In Faith of the Feminine, National Review Online contributor Colleen Carroll Campbell reports on the recent three-day Vatican Congress which addressed the role of women in the Catholic Church and society. According to German philosopher Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz, "feminism is an outgrowth of Christian ideas about women's equal dignity: 'Only in Judeo-Christian culture sprang up this humanization of women.'"
Pope Benedict XVI also spoke of the importance of defending the dignity of women:
In "Mulieris Dignitatem," John Paul II wanted to delve into the fundamental anthropological truths of men and women, the equality in dignity and their unity, the rooted and profound difference between the masculine and the feminine and their vocation to reciprocity and complementarity, collaboration and communion (cf. "Mulieris Dignitatem," No. 6). This dual-unity of man and woman is based on the foundation of the dignity of every person, created in the image and likeness of God, who "created them male and female" (Genesis 1:27), as much avoiding an indistinct uniformity and flattened-out and impoverished equality as an abysmal and conflictive difference (cf. "Letter to Women," No. 8). This dual-unity carries with it, inscribed in bodies and souls, the relation with the other, love for the other, interpersonal communion that shows that "the creation of man is also marked by a certain likeness to the divine communion" ("Mulieris Dignitatem," No. 7). When, therefore, men or women pretend to be autonomous or totally self-sufficient, they risk being closed up in a self-realization that considers the overcoming of every natural, social or religious bond as a conquest of freedom, but which in fact reduces them to an oppressive solitude. To foster and support the true promotion of women and men one cannot fail to take this reality into account.(emphasis mine)
