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Alienated Catholics: Establishing The Groundwork For Dialogue, Catherine M. Murphy

Faculty Publications

One of the earliest arguments against women's ordination the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops articulated in 1972 was that, since the incarnation of God was in a male, this culminates in a male priesthood. This reflects a hierarchical anthropology well-known from Christianity's earliest encounters with the Greco-Roman world, whereby the male was associated with the mind, reason, and the spirit, while the female was associated with the body, passion, and the material world.¹ In fact, some Greek doctors and philosophers thought that every fetus began as a male, but those that didn't develop fully became female.² Thomas Laqueur …