Sociology and Religion

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This paper is from a catholic feminist’s perceptive that the church, as an institution, is structured as a pyramid modeled on the patriarchal family with the custom of father-right. The patriarchal decision-maker has the power to shape, form and control the “poor of the world” (McCormick, pg. 240) mirroring the aspect of the conflict theory. The poor of the world are the people who work for the institution of the Church controlled by the patriarchal power elite. These established masses of people feel no control, which cause anxiety and they continue to perform their means of production as a formed unit. The power elite’s fear of being overthrown by the poor of the world is fueled with sheer determination and consistency to stay on top. In the article “Sociology and Sexuality” women and women’s sexuality is stated to be oppressed with the poor of the people and is examined through human rights, religious desacralization, religious sacralization, women’s human rights and social conditioning.
The concern for human rights is for the two-thirds of the people who live below the level of endurance but have the knowledge of the lack of social relations in the world of distributing goods. The poor is aware of their civil rights to take part in decisions that will affect their lives such as developing resources of places where they would live instead of having those resources used in the interest of the powerful nations of the world and multinational corporations. The right to life of these people is systematically denied in social systems. Liberation Theology is a direct approach in being freed from this structure. This is where people mediate on the Gospel in company with the poor and by the mandate of the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World to help and work with the poor for their own liberation. This movement aroused the re-ordering of priorities for the structure of the church, which was visible in the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the church to where the people of the church are first priority rather than the hierarchy structure in serving needs. With this structural change, people are beginning to see the need to change and recognized the development of human beings and not on the rule of elite’s in the model of fathers over children. Self-representation is part of the process of the development of people.
Pope Paul in ...

... middle of paper ...

...eral problem of the male-dominated theological language, liturgy, and religious education denying women a place to celebrate life in the church. The theological language has its roots through patriarchal family terms because of generic masculinity. For example, the word Father referring to “your Father who is in Heaven” (247) allows paternal exploitation to grow.
Through women’s research of human life they discover their common oppression with the poor. Although the poor of the people and women are trying to construct a structural change of the church from the pyramidal patriarchal family to a new circular symbol of unity, they have enormous implications of conditioning that makes it hard to break the pattern of this strongly grounded pyramid. Men still write about and research priesthood without considering the issue the ordination of women. The development of human beings and not on the rule of elite’s in the model of fathers over children needs to be further recognized.

McCormick. Feminists Ethics And The Catholic Moral Tradition. Reading in Moral
Theology No. 9 “Sociology and Sexuality: A Feminist Perspective,”
Paulist Press. New York, 1996

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