitatem: “In a special way God entrusts the human being to the woman» (cf. no. 30), said Msgr. Livio Melina, President of the Pontifical Institute “John Paul II” for Studies on Marriage and Family, at the beginning of the opening address. This is the “essential” vocation of the woman: «to look after the humanum», asserted Msgr. Melina, quoting the essay “Only love is credible” of the Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Bathasar: «“A world without women, without children, without respect for the character of the poverty and the humility of love, in which everything is seen as a function of income and power, and where everything that does not further this aim, that is free and does not serve, it is despised, persecuted and eliminated”, it is a world in which the sacramental character of creation disappears and the forces of love succumb the project of the intrinsically technological domain, in the name of efficiency and production of power». «A romantic exaltation of the ‘eternal feminine,’ which basically masks a subsisting male chauvinism», is of no use, says the prelate. Another consequence of this ‘masculine’ cultural domination is «the clericalism that plagues the Church, one of the ancient and ever new evils». Therefore, «it is important, on the contrary, to grasp the deep reason of reciprocity and the specific vocation, in view of which “God entrusts the human being in a special way to the woman”». «It’s possible to understand all the symbolic depth of sexual difference within the mystery of the Church and of its relationship with Christ, as well as of the whole of humanity with God the Creator». Thus, «humanity is always before God basically ‘feminine,’ while in reference to the relationship between Christ the Bridegroom and his Bride, the Church, the mystery of reciprocity between man and woman is really great».
Gabriella Gambino, a jurist at the University of Tor Vergata in Rome, in her lecture on the right of the family, indicated that «the recent reforms in the wake of the legislative indifference with regard to gender differences are constituting new social formations that, on closer inspection, have nothing to do with the genuine concept of the family, where the roles no longer stem from the stable and definitive union and from sexual bipolarity, but rather are replaced by affective functions and recognized, but fragile economic responsibilities». “Social aggregates” are arbitrarily connected to new definitions of family and marriage, in an «idea of the family, redesigned and redefined according to personal taste, in the wake of a nihilism that considers everything equal, everything “cultural”, and therefore, transient and subject to change», the scholar deplored. «We women know this well—she concluded—there are tradable goods and non-tradable ones, the dimension of our identity and of our social life are not exchangeable for goods or marketable products. The value of human life from its conception, the protection of the family based on the marriage of a man and a woman, the natural and universal place where man’s identity is structured and children educated; these are non-negotiable human and legal values, which together with the human being, are entrusted to us. To protect them, we must learn to rediscover the meaning of human frailty, of the suffering caused by our unfulfilled desires; we must be able to show our children clear and strong values; we must be able to explain that, in addition to the what is just, there is also goodness, and the true ‘good for me’ is ‘goodness in itself’: that truth of things that we must never stop seeking».
