Cherie Blair Says Catholic Church Sexist, Credits Personal Success to Contraception(Catholic Caucus)

LifeSiteNews.com ^ | 2 March 2009 | Hilary White and John Jalsevac

[A.A. Cunningham]

Monday March 2, 2009

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Cherie Blair Says Catholic Church Sexist, Credits Personal Success to Contraception

By Hilary White and John Jalsevac

LONDON, March 2, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Church "marginalizes" women and keeps them "virtually invisible" in its public face, says Cherie Blair. Speaking on a BBC television program, the wife of former Prime Minister Tony Blair said that "ambivalence" towards women is a "fundamental weakness" of Christianity and of Catholicism in particular.

The controversial remarks were made during the final installment of a documentary, Christianity, that was aired on BBC's Channel 4 on Sunday night.

During a section of the program that dealt with the Catholic Church's teaching on contraception, Blair credited her use of contraception for her personal success. Blair said that every time she didn't use contraception, "I seemed to have a baby."

"I'm a feminist…How could I have done all the things I have done if I hadn't used contraception?" she asked.

Despite being a self-professed devout Catholic, Blair has been an outspoken advocate of artificial contraception, which the Catholic Church teaches is an intrinsic evil. In her recently published autobiography, "Speaking for Myself," Blair infamously admitted that at least one of her children was conceived when she had "forgotten her contraceptive equipment" when on holiday.

During the program Blair also appeared to insinuate that it is only with the ordination of women to the priesthood that the situation of the "invisibility" of women in Christianity could be remedied.

In an interview with Cormac Cardinal Murphy O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster and the head of the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, Blair rebuked the cardinal, saying, "If you actually look at the formal structures of the Catholic Church, you don't see a woman's face when you see people speaking for the Catholic Church. Can we change that?"

The cardinal responded, "I don't think that [the Church] will develop towards priesthood or episcopacy [for women] because of the tradition of the Church in that role." But Mrs. Blair objected, saying, "Until the traditional churches fully resolve their relationship with the female half of the population, how can they expect Christianity to have a future in the modern world?"

Blair, a long-time feminist and activist for "progressive" causes, said, "I firmly believe the traditional churches in Western Europe can be saved but there are a number of urgent steps that need to be taken.

"Today, while women remain marginalised, Christianity cannot flourish. Women and men must be equal partners in 21st-century Christianity."

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

No Comment from Bishops as Cherie, wife of Former PM Blair, Touts Catholicism While Extolling Contraception
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/may/08052104.html

URL: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09030209.html

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[A.A. Cunningham]

Another "self-professed devout Catholic" just like Pelosi, Biden, Sebelius, Casey, et al.

[ladtx]

From the “Church of I Can Make It Up AS I Go Along”.

[Rockiette]

She’s just another “cafeteria Catholic”, terribly unimpressive of her...

[MissDairyGoodnessVT]

.......Tony converted to Catholicism and is teaching at Harvard? this I do NOT get.
probably the old girl has a beef with Tony and his new views?

[John W]

I was thinking as I read this how the face of the Church for me growing up WAS women. We had the nuns in class every minute of every day and the male priest was in for one period a week.

And I’m sure even today, with a dearth of nuns, the number of good Catholic women influencing our youth outnumber the men.

[Varda]

This is why I wasn’t too thrilled that her husband “converted”. We have too many people like this claiming to be “Catholic”. It’s not a tribe: it’s a set of beliefs.

[A.A. Cunningham]

Are you a Catholic?

[vladimir998]

“I’m a feminist…How could I have done all the things I have done if I hadn’t used contraception?” she asked.

What of more importance is there than your children?

[Hulka]

Non-sequiter arguments make no sense, especially when they try to tie together two totally unrelated subjects within the Catholic Church.

[narses]

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Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment

Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

[Houghton M.]

Before Europe converted to Christianity, marriage was by raptus, by “taking.” A man strong enough to take a woman took her. Marriage was the last area of culture the Church finally managed to convert people on—by the 1100s the idea that a woman could not be given to a man against her consent was finally accepted.

People on FR complain a lot about the way Muslim cultures treat women as pawns. Well, it was a lot like that in ancient Germanic cultures before they became Christian.

Women were far more protected in property rites and economic endeavors in medieval Catholic Europe than they were under early modern absolutist governments where they were once more reduced to the status of children in many ways. Protestantism denied that marriage was a sacrament, which inevitably pushed them to accept divorce, supposedly only in extreme cases (just like Obama will only tax “the rich”) but it gradually became more widespread esp. as Protestantism liberalized into secularism. Women are once again the chief victims.

By insisting that women were free to accept or reject marriage arrangements made by their families, free to enter religious orders, where they had “career” managing large institutions, Catholicism opened up space for women unheard of in ancient Rome or the ancient Germanic cultures or in present-day Muslim cultures.

And our culture has lowered the status of women. Yes, they are in the boardrooms and universities etc. now. But casual sex (and women’s buying into casual [contraceptive] sex, which leads to greater divorce and single mothers fatherless children and all those pathologies) has made women more vulnerable and abused than they have been at any time since Europe became Catholic in the 500s-1000s.

Read Regine Pernoud, _Women in the Age of the Cathedrals_ for detailed comparisons of the legal and cultural status of women in the Catholic Middle Ages compared to early modern times.

[Niuhuru]

The silly little twit could have abstained before marriage while reaching her goals. That’s my method now, especially after a few rocky relationships.

[Le Chien Rouge]

The Church “marginalizes” women and keeps them “virtually invisible” in its public face.....

I guess she never heard of Mother Theresa

[Trailerpark Badass]

I guess she never heard of Mother Theresa

Or Mary...

[al_c]

How could I have done all the things I have done if I hadn't used contraception?" she asked.

NFP seems to be working fine for me and my wife.