Some Pre-Analysis Grousing

Okay, I’ve read the new document and it is not, as advertised, a fire-breathing denunciation of feminism. How does The Guardian get away with so grossly mislabelling stories (“Pope warns feminists” as a headline when the pope didn’t write the document and it isn’t addressed to feminists, or “Bishops told to take hard line on issue of gender”–sheesh!).

In the same vein, Kurt Barrigan notes:

A short item on the new document appears in today’s Daily Telegraph under the headline “Pope Attacks Feminism.” The word feminism does not appear anywhere in the 7000 word letter and the word feminist appears only once (in criticizing “a certain type of feminist rhetoric”). Far from being an attack on feminism, the letter is an outline of the Christian understanding of our identity as men and women. I hope that this wider purpose of the letter is not obscured by eye-catching headlines.

The document, as usual, has a ponderously long title that badly needs to go on a diet before it develops vascular disease:

LETTER TO THE BISHOPS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON THE COLLABORATION OF MEN AND WOMEN IN THE CHURCH AND IN THE WORLD

Now, just how are we supposed to refer to that?

“Letter to the Bishops”? No, there’s been about a bazillion of those.

“Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church”? No, that’s getting too long, and virtually all of the aforesaid letters to bishops were written to Catholic bishops, so that doesn’t decrease the number appreciably.

“Letter on Collaboration”? No, there was already one of those a few years ago (in that case, about the collaboration of the laity and priests).

Note to anyone in Rome who might hypothetically be reading this: I know that y’all used to have emperors with overgrown names like Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, but people didn’t call them that very often. When people wanted to talk about Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, they called him Claudius. People need to have concise ways to refer to things, so when you write letters, could you throw us a bone, here? Maybe a couple three words in Latin from the beginning of the document or something? Pretty please? With sugar on it?

Also, if you’re taking requests at the moment, could you maybe, possibly not recapitulate the entire biblical history of every theme you mention? By all means do talk about the biblical basis for Catholic teaching. If there’s a passage in the Bible that clearly supports a particular teaching, definitely note it. But if not, could you–y’know–tighten it up a bit?

I appreciate the desire to show that the teaching of Scripture is organically connected, but laboriously noting all of the connections starts to read like the lyrics of Dem Bones (“The foot bone’s connected to the ankle bone, the ankle bone’s connected to the shin bone, the shin bone’s connected to the knee bone: Now hear the word of the Lord!”). This kind of connection-noting bogs down the document, so fewer people will read it, and fewer people will be helped by it.

Sorry if I’m a little out of sorts at the moment, but I’m sleep-deprived. Given the time difference between Rome and San Diego, y’all released this thing in the middle of the night my time (and on a Saturday–when nobody is paying attention to the media–and on the last day of July–just before the Vatican shuts down for the traditional August vacation, so you won’t be around to answer questions; curious timing, guys!), so when I woke up too early this morning, I found I could’t get back to sleep because I was curious about what the document said.

Okay, enough grousing.

Analysis next.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live." View all posts by Jimmy Akin