Women and the Catholic Church Term Paper

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Medieval Women

To state the obvious, the lives of medieval women were very different than those of women today. The medieval times are often referred to as the Middle Ages. During the Middle Ages, the people of Europe often lived in smaller rural communities. The families would make their living off of the land. The women of these families were typically peasants and they would shoulder many of the domestic responsibilities of the home including caring for children, preparing the food and tending to the livestock. The peak time of the year for peasants during medieval times was the harvest. The women of this time would help their husbands bring in the food that was being harvested. Rather than stay in the home, the women would go out into the fields and render direct assistance. Women would offer direct assistance in many vital "cottage" industries. These industries would include brewing, textiles and baking (British Library, 2016).

One symbol that came to typify women during these times was the distaff. This was a tool that used for spinning flax and wool. Medieval art is full of women wielding a distaff at a fox in its jaws or even in the hands of the Biblical woman Eve. Speaking of the Bible, the common place that was mandated for women was dictated by Biblical teachings. This meant that they were often deemed to be submissive and controlled by their men. One example from the Bible that describes this was the work of Paul. Even so, the Virgin Mary, the birth mother of Jesus, is often held in high reverence and is given a lot of respect. There were women after that which held high positions of power including as abbesses in the church. Many of these abbesses had authority and power of the monks, which were usually men. There are even some instances outside of the traditional church boundaries where woman would buck the trend of being subservient to the men. One such as example was Queen Isabella who ruled from 1295 to 1358. Even so, the norm for medieval women was to be secondary to men (British Library, 2016).

Catholic Reformation

The emergence of the Catholic Reformation was an "intellectual counter-punch" to the Protestant churches of the world. Many are aware of Martin Luther and his eventual splitting from the church due to perceived faults with the way the church was conducting itself but the Reformation came before that unwound. Even so, both Luther and a man by the name of Erasmus were more than willing to admit that the Catholic church had lost its way and that changes needed to be made. One of the prior historical events that led to much of this was the Renaissance. Indeed, one of the common themes and outcomes of that movement was that people were more willing to question the norms and agreed upon customs of society if they seemed out of phase with what perhaps should be happening instead. On the other hand, the Catholic Church stubbornly failed to change and this led to the appearance that the church and its ways were "dated" and behind the times (HLS, 2016).

A divergence emerged as the Reformation started to take hold. There were the viewpoints of St. Thomas Aquinas. He held in his Summa Theologica that there should be a "fusion" between the Christian beliefs and that of Aristotle. Aquinas asserted that Man is essentially rational and was thus able to see right from wrong. He also felt that men could steer a course to salvation but guidance was needed from the Church and the state along the way. Saint Thomas was also optimistic about man and this believes came to be known as Thomism. One of the main proponents of Thomism was Cardinal Cajetan. However, Martin Luther himself was a strong opponent of Thomas and also became an opponent of the Cardinal for precisely that reason. Further, Augustinian beliefs in general ran strongly against the work of Aquinas and St. Augustine beliefs were a major foundation for what Martin Luther believed in. Even with that being the case, the Council of Trent in 1545 basically cast aside Augustinianism (HLS, 2016).

St. Jane Frances de Chantal

St. Jane Frances de Chantal led an extraordinary and storied life. This can be even held truer when taking into account that she lived in the late 1500's and early 1600's. Indeed, this was after the Council of Trent and the rising of the Catholic Reformation, but times for women at that time (at least as compared to men) were still very tough.

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Jane's life was indeed tough and in many ways. She lost her mother when was a mere eighteen months old. However, she still had her father and he was a very prominent man. He held the position of head of Parliament at Dijon, France. The absence of her mother in particular led to her father being the primary influence in her life as she grew up. It was obvious to all that she was "lively and cheerful" and that she was a woman of "beauty and refinement." When he was twenty-one years old, she married the Baron of Chantal. She had six children with the Baron but only half of them survived infancy. Whilst raising the surviving children, she was heavily involved in charitable works of various types and levels (American Catholic, 2016).

However, her life changed dramatically for the worse when her husband was killed after seven years of marriage before Jane had even turned thirty years old. While was known for her pervasive happiness and cheerfulness beforehand, the death of her husband hit Jane very hard and she became extremely dejected. She remained in this state for nearly half a year at her family home rather than at the home of her late husband. This lead to her father-in-law threatening to dis-inherit her and the children if she did not return home. She relented and was able to remain at least somewhat cheerful despite how vain and vile the man was, not to mention their housekeeper was a detestable person as well. At the age of thirty-two, Jane met St. Frances de Sales and he became her spiritual director (Madigan, 1998). She ended up wanting to become a nun but he told her to hold off on such a decision. In reaction to this, she decided to defer to him and that she would remain unmarried. About three years later, Francis expressed to Jane his plan to found an institute for women and this place would be a "haven" for those whose health, age or other considerations were a barrier for entering communities that were already established. There would be no cloister involved and the women admitted to the institution would be able to undertake whatever spiritual or corporal works of mercy that they deemed to be worthwhile. The primary intent of Francis when it came to the institution was to show and display the virtues of Mary at the Visitation. This is why the nuns in question came to be known as Visitation nuns. The primary values in question were humility and weakness (American Catholic, 2016).

There were those people that supported what Jane was doing (Madigan, 1998). As one might expect, however, there was some active resistance to this given the common opinion that women should not be in leadership of any part of daily life, let alone the church. Part of the pressure that was brought to bear was that Francis was implored to change his institution so that it followed the aforementioned St. Augustine values. Francis wrote his famous Treatise on the Love of God about this time. The congregation at the onset, that being three women, began when Jane was forty-five years old. However, the tragedy began to hit her hard yet again. Francis de Sales passed away, her son was killed, a plagued ripped through France and two of her in-laws passed away as well. She implored local authorities to dedicate their resources to fighting the plague. She practiced what she preached in this regard as she did the same thing with the resources of her convent. In the end, Jane died while on a visitation of the convents of the community and only after enduring times of interior anguish, spiritual dryness and other darkness in her life (American Catholic, 2016). Her passing came at the Convent Moulins on December 13th, 1641. She was less than two months from turning seventy years old when she died (CNA, 2016).

It should be noted that St. Francis de Sales spoke very highly of her during his life as Jane's protege and director. Indeed, he was once quoted as saying "In Madame de Chantal I have found the perfect woman, whom Solomon had difficulty finding in Jerusalem" (CNA, 2016). Some other details that can be used to flesh out what was described on the prior two pages include that the Congregation of the Visitation was established on June 6th, 2010.….....

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