Interesting question! Especially for the way you put it. Thanks for your candor.

I definitely agree that the youth group leader, if that’s what he/she said, probably wasn’t being the best ambassador for the Church’s beliefs, and it’s very understandable that you would feel insulted by that.

Personally I don’t think the Church is sexist, but she obviously does hold to some traditional beliefs about gender differentiation that run quite contrary to today’s conventional wisdom. Before we assume that the Church is wrong simply because she’s counter-cultural, can I just maybe ask you a couple questions back?

First off, I’ll bet you obey traffic signs and teachers and policemen and your parents, don’t you? At least most of the time? Obedience really does play an important part in our lives: We need it to organize society, to live together in peace, etc. If I can’t count on the driver next to me to obey the law, both of us are in danger!

Teams are like that: Teamwork implies obedience. It means sacrificing some of our freedom for a greater good. We’ll only work together if we’re guided and if we let ourselves be guided. The Church is like that: We need to be guided, or we certainly can’t be the Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ… we’ll just be 1.2 billion different people doing their own thing. Families are like that: If kids don’t behave and if the wife and husband don’t work together and learn to give and take, the family hits the rocks in a hurry. 

And marriage above all is like that: More than obedience not being a part of it, the husband has to be obedient to the wife just as she is obedient to him. It’s mutual. And if it’s not like that, they’re really not a team like you say, but just two people living in the same house, and maybe even taking advantage of each other somehow. So I would say that yes, you do owe obedience to your husband, and he does owe obedience to you, but it’s obedience that goes along with a great deal of respect and love. I give, I bend, I’m flexible, he gets what he wants occasionally, I press a point if necessary too and I expect him to bend too.

But tell you what… let’s check out the text of the vows, at least according to the Catholic rite.

First the priest asks, “N. and N., have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage? Will you love and honor each other as man and wife for the rest of your lives?”

Then he says, “Since it is your intention to enter into marriage, join your right hands, and declare your consent before God and his Church.”

They join hands, and the bridegroom says: “I, N., take you, N., to be my wife. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love and honor you all the days of my life.”

Then the bride says: “I, N., take you, N., to be my husband. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love and honor you all the days of my life.”

Then the priest says “You have declared your consent before the Church. May the Lord in his goodness strengthen your consent and fill you both with his blessings. What God has joined, man must not divide.”

After that, the priest blesses the rings, and the spouses give each other the ring saying, “N., take this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

That’s it. Then there is a special blessing over the two of them that the priest gives. The “I promise to be true to you,” more than obedience, is really about commitment, I would say. And note that the husband is the first to promise it. Actually, from the married couples that I’ve worked with, I think I would have to say that the husband is the one who ends up to his wife far more than she to him, in practice. Funny how that works!

More than marriage being something you’re “condemned” to, in which you won’t find happiness but just domestic slavery, let’s look at what the Church really thinks marriage is. This is the Catechism, #1604-1605:

So marriage is really about a love that fills a hole in our hearts. That woman needs something man has, and man needs something woman has. That woman is missing something and man is missing something, and they find a support and a joy in the togetherness that becomes “being one flesh” that can’t be given any other way. An “intimate partnership,” as Gaudium et Spes calls it… more than intimacy and more than a partnership!

I think we should all be able to recognize the beauty of that gift of God, even if you’re not called to it, like I’m not. And there’s another key word, right? “Calling.” We don’t just simply decide or figure out our path in this life; part of our happiness hinges on whether we’ll say Yes to what God is “calling” us to. Is God calling you to marriage? It takes time to discover that.

The college women you mention who are just there to look for a husband obviously think that they’re called to marriage, so they’re taking that call seriously. You are also feeling another calling right now: a love that’s on your heart for a medical profession. That’s an excellent and wonderful way to put your talents and your intelligence at the service of society.

There’s a third calling involved here: to motherhood. Some women feel that much more strongly than others, but it’s also something that hopefully you can at least recognize as attractive. Not merely “kids for the sake of kids,” but a married love that blossoms into “your (plural)” children. Should both parents do their share in raising those children? Absolutely. Can a dad be a mom? Nope. Can a mom be a dad? Nope. So what is the “share” of each? Different.

What’s the way to harmonize the call to a career with the call to childrearing? The Church has some excellent wisdom on that point that you probably didn’t hear about in your youth group. Before dismissing the Church as hopelessly sexist, it might be good to check out what she actually says. You might find these two documents by John Paul II quite inspiring, actually: his Letter to Women and his On the Dignity of Women (Mulieris Dignitatem).

God bless you!

- Father Shane

Great question. Part of it undoubtedly has to do with linguistic inertia: English doesn't give genders to its words, but as all those who struggled through some foreign language in high school know, most other languages do.

It's feminine everywhere: Greek (ekklesia), Latin (ecclesia), even Italian (chiesa), French (église) and Spanish (iglesia).

So that was easy.

But there's also a deeper theological meaning: St. Paul often calls the Church the "Bride of Christ" or the "Spouse of Christ" (perhaps most famously in Ephesians 5) so it's natural to use feminine imagery for her. The Book of Revelation does too, of course. So precisely because it's "his," the Church is a "she."

God bless you!

- Father Shane