God created man, the male and the female, in his own image and likeness. While women are different from men in many ways, they are equal in dignity and worthy of respect.
Historically, women were considered to be inferior to men and thought not to be very important. They were left out of religious practices and they were even treated as the property of their fathers or husbands.
The Gospels show that Jesus rejected the culture, treated women with compassion, and considered them essential to his mission.
While the differences between men and women result in different strengths and abilities, these differences do not mean that either sex is better than the other.
Men and women are designed differently by God on purpose so that they complement each other, working together, helping one another, and caring for God’s Creation.
A woman’s God-given nature and uniquely feminine gifts are determined from the moment of her conception when her body and soul are created.
As a daughter of the Father, a wife, and a mother, a woman has been entrusted by God with the unique ability to carry another life in her womb and to nurture and care for another child of God.
While the world says that the Church oppresses women, it is the harmful secular culture that allows women and girls to be treated as objects by promoting immorality and false expressions of femininity.
It is the Catholic Church that dignifies women, passing down what God teaches about them and the distinct roles that they play in the natural order and in his plan for salvation.
The dignity of every woman is a gift from God:
Dignity that is inalienable and inviolable:
Then God said: Let Us make human beings in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame animals, all the wild animals, and all the creatures that crawl on the Earth. God created mankind in his image; in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.
Genesis 1: 26-27
Seeing women through the eyes of Christ:
Respecting the souls and the bodies of women:
The personal resources of femininity are certainly no less than the resources of masculinity: they are merely different. Hence a woman, as well as a man, must understand her “fulfilment” as a person, her dignity and vocation, on the basis of these resources, according to the richness of the femininity which she received on the day of creation and which she inherits as an expression of the “image and likeness of God” that is specifically hers. The inheritance of sin suggested by the words of the Bible – “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” – can be conquered only by following this path. The overcoming of this evil inheritance is, generation after generation, the task of every human being, whether woman or man. For whenever man is responsible for offending a woman’s personal dignity and vocation, he acts contrary to his own personal dignity and his own vocation.
Pope John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 15 August 1988
God begins the New Covenant with a woman:
Humanity is entrusted to women:
Man and woman have been created, which is to say, willed by God: on the one hand, in perfect equality as human persons; on the other, in their respective beings as man and woman. “Being man” or “being woman” is a reality which is good and willed by God: man and woman possess an inalienable dignity which comes to them immediately from God their Creator. 240 Man and woman are both with one and the same dignity “in the image of God”. In their “being-man” and “being-woman”, they reflect the Creator’s wisdom and goodness.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 369
Equality does not mean sameness:
Men and women are equal and complimentary:
Models of dignity:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
Taking the Blessed Sacrament seriously:
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