Concern for promotion of women has led the Church to reflect more deeply on the complementary roles of men and women in God’s plan

At the time of the usual General Audience on 22 June, the Holy Father continued with his catechesis on the lay apostolate in the Church, the 92nd in the series on the Church. Speaking of the dignity and mission of the Christian woman, the Pope stressed the full equality of men and women, their complementarity and the need to fully respect the dignity of women. Here is a translation of the Holy Father's address which was given in Italian.

1. In the catecheses on the dignity and the apostolate of lay people in the Church, we have explained the Church's thought and plans, applicable to all the faithful, both men and women. We would now like to consider more particularly the role of the Christian woman, both because of the importance that women have always had in the Church, and because of the hopes for the present and the future which can and must be placed in them. In our era, many voices have spoken up demanding respect for woman's personal dignity and recognition of her real equality of rights with man, so as to offer her the full opportunity to fulfil her role in all sectors and at all levels in society. 

The Church considers the movement described as the emancipation, liberation or promotion of woman, in the light of the revealed teaching on the dignity of the human person, on the value of individual persons—men and women—in the Creator's sight, and on the role attributed to woman in the work of salvation. The Church therefore holds that the recognition of woman's value really has its ultimate source in the Christian awareness of the value of every person. This awareness, encouraged by the development of socio-cultural conditions and enlightened by the Holy Spirit, is gradually achieving a better understanding of the intentions of God's plan contained in Revelation. It is these "divine intentions" that we should seek to study, especially in the Gospel, and to deal with the value of the life of lay people and in particular that of women, in order to foster their contribution to the Church's work for the spread of the Gospel message and for the coming of God's kingdom. 

Woman bears within her a likeness to God 

2. In the perspective of Christian anthropology, every human person has his own dignity: as a person, woman has no less a dignity than man. All too often woman, on the contrary, is considered as an object because of male selfishness, which has appeared in so many contexts in the past and is still being seen today. In today's situation many cultural and social reasons for this intervene which should be considered with serene objectivity; it is nonetheless not difficult to discover the influence of a tendency to domination and arrogance, which has found and is finding its victims especially in women and children. Moreover, the phenomenon was and is more general: it originated, as I wrote in Christifideles laici, "in that unjust and deleterious mentality which considers the human being as a thing, as an object to buy and sell, as an instrument for selfish interests or for pleasure only" (n. 49). 

Lay Christians are called to combat all forms of this mentality, even when transferred to films and advertising in order to intensify unrestrained consumerism. But women themselves have the duty to demand respect for their nature as persons, not descending to any form of complicity with what demeans their dignity. 

3. Still on the same anthropological basis, the Church's doctrine teaches that the principle of woman's equality with man, in personal dignity and in fundamental human rights, should be consistently brought to all its consequences. The Bible itself reveals this equality. It may be interesting to note on this topic that, although in the earliest mention of the creation of Adam and Eve (cf. Gn 2:4-25) woman was created by God "from the rib" of man, she was put next to man as another "self" with whom he could converse on an equal level, differently from any other creature. In this perspective belongs the other creation account (cf. Gn 1:26-28) in which it is immediately declared that man created in God's image is "male and female". "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female, he created them" (Gn 1:27; cf. Mulieris dignitatem, n. 6). This expresses the difference between the sexes, but especially their essential complementarity. One could say that the sacred author was eager to assert, once and for all, that woman bears within her a likeness with God no less than man does, and that she was created in God's image in her own personal characteristics as a woman, and not only because of what she has in common with man. This is equality in diversity (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 369). Therefore perfection for woman is not to be like man making herself masculine to the point of losing her specific qualities as a woman: her perfection—which is also a secret of affirmation and of relative autonomy—is to be a woman, equal to man but different. In civil society and also in the Church, the equality and diversity of women must be recognized. 

4. Diversity does not mean a necessary and almost implacable opposition. In the same biblical account of creation, the cooperation of man and woman is said to be a condition for the development of humanity and its work of exercising dominion over the universe: "Be fertile and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it" (Gn 1:28). In the light of the Creator's mandate, the Church maintains that "the first and basic expression of the social dimension of the person, then, is the married couple and the family" (Christifideles laici, n. 40). On a more general level, let us say that the renewal of the temporal order depends on the co-operation of man and woman. 

5. But the subsequent Genesis text likewise shows that in the divine plan the cooperation of man and woman must be realized on a higher level, within the perspective of the association of the new Adam and the new Eve. In fact, in the Protoevangelium (cf. Gn 3:15), enmity is established between the devil and the woman. The first enemy of the evil one, woman is God's first ally (cf. Mulieris dignitatem, n. 11). In the light of the Gospel, we can recognize the Virgin Mary in this woman. But in this text, we can also interpret a truth which concerns women in general: they were promoted, by God's gratuitous choice, to a primary role in the divine covenant. Indeed, this can be discerned in the figures of many women saints, true heroines of God's kingdom but the work of woman in serving the good has also been demonstrated in history and in human culture. 

Mary co-operated with Christ in work of redemption

6. The value attributed to the person and mission of woman is fully revealed in Mary. One need only reflect on the anthropological value of the basic aspects of Mariology to be convinced of this: "Mary is full of grace" from the very first moment of her existence, and thus is preserved from sin. Divine favour was manifestly granted to her with abundance: "blessed among all women", and it was reflected from Mary onto the very condition of woman, excluding any inferiority (cf. Redemptoris Mater, nn. 7-11). 

Furthermore, Mary was committed to God’s definitive covenant with humanity. She has the task of consenting, in the name of humanity, to the Saviour's coming. This role surpasses all claims, even the most recent, of women's rights: Mary intervened in a super-eminent and humanly unthinkable way in the history of humanity, and with her consent contributed to the transformation of all human destiny. 

In addition, Mary co-operated in the development of Jesus' mission, both by giving birth to him, raising him, being close to him in his hidden life, and then during the years of his public ministry, by discreetly supporting his activities, beginning with Cana when she obtained the first demonstration of the Saviour's miraculous power: as the Council says, it was Mary who "brought about by her intercession the beginning of the miracles of Jesus the Messiah" (Lumen gentium, n. 58). 

Above all, Mary co-operated with Christ in his work of redemption, not only preparing Jesus for his mission, but also joining in his sacrifice for the salvation of all (cf. Mulieris dignitatem, nn. 3-5). 

7. Today too, Mary's light can spread throughout the world of woman, to embrace woman's old and new problems, helping everyone to understand her dignity and to recognize her rights. Women receive a special grace, they receive it to live in covenant with God, at the level of their dignity and mission. They are called to be united in their own way—in an excellent way—with Christ's redeeming work. Women have a great role in the Church. This can be understood very clearly in the light of the Gospel and of the sublime figure of Mary.