Gender Inequalities in the Roman Catholic Religion

Gender equality has been debated throughout society, and in a more narrow sense, in the Roman Catholic Church. Men are the dominant gender when looking at the Roman Catholic religion, as they have the authority and power to hold a church session and women do not. Today, many women are fighting back and questioning the gender bias that is present within the Roman Catholic religion. Although women have come a long way in society, women seem to still have an inferior role in the church. The sacrament of Holy Orders is reserved only to men, Christs twelve disciples are all men, and although the Catholic church promotes respect and equality for all, their teachings seem to be flawed. The problem of gender equality in the Catholic church is deeply rooted in the history of the Christian religion. St. Augustine, the foundational thinker of Latin Christianity, believed that females were created by God to be inferior to the superior male gender. Augustine never believed that a female could rep resent God, because being male is a symbol of â€Å"rationality and spirituality† while being female symbolizes â€Å"the body and the material world† (Ruether). However, Augustines views of women becomes complicated when he speaks of reproduction and sex. Augustine believed that sex without being married was a sin and those who use contraception while having sexual intercourse, whether being married or not, was â€Å"mere fornication† (Ruether). 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